USA > New Jersey > Gloucester County > Woodbury > Roster of the Twelfth Regiment, New Jersey Volunteers : [oration by Col. William E. Potter, at the first reunion of the Regiment, Woodbury, N. J., Feb. 22, 1875] > Part 6
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Thomas C. Galloway
..
..
Sept. 6, '64 1 Yr .. Sept. 4, 62 3 Yr ..
..
..
Out. 5, '64 1 Yr .. Jan. 3, '64 3 sept. 4. 02 ..
..
Charles H. Simpkins Henry S. Sockwell ... Samnel S. Sutton ...... Theophilus Sutton ...
..
Dis. July 13, '65-Wounds ; Corp. Aug. 11, '62 ; Sergt. April 1, '64. Dis. at Fairfax Seminary, Oct. 24. '63-Disability. Dis. at Newark, May 30, '65-Wounds ; Corp. Dec. 25, '63. Dis. near Falmouth, May 16, '63 -- Disability. Dis. at Newark, Dec. 11, '64-Disability. Dis. at Newark, May 31, '64-Wounds. Dis. at Newark, Aug. 10, '64-Disability. Dis. at Newark, Dec. 11, '63-Disability. Dis. near Falmouth, May 30, '63-Disability. Dis, at Baltimore, Oct. 17. '63-Disability. Sub. - Dis. Oct. 3, '64-Disability. Dis. at Baltimore, March 12, '63-Disability. Dis. at Fairfax Seminary, Oct. 23, '63-Disability. Dis, at Washington, Sept. 23, '6 ;- Disability.
Dis. at York, March 14, '63-Disability. Dis. at Philadelphia, Nov. 18, '63-Disability. Dis. at Washington, Jan. 1, '63-Disability. Dis. near Falmouth, April 3, '63-Disability.
Trans. to V. R. C., Sept. 30, '63 ; dis. Nov. 6, '64. Trans. to V. R. C., June 15, '64; dis. Mch. 6, '6 ;- Wounds recd. in action. Trans. to V. R. C., Aug. 10, '64; dis. July 10, '65 ; Corp. Aug. 4, '62 ; Sergt. Oct. 6, '63. Trans. to Ic8th N. Y. Vols .; dis. as Hosp. Steward May 28, '65.
Trans. to V. R. C., Mch. 20, '65 ; dis. Sept. 4, '65. Sub .- Trans, to Co. C. Trans to V. R. C., April 24, '65; dis. July 14, '65. Trans. to V. R. C., Jan. 9, '65 ; dis. June 29, '65. Trans. to V. K. C., Jan. 21, '65; dis. June 26, '65. Trans. to Signal Corps ; dis. June 24, '65.
Trans. to V. R. C., Mar. 15, '64 ; dis. Aug. 5, '65. Trans. to V. R. C., Jan. 10, '65 ; dis. June 28, '65. Trans. to V. R. C., April 14, '65 ; dis. July 7, '65. Recruit-Trans. to Co. F. Trans. to V. R. C., Nov. 15, '63 ; dis. June 28, '65. Trans. to V. R. C., July 1, '63 ; dis. Nov. 24, '65.
Died of disease at Andersonville, Mch. g. '64, Corp. Aug. 7. '62 ; Ser. Feb. 9. '63 ; Ist Ser. Oct. 1, '63. Died June 4, '64, of wounds reed. at Cold Harbor. Died of wounds at Washington, June 3, '64 ; Corp. Feb. 4. '64.
Killed in action at North Anna River, May 26, '64. Killed in action at Wilderness, May 5, '64. Killed in action at Gettysburg, July 3, '63. Killed in action at Chancellor ville, May 3, '63. Killed in action at Gettysburg, July 3, '63. Died of disease at Andersonville, Aug. 28, '64. Died of disease at Newark, April 20, '65. Died of disease near Falmouth, Jan. 23, '63. Recruit-Died of wounds Oct. 31, '64.
Joseph H. Gannt ..... W. D. Hendrickson. Samuel Hollenbach. Nathaniel H. Horner Henry Howell .. ... Francis Hu-ted ... ... Charles Livingstone .. Matthias Maloney .... 1. hn 11. Mullica ..
..
..
..
Substitute.
Samuel Vandalinda ...
John Yates ...
Oct. 5, '64
6€
14
Asa A. F. Randolph. Richard F. Randolph
Isaac A. Schlichter ..
..
George S. Tindall
Died of wounds June 4. '64. Died of disease at Falmouth, March 23, '63. Died of disease at Washington, Nov. 19, '62. Killed in action at Spottsylvania C. H., May 12, 64. Killed at Royalton Plank Road, Oct. 27, '64. Died of disease at City Point, June 20, '64. Killed in action at Chancellorville. May 3, '6; Killed at Wilderness, May 6, '04. Killed in action at Gettysburg, July 3, '63 Died of wounds at White House, June 8, '64. Died of discase at Andersonville, Oct. 28, '64.
William Byrnes.
George A. Harris.
27
1
NAME.
RANK.
MUST'D IN. TIME. MUST'DOUT
REMARKS.
DESERTED.
Private ..... Oct. 5, '64.1 Yr ..
Sub .- Deserted March 6, '65.
William Long ..
(()ct. 4, '64!
Sub .- Deserted April 10, '65.
John McCormick ..
.€
April 6, '65
Sub. - Deserted May 24, '65.
William A. Smith
July 15, '64 3 Yrs
Sub. - Deserted June 29, '65 ; trans, from 11th Reg.
Albert J. Wood ....
Sept. 27, 64
Sub .- Deserted June 29, '65 : trans, from 11th Reg.
RECORD UNKNOWN.
Martin Jordan ...
Private.
Sept. 27, '64;1 Yr ..
Recruit-Paroled prisoner.
Daniel McMann
Recruit-Paroled prisoner.
UNATTACHED SUBSTITUTES.
Muster-in rolls for the following named Substitutes were received from the Draft Rendezvous, Trenton, N. J. They never reported, and are not accounted for on Company rolls.
Albert Bant.
Private .....
April 3, '65 3 Yrs
James Bradford
Jan. 28, '65;
Daniel Brandon.
April 5, '65;1 Yr ..
John A. Cross.
April 4, '65
Dennis Downey.
April 1, '65|
John Driskell.
Patrick Flynn.
.€
July 20, '64!
Thomas Franey
16
July 22, '64
John Holland.
April 7, '65'1 Yr ..
James Mackey.
George Miller.
Oct. ro, '641
Daniel H. Moore ..
April 8, '65
John Thompson.
Mar. 31, 65
Frank Vincent
· April 6, '65.3 Yrs
RECAPITULATION.
MUST. IN. GAINED.
CASUALTIES.
MUS. OUT
COM'D OFFICERS.
ENLISTED MEN.
Officers.
Enlisted Men.
Enlisted Men.
Total Strength.
Enlisted Men.
Resigned.
Discharged.
Promoted.
Died.
Dismissed.
Discharged.
Transferred.
Promoted.
Died.
Deserted.
Total.
Field and Staff.
9
5
6
16
36
6
IIO
5
3
I
2
....
3
5
89
195
4
05
I
2
I
II
28
24
4
195
B
3
C.
96
6
19.0
+
88
I
2
I
15
16
23
33
3
..
I).
82
6
80
171
3
57
2
I
I
17
14
21
49
171
3
97
4
77
181
2
93
I
I
2
I
16
23
31
+
181
..
3
90
6
78
183
3
8)
2
1
1
I
17
2'2
6
18
39
177
..
1
3
93
5
99
205
4
107
3
I
IS
27
+
29
12
205
3
97
5
186
3
109
I
3
I
......
18
5
23
5
2
186
U'natt'd Substitutes ...
16
16
1
15
16
Total.
Q53
57
850
252
216
20
120010
0
:7
25
I
20
IS
177
4 4
H
3
95
+
75
177
4
63
I
2
2
I
19
15
36
21
183
3
+
72
177
3
.....
3
1
1
9
20
20
22
3
. .
3
6
82
182
4
Not accounted for.
36
Company
A
13
1260
.. ....
2
3
Officers.
Officers.
April 4, 65;
July 22, '64 3 Yrs
James Foley.
John Frank ....
Drafted-Died at City Point, May 4, '65.
K
IS
206 : 35
2 9 3 2 2 NINGUNO
James Cooper.
ORATION
BY
COLONEL WILLIAM E. POTTER,
DELIVERED BEFORE THE SURVIVING MEMBERS OF THE TWELFTH REGIMENT NELL' JERSEY VOLUNTEERS IN THE WAR OF THE REBELLION, AT THEIR FIRST REUNION, HELD AT WOODBURY, NEW JERSEY, FEBRUARY 22, 1875.
Mr. Chairman, Comrades of the Twelfth New Jersey, and Gentlemen :- I think that I speak the common sentiment of all who are here, when I say that to be present at this reunion of the Twelfth Regiment New Jersey Volunteers is one of the most pleasing events of my life. It is now near thirteen years since that gallant regiment, with full ranks of inen in the first bloom of vigorous manhood, marched forth from this quiet village to active service in the field. It is especially fitting that this, our first reunion, should be held here, where our regiment was formed and encamped ; in the county which, more than others, has always seemed most truly to recognize and remember the services of her citizen soldiers. The county of Gloucester was the first in this part of the State, and so far as I know, the first county anywhere in the State, to build a noble monument to the memory of her dead soldiery. It stands, as it should stand, facing the entrance to your city ; and I never walk up yonder street and gaze upon it but the curtain of the past is unrolled, and I see again the brave men who once marched with me through these streets and upon that bright Sabbath morn, already so long ago, here bade a last farewell to their friends, their families, and their homes.
I read upon it the names of Howell, Harker, and Stratton, and a hundred others, and I see again the green slopes of Gettysburg, the rugged crags of Kenesaw Mountain, the tangled and fatal swamps of Virginia. What are the paltry dollars which it cost to build, in comparison with the unchanging lessons of patriotism and devotion which that monument shall teach to the generations that grow up around it? No fabled oracle of ancient learning, no orator or poet, however eloquent, ever spake with such wisdom and moving force, as may be heard to-day by the people of Gloucester, from yonder silent stone. Do you ask for bravery ? Go read the record there. For devotion to duty ? You will find it there. Do you seek examples of a patriotism which knew no dangers too great, no sacrifices too lofty ; which stayed not for the snows of winter, or the suns of summer, for hunger, fatigue, for pestilence, for battle. field, for chains and dungeons, until the last full measure of devotion had been given? They are there-all there. There let your monument stand until the solid globe shall melt beneath it, a witness alike to the heroic lives and the heroic deaths of the sons of the county of Gloucester, and to the unfading gratitude of the people who reared it, for the rich sacrifice which those whose names it bears laid upon the altar of their country.
The ceremonies of this day, my comrades, are at once a requiem and a triumph. We have come together sorrow. fully and tenderly, remembering our dead who cannot meet with us again. We have come thrilled with the thought that the country and the cause for which they died, in their deaths, ard by their deaths, will live forevermore. It is sad to think they should have died, and with them the vast army of their comrades whose dust has enriched all our Northern cemeteries, and made the soil of the South more precious to us than the golden shores of India or Califor- nia. They were so young. so brave, so true. They were our friends, brothers, fathers, sons. Their lives were so interlocked and intertwined with our own by the sweet tendrils of mtimate association and affection-ties soft as silken threads, but, ah ! stronger " than strong links of iron," that when they died it sometimes seemed as if we, too, could no longer live. Ah, the uncounted less, that can never now be numbered, which the country suffered in the death of these young men. What a draft upon the treasury of the Nation, more exhausting than offering, of silver and gold, was it to pour out the rich current of their veins in the fearful struggle that is past. It was hard enough to spare them even as they were. It filled the cup of our sorrow full to overflowing as we saw them stricken down by our side, or read the long bulletins of death, to know that one and another had gone from us forever. It was a deep, universal, far-reaching sorrow. It stretched beyond the bounds of any one family, of any one regiment, of any one county, of any one State. It was the sorrow of a Nation, weeping for its children, and refusing to be comforted because they were not. It penetrated to every condition and rank in society. There was no stately mansion, so hedged about and guarded by the appliances of luxury and ease, that the stern summons to duty was not heard within its walls ; there was no little cottage, so hidden among its clustering vines, that the bugle call to arms did not reach the listening ear of some one, whose feet shall press its hearthstone never again, never again.
Yet, when we have thought of all that was beautiful and lovely in those who died, and what they were to us, we have not told over half our loss. Take the sum of love, of beauty, of manliness, of intellectual and moral worth in
3c ck
all the lives that were given to the country ; add to this, if you can, all th.it would have been gained by each of them in a full life-time of exertion and development ; reckon up the wealth which would have accrued to the country from these four hundred thousand citizens, were they still alive ; add to this the countiess tears which have been shed for them ; the anguish too deep for expression which has wrung so many hearts ; the widows left with no supporting arm ; the friendless orphans ; the lives cut short by their deaths : the other lives blighted ; picture all this in your minds, and you may have some faint conception of the loss and suffering of the country which we this day mourn. In this view, therefore, our ceremonies to-day are funerea!, and the nisie we have heard is a requiem for the dead.
The soldiers whom we mourn were no band of mercenaries struggling for plunder, no hired cut-throats killed in a senseless quarrel as to boundary lines, or a point of national etiquette. They were the citizens of a free Republic, sternly fighting for the cause of human freedom. They died for that cause. No longer must we turn back to past ages to find names of illustrious heroism upon which to dwell with fond pride. The coat of faded army blue sacredly laid aside in many a farm-house throughout this county, once covered a heart as true and brave as that which Warren bore into the fight at Bunker Hill ; and its wearer, a smooth cheeked boy, it may be, died just as gallantly as those who fell with Warren there. The men stricken down in our Regiment, their comrades elsewhere-such is the potent touch of death-seem already transformed and removed from us, so that we unconsciously mingle their memories with those of the long list of martyrs who in other times have died for the cause of civil liberty. In this view, there- fore, and for these reasons, the ceremonies of to-day are triumphal, and the tones of our music should be such as Miriam sang when the hosts of Israel trod the farther shore of the Red Sea, or like those which rang upon the air of Judea to the strains of David's wondrous harp.
These inen, by their heroic deaths, their comrades, by their devoted lives, may be said in very truth to have recreated the Republic. It is almost impossible, in the current of the resistless energy and momentum of present affairs, to pause long enough to reflect upon the condition of our country before the war, and to contrast it with its situation now, but it may well be that we cannot better employ this hour than briefly to review the causes which lead us thus to meet and to honor the memories of our dead comrades.
Our fathers bequeathed us a virgin soil of almost unlimited extent, and a constitution of government which was a political experiment. The few years of the existence of the confederation which grew out of the Revolutionary war had fully demonstrated the organic weakness of that form of government, and its want of capacity to guide and control the expanding necessities of a growing and intelligent nation of freemen. Happily for us and the world, the great men formed in the stormy era of the war with England lived long enough to frame and adopt as of binding force the Constitution of 1789, called the Constitution of the United States. This instrument, it is well known, was the result of a compromise of conflicting political views and interests, and contained within itself provisions looking to a peaceful solution of the only disturbing element which seemed likely to enter into our future political history. The situation of our country, separated by three thousand miles of ocean from all other great powers, was so happy, its resources of climate and wealth were so varied and inexhaustible, its civil and religious freedom were so entirely secure, that for a generation after the adoption of the Constitution it did seem that, whatever storms and disasters . might fall upon other nations, our Republic was indeed founded upon a rock which could not be shaken. The war with England in 1812-15 was chiefly upon the sea, and the war with Mexico was entirely aggressive upon our part, and engaged but a small number of our people, so that for the first seventy years from the adoption of the Constitu- tion nothing had seriously tested its capacity and strength. The excitement upon the admission of Missouri in 1820, the threatenings of South Carolina in 1830, and the yet more ominous discussions arising out of the admission of Texas in 1850, had convinced all thoughtful men that the crucial test of the strength of our form of government was yet to come, and that when it did come it would shake the very foundations of our national existence.
Still the Nation glided on in one unvarying career of prosperity and development, constantly growing in wealth and material greatness, constantly extending it- area. constantly receiving new members into its political brotherhood. We were like those people of whom history tells us, who were born and reared upon the slopes of a volcano that for centuries had given no signs of active life. They saw rising above their heads the lofty peak whose summit was segmed and blackened by the fires that once burned so fiercely ; but their eyes rested now only upon the verdure that clothed its sides : upon the laughing streams which trickled downward to the sea ; npon the towers and temples stand- ing out clear and firm against the summer skies ; man the happy towns and villages which, for many generations had grown and chistered upon and around it. In the security of the present. the -m thered fires beneath their feet were forgotten.
Thus it was with the American people in isti, when, without a note of warning, the volcano burt forth and threatened to engulf our homes, our liberties, and our lives in the fluning, devastating torrent of a civil war. When these men marched all was doubt and gloom, disaster and dismay. 'There was treason ; secret, open, widespread and growing. Around the South was drawn a broad line of demarcation, and behind it was gathering a mighty army to destroy the Republic; while in both the South and the North, savery, like a black, overhanging cloud, cast its sombre and baleful influence upon the Bench, the Forum, the Pulpit, and the social circle. When they marched our tg had been pulled down, insulted, trampled upon, fired up. When they marched the Union seemed to be broken forever, so that foreign nations weerngly said that " !. r bathe had burst ;" the Southern horizon was lurid with the thames of war; our ports were sealed; the great highway of the Misisippi was closed to our commerce, and from the head-waters of the Ohio, clear down to the tali, the car was til d with the - mads of battle. When they marched we presented the strange anomady of a free Kepalle holding +. wenn of human beings in the most abject slavery ; the still stranger spectacle of a free nation whose Bag and inti mity for many years had given no protection to free speech and a free press, over a large portion of its domain. All feared the present. all dreaded the future ; when with rolling drums and streaming this and Jeanine are the v aug men of the North, in massive communs, came to the f mt and formed a folwark if die 1 1
It was in the andst of such a un an Ihave et a. nos ci bed, that the Twelfth Regiment New Jersey Vol- univers was formed and creamve! for the the ply regiment, if I mistake not, which was raised entirely within the southern comties of the State, and for this reason should be peculiarly dear to their people. Time will not permit me on this occasion to review in detail the lottery of our regiment, nor is it necessary in your
31
presence ; and I shall therefore confine myself to a brief summary of its origin and career. It is just to say that I am indebted to Sergeant James S. Kiger, of Co. A, for many of the data herein contained, which are taken from the ufficial roster and history of our regiment, prepared under the direction of the Adjutant-General of the State.
The Twelfth Regiment New Jersey Volunteers was organized under the provision of an act of Congress approved July 22, 1861, and under a call issued by the President of the United States, dated July 7th, 1862, for 300,000 addi- tional volunteers, to serve for three years, or during the war. This regiment was one of five required from this State under the call named. The organization of the regiment was begun in July, and was fully completed, and the regi- ment was officered and equipped by the 4th day of September, 1862, at which time it was mustered into the service of the United States for three years by Capt. William B. Royall, Fifth Cavalry, U. S. A. The several companies of the regiment were raised in the following named counties, respectively : Co. A in the county of Salem ; Co. Bin the counties of Camden and Burlington ; Co. C in the county of Camden; Co. D at large : but chiefly, I think, in Camden ; Co. E in the county of Camden ; Co. F in the county of Gloucester; Co. G in the counties of Camden and Cumberland ; Co. H in the county of Salem ; Co. I in the county of Salem ; Co. K in the county of Cumber- land.
The regiment left Woodbury, where it had been encamped, and the State, September 7, 1862, under orders for Washington ; but on its arrival at Baltimore was diverted from its route by General Wool, and ordered to Ellicott's Mills, on the line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, then threatened by the advance of the Rebel army into Mary- land. The strength of the regiment when it left the State was : Officers, 39 ; non-commissioned officers and privates, 953 ; total, 992. As a proof of the severity of its service, it may be here mentioned that its strength present for duty at Culd Hart or, Va., June 4, 1864, less than two years afterward, was: Officers, 3 : non-commissioned officers and privates, 90 ; total, 93. The regiment joined the Army of the Potomac, and was put in position on the Rappahan- nock, about three miles above the towns of Falmouth and Fredericksburg, on the ryth of December, 1862, and from that time until the close of the war, wherever and whenever hard service was done by that army, our regiment had its full share.
I might well pause to tell how it held its ground at Chancellorsville until its right was turned by Jackson's Corps, and its Colonel and one hundred and seventy-eight of its officers and men were stricken down ; how sternly at Gettys- burg it stood upon the right of the left centre of the army, the key of the position, and with the rolling fire of its smooth-bore muskets smote as with the blast of death Pettigrew's Brigade of North Carolina troops, which formed the left of Longstreet's charging columns ; of its suffering in the severe winter campaign of Mine Run: of how it plunged through the icy waters of the Rapidan. at Morton's Ford; of the wonderful campaign of the Wilderness, where in a short space of thirty days our devoted regiment lost more than three hundred killed and wounded, out of a total of four hundred and twenty-five muskets ; of its service, its losses, its sufferings by night and by day during the summer of 1864, and until the Rebel army surrendered, and the war was ended-but to yeu it is a familiar story, and I forbear.
During the period of its service the regiment was present and under fire in more than thirty general engage- ments, beside a large number of combats and skirmishes, viz : Chancellorsville, Va., May 3 and 4, 1863 ; Gettysburg, Pa., July 2 and 3, 1863 ; Falling Waters, MId., July 13, 1863; Auburn Mills, Va., October 14, 1863; Bristew Station, Va., October 14, 1863 ; Blackburn's Ford. Va., October 16, 1863; Robinson's Tavern, Va., November 27, IS63 : Mine Run, Va., November 28, 29 and 30, 1863 ; Morton's Ford, Va., February 6, 1864 ; Wilderness, Va., May 5 and 6, 1864 ; Spotsylvania, Va., May 8 to IT. 1864; Spottsylvania C. H., Va., May 12 to 18, 1864 ; North and South Anna River, Va., May 24 to 26, 1864; Talopotomy, Va., May 30 and 31, 1864; Cold Harbor, Va., June 2 to 12, 1864 ; Before Petersburg, Va., June 16 to 23, 1864 : Deep Bottom, Va., July 25 to 29, 18644 ; Mine Explosion, Va., July 30, 1864: North bank of James River, Va., August 14 to 18, 1864 : Reais Station, Va., August 25, 1864; Fort Sedgwick, Va., September 10, 1864 ; Hatcher's Run, Va., October 27, 1864 ; Boydton Plank Road, October 27, 1864 ; Hatcher's Run, Va., February 6 to 8, 1865; Dabney's Mills, Va., February 28, 1865; Hatcher's Run, Va., March 25, 1865: Boydton Plank Road, Va., April 1. 1865 ; Capture of Petersburg, Va., April 2, 1865; Sailor's Creek, Va., April 6, 1865; High Bridge, Va., April 7, 1865; Farmville, Va., April 7, 1865 ; Lee's Surrender, Appomattox Court House, Va., April 9, 1865.
The total strength of the regiment during its term of service was 1899 ; strength at muster in, 992 : gain from all sources, 907. In order to ascertain, however, its total strength during its period of active service, there should be deducted from the aggregate stated 300, being the number of recruits who joined it at Burkesville after the surrender of Lee, which will show its total strength before the close of the war to have been 1599. There died in the service, of its officers, 9; of its non-commissioned officers and privates, 252 ; making its total loss by deaths, 261, being a less by death of little more than one-fourth of the original number of its rank and file, and of its officers, exclusive of the Medical Staff and the Quartermaster. Its other losses were : of officers discharged, 12 : resigned, 14: total 26 ; of enlisted men discharged, 159; total resigned and discharged, 185; add losses by death, 261 ; total losses from all causes, 446, being almost one-half of its original number.
It is proper to state that the resignations and discharges were chiefly on account of disability caused by wounds or disease contracted in the service. Considering the deaths in the service by the respective companies, there died of Co. A, I officer and 24 men ; Co. B, 26 men ; Co. C, I officer and 22 men : Co. D, t officer and 21 men ; Co. E, 1 officer and 31 men : Co. F, r officer and 36 men ; Co. G, r officer and 26 men; Co H, I officer and 18 men ; Co. 1, 29 men; Co. K, r officer and 23 men ; Unattached substitute, 1 ; total, 252.
Of the Field and Staff, Lt. Col. Thomas H. Davis was killed. Of the total number of officers originally com- missioned in the regiment, exclusive of the Medical Staff and Quartermaster, and of those who were killed or died of their wounds, 12 were wounded in action with greater or less severity, 17 were mustered out before the expiration of their term of service, and but 3 who served the full term escaped unhurt ; and of the enlisted men, a very large number who were mustered out with the regiment bear the scars of honorable wounds. The official register in the Adjutant-General's office shows that no regiment of this State, up to and including the Fourteenth, suffered as heavy a loss in deaths as the Twelfth, except the Eighth and Tenth ; and one of these had a total aggregate of 2, 600, and the other of 2,8co, officers and men, their loss exceeding our own but very little. The Fifteenth Regiment suffered a
32
total Was My det . A y officer and ge men in a total aggregate of 1971 ; and I believe this to be the heaviest loss suffered by any of our regiments.
The regin ont was first attached to the Second Brigade, Third Division, Second Army Corps, then to the Third Brigade, Second Division, Second Army Corps, and at the close of the war was attached to a Provisional Corps- all in the Army of the Potomac. A part of the regiment was mustered out near Munson's Hill, Va., June 4, 1865, the remainder near Washington, July 15, 1865. The names of the officers who were killed, or died of wounds received in action, are . Lient. Col. The mas H. Davis, killed in action at Spotsylvania C. H., May 12, 186; ; Capt. Charles K. Horsfall, Co. E, killed in action at Gettysburg, July 2, 1863 ; Capt James McComb, Co. E, died July 2, 1864, of wounds received at Cold Harbor: First Lieut. John M. Fogg, Co. H, killed in action at the Wilderness, May 5, 1864; First Lieut. John R. Rich, Co. E, died Sept. 2, 1864, of wounds received at Ream's Station; First Lieut. James T. Lowe, Co. G. died Oct. 25, 1863, of wounds received at Bristow Station ; First Lient. James S. Stratton, Co. F, killed in action at Reams Station. August 25, 1864: First Lient Joseph Pierson, Co. F. killed in action at Chancellorsville, May 3, 1863 : Second Lieut. Richard H. Townsend, killed in action at Gettysburg, July 3, 1853.
Such, comrades, is in brief the history of our regiment ; and though there may be others which can show as good a record, considering the numbers and term of service, none, I think, can show a better one. The Twelfth had the advantage of being a peculiarly hom geneous regiment. Composed largely of freeholders and sons of freeholders, raised in adjoining counties, and ch sely allied both by friendship and by blood, its companies stood shoulder to shoulder in more than a score of stricken fields, with a gallantry which the armies of Marlborough or Napoleon never surpassed, and under fiercer mu-ketry than the soldiers of those great leaders ever met.
The men of the Twelfth are proud of the history of their regiment and jealous of its fame. We went forth-and on this our first reunion, the anniversary of the birth of him who led the country through another great struggle, we may be pardoned for recalling it-we went forth when the country was rocking as with the throes of an earthquake, and your government and its flag were now rising, now falling, with the varying fortunes of the day, like a feather tossed upon an angry ocean. We marked our course from the Rappahannock to Gettysburg, and from Gettysburg to Richmond and Appomattox Court House by the graves of our comrades, and sometimes with our own blood, and came back under the sunlight of a peace so profound that no martial sound broke the stillness save the tramp of our returning feet, bearing with us your flag and ours, torn by the winds of heaven, blackened by the dust of the march 'and the smoke of battle, dyed through and through with the blood of its defenders, but with no stain of weakness or dishonor upon all its streaming folds. With the recollections, the experience, the habits of years of military service clinging about us, we glided into the current of civil affairs, as the snow-flake falls upon the river, asking nothing, expecting nothing, desiring nothing, save the grateful remembrance of our country and her people. Not as soldiers, but as soldier citizens, we meet here to-day, once more to renew the old memories, tenderly to mourn over our dead comrades, once again to gaze upon and swear allegiance to the dear old flag whose very threads are interwoven with our heart-strings ; once again as a regiment to join in the fervent prayer that the Great God who brought us safely home from the war will guard, guide, protect, ennoble and elevate the country which we love so well.
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