Never Eat a Dead Man’s Cake, Part 2; Or, Charlie Pruyn Goes to War

 

In the previous post, I introduced readers to the end of the story, an unclaimed box of cake on the docks at City Point. To whom was it addressed? Answering that question is purpose of this installment.

Charles Elisha Pruyn was born on November 11, 1840, in Albany, New York. His parents were Colonel Samuel Pruyn and Mary Putman Pruyn. “Charlie,” as he was known to his family, grew up in a well-to-do Christian household. He received his education at the Albany Academy and at the Middle Dutch Church of Albany, where he started as a pupil and eventually became a teacher at the Sabbath School. His mother appears to have had a strong influence on his personality, driving him to lead a life of purity and piety. At one point, a family friend wanted his own son to associate with Charlie Pruyn, hoping he would be a good influence. But this same friend was also worried that his own son’s wild behavior might rub off on Charlie. Mary Pruyn was not afraid of this. She responded to the request with a maternal sense of certainty: “You may rest assured your fears for Charlie are groundless; he will never come down to anything vicious; his morals are impregnable, and I feel sure his course will always be to draw others up to his level.”

Adjutant Charles E. Pruyn

It’s important to recognize that much of what we know about Charlie Pruyn comes through the filter of his mother, Mary, and his biographer, Reverend Rufus Clark, a Presbyterian minister who meticulously scripted a story that Mary Pruyn wanted to tell. The result was Clark’s epic, Heroes of Albany. As an historian with a critical eye, I am quick to doubt the sincerity of a book written for the purpose of spreading religious propaganda. Clark told only the stories of Christian soldiers who went to war. He wanted his book to inspire other church-goers by showcasing the connections between Christianity and the Union victory. Thus, Clark was not an historian, but a religious booster. At the bottom line, we must be wary of the selective way he described Charlie Pruyn. But that being said, there are certain truths we can draw from Mary Pruyn’s and Rufus Clark’s presentation of Charlie. It’s clear that Mary Pruyn expected much from her son, particularly when it came to his moral values. Did he really “draw others up to his level?” I don’t think the answer to that question is important. But that particular assertion is important in another way, because it forces us to recognize that Mary Pruyn wanted her son to adhere to specific principles as he grew into manhood. Notwithstanding what Charlie himself wanted, Mary Pruyn envisioned her eldest son encompassing a life of piety, one that would benefit her family’s standing within the Christian community.

There is some evidence to suggest that Charlie Pruyn did not want what his mother wanted—not exactly, anyway. When the Civil War began, Pruyn was only twenty years old, and like many young men, he wanted to participate in it. According to Clark, Charlie Pruyn was keen to enlist right away. He contended, “When the news of the fall of Sumter was received, his face glowed with shame and indignation. He seemed to feel it a personal insult, and for many days he was too excited to eat or sleep.” Both of his parents resisted the idea, particularly his mother, who believed her son was destined for something greater than military service. Thus denied, Charlie Pruyn stayed at home. During the war’s first summer, the first wave of U.S. Volunteers went to the front, emptying Albany of Charlie Pruyn’s friends and peers. As the weeks went by and the war continued without result, he grew restless. The narrative of what happened next, which seems to have been constructed by his mother’s recollections, paints the picture of a reluctant parent acquiescing to her child’s earnest desire to be a soldier:

Hearing him restlessly pacing the floor one night, after midnight, she went up to his room and said: ‘Charlie, my dear son, why are you so excited?’ He answered: ‘Mother, how can I help it; how can I remain here at home and sleep quietly in my bed, when the country is in such a state? Why, mother, I don’t want to go into the street anymore; I am ashamed to look people in the face; a strong, healthy fellow like me, staying at home and enjoying all these comforts when the country is in danger, and needs my services.’ His mother then told him, that God had made her feel that it was his duty to go, and that his parents had no right to interpose obstacles in the way. She engaged to obtain his father’s consent, only stipulating that he should first endeavor to procure a commission; but if he failed to do so in a reasonable time, she would not object to his going as a private. The change immediately produced by this conversation was wonderful. He expressed the greatest delight and gratitude, and at once set himself to work to obtain a commission in some regiment already in the field.

It was now autumn 1861, and another wave of U.S. Volunteers was being raised by the War Department. Pruyn learned that a new regiment was being raised up in Plattsburgh, New York, 160 miles to the north, on the western shore of Lake Champlain. Knowing there were positions available for officers, Charlie Pruyn packed his bags and left. On October 19, he enlisted in the newly-formed unit, which was then known as “Macomb’s Regiment,” and he applied to become an officer. The regiment filled slowly over the next few months, and Pruyn’s commission as first lieutenant arrived on February 20, 1862. Upon muster, Pruyn belonged to Company A, 96^th New York Volunteer Infantry, but for much of his time with his regiment, he served as acting adjutant, completing paperwork at regimental headquarters. On March 11, 1862, the regiment, finally full, left for the front. At Washington, the 96^th New York was brigaded with three Pennsylvania regiments, forming the 2^nd Brigade, 3^rd Division, 4^th Corps, under the command of Brig. Gen. William H. Keim. Along with the rest of the Army of the Potomac, the 96^th New York embarked on transports bound for the Yorktown Peninsula. Pruyn and his comrades participated in the last three weeks of the Siege of Yorktown (April 17 to May 4), and on May 5, the regiment participated in the pursuit of Confederate forces at Williamsburg, Virginia. The 96^th New York came under fire there, but it lost none killed or wounded.

The next day, May 6, the 96^th New York marched onto the Williamsburg battlefield and Charlie Pruyn saw the dead lying in heaps. The bulk of the combat had been carried on by Brig. Gen. Samuel Heintzelman’s 3^rd Corps against Maj. Gen. James Longstreet’s Confederate division. The sight of the battlefield shocked Pruyn. He wrote home to his mother:

What I saw I cannot attempt to describe, but never, never shall I forget it. I thought, what a horrible thing is war! And as I saw men lying dead, torn into all imaginable shapes by cannon and grape-shot, I thought of the homes made desolate, and the hearts that would bleed, and the many who would remember this day when they were made widows and orphans, with sorrow as long as they lived. And I thanked God most fervently that my poor life was spared, and that in His great goodness He had not permitted me even to be wounded.

Given this sentiment, I think it’s quite likely that much his mother’s estimation of Charlie was correct. She told a friend that Charlie “will never come down to anything vicious.” Even though he had chosen to become an officer in the Union army, he still felt sympathy for the families of the enemy dead, the widows and orphans would experience “sorrow as long as they lived.” Truly, he was his mother’s child.

This sketch by E. S. Hall depicts the field of Williamsburg, where Lt. Charlie Pruyn first saw the war's tragedy.

As Adjutant Pruyn would soon find out, he would, in fact, see this sight again, a mere twenty-five days later, and he would have the misfortune of being in the thick of it.