William Brisbane was born on September 14, 1823, in Lewistown, Pennsylvania. His father died when he was only a few weeks old, and his mother brought the family to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, soon afterward. He grew up and attended school there, and he attended the College of New Jersey (present-day Princeton University).

 

He travelled to California in 1849 and spent two years there. He then returned to Philadelphia and studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He moved to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, around 1854 and earned a living as a physician. He married Mary Ann Bicking, and their daughter Ellen was born around 1856.

 

In April 1861, he received a commission as a captain in Company C of the 8^th Pennsylvania Infantry. He mustered out on July 29, 1861, when his term of enlistment expired. He returned to the Union army soon afterward, receiving a commission as a lieutenant colonel in the 49^th Pennsylvania Infantry. The regiment took part in the siege of Yorktown, the Battle of Williamsburg, the Seven Days’ Battles, and the Battle of Antietam. He contracted malarial fever in 1862, and he resigned his commission on October 15, 1862.

 

Brisbane then served as a colonel in the Pennsylvania militia. When Confederates invaded Pennsylvania in the summer of 1863, an early biographer wrote, he “had the honor of marching to Carlisle and defending his early home.” Brisbane reportedly insisted that the “proudest day of my life was that on which I defended my old town against the invading Rebels.”

 

Brisbane remained in Wilkes-Barre after the war and continued to practice medicine. By 1870, he owned $3,000 of real estate and $500 of personal property. His wife owned an additional $100,000 of real estate and $25,000 of personal property, and they employed a domestic servant and a housekeeper. Brisbane’s health, however, reportedly became “more and more impaired.” In 1874, President Ulysses S. Grant appointed him consul to Ghent in the Netherlands. Poor health, however, forced him to return to America in the mid-1870s. He applied for a federal pension in May 1879 and eventually secured one. He died in Oswego, New York, on July 7, 1880.

 

Image: William Brisbane (Robert S. Westbrook, History of the 49^th Pennsylvania Volunteers)

SOURCES