The Laporte Republican of an undetermined date, referred to in Now and Then, a publication of the Muncy Historical Society, relates the following about Judge Jones:
Among the early settlers in Sullivan County was Hon. J. Richter Jones, who bought the Lewis estate, including the beautiful lake now known as Eaglesmere, but then known as Lewis’ Lake. Mr. Jones … resided in his fine mansion built by George Lewis on the high bank which overlooks the lake, the site now owned by Captain John Bowman of Muncy and situated on Eaglesmere Avenue, surrounded by fine Lombardy poplars, first introduced into Sullivan County by Mr. Lewis. Here, surrounded by his family, his large library and his broad acres, Judge Jones led a life of retirement and ease.
Jones felt compelled to raise a regiment to serve in the Union army at the beginning of the American Civil War. He was enrolled for a three-year term of service on August 1, 1861 and began recruiting not only in Philadelphia, but also in Sullivan County. He identified several men to be enrolled as officers and to organize and drill his recruits in Philadelphia, and called upon longtime acquaintance and fellow Sullivan County attorney Henry Metcalf to recruit men in the rugged areas surrounding Eaglesmere. Metcalf enrolled enough men to form a company, which was organized at LaPorte on September 3, 1861. Metcalf led the men to the park in suburban Roxborough that Jones had designated as his camp of rendezvous, and was eventually mustered in as their captain, the organization having received the designation of Company B, 58th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry.
At one time, Jones may have considered raising a combined arms organization. A recruiting station for the "Artillery Company for Col. J. Richter Jones’ Regiment" was established at 138 South Fourth Street, Philadelphia, but Captain Paul T. Jones, who organized the station on Fourth Street, does not appear on the 58th Pennsylvania’s muster rolls. No battery of artillery ever joined the Regiment. Although he had some early success in filling the required allocations for his companies, by the end of December, recruiting stalled before Jones secured enough men for a regiment. When an organization that Carlton Curtis as the 114th Pennsylvania Volunteers was attempting to raise failed to raise enough men, however, the two organizations were joined and on February 13, 1862, Lieut. Pierce mustered Jones into federal service as colonel of the 58th Pennsylvania Volunteers.
Philadelphians cheered as Jones led the 58th Pennsylvania from its Roxborough camp on March 8, 1862. The regiment reported to Fortress Monroe, Virginia several days later. Initially, the men performed routine picket and fatigue duty, but at the beginning of May 1862, Jones led his men as part of a composite brigade under the direction of Maj. Gen. John E. Wool in an expedition against Norfolk, Virginia. When the Confederates evacuated the city, Wool and Jones paraded their troops into the city to receive the surrender from the mayor, and the 58th Pennsylvania’s flag was unfurled upon the Custom House for the remainder of the Regiment’s occupation of the city.
After performing several days of provost duty in Norfolk, the 58th Pennsylvania marched to Portsmouth, Virginia, encamping near the Navy Yard and performing guard and picket duty upon the entrenchments. Following the occupation duty, the men of the 58th Pennsylvania went to the Blackwater/Dismal Swamp area of Tidewater Virginia and completed several months of duty, battling mosquitoes and malaria more than any Confederate forces. Some small skirmishes of note occurred, but Jones and his men were denied the opportunity to play a larger role in the magnificent actions like Antietam and the Seven Days Battles that were taking place outside of their confines.
His regiment having been reassigned to Maj. Gen. John G. Foster’s Department of North Carolina in January 1863, Foster immediately placed Jones in command of the strategic outpost line along Batchelder’s Creek, nearly eight miles from the department headquarters in New Bern. While previous commanders had done only the minimum to hold the line, Jones immediately dispatched patrols to the west, toward the Confederate guerrilla base near Kinston. The aggressive posture paid off, and Jones’ regiment, during several skirmishes, took a number of prisoners. Foster noticed this, and on several occasions, he assigned additional regiments of infantry, along with cavalry and artillery, to Jones for his expeditions into the enemy territory. Throughout the winter and spring of 1863, Jones achieved greater successes, until in May, he successfully petitioned to command a brigade-size force during a daring assault on Rebel works that he identified near Gum Swamp, North Carolina.
It appeared that being "commander of the outposts" had become the perfect opportunity for the ambitious Jones to excel. Of Jones, Department of North Carolina historian J. Lewis Stackpole said,
An excellent old gentleman…he rarely laid down the sword that he did not take up his well-thumbed copy of Cæsar’s "Commentaries." [Confederate] General [D.H.] Hill sees fit to call him a bold, bad man and a "Comanche."
In granting Jones’ wish to make the expedition upon the Confederate works west of the Neuse River, Foster attached Col. Horace C. Lee’s entire 2nd Brigade, 1st Division, XVIII Army Corps (temporarily under the command of Col. G.N. Pierson)—along with detachments of cavalry and artillery—to Jones. Jones’ demonstration began with a rendezvous of the reinforced brigade in the vicinity of the 58th Pennsylvania’s Batchelder’s Creek headquarters on May 21, 1863. Making a night march along two different routes, Jones surprised the 56th North Carolina as the enemy soldiers prepared their breakfasts in what they thought was a secure camp on the morning of May 22. In all, Jones seized 165 prisoners, a 12-pound howitzer with limber and various other stores.
In perhaps his biggest miscalculation, however, the bold Jones ordered his victorious soldiers, after gathering up the prisoners, to rest that afternoon before returning to camp. Soon, Confederates under D. H. Hill swooped down upon the expeditionary force and began to shell Jones’ men with two pieces of artillery. Jones led his men back toward the Batchelder’s Creek lines under the harassing fire of the pursuing Confederates, but failing to reach his entrenchments before dark, he ordered the men to take up temporary lines that evening.
The next morning, as Jones led the men back to the safety of their lines, the Confederates resumed their attack. Bates, in his History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers, wrote:
[One] company left to guard the bridge on the Neuse Road, across Bachelor’s Creek, suddenly found itself confronted by a considerable force, and was hotly engaged. Proceeding hastily to the threatened point with companies F, K and I, [Jones] deployed them as skirmishers, and drove the enemy’s line back across the creek. Boldly crossing [the creek] with his small force, he formed his line of battle, and sent back to camp for a battery. Turning to go forward with his men, he was shot through the heart by a rebel posted behind the chimney of a house just beyond the bridge, and instantly expired.
Some accounts suggest that the Confederates had placed a price on Jones, and D.H. Hill in a correspondence to Confederate Maj. Gen. Whiting on May 27, expressed genuine relief that his soldiers had killed Jones. Hill, a respected Confederate general, paid Jones and the 58th Pennsylvania a great compliment when he wrote, "Jones, the great brigand, was really killed in my chase of him the other day. He was a bold, dangerous, bad man. His work has been that of the Comanche." A member of the 58th Pennsylvania said that when Jones fell, "the Rebels gave a yell of exultation and endeavored to make a dash and get his body, but were repulsed with great loss, for our artillery was now in position and opened fire." A second shot dismounted one of their guns and killed and wounded several Confederate soldiers. The soldier, Private B. A. Green, made an interesting (and unverified) claim at the end of his account of the day’s action:
They soon made out that this country was too hot to hold them, as our skirmishers were attacking them on both flanks and in the rear, and the artillery was raining shot and shell into their midst. Reinforcements had also begun to arrive from Newbern, and the Rebels left quicker than they came. Our Colonel had his commission for Brigadier-General in his pocket when he was killed.
It is most likely to this account that the popularly accepted notion that Jones had been promoted to brigadier general can be traced. On May 26, several regiments turned out in full dress to escort Jones’ remains to a steamer. The line formed at department provost marshal Captain Messenger’s house and colonels acted as pall-bearers. Foster himself marched in the procession and expressed his remorse at the loss of Jones by issuing the following:
General Orders, Hdqrs. Dept. Of N. C., Eighteenth A. C.
No. 81 New Berne, May 26, 1863
The commanding general, in common with the officers and men of this command, is called upon to mourn the loss of a most gallant officer, Col. J. Richter Jones, Fifty-eighth Pennsylvania Volunteers, who fell at the head of his regiment on the evening of May 23, whilst repelling an attack on the outposts.
Colonel Jones won the admiration of all in this department by the indefatigable, able, and gallant manner with which he filled the arduous duties of commander of the outposts. He died whilst enjoying the triumph of a victory won by his valor and counsel. To the service, to this department, and to his regiment this death has been a sad loss; and to all here, and to those at home whom he loved, the commanding general offers his most sincere sympathy. May his bright example lead many to tread the arduous path of duty with as pure an appreciation of duty and with as firm unswerving tread as he.
All flags in this department will be carried at half-mast for the three days following receipt of this order, and at this post half-hour guns will be fired from Forts Totten and Rowan from sunrise to sunset to-morrow, May 27.
By command of Maj. Gen. J. G. Foster:
[SOUTHARD HOFFMAN,]
Assistant Adjutant-General.
The honors to Jones’ memory did not end in North Carolina. When his body arrived in Pennsylvania, it was clear that he had earned the respect of his neighbors, as well as the acquaintances he had made during his short military career. A Philadelphia Inquirer article said:
Col. J. Richter Jones, Fifty-eighth Pennsylvania Regiment, was buried June 3d, after lying in state in Independence Hall, with appropriate military ceremonies. The First Regiment Reserve Brigade, Companies A, C and D of the First Regiment Artillery, the Philadelphia Home Guard, the Provost Guard, the Invalid Corps, and a squadron of Connecticut cavalry served as an escort.
In applying for her widow’s pension on September 14, 1863, Anna authorized Harry G. Clay, a Philadelphia attorney, to be her agent and attorney. A widow for the second time, 53-year-old Anna provided various supporting accounts of documentation and on February 1, 1864, was awarded a $30 monthly pension. At the time, she was living in Eaglesmere, but she eventually moved back to Philadelphia. Her family, however, maintained the large tract of land in Sullivan County for some time after the War. Sadly, however, the beautiful home she had shared with her husband did not survive the War. While accounts of the date vary (some time in 1862 while Jones’ family had taken up a temporary residence in the city; May 23, 1863, the day Jones was killed and June 1863 while Anna attended her husband’s funeral in Philadelphia), Jones’ fine home in Eaglesmere is known to have been destroyed by a fire that also took his valuable law library.
In the summer of 1862, Col. J. Richter Jones wrote that he desired to have his son Horatio accompany him as his "military secretary," adding that he would be "decently fitted out" as a "gentleman cadet." Horatio was about 15 years old at the time, and while there is no record of whether the boy joined Jones in Virginia, the boy eventually realized his father’s wish for him to become an officer. Horatio Jones graduated from the West Point class of 1867 and served as an officer in the army until 1873.
Eventually, Anna lost interest in the property and in March 1877, the Jones estate commenced the sale of lots at Eaglesmere. While Jones had always envisioned his expansive property as a place for his family and friends to enjoy, it is to this point that the transformation of Eaglesmere into the place it is today can be most appropriately traced.