Civil War Union Army Officer. A lawyer by trade, he served during the Civil War as Colonel and commander of the 121st Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, having been commissioned and mustered in on September 1, 1862. After leading the regiment at the 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg and the May 1863 Battle of Chancellorsville, he assumed command of his brigade during the opening stages of the July 1863 Battle of Gettysburg when the death of I Corps commander Major General John Reynolds forced junior officers below him to move up the chain of command (Biddle's brigade commander, Brigadier General Thomas A. Rowley advanced to Division command). Colonel Biddle commanded the four regiments of the 1st Brigade, II Division, I Corps in the hard fighting on McPherson Ridge and subsequent retreat of the Army of the Potomac's I Corps on July 1, 1863. Reverting back to regimental command for the Second and Third Days of the Battle (July 2 and 3, 1863), he led his men as the fought first on Tanytown Road, then took part in repulsing Pickett's Charge. Chapman Biddle would command the 121st Pennsylvania though the summer of fall of 1863, then would be discharged by Special Order on December 10, 1863. A marker for his brigade now stands along South Reynolds Avenue in the Gettysburg National Military Park. After the war he served as a General Counsel for the city of Philadelphia, and through his efforts much of landscape of Philadelphia's Fairmount Park was created.
Civil War Union Army Officer. A lawyer by trade, he served during the Civil War as Colonel and commander of the 121st Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, having been commissioned and mustered in on September 1, 1862. After leading the regiment at the 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg and the May 1863 Battle of Chancellorsville, he assumed command of his brigade during the opening stages of the July 1863 Battle of Gettysburg when the death of I Corps commander Major General John Reynolds forced junior officers below him to move up the chain of command (Biddle's brigade commander, Brigadier General Thomas A. Rowley advanced to Division command). Colonel Biddle commanded the four regiments of the 1st Brigade, II Division, I Corps in the hard fighting on McPherson Ridge and subsequent retreat of the Army of the Potomac's I Corps on July 1, 1863. Reverting back to regimental command for the Second and Third Days of the Battle (July 2 and 3, 1863), he led his men as the fought first on Tanytown Road, then took part in repulsing Pickett's Charge. Chapman Biddle would command the 121st Pennsylvania though the summer of fall of 1863, then would be discharged by Special Order on December 10, 1863. A marker for his brigade now stands along South Reynolds Avenue in the Gettysburg National Military Park. After the war he served as a General Counsel for the city of Philadelphia, and through his efforts much of landscape of Philadelphia's Fairmount Park was created.
Bio by: RPD2
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