USA > New Jersey > History of the men of Co. F, with description of the marches and battles of the 12th New Jersey Vols. Dedicated to "our dead." > Part 17
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and order as a constable. His health is not good, being a great sufferer from rheumatism and other bodily ailments for which he draws a slight pension. No shoulder straps or cher- rons, "only one of the men," yet withal a hero, a soldier, a comrade tried and true ! Of such was the Twelfth New Jer- sey Volunteers.
HAMILTON ALLEN MATTISON, CO. H,
Now of Evansville, Vanderburgh county, Ind., was born at South Berlin, Rensselaer county, N. Y., on September 23, 1832. He is the son of Allen J. Mattison and Lucy Mattison, and the grandson of Allen Mattison, who served seven years as a soldier of the Revolution. His father was a farmer of Quaker stock and Scotch descent. As a boy Hamilton worked on the farm during his boyhood, attending the district school during the winter until eighteen years of age, at which time he became a student of New York Conference Seminary, Schohari county, N. Y., where he prepared for college. He entered Union College at Schenectady, N. Y., in 1856, and graduated in 1860. From that time Mr. Mattison was engaged as a teacher at Woodstown, N. J., studying law in the meantime, until 1862, when he enlisted in the Twelfth Regiment, New Jersey Volunteers, and served as a soldier until the close of the War of the Rebellion, 1865. Was commissioned as sec- ond lieutenant, captain and major. Served as Assistant In- spector-General on the staff of General Nelson A. Miles, and others, during 1864 and 1865, and was present at the surren- . der of General Lee at Appomattox.
He was wounded at Chancellorsville, and in the battle of the Wilderness had his horse shot, was wounded and captured by the enemy. Was a prisoner of war nine months ; escaped from Columbia, S. C .; was two months inside the rebel lines: traveled from Columbia to Savannah, Ga., followed by rebel guards and blood hounds, but reached General Sherman's lines at Savannah on January 4, 1865 ; returned to the Army of the Potomac soon after and took part in the battles of 1865, pre- ceding the surrender.
L
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In the summer of 1865 Mr. Mattison returned to his former home in New York, entered Albany Law School, and gradu- ated with the degree of L.L.B. in the spring of 1866. He was immediately admitted to practice in the Courts of New York, subsequently to the Courts of Indiana, and to the Su- preme Court of the United States at Washington, D. C. Mr. Mattison was engaged in the practice of law at Salem, Wash- ington county, N. Y., until 1868, when he removed to Evans- ville, Ind., where he has since resided. During his residence in Indiana he has held some offices of trust. Among others, City Attorney, County Attorney, Prosecuting Attorney, Reg- ister in Bankruptcy, and is now Judge of the First Judicial Circuit of the State of Indiana, having been elected at the No- vember election, 1896, for a term of six years. He has been a member of the Masonic order since 1862. Judge Mattison is a married man, Republican in politics and Methodist in relig- ion, honored and respected by all good people.
SAMUEL L. SERAN, CO. H,
The comrade of this sketch, was born in Unionville (now Aura), Gloucester county, N. J., September 16, 1838, receiv- ing a common school education, such as could be had by farmer boys of those days, in the schools of Unionville, Clayton and Glassboro. He studied so faithfully, that at the age of nine- teen we find him filling the position of schoolmaster during the winter months and working on his father's farm in the sum- mer. He continued thus until in 1862 the call for more sol- diers aroused his patriotic spirit to such an extent that he for- sook both plough and book, and on August 13, 1862, he joined the ranks of Company H, Twelfth Regiment, New Jersey Vol- unteers, then organizing at Woodbury. Gave faithful service in every duty there, and in the severer duties of drill and picket at Ellicott's Mills until early in December, when orders came to break camp and join the Army of the Potomac, on the banks of the Rappahannock, in Virginia. The march through Mary- land was a trying one for the new recruits. The roads deep with mud; the rain and cutting winds of Port Tobacco, with
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the cold snows of Acquia Creek; the whole earth for a bed- room, without tents or shelter; all these things were endured by young Seran with the fortitude of a soldier, being never sick or missing from roll-call. Not very robust before enlist- ment, this outdoor life seemed to suit him; he grew strong and healthy. Took his full share of guard or picket at Falmouth; passed through that baptism of fire at Chancellorsville with no worse mishap than a bullet through a vacant part of his trous- ers, while so many of his comrades were killed or badly wounded; made the return march, through the mud and dark- ness, back to the old camp, strong and cheerful through all these hardships. In June, when the Gettysburg campaign be- gan, we found him ready and able to endure that long and dusty march, and with his company and regiment, reached Gettys- burg at 7 a. m., July 2d, forming line of battle on the left of Doubleday's Division, of the First Corps. There they re- mained until 5 o'clock in the afternoon, when his company (H), along with Companies B, E and G, were called on to dis- lodge the enemy, who held a strong position in the Bliss Barn, about six hundred yards in front. Advancing on the double- quick, they reached the barn, with terrible loss of life, and captured nearly one hundred prisoners. Seran was one of the guards detailed to escort them back to our lines, which he faithfully did. The battalion then rejoined- the regiment, sta- tioned behind the low stone wall at the Bryan House, where the night was spent. Next morning, at 9 o'clock, they saw the other companies make that same dangerous trip, with a fearful loss, and fewer prisoners.
He passed unscathed through the cannonade and repulse of Pickett's grand charge, until at 4 a. m., July 4th, his company was sent on the skirmish line in the field in front, and soon after deploying, he received a rebel bullet in his left knee joint, which dislocated his leg and made him a cripple for life. He was carried back by some of his comrades, through the fast- flying bullets, begging them not to expose themselves to save him; but they safely brought him back to the shade of the orchard, whence the stretcher-bearers carried him to the rear. After a short time the ambulance bore him to the Second Corps
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hospital, on the banks of Rock Creek, where he spent the night on the ground, without tents or shelter, through all that frightful storm that fell like a deluge, raising the waters of the creek so that he saw some of the helpless wounded carried off by the raging torrent; there were so many of the wounded, that the few attendants were unable to care for them all. After some days of terrible pain and suffering, he was removed to Gettysburg, then to Baltimore, then to the Satterlee Hos- pital in Philadelphia, where he was discharged for wounds on November 28, 1863.
A few months after he was discharged he recovered suffi- ciently to resume his occupation of teaching school, continuing two years. He then returned to the farm at Aura, N. J., where he now resides.
GEORGE A. COBB, CO. H.
The subject of the following sketch, was born in Harrisonville, Gloucester county, N. J., on the 4th day of March, 1844. When but a few years of age his parents removed to Woods- town, Salem county, N. J., where they continued to reside until after the close of the War of the Rebellion. His educa- tion was received in the schools at Woodstown and vicinity. He partly learned the trade of his father (blacksmithing), but at the breaking out of the war he responded to the call of the President for troops, and, though lacking seven months of being eighteen years of age, enlisted in Salem, N. J., April 21, 1861, in Company I, Fourth New Jersey Volunteer Infantry (then being recruited and afterward commanded by Captain Clement H. Sinnickson), for three months. After encamping a short time on Meridian Hill, near the city of Washington, D. C., the Long Bridge spanning the Potomac River was crossed by the regiment the night before the day on which Colonel Ellsworth was shot by Jackson, in Alexandria, Va. During the remainder of the term of his enlistment his regiment was engaged on picket duty at Arlington Heights, and in the erection of Fort Runyon at the Virginia end of the Long Bridge. At the first battle of Bull Run his regiment was moved forward to
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Bailey's Cross Roads, about ten miles from Washington, and covered the retreat of our forces back to the fortifications, following their defeat on that memorable never-to-be-forgot- ten Sunday. The date of his enlistment expiring he was mus- tered out of the service July 31, 1861, returning to his home and former occupation, where he remained until August 13, 1862. On that day, in Woodstown, he re-enlisted for three years in Company H, Twelfth New Jersey Volunteer Infantry, Captain Hamilton A. Mattison, rendezvousing at Woodbury, N. J., until September 4th, when his regiment was mustered . into the United States service.
He was twice wounded ; first, by a gunshot wound through the left leg at the charge on the Bliss Barn at Gettysburg, Pa., July 2, 1863, where his company suffered so severely. From the field he was sent to the Jarvis General Hospital, Baltimore, Md., and soon thereafter was transferred to the United States Army Hospital, at Sixteenth and Filbert streets, Philadelphia, rejoining his regiment January 1, 1864. Second, during the memorable storming of the breastworks at Cold Harbor, June 3, 1864, he received a gun shot wound through the body, the ball entering about six inches on the right, passing under and coming out about seven inches on the left of the spine. He was sent to the Summit House Hospital, Philadelphia, and about the middle of February, 1865, again rejoined his regi- ment. While at the Summit House Hospital he was married, December 24th, 1864, to Miss Lydia A. Wharton, of Philadel- phia. The wound received at Gettysburg gives him consider- able trouble. He is also a constant sufferer from the one re- ceived at Cold Harbor. He was actively engaged in the follow- ing battles: Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Wilderness, Spottsyl- vania, Spottsylvania Court House, North and South Anna River, Tolopotomy, Cold Harbor, Capture of Petersburg, Sailor's Creek, High Bridge, Farmville, and Lee's Surrender, Appomattox, Va. During his three years' service he received the following appointments : August 13, 1862, first corporal ; February 1, 1864, sergeant ; February 22, 1865, sergeant- major ; April 20, 1865, Second Lieutenant Company E ; June 24, 1865, First Lieutenant Company H.
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Owing to the close of the war, he was, by general order, mustered out of the service July 15, 1865, having served al- together three years and two months. Soon thereafter he took at the Quaker City Business College, then located at Tenth and Chestnut streets, Philadelphia, a course in teleg- raphy, and was employed for a short time by the Western Union Telegraph Company in one of their city offices. From there he connected himself with the Pennsylvania Railroad, being assigned to the private office of the then General Agent, ยท Mr. G. C. Franciscus, now deceased, at Thirty-first and Market streets, Philadelphia. After a few years of service, embracing in addition Paoli and Harrisburg, at the latter place acting as assistant train despatcher, in connection with his telegraphic duties, he was appointed in 1871 ticket and freight agent at Downingtown, Chester county, Pa., continuing in that posi- tion for twelve years. In November, 1883, he temporarily severed his connection with the Pennsylvania Railroad and re- moved to Thorndale, Chester county, Pa., accepting a position as bookkeeper of the Thorndale Iron Works, and manager of their general store, remaining there until 1890. During these seven years he also supervised the Pennsylvania Railroad agency at that place, the Thorndale Iron Works, through their treasurer, being the recognized agent of the company. From here he again entered the employ of the Pennsylvania Railroad, accepting a position in the department of the auditor of freight receipts, and shortly after was appointed route agent or travel- ing auditor. In the performance of his duties he travels over the vast system of this company. He resides in Philadelphia.
His elder son is stenographer to the general baggage agent of the Pennsylvania Railroad. His younger son is the assist- ant to the treasurer of the Union Transfer Company, and his daughter a teacher in the public schools of Philadelphia. He is a member of the Union M. E. Church, situated at Twentieth and Diamond streets, Philadelphia, striving as best he can to serve with honor to the cause the period of life enlistment in the Christian warfare, expecting at the final muster out, when the material life shall have ceased, to be in line for promotion in the Great Beyond.
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Twelfth Regiment New Jersey Volunteers.
THOMAS OGDEN SLATER, CO. H.
In looking back so many years to the days of our soldier life, it is difficult to connect a continuous record of our service, and yet the impressions of the days of army life are so deeply burned into our minds, that when we look at these pages of our memory, we find everything engraved in large type, and the pictures appear like clear-cut sculpture.
When Abraham Lincoln, in July, 1862, called for three hundred thousand more men to serve for three years, many of the young men living within a radius of six or eight miles around Woodstown, Salem county, N. J., felt the time had come when they ought to join their friends already at the front. One Saturday night a meeting was held in a school building at Woodstown, and a number of names were enrolled to enter the service. During the week following, meetings were held at different school houses, each time names being added. Again, on Saturday night, another meeting was held at the Woodstown school house. At the close one hundred and seventeen names were on the list of volunteers, gathered in one week's time, nearly all being young men born in Salem county; a few being of foreign birth, but there were none entire strangers, and all were friends from the very start. Eight pairs of broth- ers were in this company, and it became Company H, Twelfth Regiment, New Jersey Volunteers.
It was the great privilege of the subject of this sketch, and always remembered with a thrill of deep satisfaction, to have been identified with this splendid body of men. Thomas Og- den Slater was born in the city of Glasgow, of English parent- age, on February 8, 1842, and came to Philadelphia in 1853. When this company was organized he resided in Salem county, N. J. The company left Woodstown for Woodbury, the place of rendezvous for the Twelfth Regiment, on Wednes- day, the 13th day of August, 1862, and that was the day the rolls were dated for all of Company H to have been enlisted. The first camp outside of the State of New Jersey was at Elli- cott's Mills, Md. The regiment entered at once into the school of the soldier-guard, drills, picket and parades. The regi-
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- ment had good officers, instructive and congenial, doing all they could to give charm to the duties of camp life. At night, the music and sports all about, made it seem like a great festi- val and holiday time. Each company had a great eating house, and hired civilians to cook for them. Not a soldier would think of cooking potatoes, and beans and pork, or boiling cof- fee. Oh, no ; they had never done that ; they couldn't do it ; they were soldiers, every one.
In the midst of this pleasant camp life, Lee, with the Army of Northern Virginia, came thundering into Maryland, until at Antietam he struck a barrier he could not pass. Mcclellan, with the Army of the Potomac, shattered Lee's prospects of invasion, and, leaving great numbers of dead and prisoners, he hastened back to his Southland. The Twelfth New Jersey acted as escort guard to a body of rebel prisoners from Freder- ick City to Baltimore. This opened into real activity the Twelfth's first contact with the rebels, and made every man more anxious than ever to get down to the front, and meet them in battle. In a few weeks orders were given the Twelfth to go to Washington. The weather was cold and wet, and the regiment here met its first real heart shock, in being quartered in that old infernally cold and sloppy stable of a barracks at the Baltimore and Ohio depot. It will make the men shudder to think of it as long as they live. Corporal T. O. Slater was here taken with severe diarrhea, and sent to the hospital in the Patent Office, Washington, and then to Newark, N. J., where under good treatment he was soon well. Early in March, 1863, he rejoined the regiment at Falmouth, Va., where he found the Twelfth had become part of the Second Brigade, Third Division, Second Army Corps. Nobody knew what that meant at the time, but from that day on, in every battle of the grand Second Corps, it offered patriot blood of the Twelfth New Jer- sey Volunteers.
The first battle of the Twelfth was at Chancellorsville, and the first man wounded was Isaac Wiley, of Company H. The loss in this battle was twenty-four killed, one hundred and thirty-two wounded, twenty-two missing ; total, one hundred and seventy-eight Then came the wild struggle back to the
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old camp. Negro servants all gone, civilians all gone; men in the ranks now willing to be detailed for anything, and from that time on every man was his own cook. Next came the plunging march to Gettysburg, during which the first full fear- ful meaning of what it meant to be a soldier dawned upon the men of the Twelfth New Jersey Volunteers. Heat and dust, hunger and thirst, all rolled into one, will make them ever re- member those three hundred miles of march to and from Get- tysburg ; and the terrible battle, full of intense interest, espe- cially to the members of Company H, one of the four compan- ies that charged the Bliss House and barn, on the afternoon of July 2d, capturing seven rebel officers and ninety-two men. Then holding an important part in the line of the Second Corps, in resisting Longstreet's charge by division, and helping to build up the glory of the ever glorious Second Corps, bury- ing two hundred and eighty-five rebel dead in front of its own line, after the battle. Then becoming the sleuth-hounds, driv- ing Lee's army up and down Virginia ; fighting at Culpeper, at South Mountain, at Auburn Mills, at Bristoe. Station, at Mine Run, and then at Mortons Ford in the winter. During the winter months the Twelfth occupied a splendid camp at Stony Mountain. Comfortable quarters, chapel, gymnasium, and fresh, sweet bread every day. Great preparations began for the spring campaign. Grant was given full command, and on the ist day of May, 1864, the Army of the Potomac began its march for the Wilderness campaign.
The Second Corps crossed the Rapidan at Germania Ford. Hancock led it straight at Lee's army, and at Todd's Tavern woke him up from his winter dreams. The first rebel bullet heard by Company H in this fight killed Lieutenant John M. Fogg, who was kneeling by the side of Sergeant T. O. Slater: this sent a pang of sorrow through the hearts of the men of Company H, for Fogg was loved by all. On the morning of the 6th of May, a bullet tore through the left thigh of Sergeant Slater and knocked him out of the fight. He was taken to the field hospital, which soon became a vast camp of wounded men. Here Robert Kates, himself wounded, took good care of T. O. Slater, and six or eight other badly wounded men of
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Company H, for eight days. He carried water and dressed their wounds. On May 14th, ambulances took these wounded men to Fredericksburg, which had become a city of vast num- bers of wounded men, and the paraphernalia of a great war. The wound of First Sergeant Slater healed right along, and while in the city, stretched on his back on the floor of a store building, a commission of first lieutenant was brought to him. In a short time he hobbled away, with a wound in his leg and a commission in his knapsack, to greet his friends in Salem county, N. J.
That terrible summer passed along, and on the evening of the day the Petersburg Mine was sprung, Lieutenant Slater rejoined his regiment. What a charge had come over the situ- ation! On the morning of the 6th of May, when he was wounded, more than eighty men answered to their names. Now, on this last day of July, eleven men were left in Com- pany H. During all that frightful summer a terrible trail of blood had been made, from the Rapidan to the trenches of Petersburg, and the Twelfth New Jersey had been almost an- nihilated.
The commission of T. O. Slater made him commanding officer of Company B. The days passed-with heavy mortar shelling, digging in the trenches, recruiting new men, and a diversion of the Second Corps north of the James River, at Deep Bottom; then back to Petersburg, and on to Reams Station, where the Second Corps met with its first humiliating defeat, and the Twelfth Regiment lost some of its bravest men. The vicissitudes of war took Lieutenant Slater to regimental head- quarters as acting adjutant. In October he was mustered as Captain of Company K, when he was compelled to give up his comfortable surroundings at regimental headquarters and serve in the line again; but he was not permitted to serve long with the brave men of Company K, for after a series of marches and counter-marches, which ended in the battle of Hatchers Run, on the 27th of October, 1864, Captain Slater was taken prisoner, hurried on to Petersburg, then to Libby Prison, at Richmond, and finally to Danville, Va., where he was con- fined all winter, and had a very interesting prison experience,
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during which it became very evident to him that the resources and energies of the rebellion would soon be exhausted.
On February 18, 1865, Captain Slater, with four hundred and fifty other officers, was sent from Danville to Libby Prison, at Richmond, and on the glorious 22d day of February, 1865, they were passed through the lines, exchanged; and the first time in four wretched months these half-starved men came in sight of the bright stars and stripes waving everywhere on the shipping-to him a most happy Washington's Birthday. It really seemed like being born again. After a few weeks at An- napolis, Md., and with friends in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, Captain Slater started for the regiment, when at Philadelphia, news was brought that President Lincoln was dead. This ter- rible shock changed the pulsations of events, and the whole country bowed its head in sorrow. He marched in the column that escorted the body of the President from the White House to the Capitol, and then passed on to the regiment at Burkes- ville, Va.
Everything was changed. So many of the old Twelfth gone. No more enemy in front. The last battle of the Army of the Potomac had been fought. The whole Army of Northern Virginia was its prisoners, and yet the Army of the Potomac was better equipped than ever to go on with the war. But everybody was tired of fighting. The South had been terribly punished, and the North had made enormous sacrifices, tliat the country should be held united. After being mustered out, he went to Warren county, Pa., the home of his father and brothers, where for twenty years he engaged in lumbering, and then entered the general hardware business, which will prob- ably occupy his attention until the tale of life is all told. The heroic associations of liis three years with the Twelfth Regi- ment, New Jersey Volunteers, are among the happiest that abide in his memory. And the consciousness of important service rendered by the gallant Twelfth Regiment, New Jersey Volunteers, while it was a part of the Third Division, and also of the Second Division, of the glorious Second Army Corps of the splendid Army of the Potomac, brings to him a thrill of pride that will be joy so long as life will last.
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Twelfth Regiment New Jersey Volunteers. JOHN KILLE, CO. H,
The subject of this sketch, was born August 20, 1842, in Har- rison township, Gloucester county, N. J. As a son of a farmer his boyhood years were quietly spent in attendance at the common country schools of that period, and the many duties of the farm, where his quiet, uneventful life was passed in rural happiness, until the breaking out of the war, when, like thou- sands of other boys, he felt that our country demanded his service. So on August 13, 1862, just before reaching his twentieth year, he enlisted as a private in Company H, Twelfth New Jersey Volunteers, under Captain H. A. Mattison, of Woodstown, and with the regiment was mustered in the United States service on September 4, 1862. He was a stout, rugged boy, of manly form, good habits and perfect health, and took up the new duties of a soldier with cheerful earnestness ; en- joyed the camp life at Woodbury, the drill and duties of Elli- cott's Mills, and accepted his full share of the hardships of camp and picket, during that inclement winter at Falmouth. The quiet soldier duties continued until in April, 1863, when rumors of a forward movement were often heard, and realized in the latter part of the same month, when we broke camp and took up the march for Chancellorsville. John speaks in a feel- ing manner of the remembrance of the load he carried, that big knapsack, nine days' rations of salt pork and hard-tack, with sixty rounds of ammunition, trudging cheerfully along through rain and mud; crossing the Rappahannock on our first pontoon bridge, with the band playing "Hail to the Chief," and everything smilingly bright and cheerful, until at Chan- cellorsville on Saturday evening, May 2d, when we took that memorable walk down the plank road, with the shells of Union and rebel cannon passing back and forth in such close prox- imity to our heads, giving John the worst scare of his life. And he makes the claim (which we will not admit) that he was the worst scared boy in the regiment ; but, like many others, he kept his feet pointed the right way, and bravely and safely survived the dangers of that terrible battle of Sun- day, May 3, 1863, in the woods of Chancellorsville. Soon after
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