Lynchburg, Virginia, was a major supply and hospital center, and it served as a railroad connection for the Virginia Central Railroad that made up a significant part of the Confederate army’s supply chain. It was for those reasons that Major General David Hunter, commander of the Union’s Army of the Shenandoah and the Department of West Virginia, of which the 54^th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry was a part, planned to capture it. In the two-day battle the Union Army was repulsed by Confederate Lt. Gen. Jubal Anderson Early. Hunter’s subsequent retreat made it possible for Early to move up the Shenandoah Valley with little to no opposition. Early’s army advanced up through Maryland, defeated a Union force at the Battle of Monocacy, and reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C. before being halted at the Battle of Fort Stevens.

Pvt. John W. Mostoller

By James Gindlesperger, historical author

The 54^th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry was still licking its wounds from the Battle of New Market four weeks earlier.

The regiment had been either marching or fighting with little rest since New Market, with a skirmish at New Hope Church, a much larger engagement at Piedmont, followed by more skirmishing at Middlebrook, Brownsburg, Waynesborough, Lexington, Piney River, Buchanan, New Glasgow, Otter Creek, and New London. The morning before, they’d had a brush with some rebels at Diamond Hill, then began fighting on a new battlefield later in the day, just outside the town of Lynchburg, Virginia. Most of the earlier skirmishes had been minor, with little bloodshed, but they were draining, both physically and mentally. This fight looked like it could be a big one, and the men were exhausted.

It was June 18, 1864, and 21-year old John W. Mostoller of the regiment’s Company B was anxious, as most soldiers are before a battle. He was also hungry, the regiment having run out of rations. Although he didn’t know it, it would be two more days before he would eat again. Mostoller had been born on January 14, 1843, in Stoystown, Pennsylvania, the son of Joseph and Sarah (Mowry) Mostoller, and had enlisted in the Union Army in September 1861, not long after the first shot was fired at Fort Sumter.

The fighting the previous day had seen both armies gain a bit of ground, then give it back. The battle had come to a standstill at dusk, with nothing really accomplished by either side. Throughout the night Mostoller had heard trains moving in and out, bringing Confederate reinforcements. Bugles and drums had added to the din, and even the townspeople of Lynchburg had joined in, making enough noise to make the men of the 54^th wonder just how big was the army they would be facing at daybreak.

Under division commander Brigadier General George Crook, the regiment started their day by marching two miles to a position where they could flank the Confederates on their left. Once there, the idea was abandoned as being impractical. The men of the 54^th then retraced their steps, ending up where they had started after their 4-mile round trip jaunt. They then moved forward, testing the Confederate strength as they were raked by deadly cannon fire.  They were soon pinned down, unable to do much more than squeeze as close to the earth as they could to avoid the enemy onslaught.

With all the regiment’s officers either killed or wounded, the situation became desperate.  At that point, Mostoller took things into his own hands. Jumping up, he shouted above the noise of battle, “Charge!”  He didn’t know if the others would follow a lowly Private on a death defying charge at the enemy, but out of the corners of his eyes he saw all his comrades joining him. The regiment raced uphill into the teeth of the Confederate artillery, Mostoller in the lead. Those that survived, a group that included Mostoller, overran a Confederate battery and captured it. Today, the site of Mostoller’s heroics is part of the campus of the University of Lynchburg, just behind a building known as Hopwood Hall, an administration building now on the National Register of Historic Places.

Although the Union troops were eventually driven back that day, Mostoller’s actions were credited with saving his entire brigade. On December 27, 1894 his effort was rewarded when he was presented with the Medal of Honor. His citation reads: “Voluntarily led a charge on a Confederate Battery (the officers of the company being disabled) and compelled its hasty removal.”

On June 10, 191,6 Mostoller’s name was added to the Army and Navy Medal of Honor Roll, and on November 11, 1921, he was a guest of honor at Arlington National Cemetery, where he participated in the entombment of the Unknown Soldier with other Civil war veterans. In 2014, he was posthumously honored by the Pennsylvania General Assembly, which passed Act 97 naming a bridge on State Route 1008 in Somerset County the Private John W. Mostoller Memorial Bridge.

On December 5, 1925, John William Mostoller, Civil War hero, breathed his last at the age of 82. He was buried in the IOOF Cemetery in Stoystown, Pennsylvania, not far from where he had been born. As one of only two Civil War Medal of Honor recipients from Somerset County, Pennsylvania, (the other is Francis M. Cunningham, who served with the 1^st West Virginia Cavalry), his Medal of Honor is displayed in the Somerset County Courthouse Annex, in Somerset.