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 The Wildcat District in the Spring of '16

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A little locomotive puffed in from the north hauling a short string of coaches. As the tiny engine ground to a wheez­ing stop opposite Camp Curtin, there debouched from every car opening a strange-looking group of men. Good-na­turedly pushing and shoving each other, they seemed to be playing a game, the object of which appeared to be to see how many thumps in the ribs and jabs in the rump they could exchange while alighting from the little train. Loud, boisterous talk and laughter pervaded the scene. Here and there were a few who looked like farm boys or clerks come to join the Army. For the most part, however, the men were tall and angular in an oddly graceful way, and dressed in red flannel shirts, peaked black hats, and high boots. Certainly all the noisiest were garbed in this distinctive manner.
   Two of the group, stern-visaged in sharp contrast to the rest, were futilely trying to bring about some semblance of order out of the chaos. Noise and clatter were everywhere as the men tossed gear out of the cars to a comrade waiting to catch it, or more often onto the ground. Over the noise, laughter, and general hubbub, at intervals could be heard an indescribable wail-like yell.
    It did not take long for the news to get about the camp. Two companies had arrived from the Wildcat District. Several others were on their way.[1]

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Spring in 1861 came late in the Wildcat District of Pennsylvania. Downstate the grass was again turning green and the leaves were burgeoning, but along the northern tier of counties snow was still on the mountain tops. There was nothing unusual about this. Late springs were common in the northern part of the state with its higher altitude. Apart from the chilly weather, little else was as usual. This was the time of year when the farmers were wont to begin counting the days until the cows could be turned out to pasture and the plowing begun. Ordinarily April was the month when the log drives started. Spring 1861 found the lumbermen and farmers of the Wildcat District thinking of other things. Fort Sumter had fallen. President Lincoln had issued a call for 75,000 militia. There was, or shortly would be, a war.
   The Wildcat District had no definite boundaries. One might say it included that part of Pennsylvania generally north and northwest of Williamsport. It was inhabited by the feline variety of wildcat, but that fact had not given the area its name. The rough, hardy lumbermen of the northern counties made annual rafting expeditions down the Susquehanna to get their timber to market. They were a wild, boisterous lot and particularly so on the homeward trek overland. Their antics in general and their occasional brawls in particular earned for them and the section from which they came the name of Wildcat. The Wildcats had grown to be somewhat proud of the name.
    There is another tradition as to how the area got its name. Back in 1832 one Hiram Payne, a McKean County editor and politician, attended a caucus of politicos in Harrisburg. Things in the meeting were not going to Mr. Payne's liking. His then wilderness counties were not getting the recogni

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 tion he thought they deserved. When delegate Payne finally got the floor, he proceeded to tell his downstate colleagues something about the size of the district he represented and the dire consequences if it continued to be overlooked. Payne is supposed to have ended his diatribe something like this: "And remember I represent more territory, more bears, more wolves, more porcupines, and more wildcats than any five members of this convention." And, so the story goes, Mr. Payne's district had a new name.[2]
   Over the hills and through the narrow valleys of the Wildcat District, the talk of the approaching war lapped like a forest fire. The realization that the Union was breaking apart worried the older people. To the young lumberjacks, raftsmen, and farm boys it was different. Eager for adventure, a war, even a civil war, gave promise of adventure indeed. War was an exciting word. The young men who would comprise the ranks of the armies were youngsters during the Mexican War, which had somewhat rehearsed all too few of their top brass. War was a new word. Real war, even their parents had not known. The term "total war," although soon to be a fact, would be coined by a later generation. The young fellows of northern Pennsylvania enjoyed drawing a bead on a wildcat. How about a Rebel instead? Not pugnacious, neither were they wont to back up from a fight. Then, too, this was matter of patriotism. Those guns on the shore of Charleston harbor had defied the flag. The President of the United States had issued a call.
   It was inevitable that companies of volunteers would be formed in the Wildcat District. And so there were.
    Thomas L. Kane watched approvingly as Frank Bell tacked up this poster in front of the Bennett House in Smethport, the shire town of McKean County.

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VOLUNTEER RIFLES!

MARKSMEN WANTED

By authority of Governor Curtin, a company will be formed this week of citizens of McKean and Elk Counties, who are prepared to take up arms immediately, to support the Constitution of the United States and defend the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. I am authorized to accept at once for service, any man who will bring with him to my headquarters a Rifle which he knows how to use.

Come forward Americans, who are not degenerate from the spirit of '76. Come forward in time to save the city of Washington from capture-in time to save the flag of the Union there from being humbled as it has been at Fort Sumter.

 

Smethport, April 17, 1861.                                                                                                     Thomas L. Kane

Headquarters at the Bennett House, Smethport. Muster Roll at the same place, and questions answered. Apply without further notice.[3]
    Two counties east, in Tioga, all was abuzz over the companies of volunteers that were being raised. Julius Sherwood, a young lawyer, was organizing a company, and Alanson Niles, whose New England ancestors had been among the first to settle the county, had a company well started. A few miles north of Wellsboro, the county seat, where Sherwood and Niles were active, young Philip Holland, who had only recently completed the organization of a volunteer fire company, had turned to the forming of a more martial organization.[4]
    Thomas Leiper Kane was the scion of a prominent Philadelphia family, who, after a varied and colorful early career had gone to the Wildcat District and on a high plateau had founded a town which still bears his name. He had lived in Paris several years. Upon his return to this country he studied law, but the profession did not interest him. Through

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 the influence of his father, who was a Federal judge, Kane became a district court clerk and later United States commissioner.
   Being an abolitionist, in the days of run-away slaves, the duties of United States commissioner were not always to Kane's liking and he resigned. He became active in the Underground Railroad for a time. Interest in the Mormons next caught his fancy. Kane was able to obtain governmental assistance for this sect, and he accompanied them on some of their migrations. He won the confidence of Brigham Young, and in 1848, when the territory of Utah was in rebellion against the government, Kane acted as a personal envoy of President Buchanan. While he was somewhat instrumental in bringing about preliminary arrangements to settle the trouble between the Mormons and the government, final negotiations were conducted by others.
    After the Mormon episode Kane returned to Philadelphia. His family had acquired a large amount of land in the Wildcat District. Thomas was sent there. to see what he could do by way of developing the vast wilderness area. Kane liked the region and remained there. Then came the Civil War, and this man of many parts was launched upon a new career.[5]
    Two days before Lincoln's call for men was issued, Thomas L. Kane had written Pennsylvania's governor, Andrew G. Curtin, that he could raise two companies from the Wildcat District-companies of horse. This offer was accepted on April 15, but the next day Kane was informed that the horses must be left at home. The government wanted foot soldiers only. Undaunted by this news, Kane began his efforts to round up "Americans, who are not degenerate from the spirit of '76." He formed a little recruit-

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 ing organization which extended over a large area of the Wildcat District.[6]
   In Cameron County John A. Eldred set up headquarters at the hotel in Emporium and began recruiting the Cameron County Wildcats. The lumbermen of Elk County were called from their camps throughout the area and assembled at Benezette under the leadership of lumber boss, Cobe Winslow. At his headquarters at the court house in Smethport, Kane had several hardworking lieutenants who combed the hills of McKean County to organize the McKean County Rifles.
    A day or so before the volunteers were to leave for the state capital, tall, blond James Landregan was lounging in front of the Smethport headquarters wondering what he could do to pass the time before the newly formed companies would get underway. He spied a deer hide hanging outside a butcher shop across the street from the court house. Possibly to compare the size with many deer he himself had shot, Landregan sauntered across the street to the little shop. He leisurely examined the hide. Noticing that the tail was somewhat larger than the average, he cut it off and stuck it in his hat. Landregan then started back across the street, little dreaming that he was about to give an entire regiment its distinctive insignia. Thomas Kane glanced out the window and saw one of his new recruits slowly coming toward the court house with a big bucktail in his hat. What could be a more appropriate name for an outfit from the mountains of northern Pennsylvania! Deer abounded upon every hillside. Kane decided immediately. It would be the Bucktails. The news spread rapidly and soon the butcher's deer hide had disappeared. The Bucktails had cut it to pieces and every member of the McKean company had a strip of deer

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 hide in his hat. This would do until a real bucktail could be secured.
   Early in the morning of April 23, Thomas L. Kane height, five feet, six and one-half inches, weight, one hundred thirty-five pounds-sat his horse in front of the Bennett House in Smethport and surveyed the McKean company then numbering about seventy men. They were about to move out and were lined up trying to look like soldiers. Their leader was trying to look like a soldier too. Kane had on a navy coat with brass buttons, a gift from his famous Arctic explorer brother, Elisha Kent Kane. When he removed his hat to acknowledge their cheers, the crowd could see a heavy crop of black hair. His rather short full beard and heavy mustache, which curled up slightly at the ends, made him look older than this thirty-nine years. There were a few speeches, the usual three cheers, and the McKean County boys were on their way to meet the Cameron County company.
    It was a long, hard trek from Smethport to Emporium where the Cameron County Wildcats were waiting. The mountains between the two places are high. At nightfall the McKean company trudged into Emporium to be greeted by a torch-light procession of the local citizenry. The Cam-eron County men were drawn up in what they considered the best military style to meet their McKean comrades in arms. Recruit looked at recruit. Each reserved decision. There were more speeches, anvils were fired, and before they bedded down for the night the members of the Cameron company went scurrying for bucktails to put in their hats before next day's march.
   The next morning as the two companies were pushing down one branch of Sinnamahoning Creek, the Elk County Rifles were coming down another branch from Benezette.

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      The two branches of the stream join near a little village known as Driftwood, and it was there that the three backwoods companies met. Lumberman again looked at lumberman and each wondered as to what a soldier looked like. A number of boys from Tioga County had joined the Elk County company, having missed the main contingent from their own county which had left a few days before. Over three hundred men were now assembled for the next leg of the journey.
   With three companies made up almost exclusively of lumbermen, Kane decided to raft down the Sinnamahoning and hence down the Susquehanna until he reached the railroad. A local mill had plenty of white pine timber. The owner did not allow patriotism to interfere with his business sense, and the volunteers had to chip in to buy the lumber for the rafts. The lumbermen set to work on the raft building, and in a couple of days they had four rafts ready for the trip downstream. One raft was built a bit thicker than the others. On this one Kane's horse was loaded.
    On the morning of April 27 the rafts shoved off into the Sinnamahoning singing its way to the Susquehanna. The lead raft carried the Stars and Stripes. Underneath the flag a bucktail waved jauntily in the breeze. The current was swift and the stream was full of rapids. The steersmen were experts, but more than once a raft grounded on the rocks. Finally, Lock Haven and the railroad was reached.
    After surviving the rapids of the Susquehanna on the rafts, one might expect the remainder of the trip to be easy. There were, however, other difficulties to be overcome. In Harrisburg things were in much of a mess. Volunteers from downstate who had already reached the capital had exceeded the state's quota. Governor Curtin had more men on his hands than he could use. He telegraphed Kane to bring two

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 companies only (at that moment there were seven companies from the Wildcat District on their way to Harrisburg or ready to start). No one wanted to turn back, and there was considerable grumbling among the men. The cost of rail transportation for the next part of the journey was finally advanced by a public spirited citizen of Lock Haven. Kane and his men reached Sunbury by May 2. After another delay, the Bucktails again entrained for the last lap of the trip in cattle cars.[7]
   There were moist eyes about the court house square in Wellsboro on the morning of April 22. They seemed to furnish just that bit of sadness needed to bring out the full glory of going to war in that naively romantic day. The picture books always showed tears shed for the departing soldier. It was all as it should be. Eighty years later from under the same elms near the court house other groups of young men would start for war. Again there would be moist eyes to see them leave, but the romance would be long gone.
    The flag pole on the green was 120 feet tall and the flag which waved in the breeze that April morning was thirty feet long. The Wellsboro Brass Band played its most martial airs as the companies of Captain Niles and Captain Sherwood lined up for the final roll call before leaving home. Then it was into wagons for a thirty-two mile trip to Troy. From there they went by train to Williamsport and on to Harrisburg where they were the first of the future Bucktail Regiment to arrive in Camp Curtin. A few days later a third Tioga County company destined to form a part of the Bucktails left from Lawrenceville. This was the company which had been organized from the Cowanesque Valley led by Philip Holland. The recruits were hauled down the valley in lumber wagons to Lawrenceville. With anvils booming, the lumbermen and farm boys boarded the cars of the Bloss-

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 burg and Corning Railroad for Corning, New York. There they were loaded on the Erie for Elmira. Then it was back into Pennsylvania by the Northern Central line, the route taken by the Wellsboro companies.[8]
   Twelve cumbersome row boats each full of Warren County lumbermen tied up in Pittsburgh one evening in May 1861 after a four day trip down the Allegheny from the Wildcat District. Their leader, twenty-four-year-old Roy Stone, announced that he was certain that his company would be accepted and that they were on their way to Harrisburg to join Thomas Leiper Kane's Bucktails. While waiting at Warren for some reasonable assurance that they could get into the war, Stone had endeavored to put his men through some drilling. They had also acquired dark blue fatigue uniforms and the name, Raftsman Guards, but each man clung to his own hunting rifle as they boarded the train at Pittsburgh for the state capital.[9]