FRANKLINVILLE — Descendants of the 154th New York Volunteer Infantry, a Civil War regiment raised in Cattaraugus and Chautauqua counties, will hold their 24th annual reunion Aug. 22 at Post 9487, Veterans of Foreign Wars.

The 154th New York was raised in the summer of 1862 and participated in many of the great campaigns and battles of the war, including Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Chattanooga, the Atlanta Campaign and Gen. William T. Sherman’s marches through Georgia and the Carolinas.

The reunion will commemorate the regimental medical staff, the surgeons, hospital stewards, ambulance corpsmen, nurses and others who cared for the 154th’s sick and wounded. Much of the story will be related in their own words, drawn from their wartime writings and read in some cases by their descendants. Their accounts will focus on the battle of Gettysburg and fighting during the Atlanta campaign, in which the regiments suffered heavy casualties.

Franklinville was chosen to host the reunion as the hometown of the 154th’s original surgeon, Henry Van Aernam, who also served terms in Congress and was President Ulysses S. Grant’s first commissioner of the pension department.

Historian Mark H. Dunkleman of Providence, R. I., the author of five books of the 154th New York’s history, will present biographical sketches of Van Aernam and surgeon Dwight W. Day, assistant surgeons Corydon C. Rugg and George H. Bosley and hospital steward C. Harry Matteson.

Anyone descended from a member of the 154th New York is encouraged to attend the reunion. The public is also welcome. All attendees will receive a souvenir ribbon. Descendants are asked to bring photographs and relics of their soldier ancestors to be copied and added to the regimental archives.

For more information about the reunion, contact Mark Dunkleman by calling (401) 369-0637 or e-mailing

nyvi154th@aol.com

.