2nd great-grandfather of  Dorotha Piechocki

Private    Co. K    1st NY Light Artillery
Dates of Service:  06 Sep 1864 - 20 Jun 1865

Peter Lutz was born circa 1830 in Switzerland.  He emigrated about 1854 to New York, arriving in Herkimer in May, 1855.  Within that same year, the German-speaking Peter met and married an immigrant Irish girl, Elizabeth Fagan.  Peter filed his naturalization intent in 1859 in Herkimer and was naturalized a citizen in 1861.  Somewhere along the way, he began to be called Peter "Lewis". 

Peter worked as a day laborer until he enlisted in the 1st NY Light Artillery, Co. K, on September 1, 1864, as a "mechanic".  The 1st NYLA did not serve as a unit, but was "detached" or split up to serve in many different armies and in many engagements.  Peter appears to have been most fortunate in that he was posted to Co. K in defense of Washington, D.C.  It is quite possible that Co. K was a replacement for one of the many "Heavy Artillery" units that General Grant pressed into service during the last year of the War.  These units suffered greatly in killed and wounded soldiers, mostly at Cold Harbor and Spotsylvania, leading the attacks in their first ever battles.  What fort Peter was stationed to is unknown; however, many of these forts were attacked by Jubal Early in 1864.  Peter was mustered out on June 20, 1865, at Elmira, NY.

About 1868, Peter moved with his wife and six children to rural Kent County, Michigan, where he labored variously as a farmer, a sawyer, and on the railroad.  When his wife Eliza died in 1880, he moved to Grand Rapids, where he remarried, fathering two more children.  He outlived his second wife and married a third time. 

GAR Membership: Champlin Post 29, Grand Rapid, MI (added by D. Piechocki, Feb. 2020)

Peter died in Grand Rapids in 1899 at the age of 69.  He is buried in Mt. Calvary Cemetery in Grand Rapids.

GRAVESITE:  Mt. Calvary Cemetery, Grand Rapids, Kent Co., MI
Written by Dorotha Simmons Piechocki, February 2001