Glory and Honor in the Columbia Region: Col. Thomas Welsh in the War of the Rebellion

Rick Wiggins has been conducting an annual Symposium in Columbia for seven years about Columbia native son, Union Civil War General Thomas Welsh.  Each year, the event has drawn scores of Columbians and area residents interested in their local history.  This year's event is jointly sponsored by the Columbia Historic Preservation Society (CHiPS) and the Columbia Public Library and will take place at 1 p.m. on Saturday, October 19 at the Columbia Historic Preservation Society, 19-21 North Second Street.

The program includes a visit by Capt. Henry A. Haines from Maytown (who served under Welsh in the 45th Regiment, and is portrayed by re-enactor Glenn Bachert), as well as the little-known story of the deployment of the 45th to the Sea Islands of South Carolina, where they encountered thousands of suddenly abandoned Island slaves (termed "contrabands" because they were not yet officially recognized as being free).  This story is particularly interesting because suddenly their military mission came face to face with evolving Federal policies and a humanitarian crisis of profound significance.  The speaker, author Mike Coker, is coming in from Charleston, South Carolina specifically for this event.  Still another presentation will draw from the diary of Capt. Emanuel Roath of Marietta to explore the myriad roles and duties of Civil War officers during the vast majority of the time - i.e., the time when they were not actually leading their troops in battle.

Thomas Welsh was a Columbia native and civic leader who recruited and led a large number of boys from Columbia and the surrounding towns in the Civil War, and who remains a Columbia favorite son to this day.  He first served in the Mexican War, where he was wounded in the leg, and returned home as a local hero.  At the start of the Civil War, he raised in Columbia one of the first companies of volunteers raised in Lancaster County, later became Colonel of the 45th PA Regiment, and then went on to become a Brigadier General before he died of malaria contracted at Vicksburg in 1863.  His family remained prominent in Columbia through the first part of the 20th century.

CHiPS and the Columbia Library have been conducting this Symposium since 2007.  From the beginning, it has been one of the most popular programs put on by either organization, drawing between 50 and 75 interested residents each year.  In addition, it has brought to light nearly two dozen previously unknown documents about Welsh, his family, and the Civil-War-era Columbia region.  The Proceedings of the Symposium are transcribed and distributed to area libraries, schools, and historical societies.