Edward Burk

There’s a disturbing story attached to this person’s death and burial here in the Soldier’s Plot, aside from the fact that he was not a soldier at all. One of the little-known facts of the Civil War is that citizens were haphazardly imprisoned for “disloyalty,” and that’s what happened to Edward in the closing days of 1864. 

He was born 72 years earlier and spent his entire life in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, just west of Altoona. His father and his mother’s father, both natives of Ireland, served in the Revolutionary War. Edward was one of eight children, and farming was his life.

He married Catherine in 1822, but joy turned to sorrow when she died just six years later while giving birth to their fourth child. Edward relied on his sisters for help until Ellen, his second spouse, joined him in 1832 and five more children were born.

The rugged Allegheny Mountains running through the region lend themselves more toward coal mining than agriculture. And like the terrain, Edward had his ups and downs in securing his livelihood, but he was a man of faith and persistence.

The Burks were deeply rooted in the Catholic tradition and their church thrived in a county founded by Welsh Baptists. His mother’s father donated the land for St. Michael’s Catholic Church in Loretto, shown here as it looks today. It’s where Edward was twice married, and where St. Francis University was founded in 1847, which continues in operation today. (Industrialist Charles Schwab grew up in Loretto and is the school’s most famous graduate.) 

Given his rural and religious background, what would cause Edward to be jailed as a political prisoner? He may have been influenced by a staunchly partisan weekly newspaper published in Ebensburg, the county seat. In the years leading up to and during the Civil War, the Democrat and Sentinel displayed Copperhead Democrat tendencies: sympathy toward the South, fierce opposition to abolition, and hatred of Abraham Lincoln.

One reason for that is that the president unilaterally suspended “Habeas Corpus,” which is the right to challenge the legality of imprisonment. In doing so he empowered the military to arrest civilians on a variety of charges, including “disloyalty.”

The Supreme Court ruled that the suspension was unconstitutional since only Congress can do that, and eventually Congress did. But who defined disloyalty? Aiding Union army deserters would be one example but most often it was simply speaking out or writing against a government policy or action. Ultimately the issue was freedom of speech and of the press.

Whatever Edward did or said, it resulted in his arrest on October 17, 1864. In the next week’s issue, Michael Hasson, the newspaper editor, wrote this comment, laying the blame on  Republican party politics and hinting at fraud in the upcoming re-election of Lincoln. Below is the letter Edward wrote to the editor to advise the public of his plight.

He was taken the next month to Fort Mifflin on Hog Island, next to today’s Philadelphia International Airport. Of the more than 200 inmates at Fort Mifflin in 1864, 70 percent were civilians. According to some accounts, more than 13,000 northern citizens were arrested and detained as “prisoners of state” during the war. 

The greater tragedy occurred on Christmas Eve when Edward died in captivity, never formally charged or tried in court where he could assert his Constitutional protections as a U.S. citizen. Adding to the insult was that he died from dysentery, an intestinal infection resulting in bloody diarrhea, cramps, and nausea. It is typically spread through contaminated food or water.

Since he was confined in a military institution, the army took responsibility for burying him. But since he was not a Confederate soldier, the only alternative grave marker was a Union military stone, so his name was inscribed inside a Union shield, as shown above. All documentation confirms his name was never anything but Edward Burk, so the inscription, “C. E. Burk” is incorrect unless the first letter was used to signify either “civilian” or “citizen.” The doctor who completed his death certificate could only list his occupation as “citizen prisoner.” 

This simple obituary ran in another Ebensburg newspaper while the Democrat and Sentinel printed a scathing editorial mourning the loss of a martyr. In mentioning the grieving widow and children, the editor brought out the shameful irony that two of Edward’s sons would learn of their father’s death while they were serving their country on a battlefield for the Union Army.