Richard Coulter

Civil War With the outbreak of the war and the subsequent calls to arms by President Abraham Lincoln and then by the Governor of Pennsylvania, Andrew Curtin, Coulter raised a company of soldiers and was elected as their first captain. The company soon was made part of the 11th Pennsylvania Volunteers, in which Coulter was promoted to lieutenant colonel on April 26, 1861. At the Battle of Antietam, Coulter assumed command of the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Division, I Corps when Brig. Gen. George L. Hartsuff was wounded. Returning to regimental command Coulter fought at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, being wounded in the former. During the siege of Petersburg Coulter briefly returned to the front in command of the 2nd Brigade, 3rd Division, V Corps at the battle of Globe Tavern. His final command appointment was the 3rd Brigade, 3rd Division, V Corps during the Appomattox Campaign. He was mustered out of the volunteer services on July 1, 1865.

Postwar career

After the Civil War, Coulter returned to Greensburg, where he became active in business. He joined with several other local financiers to invest in various industries, businesses, and residential areas in and around Greensburg. Coulter began a partnership with George Franklin Huff, a local businessman and financier who later became a state senator and a U.S. congressman. Coulter and Huff collaborated on several of the largest and most significant companies in Westmoreland County in the 1880s, including the Keystone Coal and Coke Company, the Greensburg-Hempfield Electric Street Railway, and the First National Bank of Greensburg (now the First Commonwealth Bank). Coulter served at the bank's president until his death in 1908. His son, Richard Coulter Jr. (1870–1955) took over as president and held that position for more than 40 years.

Greensburg was located on a large vein of bituminous coal about 30 miles east of Pittsburgh. Coal and coke were needed for steel mills that were built in and near Pittsburgh in the 1860s and 1870s. Coulter and Huff prospered with the rising steel industry by developing and mining the coalfields in Westmoreland County.

General Coulter married Emmy Welty (1841–1929) and had six children—Richard Coulter Jr., Rebecca, Henry, Alexander, William, and Margaret.

Memorial Coulter is memorialized on the Pennsylvania State Monument at Gettysburg National Military Park.

As the "most famous Civil War veteran" from Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, Coulter's grave was featured by the Westmoreland County Historical Society's celebration of the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War.