Wiedrich's Battery

Battery I, 1st NY Light Artillery - AKA Wiedrich's Battery - consisted of a few hundred enlisted men who bravely fought for the Union Army during the American Civil War. The Battery was born through the recruitment efforts of my great-great grandfather, Captain Michael Wiedrich, who led the men through numerous battles, including Gettysburg at East Cemetery Hill. That's about the extent of the story as I knew it until mid-2021. I'd read a few articles about the Battery over the years, found Wiedrich's name in a Time-Life book and even visited Cemetery Hill with my wife in 2014. While that experience was awe inspiring to say the least, to me, the Battery largely remained a two-dimensional, enigmatic collection of men whose black-and-white visages did little to provide insight into who these heroes were or what motivated their charge.  Survivors, provided by Forest Lawn Historian Patrick Kavanagh Then, in 2021, I received a forwarded email via my sister from Diane Pesch-S...

The plane touched down at 12:30 in the afternoon. By 2:00 I was pulling into the tiny parking area of a non-descript building in a well-seasoned area of Buffalo. This red-brick building was the off-site storage facility, or resource center for the Buffalo History Museum.  At any given time, only a fraction of any major museum's artifacts are on display. The rest are carefully stored, restored, maintained and eventually staged by a select few who are the rock stars of museum-dom. I rang the bell at the door and was soon met by the building's only occupant, Director of Museum Collections Walter Mayer.  I recall being impressed by artifacts in a lobby/reception area, but I'm a little embarrassed to admit that what was to follow was so extraordinary that it occupied all of my accessible memory; it would take hypno-therapy to recall the details of the lobby, I'm afraid.  We passed through one or two key-padded doors and I soon found myself standing in a massive room populate...

A little after 3:00 on Friday the 8th, I made the one-mile journey from the Resource Center to the Buffalo History Museum because I wanted to see something I knew wasn't there. Certainly I wanted to learn a little more about Buffalo's history, but I especially wanted to see the spot Mr. Meyer had described: the area designated as the new home of the Wiedrich Battery artifacts. He said I'd find a white sheet covering the area where the exhibit would be. Yet another ghost. The museum itself is an impressive structure. Built in 1901 as the New York State pavilion as part of the Pan-American Exhibition (World's Fair), the architect fashioned at least part of it after the Parthenon. I was pleasantly surprised to find exhibits representing all periods of Erie County's history within these walls and I was especially impressed with the quality of presentation. Here's an example... I made my way up to the third floor, and there it wasn't! I could hear construction be...

I set an alarm to wake up at 7:00 on Saturday, October 9th, but never needed it. I was up before the sun and couldn't get back to sleep; this was the day I would meet Michael Wiedrich, Michael Wiedrich's fellow soldiers, people who portray Michael Weidrich and his battery, Michael Wiedrich's wife, Maria, and a collection of some really amazing people that were neither Michael Wiedrich nor his soldiers.  I rolled in to the southwest entrance of  Forest Lawn Cemetery with windshield wipers set to "intermittent." The light rain did nothing to deter the arrival of the cemetery historian, Patrick Kavanagh, who wins the award for "Most Affable Guide I've Ever Met." Our meeting was the result, once again, of the lovely Diane Pesch-Savatteri; I realized that anyone associated with that woman is charming, delightful or, like Pat, both. I followed Pat to the cemetery chapel/offices and after a brief tour of the building, was introduced to Director of Community...

About four miles east of where Michael Wiedrich is buried, five cemeteries intertwine to form a massive 365 acre expanse that is now known as the Mount Calvary Cemetery Group. Within this group is the United German & French Roman Cemetery. It was here that Michael's wife, Maria was laid to rest nearly twenty years before her husband. Interestingly, at the time of her demise, Roman Catholics were prohibited from being buried at Forest Lawn. Truthfully, I am not altogether sure that at the passing of his wife, Michael didn't intend to join her at this plot when his time came. Records indicate that it was Michael's son, Charles, who purchased the family plot at Forest Lawn, and likely saw to it that his father was interred there at a cost of $6 when he met his demise following a hemorrhage in 1899. While Catholics were not permitted at Forest Lawn, I don't know if the inverse was true: could non-Catholics be buried in the Catholic cemetery? I wish I could say that Mari...

The very last verse of the Old Testament prophesizes that the hearts of the children will be turned to the fathers, and that's what I witnessed at Concordia Cemetery on Saturday afternoon. A Google's-eye View of Concordia Minutes after bidding farewell to Maria Wiedrich, I found myself parking in a Mexican deli parking lot across from Concordia Cemetery. "Honor, Sacrifice and Courage: Erie County during the Civil War Featuring Wiedrich's Battery" was poised to begin in a few minutes, and I hustled across the street on the heels of two uniformed members of the Grand Army of the Republic, or what most of us on history's periphery refer to as the "Union Army." This event, sponsored by Friends of Concordia Cemetery, was what brought me to New York in the first place, with the aforementioned Diane Pesch-Savatteri at the head of the group. First a word about the Friends. Concordia, one of the oldest cemeteries in Western New York, is home to approximately ...