Charles H. T. Collis

Charles H. T. Collis was an Irish-born American officer who served as colonel of the 114th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry during the American Civil War and received the Medal of Honor for conspicuous leadership at the Battle of Fredericksburg. A prominent figure in Philadelphia civic life after the war, he maintained connections with veterans' organizations and municipal institutions until his death in 1902.

Early life and education

Born in Dublin, Ireland, Collis emigrated to the United States and settled in Philadelphia, where he became associated with Philadelphia social and commercial circles. His formative years included exposure to transatlantic networks linking Ireland and the United States, and he developed acquaintances among members of the Pennsylvania civic elite. Before the Civil War he engaged with local institutions in Philadelphia and cultivated relationships with figures from Irish American communities and with members of prominent families active in Pennsylvania society.

Military career

At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Collis organized a unit that would become the 114th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, drawing recruits from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Dutch Country, and Irish-American neighborhoods. Commissioned as a senior officer, he led the regiment through major campaigns of the Eastern Theater, serving under commanders of the Army of the Potomac and participating in operations involving the Army of the James and corps commanded by generals such as Ambrose Burnside, George B. McClellan, and contemporaries including Joseph Hooker and George G. Meade. The 114th Pennsylvania fought in engagements at Antietam, during the Peninsula Campaign, at Fredericksburg, and in the Chancellorsville Campaign, often operating alongside brigades led by officers from New York and Massachusetts volunteer regiments. Collis’s leadership style emphasized discipline and tactical initiative, earning him respect from subordinate officers and recognition from higher command during brigade and division actions in the Tidewater and Shenandoah theaters.

Medal of Honor actions

During the Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862, Collis performed actions that later led to the awarding of the Medal of Honor. Leading a storming party and conducting an assault against fortified positions held by units of the Confederate States Army, his conduct reflected aggressive small-unit tactics and personal bravery under enemy fire. The operation intersected with assaults launched by corps under Ambrose Burnside against entrenchments defended by divisions of generals like Robert E. Lee’s subordinates, and it contributed to wider combat dynamics on the Rappahannock River front. His citation emphasized leadership in directing men during the attack and rallying troops under heavy musketry and artillery, actions comparable in citation language to other Medal of Honor recipients from the same battle and to later recognitions of valor at Gettysburg and Vicksburg.

Postwar career and later life

After his mustering out in 1866, Collis returned to Philadelphia where he resumed involvement in civic affairs and veterans’ organizations such as the Grand Army of the Republic and local veteral[Veterans'] societies. He engaged with municipal boards and charitable institutions in Philadelphia and maintained ties to national networks of former officers from the Army of the Potomac and regimental alumni associations originating in Pennsylvania. Collis also participated in commemorative activities linked to battlefield preservation movements for sites including Fredericksburg and Antietam, associating with preservationists and historians who sought to mark battlefield anniversaries and erect monuments. In his later years he was known in social registers and contributed to discussions among veterans about pensions and memorialization, alongside figures such as Ulysses S. Grant’s contemporaries and other postwar public servants. He died in Philadelphia in 1902 and was interred at Laurel Hill Cemetery.

Personal life and legacy

Collis’s personal life connected him to Philadelphia’s Irish-American milieu and to networks of Civil War veterans who shaped late 19th-century public memory. His legacy includes the wartime record of the 114th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry and the postwar activities of regimental veterans who kept alive remembrances of Eastern Theater campaigns. Commemorations of his service appear in regimental histories, veterans’ reunion reports, and in monument programs at Civil War sites where the 114th served, and his Medal of Honor citation places him among a cadre of officers whose individual citations informed later standards for valor awards during the Spanish–American War and reform efforts at the United States War Department.

Category:1838 births Category:1902 deaths Category:Union Army officers Category:Recipients of the Medal of Honor