James Cameron returned to Lancaster County and in 1829 obtained control of “The Political Sentinel,” which he published for a few years only. In 1839 he was appointed superintendent of motive power on the Columbia Railroad, succeeding Andrew Mehaffy. In 1843 he was appointed Deputy Attorney General of the Mayor’s Court, at Lancaster, succeeding S. Humes Porter.
Thus we find he worked his way through various steps from an orphan in poverty to a position of distinction in business and society.
When the Northern Central Railroad was constructed he held an official position under the management with headquarters at Sunbury. It was about this time that he purchased a magnificent farm along the beautiful Susquehanna River, just below the borough of Milton.
James Cameron was also stung with the political bee which seemed to hunt Cameron victims for many years in Pennsylvania. In 1856 he sought a seat in Congress, but was defeated for the Democratic nomination.
When the Civil War broke out he was called to the command of the Seventy-ninth New York Regiment of Volunteers, known as the “Highlanders,” and he marched at the head of his command on the ever-memorable advance on Bull Run.
He repeatedly rallied his men, who seemed paralyzed at the reverse, and none of his men felt this more than the brave colonel. He dropped his sword from his hand as he stared at the retreating mass of troops. Some of his command were still firing, when one of his lieutenants rushed forward to receive orders about the wounded soldiers. The colonel turned suddenly towards him, when at that instant a minnie bullet pierced his heart and he fell without uttering a word.
After the death of Colonel Cameron the rout became complete and the army fell back in great confusion on Washington.
Colonel Cameron’s body with hundreds of others, was left on the field and afterwards buried in a trench. Through the efforts of his brother, General Simon Cameron, then Secretary of War in President Lincoln’s Cabinet, his grave was located and his body identified by the peculiar buckskin shirt he wore, and was removed from the place of its rude burial. The remains were taken to Lewisburg and reinterred with the military honors due such a hero. Colonel Cameron left a wife, but no issue.
Colonel Cameron was the first soldier from Northumberland County to lose his life in the war. He was the first officer of his rank in the Union Army and the first officer from Pennsylvania to fall in battle in the Civil War.
The Northumberland County Soldiers’ Monument Memorial Association was organized May 25, 1872, and incorporated August 5, following.