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Samuel Bowman, born at Wilkes-Barre October 31, 1818, was the fourth child of Gen. Isaac Bowman. He was at one time Captain of the "Wyoming Artillerists," previously mentioned, and in 1859 was elected Brigadier General of the Brigade of Pennsylvania Militia first commanded by his father and afterwards by his brother, but owing to certain informalities with which the election had been conducted it was declared illegal and void, and Capt. Bowman was not commissioned Brigadier General.

At the breaking out of the War of the Rebellion he became Lieutenant Colonel of the 8th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers, in the threemonths' service of the United States. June 19, 1861, while in camp with his regiment on the banks of the Potomac River, Colonel Bowman crossed the river to reconnoiter, unaware of the presence of the enemy in that locality. He was captured in sight of his camp, and taken thence to Winchester, and thence to Richmond, where, and later at Raleigh and Salisbury, he was held a prisoner for some time. He was the twelfth Union soldier to be taken prisoner by the Confederates after the beginning of hostilities.

After his return from imprisonment Colonel Bowman re-engaged in business in Wilkes-Barre. From December, 1867, to December, 1870, he was Clerk of the Courts of Luzerne County. He died at Wilkes-Barre April 19, 1889, in the seventy-first year of his age.


(from The Story of Bowman's Hill, Wilkes-Barre, Pennylvania by Charles Bowman Dougherty)