Charles A. Wikoff

A formal portrait of Colonel Wikoff in the collection of the
Northampton County Historical and Genealogical Society

On April 20, 1861 he enlisted as a Private in Company H of the 1st Pennsylvania Infantry.
On May 14, 1861 he was offered a commission as a 1st Lieutenant in the US 15th Infantry.
On June 25 of that year he was discharged from the 1st Pennsylvania Infantry and accepted the commission
in the Regular Army. On April 7, 1862 he was awarded the temporary brevet rank of Captain for
gallant and meritorious service at the battle of Shiloh, Tennessee. In this battle he was wounded
and lost his left eye. On November 25, 1863 Wikoff was awarded another brevet, this time to Major,
for gallant and meritorious service in the battles of Chickamauga, Georgia and Missionary Ridge, Tennessee.

On August 15, 1864 he received a promotion to the permanent rank of Captain in the Regular Army.
He was transferred to the 24th Infantry on September 21, 1866. On April 25, 1869 he was transferred
to the 11th Infantry. He was promoted to Major in the 14th Infantry on December 8, 1886.

On November 1, 1891 Wikoff was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel of the 19th Infantry.
On January 28, 1897 he was promoted to Colonel of the 22nd Infantry and assumed command of the Regiment.

Colonel Charles A. Wikoff took the 22nd Infantry Regiment from its frontier post at Fort Crook,
Nebraska, to the entrance to Santiago Bay, Cuba, on June 20, 1898.

At that time he was transferred to command of 3rd Brigade, and Lieutenant Colonel John H. Patterson
took the 22nd Infantry ashore at Daiquiri, the 22nd thus being the first US Regiment to land on Cuban soil.

On July 1, 1898, COL Wikoff led his Brigade across the San Juan River, and pushed to within five hundred yards
of the Spanish fortifications at San Juan Hill. He was hit by enemy fire and died on the battlefield.
He was the most senior ranking officer of the United States Army to die in action during the Spanish-American War.
Though in command of a Brigade, he had not yet been promoted, thus, at his death, Wikoff's rank was still that of
Colonel of the 22nd Infantry.

At the end of the War, because of fear they were contaminated with yellow fever and typhus,
thousands of American troops were sent home under quarantine to a camp at Montauk Point, New York.

The camp was named Camp Wikoff, in honor of the popular commander of the 22nd Infantry,
who gave his life a few months before, in the meadow below San Juan Hill.

Wikoff was born in Easton, Pennsylvania, and graduated from Lafayette College with bachelor's and master's degrees.
He worked as a civil engineer under George B. McClellan on the Illinois Central Railroad from 1855 to 1857.

In April 1861, at the outbreak of the American Civil War, Wikoff enlisted as a private in the 1st Pennsylvania Infantry. The next month he was
commissioned a first lieutenant in the 15th U. S. Infantry. He was shot in the left eye at the Battle of Shiloh and wore an eye patch
throughout the rest of his life. He also participated in the Battle of Chickamauga and the Battle of Missionary Ridge, for which
he was a brevetted major. He was promoted to captain in August 1864

After the war, Wikoff was transferred to the 24th U. S. Infantry, and later to the 11th Infantry, serving in Texas and the Dakotas.
He was promoted to major of the 14th Infantry stationed at Vancouver Barracks in December 1886. In November 1891 he was made
lieutenant colonel of the 19th Infantry, and served at Forts Wayne and Brady in Michigan. And, in January 1897, he became colonel
of the 22nd Infantry at Fort Crook, Nebraska

In 1898 he led the 22nd Infantry from Fort Crook to Cuba where he was transferred to lead the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Division of
Major General William Rufus Shafter's V Army Corps. He was shot during a charge across an open field in the Battle of San Juan Hill.
Within 10 minutes his two successors William S. Worth and Emerson Liscom were also shot before Ezra P. Ewers, the fourth in command, assumed control.

Easton's Charles Wikoff Gave Up Law For The Military

TWO RIVERS HERITAGE

May 28, 1998|by S.M. PARKHILL (A free-lance story for The Morning Call).

Events that happened during the Spanish-American War in 1889 often are remembered better than the war itself.

We all "Remember the Maine." Old salts rehash the Battle of Manila Bay. For the Marines, it is Guantanamo.

The picture of Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders charging up Kettle Hill at San Juan came out of the Spanish-American War.
During this engagement, there was an enormous loss of life on both sides.

It was at Santiago that Easton lost a hero, Col. Charles A. Wikoff. He was a hero of both the Spanish-American War and the Civil War.

Wikoff was born in Easton on March 8, 1837. After graduating from Lafayette College in 1855,
he was employed as a civil engineer by the Illinois Central Railroad Co.

He then studied law with William Davis of Stroudsburg. His life, like that of so many others, was disrupted on April 12, 1861.
The Confederates fired on Fort Sumter, S.C. The fort was captured on April 14, and the following day,
President Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers.

Wikoff was two months shy of being admitted to the bar. He put his legal career on hold and, on April 15, 1861, enlisted for
a three-month tour of duty. He entered service as a private in Company H, First Pennsylvania Volunteers. A month later,
he was appointed first lieutenant in the 15th Regiment, U.S. Regular Infantry, and was assigned duty in Tennessee.

On the first day of fighting at Shiloh, April 7, 1862, Lt. Wikoff was wounded and lost his left eye. In the heat of battle,
Wikoff was presumed dead and left on the field.

His injury qualified him for immediate retirement, but he refused. He wanted to serve until he was 64.

For meritorious service in the battle of Shiloh, he was brevetted a captain April 7, 1862, although he did not receive
his captain's commission until more than two years later on Aug. 15, 1864. In the interim, he was made a brevet major
on Nov. 25, 1863, for bravery at Chickamauga and, later, Missionary Ridge.

These were just a few of his many promotions. What had started as a three-month enlistment became a 37-year career.

After the Civil War, Wikoff was transferred to the 11th Infantry and stationed at Vicksburg and Jackson, Miss.
He played critical roles during the Reconstruction.

Wikoff's career then took him to Texas. Based at forts Concho and Richardson, he was engaged in scouting.
He also guarded surveying teams that preceded construction of the Southern Pacific Railroad.

From Texas, Wikoff went to the Dakota Territory, with the Cheyenne Agency, and was stationed at Fort Sully for several years.
Wikoff was transferred to Fort Vancouver in Washington, and then to the Presidio in San Francisco.

Wikoff was considered an excellent officer and "an amiable and social man" -- in short, the picture of an officer and a gentleman.
When he returned East, Wikoff became a member of the District of Columbia Commandery of the Loyal Legion,
and of the Army & Navy Club of Washington.

Wikoff was commissioned a major in the 14th Infantry on Dec. 8, 1886; lieutenant colonel, 19th Infantry on Nov. 1, 1891,
and colonel of the 22nd Infantry on Jan. 28, 1897.

On Dec. 3, 1872, Wikoff married Susan Pomp Mixsell, the eldest living daughter of Charles Wagner Mixsell. Like Wikoff,
Susan was born in Easton on July 11, 1837. He was her second husband. Susan was married on Dec. 7, 1859,
to a New York City man, Samuel Lawson. He died in October 1867.

The Mixsell house, behind the grapevine fence at S. 4th and Ferry streets, Easton, is the home of the Northampton County
Historical & Genealogical Society. The Wikoffs apparently considered this "home," but Army life kept them on the move.

They were living at Fort Robinson, Neb., when the war with Spain was declared on April 21, 1898. Col. Wikoff was assigned
to active duty and on June 21, sailed aboard a transport for Santiago. He was in command of the 22nd Infantry Regiment.
En route, he was promoted to the rank of brigadier general and detached from his regiment to command a brigade
consisting of three regiments: the 9th, 13th and 25th.

The strategy was to join in the capture of Cuba's second largest city, Santiago. It was to be Wikoff's last military engagement.

On Tuesday, a fallen hero returns to Easton.

from The Morning Call

(Ed., the promotion to Brigadier General mentioned in the article above apparently never was official.
Wikoff is listed in the Army Register of 1899 as being Killed In Action as a Colonel of the 22nd Infantry.)

Model 1881-1902 dress helmet for Infantry officers belonging to
Colonel Charles Wikoff. Note the German silver "22" on the eagle's shield.

Above: Officer's collar insignia of the 22nd Infantry
belonging to Colonel Charles Wikoff.
Sometimes called "false embroidery"
because its texture resembles bullion embroidery.

Right: Model 1860 Staff and Field Officers Sword
belonging to Colonel Charles Wikoff

Northampton County Historical and Genealogical Society

An illustration of Charles Wikoff as a Captain in the 11th Infantry, ca. 1869-1886.
He is wearing the officer's undress or field coat model 1872, with black braid
extending from each button and terminating in herringbone loops.
The artist has not tried to hide his injured left eye.

The marker for Charles A. Wikoff.
Note behind it the Spanish War Veterans marker.

Find A Grave website

Burial:
Easton Cemetery
Easton
Northampton County
Pennsylvania, USA

Left: A sketch of Colonel Wikoff which appeared
in a Munsey's Magazine article on prominent Americans
killed in Cuba in 1898. Note that the artist has shown the left side
of Wikoff, obviously not knowing that Wikoff lost his left eye
at the Battle of Shiloh. He apparently made the sketch
from the photograph (above) published in
Harper's New Monthly Magazine
Vol XCVIII No DLXXXVIII May, 1899 p. 849.

All portraits of Wikoff done after Shiloh show him facing
to his left, never to the right or to the front, so as to hide
his injured left eye.

This view shows the 13th Infantry's encampment, with the Atlantic Ocean in the background.
In the right of the photo is the 8th Infantry encampment. Out of the picture, another several hundred
yards to the right was the encampment of the 22nd Infantry.

(Ed., More Americans were killed in Cuba and Puerto Rico in 1898 by tropical diseases than by combat action.
All returning Soldiers were quarantined for several months at Montauk Point, New York, in the hopes of
preventing the spread of such diseases to the US civilian population.)

Camp Wikoff: 1898, Suffolk County, Montauk Point. Established August-September 1898 in vicinity of Fort Pond Bay
as a Federal demobilization and quarantine camp for troops returning from Cuba at the close of the Spanish-American War.
Named for Col. Charles Wikoff, 22nd Infantry, killed before Santiago at El Caney. Selected for its proximity to rail and
deep water anchorage, and because it was believed prevailing offshore winds would hinder spread of tropical diseases
to the civilian population, from August to October 1898. Area later used for National Guard annual training in the 1920s.

(Ed., Wikoff was killed at San Juan Hill, not El Caney, as the above article incorrectly states.)

This photo of a map of Camp Wikoff was prepared by Theodore Roosevelt County Park.
Lake Wyandanne was later renamed Lake Montauk. The camp was constructed on what is now the occupied center
of Montauk, New York at the south edge of Fort Pond. The green portion at the bottom is Shadmoor State Park.
The map shows all of the positions of the various encampments of the Regular and Volunteer units returned from the war.

Enlargement of section of the above map. The encampment of the 22nd Infantry
can be seen at the bottom left of center, right on the ocean.

The 1st Battalion website is grateful to the Northampton County Historical and Genealogical Society,
and especially Andria Zaia, M.A., Curator of Collections curator@northamptonctymuseum.org
for the use of the photographs of Colonel Charles A. Wikoff's memorabilia.