CAPTAIN PHILIP G. BIER
Enlisted as a Private in Company "D"; promoted to Sergeant.
Promoted to Second Lieutenant; transferred to Company "A."
Promoted to Captain & Assistant Adjutant General, U. S. Volunteers.

Researched, compiled & presented by Linda Cunningham Fluharty.

This man is a son of Wheeling, Ohio County, his birthplace, and New Martinsville, Wetzel County, where he grew up. He was born on November 21, 1841, the son of George W. Bier and Elizabeth Hornbrook.

[Note: He is NOT associated with Marshall County, as some people have stated. He was not born there, he never lived there, and he did not enlist there. Some consider Company "A" a "Marshall County company" because it was initially mustered in at Moundsville on August 16, 1862. Philip Bier was NOT one who mustered in there. Rather, he joined Company "D" when it was formed at West Liberty, Ohio County, nine days after the Moundsville company was mustered in. - He joined Company "A" on January 17, 1863, after being transferred from Company "D" - but that had NOTHING to do with Marshall County. When he was KIA, he was not in the 12th Infantry at all.]

At the time of the 1850 Federal Census, the Bier family lived in New Martinsville, Wetzel County. Philip, 8, had sisters, Mary Ann, age 10, and Emma, age 5. The father, George W. Bier, was a merchant. Records indicate that Emma was born in Wetzel County.

In 1860, the family was still in New Martinsville, and the father was still a merchant. Children listed were Mary A., 20; Philip, 18, and Emma, 15.

As indicated in the history book of this regiment, Company "D" mustered in August 25th, 1862 at West Liberty:

Captain - W. B. CURTIS - West Liberty
First Lieut. - WM. A. SMILEY - West Liberty
Second Lieut. - DAVID M. BLANEY - West Alexander, Pa. - Five Sergeants, eight Corporals.

As indicated in the history book of this regiment, Company "A" mustered in August 16th, 1862 at Moundsville. Philip was NOT mustered in there; he joined at West Liberty 9 days later.

Captain - HAGER TOMLINSON - Moundsville
First Lieut. - T. S. MAGRUDER - Moundsville
Second Lieut. - WILLIAM BURLEY - Moundsville - Five Sergeants, eight Corporals.

Inside the booklet: "Philip George Bier, a resident of New Martinsville, W. Va., died at Winchester, Va., November 21st, 1864, from wounds received at battle of Cedar Creek."

An article in the Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, dated October 25, 1864, states that "Captain John McClure has very generously offered to donate an eligible site which he owns at Mt. Wood, to be consecrated as a resting place of soldiers. He desires to have Col. Thoburn, and also the remains of Bier and Jenkins, interred there tomorrow. The site tendered by Captain McClure would, we understand, afford space enough for sixty or seventy graves. It is to be desired that the friends of the three soldiers may see proper to have the bodies interred there tomorrow." Another article, published October 26, the day after the funeral, says that the funerals for Colonel Joseph Thoburn, Sergeant Benjamin Jenkins, and Captain Bier were held at the same time. Colonel Thoburn and Sergeant Jenkins were buried at the Mount Wood Cemetery. The remains of Captain Bier were "deposited for the present in the vault of Sam'l Ott., Esq., there to await the action of relatives who have not as yet finally determined where the body shall be interred."

In any case, at some point, Captain Bier was interred at Greenwood Cemetery, Wheeling.

An excerpt from Wheeling Intelligencer, October 28, 1864, author not stated: "In August 1862, he left the halls of learning, and entered the army as a common soldier, "full of ambition and bright hope," determined to win his way to honor and position by his valor and integrity. - No warmer heart ever beat for the Union. No soul ever throbbed with deepr or more patriotic emotion than his. - His soldierly bearing and uniform good conduct soon won him a Lieutenancy. He was still the same man. No haughty airs, no supercillious word or action came, as it does too often, with promotion. Soon he was raised to a staff position for gallantry in action. I saw him myself in the disastrous retreat of Milroy from Winchester, abandoned by officers who should have commanded him, but who ran away and left him. I saw him as a thousand others did, and the 12th West Virginia regiment will never forget how nobly he acquitted himself there. - How much he was beloved by Generals Sigel, Sullivan and Kelley and their staffs, as well as by General Sheridan and his staff, will no doubt be soon proclaimed to you in a public manner by all those honored officers He was upon the staffs of Generals Sigel, Sullivan and Kelley, and lastly acting as Adjutant General for General Sheridan."

The parents, George W. and Elizabeth Bier were residents of New Martinsville, Wetzel County, at the time of Captain Bier's death. By 1870, they had moved and are named in the 1870 census of Marshall County. George was a retired merchant. He died in Marshall County in 1877. His wife died in 1885.

FATHER'S OBITUARY: Wheeling Daily Register, July 24, 1877 -- BIER - On Sunday, July 22, 1877. at 1:30 a.m. at his residence in Moundsville, W. Va., George W. Bier, in the 88th year of his age. - The funeral will take place from the steamer Phaeton, at the wharf, on her arrival, Tuesday afternoon. Interment at Mount Wood Cemtery. Friends of the family are invited to attend.

In 1880, Mrs. Bier, age 70, was a boarder at a hotel in Moundsville.

MOTHER'S OBITUARY: Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, July 23, 1885 -- Word was received yesterday of the death of Mrs. Elizabeth Bier, widow of the late George W. Bier, of Moundsville, at Lynwood, Rockingham County, Va. She was the mother-in-law of Hon. Henry S. Walker, Secretary of State, and the only sister of the late Thomas Hornbrook and Messrs. Jacob and Ed. Hornbrook, of this city. She formerly lived here and enjoyed a large circle of acquaintances by whom she was greatly esteemed. She was in her seventy-sisth year. The news of her death will be learned with sorrow by her friends here and in Moundsville and elsewhere where she was known.

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