ARLINGTON, Va. –
The sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor in Cuba on Feb. 15, 1898, initiated the United States’ entry into war with Spain. The Spanish-American War and follow-on conflict in the Philippines would also initiate the call up of the National Guard across the country.
In April 1898, President William McKinley issued a call for volunteers, and the National Guard of Pennsylvania turned out for federal inspection and mustering in to service. Though 15 infantry regiments, three artillery batteries and three cavalry troops from the state would enter active service, only a handful of units would see combat action. Among those was the 4th Regiment Infantry, NGP, which would muster in as the 4th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry.
The 4th Regiment was established in 1870 from militia units in Lehigh, Dauphin and Chester counties. In 1861, these militias had been the “First Defenders” to report to Washington, D.C., to defend the city at the outset of the Civil War, and in 1898 the 4th Regiment would again be the first Pennsylvania unit mustered into service for war.
After being mustered into service at Camp Hastings in Mount Gretna, Pa., the unit moved to Chickamauga, Ga., where it began drilling with other elements of the First Army Corps.
In July 1898, the 4th Pennsylvania moved first to Charleston, S.C., and then to Puerto Rico, where it joined U.S. forces clearing the island of Spanish troops. In September, the 4th Infantry would return home to the United States, and after a victory parade in Philadelphia would muster out of service.
Leonard Sefing Jr. of Allentown, Pa., had volunteered with the 4th Regiment Infantry, NGP, in May 1898 and was mustered into federal service with the unit a few days later. Sefing was only 17 years old when war broke out, but rushed to join his local National Guard company.
When the company commander questioned Sefing’s age, Sefing responded, “I’ll be 22 in August.”
“He never asked what year, and I never told him,” Sefing later said.
Sefing saw outpost duty in Puerto Rico, and later recalled watching a patrol of Spanish Soldiers cross in front of his lines at night. After service in Puerto Rico, Sefing returned to Allentown working as a jeweler, and later salesman.
As part of a nationwide competition to find an ideal model for a memorial statue of a Spanish-American War Soldier, a studio photographer in Allentown submitted a photo of Sefing. The photo was selected by sculptor Theo Alice Ruggles Hitson for the monuments model and the Allentown native and Pennsylvania National Guard veteran became the symbol of Spanish-American War remembrance in the United States.
The first of these statues was unveiled in 1906 at the University of Minnesota by Hitson, and over the next 60 years, 55 copies were produced across the country, including monuments in Pottsville, Allentown, Shamokin and Lebanon in Pennsylvania.
Sefing was proud of his Spanish-American War service and was active in local veterans organizations. During World War I, he re-entered the Army and was stationed with the newly formed Tank Corps at Camp Colt in Gettysburg, Pa.
Sefing later served as commander of his local chapter of Spanish-American War Veterans, and even revisited the battlefields of Puerto Rico in the 1950s.
He died in 1971, the final surviving member of the 4th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry’s Spanish-American War service.
Today, when we pass a monument to “The Hiker,” we remember the sacrifice of Pennsylvania Guardsmen, including a 17-year-old volunteer from Allentown who became a national symbol of remembrance.
The lineage of Sefing’s unit, the 4th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry of 1898, is carried on today by elements of the 213th Regional Support Group in Allentown and Charlie Company, 1-111th Infantry in Kutztown.
(Editor’s note: Sgt. 1st Class Aaron Heft is a former platoon sergeant with Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 111th Infantry Regiment, 56th Stryker Brigade Combat Team in Philadelphia. He is currently the non-commissioned officer in charge of the Army National Guard Leader Development Program in Arlington, Va.)