JOHN BUTLER CONYNGHAM September 29, 1827 ~ May 27, 1871 Taken from the 25th Anniversary publication of the Yale College Class of 1846, published 1871, and from two histories of the Civil War.
John Butler Conyngham, son of Judge John Nesbitt Conyngham and Ruth Ann (Butler) Conyngham, was
born September 29, 1827, in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. His father, a native of Philadelphia, was President Judge of the Eleventh Judicial District of the State. His mother was a granddaughter of Captain Zebulon Butler, a Revolutionary officer who commanded the patriots in the battle of Wyoming, on July 3, 1779.
Conyngham was educated at the Wilkes Barre Academy, and he prepared for college at St. Paul's College with Dr. William A. Muhlenberg, in College Point, Long Island, N.Y. He entered Yale College at the beginning of his sophomore year.
He graduated from Yale in 1846, with all of DKE's founders, and afterward he studied law for three years at Wilkes Barre. He was admitted to the bar of Luzerne County at the August term, 1849, and he opened an office there and began practice. Two years later, in Dec., 1851, he left Wilkes Barre for St. Louis and practiced law there for five years.
Returning to Wilkes Barre in 1856, he resumed business there, which he followed successfully until the opening of the Civil War. He had been connected with the militia, as a member of the Wyoming Light Dragoons, and upon the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, he volunteered, enlisting as a private at the first call for three months’ volunteers, in the Eighth Pennsylvania Regiment. He was chosen 2nd Lieutenant of his company, and on his return he re-entered the Army for three years or for the war, as Major of the 52nd Pennsylvania Volunteers, a veteran regiment with which he assisted in recruiting. This promotion to Major occurred November 5, 1861.
Early in the year 1863, the Fifty-second was sent to the Department of the South, and here he was engaged in all the operations undertaken for the reduction of Fort Wagner. The siege was especially severe, and the labor in making regular approaches, under the sun in a southern climate, was very wearing. Its fall was a subject of great rejoicing. Upon the reduction of that fort, Major Conyngham was placed in command of the defenses of Morris Island.
In the winter of 1863 was sent with his regiment to Port Royal, South Carolina, where he was detailed by General Terry in April, 1863, to make a night reconnaissance of Fort Sumter. In November, 1863, he was promoted to the lieutenant colonelcy, and he went with his command to the Peninsula, and in the battle of Fair Oaks won the warm commendation of General Naglee, for his courage and skill displayed in a pressing emergency.
In June, 1864, a scheme was formed for the reduction of Charleston, which involved the capture of Fort Johnson, across Charleston Harbor. The advance was to be made in three columns embarked in boats. One o'clock, on the morning of July 3, was fixed for the embarkation. It was low-tide at that hour, and the party which the Fifty-second headed had difficulty in crossing the bar which lay in the way; but that was passed, and when nearing the shore they were discovered, and the alarm was given. Without quailing before the fire that was opened upon them, they landed, captured a two-gun battery, drove out the foe, and, charging the main work 200 yards on, crossed the side of the fort and gained the coveted position, when it was found that the supporting columns had failed to follow. No alternative but surrender remained, and the entire party fell into the hands of the Confederacy.
The advance upon the main work was made in the face of a terrible fire, in which Colonel Conyngham received a buckshot wound in the cheek. “The boats,” says General Foster, in orders, “commanded by Colonel Hoyt, Lieutenant-Colonel Conyngham, Captain Camp, and Lieutenants Stevens and Evans, all of the Fifty-second, rowed rapidly to the shore, and these officers, with Adjutant Bunyan (afterwards killed), and 135 men, landed and drove the enemy; but, deserted by their supports, were obliged to surrender to
Colonel Conyngham, with the officers of the party, was confined a number of months in the prison camps at Charleston, Macon, and Columbia. While a prisoner at Charleston he was one of the number selected as hostages to be shot in case of a bombardment of the City by Union forces; however, numerous letters received by his family afforded cheering evidence of the estimation in which he was held as a soldier and a gentleman.
In March, 1865, Conyngham was promoted to the colonelcy of his regiment, which office he held when mustered out of service with his regiment on July 12, 1865.
According to Yale College records, he was present at the College Commencement in 1865, and soon after he visited Montana. Returning to Pennsylvania, in March, 1867, Col. Conyngham was appointed captain in the 38th infantry, United States Army, and transferred to the 24th infantry, November, 1869. In 1871 he was brevetted major and lieutenant colonel for gallant service in the field. During his term of service in the regular army he was mostly employed on the Indian frontier.
Near the beginning of 1871, while stationed at Fort Clark, in Texas, he suffered from apoplexy, followed by Bright’s Disease of the kidney.
His father, a man highly esteemed by the citizens of Luzerne county, in Pennsylvania, on hearing of his sickness, set out to bring him home; but on the way, at Magnolia, Mississippi, was killed by a railroad car, February 24, 1871. Conyngham lived to reach Wilkes Barre, where he died three months after his father, on May, 28, 1871.
At the 25th reunion of the Yale Class of 1846, a classmate by the name of Attlee, who knew him well, spoke of him as “A good, solid tough character, of ancient race, not one to be shaped and twisted by the contact of what it met in moving about the world.”
Conyngham was connected with the Protestant Episcopal Church. He never married.
From the 1910 DKE Catalogue B.A., Yale College Founder, DKE Law student, Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, 1846 - 49 Lawyer, Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, 1840 - 51 St. Louis, Missouri, 1851 - 61 Private, Co. C, 8th Pennsylvania Infantry, U.S. Army, April 22, 1861 - Second Lieutenant, 1861 Major, 52nd Pennsylvania Infantry, September 28, 1861 Lieutenant Colonel, January 9, 1864 Colonel, June 3, 1865 Mustered out, July 12, 1865 Res., Mont., 1865 Captain, 38th U.S. Infantry, 1867 - Deceased: May 27, 1871, age 43, Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania
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