“Our Regiment was the Only One that Broke the Enemy’s Line”: The Life and Death of the Seventh New York Heavy Artillery, Part 2.

After the 7^th New York’s baptism of fire at the Alsop Farm, the regiment passed through a hard week of desultory fighting at Milford Station, North Anna River, and Totopotomy Creek. Lieutenant Frederick W. Mather, an officer attached to Battery L, later wrote that these engagements weren’t worth chronicling except that, “in the 10 days, from Sunday May 22, we had been under fire many times, and had lost one officer and 31 men killed or died of wounds, one officer and 86 men wounded, and 16 men missing, making a total loss of 135; as great a loss as some regiments sustained at Gettysburg.”

Although they had been part of the Army of the Potomac for exactly two weeks, the heavy artillerymen of the 7^th New York comprehended the bitter reality of the Overland Campaign. To complete their mission, they would have to fight dearly for every inch of ground. Surgeon James E. Pomfret, wrote home, “From this point we shall have to fight our way to Richmond foot by foot. Every hill is contested and every road fought for, but we are steadily advancing.”

But unfortunately, at the next battle, the Army of the Potomac did not advance steadily.

On the evening of June 2, the 7^th New York accompanied the Army of the Potomac’s 2^nd Corps during its exhausting night march to Cold Harbor, a dusty crossroads in Hanover County, Virginia. Ahead of the bluecoats, Lee’s legions had built miles of formidable entrenchments, obstructing the Union’s line of advance. Believing that Lee’s men were on the verge of collapse, Grant ordered a frontal assault with three of his infantry corps. The commanders of 2^nd, 6^th, and 18^th Corps received orders to strike the enemy line at dawn, June 3. The corps and divisional commanders expected to use their colossal, new regiments in the first assault wave. For the 7^th New York, it meant another chance to prove to the veterans of the Army of the Potomac that heavy artillerymen knew how to fight.

Along with the rest of the 2^nd Corps, the 7^th New York Heavy Artillery arrived at Cold Harbor after midnight, June 3, and without taking time to bivouac or build entrenchments, the soldiers flopped themselves onto the fields east the Miles Garthright house and went to sleep.

One of those exhausted men who fell fast asleep was First Lieutenant Frederick W. Mather. Mather was born on August 2, 1833, at Greenbush, New York. Prior to the Civil War, he lived in Wisconsin, eking out a minimalist existence as a hunter and trapper. After his wife died in 1861, Mather returned to his home state and enlisted in the Union army. After the call for “300,000 more,” he went to Albany to join the 113^th New York. Whether by accident or design, he enlisted on his twenty-ninth birthday, August 2, 1862. In April 1864, long after his regiment had been re-designated as heavy artillery, he received a commissioned to first lieutenant of Battery L.

When Mather awoke during the predawn hours of June 3, 1864, he discovered that his regiment had disappeared. While he was asleep, the 7^th New York—and the entire division with it—had marched south along the Dispatch Station Road where the corps commander, Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock, positioned it to spearhead the assault against the Confederate earthworks near the McGehee farm. Frantically, Mather searched for his missing unit. Luckily, a freed slave happened to notice where Brig. Gen. Francis Barlow’s division (to which the 7^th New York belonged) had gone. Rushing southward, Mather found his unit in line of battle, just minutes away from receiving the order to charge. When he arrived, Mather apologized profusely to his battery commander, Captain James Kennedy, for sleeping through the “fall in” order.

As he apologized, Mather saw the corps commander, Maj. Gen. Hancock, consulting with his two divisional commanders, Brig. Gen. Barlow and Brig. Gen. John Gibbon. Hancock explained, “General Barlow, you will carry the enemy’s works, and General Gibbon, you will support General Barlow.” It was then that Mather wished he was still asleep. He realized his regiment was about to lead the Army of the Potomac’s latest assault. He recalled what happened next, “It was beyond the gray of the morning, but not quite sun-up, when we moved through the thin strip of woods, and, coming into the open, saw the enemy’s works, and with a hearty cheer we charged them.”

Moving west over the Dispatch Station Road, the soldiers of the 7^th New York Heavy Artillery saw a redoubt crowning the top of a steep knoll. This was Edgar’s Salient, occupied by the 26^th Virginia Battalion and Captain William Caskie’s Virginia battery. The enemy gunners savaged the New Yorkers as they clambered toward the redoubt. Thrice, the 7^th New York’s color bearer fell, and each time, the flag was picked up by a new volunteer. A piece of shell struck Mather’s scabbard, destroying it, and another bounced off his left hip, spinning him around. It left behind an ugly bruise, but otherwise, it did not disable him. “The air seemed buoyant and we were flying!” recalled Mather in 1896. “The hill became so steep that the grape and canister they were giving us went over our heads with a ‘swish,’ much as a charge of fine shot goes among a flock of blackbirds.”

In the next instant, the New Yorkers were on top of their foe. Hand-to-hand combat broke along the line, as Colonel George M. Edgar’s Virginians futilely defended their position. A vicious brawl erupted around the 26^th Virginia’s colors, and by the time it was over, the flag was torn from the staff, taken by 22-year-old Irish-born Corporal Terrence Begley of Battery D, who was later killed at Ream’s Station. Four months after his death, Begley received the Medal of Honor for his heroics at Cold Harbor.

All along the line, clusters of Confederate soldiers began surrendering to the New Yorkers, raising white handkerchiefs and imploring the heavy artillerymen to spare them. Standing near the color guard, Lieutenant Mather watched in horror as a rebel aimed his rifle, firing it point blank into the nearest Union soldier. When the Confederate threw down his weapon and said, “I surrender,” the color guard offered him no mercy. The bearer of the flag (the fourth one of the day) thrust the steel lance-head (which capped the top the staff) directly into the Confederate’s mouth, pinning him to the ground. As the luckless Confederate’s blood spilled onto the earthworks, the New Yorker snarled, “You spoke too late!”

As the New Yorkers herded their prisoners to the rear—who numbered in the hundreds—some of the more enterprising soldiers began turning Caskie’s cannon around to use them on the retreating Virginians. Captain Kennedy, the commander of Battery L, put his shoulders against the wheel of one of the abandoned guns. As he did so, a Confederate soldier emerged from a “rat hole” (a nickname for a soldier-sized bombproof) and leveled his musket. Lieutenant Mather promptly drew his pistol and fired, which changed the Confederate’s mind. He threw down his weapon and surrendered.

For the next fifteen minutes, the 7^th New York continued to collect prisoners. So many of Edgar’s men had surrendered that the 7^th New York had to perform cursory provost duty to corral them all. With a dozen men, Mather went from rat hole to rat hole, forcing frightened Virginians out from their covers. As this prisoner-collection proceeded, it became evident that no other troops had accompanied the 7^th New York over the works. (Only one other regiment, the 5^th New Hampshire—a regiment that contained a mix of veterans, drafted men, and substitutes—had entered Edgar’s redoubt.)

In the end, none of the promised reinforcements came to the assistance of the New Yorkers. Lt. Col. John Hastings, the 7^th New York’s second-in-command, complained, “The 7^th was in the advance, and was to be strongly supported. We advanced and carried the works under a terrific fire, but no support came up.” Hastings, like many others in his regiment, blamed Gibbon’s division (and a portion of Barlow’s division alongside it) for failing to advance. The initial fire from Edgar’s Salient had been so severe that Gibbon’s men had simply lied down and refused to move. Hastings continued, “So disastrous was the fire that the oldest veterans quailed before it and could not be urged forward.”

It didn’t take long for the Confederates to realize they could take advantage of the 7^th New York’s exposed position. With alacrity, nearby reserves closed the hole opened up by the heavy artillerymen. Brig. Gen. Joseph Finegan’s Florida brigade moved into the yawning gap at Edgar’s Salient. When this new threat emerged, the New Yorkers discovered they possessed insufficient time to reform their lines, and as Lt. Mather related, “in our broken form we could not resist them.” The New Yorkers fell back across the ground over which they had earlier charged, and when they reached at the edge of the woods where they had started, they found Gibbon’s division lying there, face down in the grass with bayonets fixed.

Worst of all, during the retreat, the 7^th New York lost its colors. Sometime during the retreat, the last color bearer (the one who had stabbed the surrendering Confederate in the mouth) fell dead. Frantic in his efforts to recover the flag, Lt. Mather took his twelve-man squad and went looking for it. But it proved to be a futile effort; it was too dangerous for Mather to keep his men between the hostile lines. Battery L’s other first lieutenant, Thomas J. McClure of West Troy, New York, returned to friendly lines around the same time as Mather, but with no soldiers under his command. Furious that the colors could not be found and that McClure seemed to have lost an entire section of the Battery, Captain Kennedy arose from his position behind Gibbon’s men and began berating McClure. For several minutes, the two officers stood quarreling. When bullets started to fall closely, Mather attempted to stop the argument, screaming, “Gentlemen, for God’s sake! Lie down!” He had just put his hand on McClure’s shoulder when a case shot burst twenty feet away. A chunk of metal the size of a human hand struck McClure in the arm, severing it, and then it passed through the unfortunate officer’s chest, killing him.

The shrapnel didn’t stop there. The whirling piece of metal exited McClure’s back and hit Captain Kennedy in the left thigh. Mather immediately pulled out a handkerchief, and using a stray bayonet, applied a tourniquet to Kennedy’s leg. Calling over two men, he ordered them to escort Captain Kennedy to the rear. This was the last that Mather ever saw of him; Captain Kennedy left the field draped over the shoulders of those two helpful soldiers. (Incidentally, Kennedy recovered from his wound, but he was captured at the Battle of Ream’s Station, August 25, 1864. On September 10, he died of the effects of typhoid fever at Libby Prison.) Then, gathering four men, Mather commenced burying the shattered remains of Lieutenant McClure.

For the rest of the day, the fighting sputtered at long range. As most Civil War buffs know, the Confederates repelled all the June 3 attacks made by the Army of the Potomac. The Union losses were so great that, in his memoirs, Lt. Gen. Grant expressed regret for ordering it forward, saying it was the one assault he wished he could take back.

Perhaps it is less well known that, in spite of the army-wide disaster, one of Grant’s regiments had, indeed, broken the Confederate line. With characteristic élan, 7^th New York Heavy Artillery surged over Edgar’s Salient, routing the defenders. Unfortunately, the reserve line under Brig. Gen. Gibbon didn’t rush in to assist the victorious heavy artillerymen. Grant’s one opportunity to exploit the breakthrough at Cold Harbor evaporated because his most experienced soldiers, as a collective, refused to advance.

After the battle, Lt. Fred Mather expressed disappointment in those veterans. Mather’s regiment had done its duty, but the veterans in the second line had not done theirs. In Mather’s opinion, the veterans of the 2^nd Corps had left the heavy artillerymen out in the cold. It had to be a bitter feeling. Years later, Mather recalled, “It has been said that our regiment was the only one that broke the enemy’s line that day; if so, we paid dearly for that honor.”

Mather was right. The June 3 attack at Cold Harbor cost the 7^th New York 385 officers and men: 65 killed, 52 mortally wounded, 197 wounded, and 71 missing.

While the rest of the Army of the Potomac went to ground, the 7^th New York proved that it came to Cold Harbor to fight. No one could justifiably call it a “band box” regiment ever again.

This sketch by Alfred Waud depicts the 7th New York Heavy Artillery in its brief moment of triumph as it captured Edgar's Salient, June 3, 1864. Col. Lewis O. Morris can be seen dead center, middle distance, pointing at his men.

Here's the modern day location of the 7th New York Heavy Artillery's attack of June 3, 1864. Like the Alsop farm engagement, this battlefield is presently on private land.

“For God’s Sake! Have Those Men Lie Down!” The Life and Death of the 7th New York Heavy Artillery, Part 1.

As my dedicated readers know, I’m a fan of publishing my blog posts as a series. I believe Tales from the Army of the Potomac lends itself to the telling of multiple, interlocking stories. Consequently, this post is going to be the start of another long set. I’d like to tell the tale of one of the Army of the Potomac’s “heavy artillery” regiments, the 7^th New York.

Most Civil War buffs have heard the general story of the heavy artillery regiments. In 1862, under Abraham Lincoln’s call for “300,000 more,” the northern states recruited a slew of regiments to occupy the ring of earthworks that encircled Washington, D.C. For two years, the “heavies” occupied the defenses of the nation’s capital, and then, in mid-May 1864, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant ordered them armed and equipped as infantry and integrated into the ranks of the Army of the Potomac. 

Unsurprisingly, the Army of the Potomac’s veterans did not welcome the newly-arrived heavy artillerymen with open arms. Quite the contrary, they universally derided them as “band box soldiers,” recruits who had sat out the war inside the comparatively safe confines of Washington City. When they arrived at the front, the veterans often sneered at them, calling them “Abe’s Pets” or “Paper Collar Boys.” One heavy artillery officer recalled that, as soon as his regiment joined the Army of the Potomac, “We were frequently saluted by the old campaigners near whose camps we passed, with ‘What division is that?’ ‘How are your heavy Infantry?’ ‘What’s the size of your siege guns?’ ‘How are the fortifications?’ and other equally pointed and aggravating interrogations, to all of which the men either turned deaf ear or replied with becoming emphasis.”

Clearly, when the heavy artillery regiments joined the Army of the Potomac, they had yet to earn their place in it. Further, that place had to be earned in blood. This is the story of one particular heavy artillery regiment—Albany’s 7^th New York—which fought as part of Brig. Gen. Francis Barlow’s 1^st Division, 2^nd Corps. By the end of the Overland Campaign, the 7^th New York Heavy Artillery had bled itself dry. In May 1864, it departed for the seat of war with 1,850 men on its roster, but it returned only 381 survivors at its muster-out in August 1865. 

As you might imagine, the 7^th New York Heavy Artillery felt the rampaging maw of the Overland Campaign like no other Union unit. One of Albany’s newspaper correspondents said simply, without much exaggeration: “No regiment in the Army of the Potomac can show a brighter record, or one which has suffered equal to the 7th since it went to the front.”

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First, we have a few questions to answer.

How did the 7^th New York Heavy Artillery come into existence and how did it experience its first battle?

First of all, the 7^th New York Heavy Artillery began the war under a different name. When it entered into federal service, the War Department called it the 113^th New York Infantry. (However, popularly, it was known by locals as the “Albany Regiment.” All ten of its companies were recruited in the city or in the adjoining county.) Recruitment for the 113^th New York began on July 18, 1862, and due to its popularity (and also due to a generous enlistment bounty), the regiment filled to capacity in exactly one month’s time. On August 18, 1862, the recruits took the federal oath of allegiance, mustering into the service of the United States. The next day, August 19, the regiment paraded through the streets of the city as an excited populace bid the men farewell. A newspaper reporter commented: “Ten thousand men and women lined the streets through which the regiment passed. No equally intense enthusiasm has marked the departure of any regiment, since the war began, and no finer body of men ever went to the tented field of any country.”

At the docks along the Hudson River, the new soldiers loaded onto barracks barges towed by USS Hendrick Hudson, a captured Confederate blockade runner formerly known as CSS Florida. After a long trek down the river, the regiment landed at Jersey City, where the soldiers received a batch of Springfield rifled-muskets. While the troops were briefly quartered there, news reached them that the Army of the Potomac was in pursuit of Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, which was then wreaking havoc in Maryland. 

Having received their weapons, the soldiers of the 113^th expected to be sent to the front, to join the Army of the Potomac in the midst of the Maryland Campaign. But instead of entering the fray at Antietam, the War Department cautiously rerouted the entire regiment to the defenses of Washington. Once there, the 113^th New York occupied a structure called Fort Pennsylvania (later renamed Fort Reno) in Tennallytown, a neighborhood on the northwest side of Washington D.C. For the next three months, the regiment performed guard duty along the parapet walls, and apparently, it did such a stellar job that the War Department intended to keep it there permanently. Thus, in mid-December, the federal government converted the 113^th regiment into heavy artillery, and at that point, it took on its new name. For the next seventeen months, the 7^th New York Heavy Artillery stayed in place, protecting its sector of the Washington earthworks. Over those months, the regiment grew in size. Not only did it gain two additional batteries—L and M—but the individual batteries themselves (the former companies) swelled with new recruits until the regiment contained more than 1,800 men.

The 7^th New York Heavy Artillery’s sentry duty came to a sudden end on May 12, 1864. That day, as the Army of the Potomac pummeled the Mule Shoe Salient at Spotsylvania Court House, Lt. Gen. Ulysses Grant directed the Department of Washington to send 10,000 reinforcements to Virginia. The departmental commander, Maj. Gen. Christopher C. Augur, ordered thirteen heavy artillery regiments to arm themselves as infantry and prepare to march.

The 7^th New York Heavy Artillery set out for its new assignment on May 15, 1864. That day, the regiment made a tiresome march to Belle Plains. It rested near the steamboat landing for a day and then joined a makeshift division commanded by Brig. Gen. Robert O. Tyler. Together with the 1^st Maine, 1^st Massachusetts, and the 2^nd and 8^th New York Heavy Artillery, the 7^th New York marched south, reaching the Army of the Potomac’s battlefield encampment at midnight, May 18. The exhausted troops flung themselves onto the fields adjacent to the Fredericksburg Road, not far from the Ni River. Nearby was a farm owned by a man named Clement Harris.

The 7^th New York saw its first combat the very next day, May 19. Tyler’s division deployed northwest of the Clement Harris and Susan Alsop farms, with orders to act as a rear guard, protecting the Fredericksburg Road. At 3 P.M., Lee’s Confederates assaulted the Union wagon trains that were moving south in the direction of Massaponax Church. Two gray-clad divisions—one under Maj. Gen. Robert H. Rodes and another under Maj. Gen. John B. Gordon—tested their luck against the Union rear guard. Of course, the Confederates had no idea they would be fighting against newly-arrived troops. Merely, they wanted a chance to plunder the valuable supply vehicles.

Although they had been part of the Army of the Potomac for less than a day, the heavy artillery units were rushed to scene of the fighting. One of Grant’s staff officers, Lt. Col. Horace Porter, discovered that Tyler’s heavy artillery regiments were perfectly positioned to intercept the Confederate attack. Approaching General Tyler, who he knew personally, Porter said, “Tyler, you are in luck today. It isn’t every one who has a chance to make such a debut on joining an army. You are certain to knock a brevet out of this day’s fight.” Tyler reminded Porter that his troops were raw, but nevertheless, claimed to have faith in their fighting abilities. The heavy artillerymen had been drilling relentlessly for the past two years. The Confederates would soon be on the receiving end of that rigorous discipline.

Following Grant’s orders, Tyler’s division deployed for battle. The 7^th New York took up a position near Susan Alsop’s farm, marching west into a dense fir thicket. Soon, bullets began whizzing in, clipping tree branches and causing the men to duck and weave. Unfortunately, as they closed with the enemy, the New Yorkers suffered from the dissemination of incorrect information. Word passed along the line that another friendly unit stood between them and the oncoming foe. 

Remembered Lieutenant Frederick Mather, “We  . . . were told not to fire because several lines of our own men were ahead of us.” But no friendly unit actually existed. The only human beings ahead of them were Brig. Gen. Stephen D. Ramseur’s North Carolinians. The Confederates pushed their way through the fir thicket and right into the 7^th New York. The first time the New Yorkers saw their foe, they seemed to rise “as if out of the ground and gave us a volley in our faces.” Not expecting to encounter enemy forces so soon, the New Yorkers were caught by surprise.

A soon as the first well-aimed Confederate volley struck them, the New Yorkers broke and ran. “That fresh troops should break under such circumstances was only natural,” recalled Lieutenant Mather of Battery L, “and we did.” The rout was chaotic, to say the least, and the Union line dissolved quickly, the soldiers running zig-zagged to avoid colliding with the thick tree trunks and the low-hanging evergreen branches.

Luckily for the Army of the Potomac (and for the 7^th New York’s reputation) the regiment’s rout was short lived. The density of the thicket prevented the Confederates from pursuing. On the south side of the Alsop Farm, the 7^th New York’s two senior commanders, Colonel Lewis O. Morris and Lt. Col. John Hastings, managed to rally their fleeing troops. According to Lt. Mather, Colonel Morris rode along the line, chastising them: “Men, don’t let the news of this break get back to Albany!”

These exhortations worked. The heavy artillerymen reformed their lines and moved back into action. Although slightly shaken, they plunged into the woods and opened fire. Lieutenant Mather expressed surprise that his regiment could recover its courage so quickly. He remembered, “We were cooler now. We had been under fire and most of us had lived through it. We went forward as steadily as the wild forest would permit, passing obstacles like the well-drilled men that we were, and this baptism of fire was all that was needed to make us soldiers.”

The sight of 1,800 Union troops storming into the woods forced the Confederates to rethink their decision to plunder the Union wagon train. Not expecting to encounter fresh troops—especially in such awe-inspiring numbers—the rebels soon realized they had bitten off more than they could chew. All along the line, the other heavy artillery regiments gave as good as they got, forcing the Confederates to give way. Wisely, Rodes’s and Gordon’s men fell back toward Spotsylvania. Although the fight at the Harris and Alsop farms were largely inconclusive, the heavy artillerymen claimed victory, for they could accurately say they had driven the enemy from the field.

However, not every observer believed the 7^th New York Heavy Artillery had conducted its first battle wisely. A Union sharpshooter, Corporal Wyman S. White, found himself passing the 7^th New York as he ambled his way to the rear to refill his ammunition. As he watched the 7^th New York surge into the thicket (presumably the second time), he recollected, “As soon as they got over the hill so the Johnnies could see them, they opened fire on them from their pickets. The men were hit in considerable numbers. Still the colonel, who did not seem to notice that his men were being killed, was making strenuous efforts to keep the line straight. As the men advanced, a heavy infantry fire from the Rebels was almost slaughter. The colonel dismounted about this time but failed to do the right thing by ordering a charge or open fire on the rebels.” According to White, the whole scene “made me disgusted with the idea of perfection in drill of soldiers.”

As White told it, he alone saved the 7^th New York from further losses. Unable to keep quiet, White shouted, “For God’s sake, have those men lie down!” Heeding Corporal White’s advice, the regiment went prone, the colonel included. At some point, a staff officer came up and informed the commander—presumably Colonel Lewis—that he should advance upon the enemy quickly, even if the line was not straight.

As White later relayed, “Any veteran body of troops in the same circumstances that the Seventh was in on that hill would have gone over and down that hill like an avalanche and carried their objective if possible. Or, in case they were repulsed, they would take advantage of the ground and cover of tree and rock to cover them from the fire of the enemy. Thousands in that corps of heavy artillery lost their lives through the inexperience of their officers and the intense discipline of the men.”

According to statistics, we should consider White’s harsh opinion to be an accurate one. The 7^th New York’s attack at the Alsop Farm had been a costly endeavor. At the end of the day, the regiment counted up 76 losses. Sixteen officers or enlisted men had been killed or mortally wounded. Another 51 were reported wounded and seven were listed missing. 

The Battle of the Alsop Farm had lasted about three hours—from 3 to 6 o’clock. During that bloody interlude, the 7^th New York had paid dearly. A war correspondent guessed why:

In these murderous wood fights, our veterans have learned all the devices that are calculated to shelter them from fire, and will lie down and take advantage of trees, stumps, &c., but the heavy artillery braves, unused to this kind of craft, the moment they saw the enemy, blazed away and rushed on. In consequence of this, their loss was quite heavy, and probably reached 1,000 in killed and wounded. Perhaps it was also in consequence of our heavy artillerymen’s proved courage, unused to this style of attack and not exactly understanding it, that the Rebels gave way in confusion, scattering through the woods. . . . The division of raw troops feel immensely tickled at their success, and although their loss has been heavy, it is felt that the diminution of numbers is made up by the increase of morale.

Perhaps the heavy artillerymen brought with them an important asset: ignorance. With no knowledge of what a Civil War battle looked like, they knew not why they should be afraid of one.

But that ignorance could be dangerous, as Corporal White aptly observed. Unafraid of battle, many good men died because they lacked the good sense to lie down.

There are no known photographs of the 7th New York Heavy Artillery in the field. So, I have to rely on a similar image to illustrate this post. This photograph depicts six soldiers from Battery D, 4th New York Heavy Artillery. They are operating from a battery on the outskirts of Arlington, Virginia. Like the 7th New York, the 4th New York joined the Army of the Potomac in the midst of the Overland Campaign. One battalion joined the 2nd Corps, another went to the 5th Corps, and a third battalion went to the 6th Corps.

This is Corporal Wyman S. White, Co. F, 2nd U.S. Sharpshooters. On May 19, 1864, he observed the 7th New York Heavy Artillery as it entered its first battle. He was unimpressed.

The present-day location of the 7th New York Heavy Artillery's first engagement is on private property, east of the NPS property owned by Fredericksburg/Spotsylvania National Military Park. I've marked the approximate position of the regiment's attack.

Rebel Barbarities: The Battle of West Point, Part 3.

“Rebel Barbarities!”

In the month of May 1862, northern newspapers were filled with headlines describing atrocities committed by the Confederate forces. The Battle of West Point—May 7, 1862—had produced a depressing butcher’s bill. Union forces took the worst beating. After the battle, Major General William B. Franklin’s division counted up 50 killed, 113 wounded, and 28 missing (for a total of 191). By contrast, the Confederates commanded by Chase Whiting had lost only 8 killed and 40 wounded.

However, the news surrounding one particular casualty provoked white-hot outrage from the people of the North. His name was Private Francis Mummery. He belonged to Company G, 16^th New York. Mummery had enlisted in Potsdam, New York, at age 20. When the fighting began at 9 A.M., Mummery was wounded and left behind by his retreating comrades. Confederates belonging to John Bell Hood’s Texas Brigade occupied the ground, and sometime around mid-afternoon, they killed him. After the Confederates retreated to Barhamsville, Mummery’s regiment reoccupied the position. There, they recovered Mummery’s remains, and what they saw shocked them.

Mummery had been executed. Using a Bowie knife, the Confederates who captured him had slit his throat. Not only that, but to hide the crime, they took his body and tossed it into a marsh. (Most likely, they tossed it into the swampy ground at the edge of Davis Pond near where it meets present-day state route 273, or Farmer’s Drive.)

The New Yorkers reported this war crime to their commander, Colonel Joseph Howland, who, in turn, reported it to his brigade commander, Brig. Gen. John Newton. Newton’s report summarized Mummery’s murder this way: “The enemy committed inhuman barbarities upon some of the wounded. One was found with his throat cut, and another bore the marks of eight bayonet stabs in his body.” Years later, the 16^th New York’s unit history repeated the same story almost verbatim: “One of the Sixteenth had his throat cut and another had not less than seven bayonet stabs on his body; neither of these had otherwise fatal wounds, and all of the dead and wounded were stripped of their valuables and clothing. Comment is unnecessary.”

The story of Mummery’s throat-cutting took off like wildfire. Members of the 16^th New York wrote to local newspapers, making it clear that a crime had been committed. For instance, Major Joel J. Seaver wrote to a local newspaper, saying, “Many of the dead and wounded left on the field were stripped of portions of their clothing, their pockets rifled of valuables, and, in one case, the most horrid barbarities perpetrated on that person, as that of Mummery, whose throat was cut and body thrown into a marsh. Our men behaved well and all are eager to avenge the death of their comrades.”

Newspapers across the nation picked up the story, and as per their usual style, embellished it. For instance, take this account from the Daily Pittsburgh Gazette and Commercial Journal. It read:

The murdering of our wounded men by the rebels has infuriated our regiments. Several of them held meetings this morning and furiously resolved never to take prisoners. General Franklin discussed the propriety of exposing the mutilated bodies of our murdered men to the whole army, but the order has not been issued. I am informed that the Texans gave water to our wounded and covered them with blankets, comforting them with the assurance that ‘their friends would soon be after them.’ But members of the Hampton Legion—composed of South Carolina ‘gentlemen’—cursed our mangled men with bitter oaths, boasting that they had ‘cut the throats’ of sundry d—d Yankees.

Obviously, there were a few exaggerations in the above passage. Hampton’s Legion did not commit the killing of Mummery. It was the 4^th Texas, the unit this writer identified as giving water to the Union wounded. Further, there is no way General Franklin considered putting Mummery’s body on display. Such an act would have been in utterly bad taste, and no soldier in the Union army ever mentioned such an unsightly event happening. But like many gullible war correspondents, this one believed salacious rumors and printed them as fact.

Memory of Mummery’s throat-cutting faded from the collective consciousness as bigger news stories supplanted it—and the months of June and July 1862 provided no shortage of earth-shaking headlines. But for the rest of the war, veterans of Franklin’s Division always believed that Confederates had committed a heinous crime at Brick House Point. In the minds of the bluecoats, any soldier who slit the throat of a wounded man was no soldier at all; he was a savage.

However, seven years after the Battle of West Point, new information muddied the picture the Union veterans had created about Mummery’s death. In February 1869, General Newton M. Curtis—who had once served as captain of Mummery’s company—was traveling on a steamship across the Gulf of Mexico. While on board, he met two veterans who once belonged to Hood’s Texas Brigade. Curtis, who had long wondered about the particulars of Mummery’s death, asked the Texans if they remembered anything unusual about the Battle of West Point. One man said that nothing unusual happened, but then the other burst out, “That was the place where we cut the Yank’s throat!”

Not knowing that Curtis had been Mummery’s commander, the Texan proceeded to explain what had happened. He claimed the men of the 4^th Texas had found Mummery wounded and unable to stand. A cluster of Texans leveled their guns at him and demanded his surrender. Promptly, Mummery drew out a seven-shot pistol. (Apparently, before their regiment left New York, dozens of enlisted soldiers in the 16^th New York had been armed with pistols, donations from well-meaning citizens. When the regiment reached Alexandria, an order required all of them to relinquish their side arms. Mummery refused and kept his pistol.) 

Mummery began firing and each one of his shots hit a Confederate soldier, adding to the pile of dead and wounded men around him. (Presumably, he didn’t kill that many. If the Confederates lost only eight men during the whole battle, Mummery could not have killed every Texan at which he aimed.) Livid that Mummery had dispatched another seven men, the Texans believed he needed to die violently. The Texas veteran speaking to Newton Curtis continued his story: “It was thought that a wounded man, whose line of battle had been driven from the field, and who thereafter continued to fight on his own account, deserved to be summarily dealt with, so we cut his throat.”

No doubt alarmed by this confession, Curtis considered the Texan’s statement and concluded that it made some sense. In other instances in world military history, men who refused to surrender received no mercy. But beyond a passing thought, Curtis made no further comment about it in his 1906 memoir—which was a bit strange for him, since he usually stated his opinion about controversial incidents with relative ease.

Perhaps the Texans had a legitimate reason for ending Mummery’s life the way they did, but the reality of what happened was far less important than the life the story had taken in the battle’s aftermath. In cutting Mummery’s throat, the Confederates had sealed their reputation in the minds of many northerners, who were only too ready to believe the worst about people who hailed from a slave-holding civilization. As soon as the southerners gave them the evidence they needed, it became the only way northerners judged them: as a malevolent, barbarous people. 

But one last thought should go here. Did the soldiers of the 16^th New York ever retaliate? 

Well the answer to that is, “no. ” Near as I can tell, the soldiers from Franklin’s division never submitted to base impulses. As angry as they were, they committed no eye-for-an-eye reprisals against the Confederates. They did not slit the throats of prisoners. They let restraint—not vengeance—guide their future endeavors.

Comment is unnecessary.

Here's a newspaper article from Pennsylvania that depicted the spreading of the throat-cutting rumor from the Battle of West Point.

This illustration depicts the Battle of West Point (or Eltham's Landing), May 7, 1862. The image is a little inaccurate. You can see Confederate fortifications in the distance. None existed. 

It's tricky to pinpoint where Pvt. Mummery had his throat cut, but I'm guessing it happened here, along present-day VA Route 273. It's also the location where Cpl. George Love almost killed John Bell Hood.

The Lucky and the Luckless: The Battle of West Point, Part 2.

In the previous post, I introduced my readers to a little-known battle called West Point. Particularly, I discussed the confusing skirmish that started the battle.

For this post, I’d like to talk about another incident from that fight. It involves two men: a brave, but lucky, Union officer who survived a terrible chest wound and an equally brave, but luckless, Union private who dragged him off the field. This story involves anger, crying, forgiveness, Abraham Lincoln’s only tall-person joke, and the Medal of Honor.

Strap yourself in for this one!

But first, I should say a few things about how the Battle of West Point unfolded. On May 7, 1862, Maj. Gen. William Franklin’s Division had one goal: to protect the vital beachhead it had claimed the previous day. Originally, Franklin had hoped to move his troops southward to Barhamsville and Burnt Ordinary, but he wisely scrapped that plan when, the night before, he learned of the presence of Confederate troops. Every single one of his regiments deployed skirmishers, and all morning, so recalled a member of the 32^nd New York, they kept a “sharp lookout for the enemy, who were now believed to be in close proximity to our line.”

Franklin’s Division was well poised to defend itself. Although it stood with its back against the York River, it numbered 11,000 officers and men and it had the support of five U.S. Navy gunboats whose crews could lend fire-support from the river. If the Confederates attacked, the Yanks could give them a warm welcome.

As things stood, the Confederates belonging to Brig. Gen. Chase Whiting’s division had no idea where the Union line actually stood. Although General Joe Johnston had given orders for Whiting’s men to “feel out” the enemy position, Whiting’s men carelessly wandered into Union skirmish line, making it impossible to maintain momentum.

The Confederate cavalry didn’t do Whiting’s men any favors. Some of them had fallen asleep at their vedette posts the night before and did nothing to guide Whiting’s infantrymen when they came passing through. Brig. Gen. John Bell Hood nearly lost his life because of poor reconnaissance. Around 9 A.M., Hood found several Confederate cavalry scouts asleep at their posts. Paying them no mind, he marched his brigade through the line of vedettes, stopping only when he encountered Union skirmishers. As Hood remembered it, “I did not discover the Federals till they were almost close enough to shake hands.” A wide-eyed Union corporal leveled his weapon at Hood, demanding his surrender! Having a quick choice to make, surrender or run for it, Hood leaped from his horse and ordered, “Forward into line!”

Hood’s lead regiment, the 4^th Texas, began changing formation, going from column into line-of-battle. The men hastily loaded their muskets as they made the tricky change of formation. (Earlier in the morning, Hood had given orders to march with unloaded weapons. Now, as stared down the barrel of a Union rifle, he greatly regretted that decision.) As Hood frantically watched his line form, the Union soldier who accosted him—Corporal George J. Love of the 16^th New York—drew a bead on him. For an instant, it looked as if Hood’s number was up. Luckily, one of his men had defied orders and marched the entire way to Brick House Point with a loaded weapon. He fired upon Corporal Love, killing him, and saved his commander’s life.

With that, the Battle of West Point was on.

Hood’s brigade deployed in full line of battle, pushing back two companies from the 16^th New York, a regiment recruited in St. Lawrence and Clinton Counties. Companies F and G (from the towns of Potsdam and De Peyster), fought hard, giving way stubbornly. Between them, they numbered three officers and 102 enlisted men. During the battle, the New Yorkers lost six killed, eleven wounded, and two captured.

One of the wounded was the captain of Company G, Newton Martin Curtis. If you’ve done any extensive reading on the Civil War, you’ve probably bumped into him before. One thing that set Captain Curtis apart from most officers was his enormous size. He was huge. He stood at 6’7’’ and weighed over 225 pounds. Famously, when he met Abraham Lincoln, who was three inches shorter than him, the President mocked him for his gargantuan height, asking, “How do you know when your feet are cold?” (Apparently, Lincoln used this joke on several other freakishly tall Union soldiers. I suspect it was his only “tall-guy” joke.) Later on, after Curtis had been wounded, one of his nurses, Katherine Prescott Wormeley, remarked, “He is said to measure six feet seven inches,—and I believe it, looking at him as he lies on a cot pieced out at the foot with two chairs.”

At West Point, Captain Curtis was wounded by a ball that ripped through his chest. Somehow, he survived. Although the wound appeared mortal, it did not strike his heart, his arteries, or any of his ribs. Undoubtedly, Curtis was lucky—very lucky—to be alive. Curtis was immediately transported from the Brick House Point beachhead on a hospital ship—first on the William Small and then on the Knickerbocker—and on May 18, he arrived at the Fairfax Street Hospital in Alexandria.

By May 23, Curtis was already feeling better. His doctor wrote, “The captain has been walking about his room all day and talks of having a carriage tomorrow and taking a drive. . . . He is lively and jovial as ever, can get out of bed and walk without staggering.” One day, an acquaintance, Chaplain Henry Hopkins remarked, “Captain Curtis, I am sure that the Lord has some great work for you to perform, else he would not have preserved your life when you were so seriously wounded.” Far less religious, Curtis replied, “Chaplain, I am inclined to the opinion that the Lord will not call upon me to undertake the service you suggest until after sixty days [the duration of his medical leave] have passed.” Curtis knew that divine hands had less to do with his recuperation than the assistance of the brave soldier who had carried him from the field at the critical moment.

In July, Curtis caught a fever, which left him bed-ridden for several weeks, but he rejoined his regiment in time for the Maryland Campaign. A few days later, he left the 16^th New York to receive the lieutenant colonelcy of the 142^nd New York. Curtis went on to become a brigade commander and he fought on the Bermuda Hundred Peninsula, at New Market Heights, and at Fort Fisher. At the latter battle, he was wounded four times, but he led his men over the works and he was among the first Union soldiers to pass through the heavily-defended stockade gate. Curtis ended the war as a brevet major general, and after the war, he received the Medal of Honor for his actions at Fort Fisher. Later, he served as a treasury agent; for seven years, he served as state assemblyman; and after that, he served for two terms as a U.S. Congressman. Curtis died on January 8, 1910, at age 74, and he was buried in Ogdensburg, New York. Presently, there is a statue dedicated to him inside the Ogdensburg Cemetery.

Certainly, Newton Martin Curtis was a man made by the Civil War. Courageous and unstoppable, he ended the war as one of the Union army’s most acclaimed luminaries.

But, apparently, there was one soldier who didn’t think much of him—at least not initially. His name was Private George W. Wonless.

Back in 1861, while the 16^th New York was encamped at its winter quarters—dubbed Camp Franklin—Captain Curtis had a confrontation with this man, Private Wonless. The origins of the confrontation are a bit unclear, but apparently, Wonless, who was of Scottish descent, took umbrage when another Scottish soldier was tossed into the guardhouse for public intoxication. Wonless tried to get this soldier released, appealing to several officers, but to no avail. When Wonless spoke to the colonel about it, he used such foul language that the colonel had him arrested and tossed into the guardhouse as well. (Now, I should state that Curtis never identified this soldier by name, but it had to be Wonless, as he was the only soldier to fit the description. “Wonless,” or “Wanless” is a Scottish name. It means “luckless.” Hence, the title of this post.)

When he was finally released from arrest, Wonless was in a foul mood. He hated it that his company commander, Captain Curtis, had not intervened on his behalf, and when he left confinement, he vowed to transfer to another company. As Curtis recalled, “He had a strong disinclination to remain in my company, but bided his time for making his feelings known.” Eventually, in the spring of 1862, as the 16^th New York made preparations to move to the Peninsula, Wonless overheard Curtis sharing his opinion about the sluggish movements of the army, and he seized upon that opportunity to request a transfer. Specifically, Curtis had said that he was perfectly content to wait until the army’s generals issued their orders to move, but Wonless interpreted that sentiment as evidence of cowardice. Confronting him, Wonless said, “I wish to leave your company, because I do not believe that you wish to fight. I want to go with men who do.” Insulted by the insinuation, Curtis told Wonless he would not allow the transfer. He needed every man to perform all the necessary duties of the company. However, once battle was joined, Curtis agreed that Wonless might fall in with whatever company he pleased. Unsatisfied with that arrangement, Wonless departed in “bad humor.”

Wonless’s low opinion of Captain Curtis did not last. At the Battle of West Point, he had a transformation. As the fighting swirled in and out of the woods around Brick House Point, Wonless suddenly saw Curtis in a different light. Whatever qualities were destined to make Curtis into a future Medal of Honor recipient were now seen clearly by Wonless. As Captain Curtis fell, pierced in the chest by a rebel bullet, Wonless came to his rescue. Somehow, Wonless carried his hulking captain to safety. (Again, let me remind readers, Curtis weighed 225 pounds! It must have been no easy feat for Wonless to pick him up.) As the 16^th New York’s skirmishers gave way to Hood’s brigade, Wonless carried Curtis to safety.

For several hours, Curtis was kept inside a small cabin near the shoreline. At first glance, his wound appeared mortal. The surgeon who examined him informed him that he intended to put Curtis on a hospital transport as soon as possible, but most likely, his injury would soon end his life. All the while, Private Wonless stood outside the cabin, and overhearing the somber conversation, started to cry. The surgeon refused to let Wonless enter the cabin to say goodbye, but Wonless persistently remained outside the door, sobbing. Curtis recalled the next few moments: “When my attention was called to his weeping I requested that he be admitted. He came in, put his arms around my neck, and asked if I would forgive him for what he had said in Camp Franklin.”

Curtis never explained what happened next, but I assume he forgave his feisty Scottish recruit. Wonless had, after all, done something heroic, an action for which he might rightly deserve the yet-unknown Medal of Honor. In any event, the two soldiers reached an accord.

Two days later, the medical staff loaded Captain Curtis and the other wounded onto the steamer Wilson Small. Thus, Curtis began his road to recovery, a road that led him to generalship, to the U.S. Congress, and to the nation’s highest award for valor.

Curtis never saw Private George Wonless again. Six weeks later, Wonless was killed in action at the Battle of Gaines’s Mill. He was twenty-years-old.

Exactly one year after being wounded, on May 7, 1863, Colonel Curtis found himself on board a ship in the York River—in fact, he was on the very same ship that had deposited him at Brick House Landing during the Battle of West Point. Now, Curtis was commander of the 142^nd New York. While looking over the railing, he called over his adjutant, First Lieutenant Birney B. Keeler. Curtis recognized Brick House Point, and pointed out the spot to his adjutant. Keeler described what happened next:

On Wednesday the 7^th of May, 1862, was fought the battle of West Point. It is well known that the Col., then Captain Curtis of the 16^th, received a very severe wound there—one that well-nigh cost him his life—preventing him from re-joining his regiment till the army reached Harrison's Landing in July and then only to be taken with a fever and spend many weary weeks in hospital. One year from that very hour on Thursday, the 7^th day of May, 1863, I stood with him on the deck of the S. R. Spaulding—in which his regiment was embarked, and the very same on which his old regiment had arrived here the year before—while as we steamed past the exact spot, he pointed out the battle ground and the house where he had been carried still standing right by the shore. It was fitting indeed, that the anniversary of the day which came so near proving fatal to him, and on which he won his hard earned laurels, should find him in command of a battalion where before he had commanded a company, yet I thought the coincidence a sad one, for it brought to mind again the failures, the mismanagement, the disasters which have left the status of the armies in Virginia so nearly as it was one year ago.

As Colonel Curtis reflected on the Battle of West Point on its one-year anniversary, I hope he paid a passing thought to the young man who summoned the strength to carry him off the field—the feisty, the regretful, the “luckless” lad: George Wonless.

This photograph depicts Newton Martin Curtis in 1864 as brigadier general. During the Battle of West Point, he served as commander of Company G, 16th New York.

An Encounter in the Dark: The Battle of West Point, Part 1.

My next three posts will profile a little-known engagement, the Battle of West Point, or as the Confederates called it, Eltham’s Landing. It was fought on May 7, 1862, and resulted in 239 casualties. Although the butcher’s bill was fairly light—especially when compared to the blood-letting soon to occur near Richmond—it was long-remembered by its participants because it resulted in the first combat experience of Maj. Gen. William B. Franklin’s Division (soon to become the 1^st Division, 6^th Corps). It’s a fascinating little battle that involved an amphibious landing, Medal of Honor-level heroism, and a war crime.

But all that will be covered in future posts.

In this first installment, I’d like to tell the story of the first 6^th Corps soldier to fall in the battle, Lieutenant John L. Bailey. It happened this way: In the middle of the night, two Confederate scouts bumbled into two Union skirmishers and they exchanged fire. One member of each army fell dead, and this mortal exchange triggered heavier fighting on the following morning. In other words, Lieutenant Bailey fell during a nighttime encounter that served as the prelude to the larger battle.

What I find most interesting is that Union and Confederate accounts describing Bailey’s death tend to match up. That is to say, they explained the encounter in the exact same way. In fact, in the aftermath, the Confederates, too, mourned the death of their first to fall. In a way, the simultaneous deaths of Bailey and the Confederate soldier who fell next to him—Sergeant William Hartley—were mirror images of each other, two admirable men going down in a confused exchange of gunfire.

But before we launch into that story, let’s first explain why the Battle of West Point took place.

The Battle of West Point happened because, during the siege of Yorktown (April 4—May 4, 1862), Maj. Gen. George McClellan came up with an ingenious plan. Having lined up his artillery in preparation for the bombardment of Yorktown, McClellan ordered Franklin’s Division—11,000 strong—to depart on a flotilla of transports, sail up the York River, and land on a beach called Brick House Point. Nearby, there was a plantation called Eltham.  Thus, Confederate forces called the ensuing engagement the “Battle of Eltham’s Landing.”

If Franklin’s troops moved fast enough, they could move southward through Barhamsville and Burnt Ordinary and hit Joe Johnston’s army as it retreated through Williamsburg. If the plan worked as McClellan intended, the Army of the Northern Virginia might get caught between two Union forces and be smashed for good.

Of course, the plan didn’t work as Little Mac intended. Unexpectedly, the Confederate army didn’t hold its position. Before McClellan could unleash his bombardment against Yorktown, General Johnston pulled his army back through Williamsburg, leaving the Yankees as masters of the field. Fearing the graycoats might slip his grasp, McClellan promptly sent Maj. Gen. Samuel Heintzelman’s 3^rd Corps in pursuit. On May 5, the 3^rd Corps collided with the Confederates. At Williamsburg, they fought a hard battle, producing some 3,900 casualties and driving the Confederates from the city.

Meanwhile, on that same afternoon, Franklin’s division got to work. Those troops made haste for the newly-opened wharf at Yorktown. General Franklin reasoned that if his men reached Brick House Point by sundown, May 6, they might salvage McClellan’s plan and get in the Confederate rear. From the wharf at Yorktown, Franklin’s three brigades loaded onto transports and sailed upriver. 

Apparently, it was a beautiful voyage. From the deck of S. R. Spaulding, a New Yorker in Brig. Gen. Henry Slocum’s brigade recalled, “The journey was one that will never be forgotten by the soldiers of that command. The banks and sloping hills were green with the heavy foliage of May, and the beauty of the scene far exceeded anything before witnessed by the men on the soil of old Virginia.”

At first, it appeared as if Franklin’s troops arrived in time. At 3 P.M., May 6, the first of Franklin’s soldiers came ashore on pontoon boats, landing at Brick House Point, just opposite West Point. West Point was a small river town that occupied the spit of land between the Mattapony and Pamunkey Rivers. Its proximity to the landing zone caused the Union troops to call the ensuing engagement the Battle of West Point. The first regiment to come ashore—the 27^th New York—deployed as skirmishers. Meanwhile, the rest of the division hastened to build an artificial dock out of the pontoon boats.

Everything looked prosperous for Franklin’s Division. The bluecoats were exactly where they needed to be to strike the Confederate rear. A twelve-mile march might have put them at “Burnt Ordinary” (modern-day Toano) by midnight. If they made the nighttime trek, they would be astride the Confederate line of retreat.

Unfortunately, Franklin’s men discovered they weren’t alone at Brick House Point. To their surprise, they discovered that Joe Johnston had dispatched Brig. Gen. Chase Whiting’s division—11,000 strong—to Barhamsville, just six miles south of the beachhead. Johnston had not intended to counterattack, but merely wanted to use Barhamsville as a line of retreat from Williamsburg. However, once Johnston learned of the presence of Franklin’s Division ahead of him, he felt it wise to brush it aside. Although he told General Whiting to “feel out” the Union beachhead, the Confederates under Whiting’s command made an aggressive attack. They attempted to drive the Union troops back into the York River.

The 27^th New York—a regiment recruited in Broome, Monroe, and Livingston Counties—detected the Confederate presence. As the New York skirmishers trudged into the dense woods southeast of Eltham, they captured two soldiers belonging to the 5^th Texas. (Apparently, one of the prisoners was very tall and the other was very short, which made their capture especially comical.) Upon hearing this, General Franklin decided (perhaps wisely) to hold his position until the size of the enemy threat could be determined. With little daylight remaining, he ordered a strong picket line advanced into the woods, while the rest of his troops bedded for the night.

The soldiers of 27^th New York received no opportunity to sleep. They remained on alert all evening. In the darkness, it didn’t take long for Union and Confederate skirmishers to make contact with each other. At midnight, Second Lieutenant John L. Bailey of Company D was trooping his line of pickets. He had just stopped to speak to one of them, Corporal Henry Crocker, when he heard footsteps approaching. Both he and Crocker grabbed rifles. (Bailey, who was an officer, normally did not carry a rifle, but he grabbed one from Crocker’s file-mate, who was lying down).

Bailey shouted, “Halt! Who comes there?”

Two shadowy figures emerged from the brush. Both of them were Confederates. They raised their muskets. Two shots rang out. Only Crocker and one of the Confederates had fired, but both of them hit their targets. Crocker killed a Confederate sergeant by shooting him through the neck, and the other shadowy figure (who happened to be Private John Cussons of the 4^th Alabama) killed Lieutenant Bailey. Struck in the heart, Bailey died instantly. He was twenty-six-years-old.

The noise alerted the skirmish lines on both sides. Throughout the woods, jumpy pickets began firing at nothing, alarmed by the sound of the two shots coming from the deadly encounter along the 27^th New York’s picket line. Crocker and his companion raced back into the woods, reloading as they went. They spent the remainder of the night in silence, awaiting an attack that never came. The surviving Alabama soldier, Private Cussons, likewise beat a hasty retreat. He reported the news of his deadly encounter to his superiors.

The next morning, just prior to daylight, Corporal Crocker and a few others returned to the scene of the confrontation. They found Lieutenant Bailey’s body untouched. The ball that had killed him had gone through the company’s roll book, which he carried in his breast pocket. Bailey’s blood now saturated the pages. Crocker noticed how his own name had been smeared out. Somberly, the New Yorkers hauled Bailey’s body back to the landing, boxed it up, and buried it along the riverbank beneath two Weeping Willow trees.

The New Yorkers also buried the dead Confederate who fell within speaking distance of Bailey. Searching his clothes, they discovered him to be Sergeant William Hartley of Company B, 4^th Alabama. The New Yorkers recovered Hartley’s revolver, an old English watch, and letters written by Hartley’s girlfriend who happened to live in New Haven, Connecticut. The New Yorkers buried Hartley where he fell, and one of them, Sergeant Charles N. Elliott, later mailed the watch to Hartley’s parents in Huntsville.

Sergeant Hartley was the 4^th Alabama’s only casualty at the Battle of West Point, but his regiment felt his loss deeply. After the war, Adjutant Robert T. Coles recollected that he was “among the best in the regiment, a disciplinarian, and through his efforts, the morals of his company, which were not the best, were very much improved. Not only his company, but the entire regiment, deplored his death.”

Coles remembered an incident from May 1861, when Hartley reprimanded a young soldier, Private Anthony B. Shelby, for breach of discipline. After receiving an upbraiding, Shelby grew angry, saying that he would not be talked to by a “Damned Connecticut Yankee” (a reference to the fact that Hartley had attended Yale and courted a Connecticut sweetheart). Unable to restrain himself, Shelby punched Hartley in the chest as hard as he could. Hartley made no reaction. He crossed his arms and gave Shelby a withering look. In response, Shelby bowed his head sheepishly and slinked away. After the war, Shelby recalled that Hartley’s serene response was the “severest chastisement ever inflicted on anyone,” and he never forgot the valuable lesson Hartley had taught him about controlling his temper. Hartley’s loss, all agreed, had robbed the 4^th Alabama of one of its brightest stars.

Likewise, the men of the 27^th New York mourned their loss in similar fashion. Lieutenant Bailey had been a popular officer. The regimental historian later recalled, “Lieut. Bailey was from Binghamton, N. Y., and a young officer of great promise, and a favorite with the whole regiment. He had received his commission only a few days before, and this was his first tour of duty as an officer.”

Soldiers, it seems, no matter in what century they fight, rarely forget the names and personalities of the first to fall. Certainly, the loss of combat virginity is a truly haunting moment, something never to be overlooked. And quite possibly, the first casualties are so well remembered because they tend to be the best men in the unit. It’s a simple fact that war tends to cull the best and brightest in its first threshing. Clearly, Lieutenant Bailey and Sergeant Hartley fit that definition.

But Bailey’s and Hartley’s unlucky encounter in the dark woods near Brick House Point did more than just make memories to haunt the dreams of the survivors. It touched off a bloody battle that ended the lives of fifty-six other men.

Some of those stories will follow soon.

This is the roll book that was in Lt. Bailey's pocket. The image comes from the 27th New York's regimental history.

This is Hartley's revolver, also taken from the 27th NYV's history.

This modern-day map depicts the location of the Union landing zone on the York River--Brick House Point. I've highlighted the beachhead in blue. The 27th New York's skirmishers held the wooded area south of the beachhead. Somewhere in those woods, Lt. Bailey fell dead.