Photo of the Month

May, 2001

Colonel Wellington H. Ent

Wellington H. Ent, a Lightstreet resident, was a twenty-seven year old lawyer when he joined the Iron Guards.  It became Co. A, 35th Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers, and was the first unit from Columbia County to enter the Civil War.  Initially, he served as the first lieutenant of Co. A, and later became its captain on July 27, 1861.  Four days after the battle of Antietam he became a major.  Ent was promoted again, assumed command of the regiment on April 2, 1863, with rank of lieutenant colonel, and three and half months later became a colonel.  He was twice wounded in May 1864 when grapeshot struck his hips and pelvis in the Wilderness campaign, and a bullet wounded his hand at the battle of Bethesda Church.  Due to his role in the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Courthouse, and Bethesda Church battles he received the rank of breveted Brigadier General after the war.  Returning home he worked at his father's iron furnace outside of Lightstreet.  Active in the Democratic Party, the voters elected him Columbia County Prothonotary in 1869.  His health impaired due his military service, he died at the age of thirty-seven on November 5, 1871, and was buried in old Rosemont Cemetery.