Local Patriots Honor the First Defenders in Wreath Laying Ceremony

by Doug Graves © 2008

“The entire country owes the First Defenders a debt of gratitude,” said Mayor Ed Pawlowski on Friday, speaking to a small group of patriotic citizens attending a wreath laying ceremony in the Veteran’s Grove at West Park in Allentown. They were commemorating Allentown’s quick response to President Abraham Lincoln’s call for Pennsylvania men to come to the aid of the Nation’s capitol in the early, dark days of the Civil War.
The “Allen Rifles,” an infantry militia unit, was organized in 1859 by Allentown businessman Captain Thomas Yeager. After the attack on Fort Sumter Captain Yeager sought permission to bring his unit to full strength. On April 17, 1861 he joined his company with four others and marched toward the sound of the guns. Captain Yeager later accepted a commission as a major in the 53rd Regiment and was killed leading his men in action at the Battle of Fair Oaks in 1862. He and 653 other Civil War veterans are buried in nearby Union Cemetery not far from his home on North Sixth Street near Chew Street.
One of his men, Corporal Ignatz Gresser, would many years later be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for helping a wounded comrade from the Antietam battlefield one of only three Medal of Honor awardees to have been a Lehigh Valley resident.
Mayor Pawlowski also proclaimed that, hereafter, April 18th will be known as “Honorary First Defenders Day” in Allentown.