admin 197th Regiment
Pennsylvania Volunteers
This regiment was recruited at Philadelphia and in neighboring counties, to serve for a period of one hundred days, by the assistance of the Coal Exchange Association of that city, and was known as the Third Coal Exchange Regiment. It was organized at Camp Cadwalader, on the 22d of July, 1864, with the following field officers:
- John R. Haslett, Colonel;
- Charles D. Kenworthy, Lieutenant Colonel;
- John Woodcock, Major.
Colonel Haslett had served as Captain in the Sixty-sixth, and subsequently in the Seventy-third, of which he had been for several months the acting Major; Lieutenant Colonel Kenworthy had served on the Peninsula, in the Third United States Infantry, where he was severely wounded, and Major Woodcock had just been mustered out of a nine months’ regiment. A large proportion of officers and men were well schooled soldiers.
Soon after its organization, it proceeded to Camp Bradford, at Mankin’s Woods, near Baltimore, where it remained for two weeks. At the end of that time, and when well drilled and in full expectation of being led to the front, it was ordered to Rock Island, Illinois, and upon its arrival there, was charged with guarding a camp for prisoners of war. The guard provided was insufficient for the duty required, and the service bore heavily upon this regiment. At the close of its term, it returned to Philadelphia, where, on the 11th of November, 1864, it was mustered out.