USA > New York > Erie County > Centennial history of Erie County, New York : being its annals from the earliest recorded events to the hundredth year of American independence > Part 44
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This year the law regarding supervisors was again changed, so that- each ward of Buffalo had two, except the Thirteenth, which was allowed one. This gave the city twenty-five mem- bers of the board, the country towns having the same number, and this balance between city and country has ever since been maintained. The list for 1863 is as follows :
Alden, Herman A. Wende; Amherst, Charles C. Grove ; Aurora, Dorr Spooner ; Boston, George Brinley ; Brant, Nathaniel Smith. Buffalo, Ist ward, James Fleeharty and Thomas M. Knight ; second ward, Wm. M. Scott and James S. Lyon ; third ward, George Bymus and John Zier ; fourth ward, Frank Fischer and Joseph W. Smith ; fifth ward, James S. Irwin and George Baldus ; sixth ward, Jacob H. Pfohle and Felix Bieger ; seventh ward, Henry Bitz and George Pfeiffer ; eighth ward, James McCool and Michael Carroll; ninth ward, William Ring and W. B. Peck; tenth ward, Charles E. Young and Robert Car- michael; eleventh ward, Thomas R. Stocking and William Richard- son ; twelfth ward, Christopher Laible and Henry Mochel; thirteenth ward, George Orr. Cheektowaga, Simeon H. Joslyn ; Colden, Nathan C. Francis ; Concord, S. W. Goddard ; Clarence, David Woodward : Collins, Joseph H. Plumb ; East Hamburg, Ambrose C. Johnson ; Eden, Azel Austin ; Elma, Christopher Peek ; Evans, Lyman Oatman ; Grand Island, Levant Ransom ; Hamburg, Allen Dart ; Holland, Philip D. Riley ; Lancaster, John M. Safford; Marilla, H. T. Foster ; Newstead, E. P. Goslin ; North Collins, Giles Gifford ; Sardinia, Welcome Andrews ; Tonawanda, David Kohler; Wales, Clark Hudson ; West Seneca. Richard Caldwell.
491
THE DECIMATED FORTY-NINTH.
CHAPTER XLIII.
1864 AND 1865.
The Decimated Forty-ninth .- The Victory of Fort Stevens. - Colonel Bidwell Promoted .- Opequan Creek and Cedar Creek .- Death of General Bidwell. -Remarkable Loss of Officers .- Before Petersburg .- Another Commander Killed .- Home at Last .- The One Hundredth on the James .- Battle after Battle. - A Brilliant Exploit. - The Petersburg Trenches. - " In at the Death." -Capture of Fort Greig .- Mnstered Out .- Wiedrich's Battery Goes Down to the Sea. - Colonel Abbott's Militia Regiment .- The One Hundred and Sixteenth in motion .- Up the Red River .- Down the Red River .- Back to Virginia .- In the Shenandoah Valley .- The Battle of Opequan Creek .- Fisher's Hill .- Cedar Creek .- Sheridan's Speech .- Complete Victory .- A High Compliment .- The One Hundred and Sixteenth Comes Home .- Grand Ovation .- Other Erie County Soldiers .- Eaton's and Wheeler's Bat- teries .-- Companies in the 33d, 78th, 155th and 164th New York Infantry, 2d Mounted Rifles, etc .- The 187th Infantry .- Civil Officers.
Again we revert to that gallant band, the 49th New York. . Up to the spring of 1864, that regiment, though always respond- ing readily to every call of duty, had chanced to escape severe loss from bullets. On the 4th of May, still in the Sixth corps, it moved with the rest of the army toward Richmond. Its three field-officers were all on duty, Colonel Bidwell being in command of the brigade, and Lieutenant-colonel Johnson and Major Ellis with the regiment. Its numbers had been reduced to three hundred and eighty-four men, but every man was a hero.
On the 5th of May the army of the Potomac struck the en- emy in the Wilderness, and in the fierce conflict which ensued, on that and the succeeding day, the Forty-ninth was in the hot- test of the fray. In those two terrible days, Captains Plogsted, Wiggins and Hickmott, and Lieutenants Valentine and Preston were killed or mortally wounded, and Lieutenant Wilder wounded. Five officers killed in a single battle, out of about twenty present, tells the tale of valor and destruction more forci- bly than the most elaborate eulogy could do.
Marching forward with its depleted ranks, the Forty-ninth
492
THE VICTORY OF FORT STEVENS.
again met the foe at the battle of Spottsylvania. In this con- flict Major Ellis was wounded by a ramrod flung from some rebel gun, which pierced his arm and bruised his chest, but was not then supposed to have done serious injury, though it finally proved mortal. On that day, too, Captain Terry and Lieuts. Tyler and Haas were killed, and other officers wounded. Again continuing their course, and driving back the enemy by succes- sive flank movements, the army engaged in the terrific conflict of Cold Harbor. There, at the "deatlı angle" fell Captain Heacock, and about the same time Lieutenants McVean and Sayer. Thus, in those four conflicts, occurring within two weeks, twelve officers, including a major and five captains, had been killed or mortally wounded, being more than half the number present with the regiment. Besides these, several others had been wounded, though the number of deaths among the officers was large compared with that of the wounded. It must be admitted that, though the chances of promotion were numer- ous, yet the encouragement to seek promotion was very poor.
The proportion of deaths was not so great among the men, but the total list of killed and wounded was fearfully long. In those two weeks, out of the three hundred and eighty-four men with which the regiment left Brandy Station, sixty-one had been killed, and a hundred and fifty-five wounded, and thirty were reported missing. Of the latter many were undoubtedly killed, whose fate was unknown, and others were wounded and taken prisoners. Not less than two hundred and thirty in all were killed and wounded, or three fifths of the total strength. Many of the wounded, however, soon returned to duty, and the ranks received some recruits.
About the first of July the Sixth corps was sent to defend Washington, then threatened by General Early. Scarcely had it arrived when it was engaged in a decisive conflict with the enemy, who attempted to take Fort Stevens, a short distance from Washington, on the Virginia side. President Lincoln was present, and saw Colonel Bidwell's brigade charge up a hill and drive back the foe. The Forty-ninth lost twenty-one killed and wounded, one of the former being its commander, Lieutenant- colonel Johnson. The President was so well pleased with the valor and vigor displayed by Colonel Bidwell that he appointed
493
BIDWELL'S DEATH-LAST SERVICES OF THE 49TH.
him brigadier-general immediately afterwards. On the 3d of August Major Ellis died of the wound received at Spottsylvania, a splinter from a fractured bone having entered his heart. Cap- tains Holt and Brazee, the former of Chautauqua county, the latter of Niagara, were appointed lieutenant-colonel and major.
The Sixth corps having been placed under the command of Sheridan, pursued the retiring Early, and, after numerous hard marches, was again in battle at Opequan Creek, where the 49th lost eight killed and wounded. In September eiglity-nine men, all of the original regiment who had not reënlisted, returned to Buffalo under Major Brazee, and were discharged. Captain George H. Selkirk, of Buffalo, was made major in Brazee's place. About the same time, the regiment, now recruited to 410 men, was consolidated into a battalion of five companies, still retain- ing the appellation of "The Forty-ninth."
At the battle of Cedar Creek, on the 19th of October, Bidwell's brigade was, as usual, at the front ; and the Forty-ninth suffered a loss of thirty-seven, all told. Here, too, the gallant Bidwell the only colonel of the regiment, while gallantly leading his brigade, was stricken down in death by the bullet of the foe. A fuller account of the operations in the valley will be found a few pages later, in the story of the One Hundred and Sixteenth regiment.
Thus, in less than six months, every one of the three field officers of the Forty-ninth who had turned their horses' heads southward in the beginning of May, had been killed, besides five of its captains. It is doubtful if another regiment in the service suffered such a loss of officers in so short a time. Thus, too, of the three three-years regiments principally raised in Erie county, every one of the colonels had been killed in action. General Bidwell was recognized as a worthy peer of Chapin and of Brown, (one of his superiors styled him the "Man of Iron,") and Post Bidwell, of the' Grand Army of the Republic, does honor to itself and him by bearing his name.
In December the battalion returned to the vicinity of Rich- mond, but was not engaged in any very dangerous service during the winter.
In April, 1865, however, it was again hotly engaged in the final operations around Petersburg, and the fatality of the last
. 494
THE ONE HUNDREDTH ON THE JAMES.
. year seemed still to hang over its field-officers ; for Lieutenant- colonel Holt was mortally wounded, and died on the seventh of . April. Major Selkirk was promoted to lieutenant-colonel, and as the war had now ceased, he escaped the fate of his predeces- " sors. All these later field-officers, appointed after the death of Major Ellis, had gone to the front as lieutenants, not one of the original captains being left in the battalion. In fact, I think that Colonel Selkirk was the only remaining lieutenant, and that the line officers had all gone out as non-commissioned officers or privates. Certainly, the list of captains in commission when the battalion was mustered out-viz., William J. Kaiser, Thomas J. Cluny, Walter D. Wilder, Solomon W. Russell, Jr., and Henry J. Gifford-contained not a name that was on the original roster of officers. The battalion, again reduced to eighteen officers " and two hundred and seventy-four men, was mustered out late in June, but it was not till the third of July that the little squad of veterans, who represented Erie county in its feeble ranks, re- turned to their homes.
The wearied and decimated One Hundredth remained at Morris island through the winter of 1863-4. In January, fifty -men reënlisted, and went north on veteran furlough. The terri- · ble experience of the previous summer did not offer many in- · ducements to continue in such service. .
In the spring the regiment, with a large part of Gilmore's command, was transferred to the banks of the James river, to reinforce Gen. Butler. Scarcely had they arrived when they . took part in the fight at Walthal Junction, May 7th, 1864, driv- ing back the enemy, and destroying a portion of the Richmond and Petersburg railroad .- Captain Richardson and Lieutenant. Adriance were wounded in this conflict. On the 12th the regi- ment aided to capture Fort Darling, and successfully charged the enemy beyond it, losing several men, killed and wounded. The next day there was more desultory fighting, and Lieutenant Hoyt was mortally wounded. Lieutenant Pratt was wounded in the foot, and the historian of the regiment relates that young P. seemed vexed at nothing, except his being obliged to stop fighting.
On the morning of the 16th, under cover of a very heavy fog, Gen. Beauregard made a sudden attack on Gen. Butler's right,
495 ~
CAPTURING A BATTERY.
gaining a decided advantage. The One Hundredth was sent . · forward of the main line, alone, and lay down, awaiting orders. Nome came. . Orderlies were sent to them, but were . wounded and returned. So the One Hundredth remained until an over- whelming force of the enemy suddenly emerged from the fog. poured in an annihilating fire upon the feeble regiment, and . drove it back upon the reserves. Lieutenant French was mor- tally wounded, Lieutenant Babbitt was wounded, and Lieutenant Pierson captured. Color-sergeant Mckay was wounded, and when Lieutenant Stowits offered to carry the flag, he replied : " No. I must place it in the hands of the colonel."- He did so. and not till then would the wounded soldier enter an ambulance. This conflict was known as the battle of Drury's Bluff, and the loss of the One Hundredth was very heavy. Colonel Plaistead. commanding the brigade, in his official report, after describing how the One Hundredth refused to retire without orders, added : · "Throughout the expedition this gallant regiment had the "advance, and always willing, always ready, was the first and fore- "most in the fight. and last to leave the field. Upon every occa- "sion. under its gallant leader, its conduct was most creditable "to itself and the great State it represents."
On the 21st of May the regiment aided in defeating the en- - emy, in the sharp contest of " Ware Bottom Church." For over . two months it remained in that vicinity. on almost incessant duty : fatigue and picket service occupying nearly all the time.
In the early part of August. at "Deep Bottom." the One Hun- dredth, led by Dandy and Nash, and supported by the 6th Con- necticut. charged through a ravine under the eye of General - Grant, against a rebel battery; received its fire without wavering. and captured all its four guns at the point of the bayonet. This was one of the most brilliant exploits of the war, and reflects the highest glory on our Erie county heroes. About thirty men were killed and wounded, one of the latter being Lieut. McMann.
On the 16th of August the regiment, with others, charged the rebels, lying intrenched as usual, and was repulsed by a terrific fire, Captain Granger being taken prisoner. . The night of the ISth the rebels with furious energy, charged the intrenchments of the One Hundredthand were in turn scattered and driven back. Both sides learned, by oft-repeated experience, that a fort-
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496
PETERSBURG AND IN AT THE DEATH.
or even a line of rifle-pits-was, as the old Missouri farmer said, "a mighty nice thing to be inside of." But, as the rebels were acting on the defensive, they could almost always manage to be inside the fortifications, a fact which, I think, has hardly been appreciated by a good many people, who apparently would like to disparage the achievements of the Union soldiers by talking about their preponderance of numbers, but who conven- iently neglect to say anything about the eternal fortifications of the rebels.
During September the One Hundredth lay in the trenches before Petersburg, (styled the inferno by those who were there,) exchanging volleys with the rebels at short range. After taking part in one of Butler's movements north of the James, it aided in making a feigned attack on the rebel left, while several corps attempted to flank their right. The movement failed. Lieut. Stowits, then acting as brigade-adjutant, was wounded while en- deavoring to advance the skirmish line.
After that, the regiment remained in its intrenchments during the rest of the year. Maj. Nash, several other officers, and 174 men having served over three years, were discharged. The regiment was then almost a new one. The line officers had nearly all gone to the front as sergeants, and there were not in the ranks enough of the men originally enlisted, to serve as non-commissioned officers. That winter, Sergeants Charles Sheldon, Samuel Ely, Henry Heimans, Mansfield Cornell, Jonathan E. Head and Albert York were commissioned as lieutenants ; Lieutenants G. H. Stowits, Edwin Nichols, Edward Pratt, E. S. Cook, H. W. Conry and C. K. Baker were made captains; and Capt. J. H. Dandy (brother of the colonel) was appointed major.
Like the Forty-ninth, the One Hundredth was "in at the death " of the slave-drivers' confederacy. On the 27th of March it left its camp to take part in the final movements. After sev- eral days of constant marching or fighting, the regiment found itself on Sunday, the 2d day of April, in front of Fort Greig, one of the last of the rebel strongholds in rear of Petersburg. Its division (the first of the Twenty-fourth corps) was ordered to assault it. The defenders were comparatively few, but amply protected by the walls of. the fort, and desperate to the last degrec. For nearly half an hour the conflict was kept up. At
497
CAPTURE OF FORT GREIG, ETC.
the end of that time the colors of the One Hundredth New York, the first in the whole division, were planted on the para- pet. Scarcely was this done when the color-bearer was shot down. Major Dandy, then in command of the regiment, sprang forward to raise the flag, when he, too, was instantly killed. But the column surged on, and in a moment more obtained posses- sion of the fort, finding seven eighths of its defenders lying dead or wounded on the ground. Certainly, the defenders of Fort Greig came as near all "dying in the last ditch " as any human beings ever need to do.
This was the last battle of the One Hundredth. Appomatox followed on Wednesday, and, after four days more of march, and maneuver, and conflict, and intense excitement over the evident wreck of the falling confederacy, the army of Lee sur- rendered to the army of Grant.
It was not till the 28th of August that the regiment was dis- charged, the intervening time having been passed in compara- tively easy duty, mostly at Richmond. Even on the eve of return there were several promotions, useful only as marks of respect to the recipients. Captain Granger was appointed lieu- tenant-colonel. Though only twenty-two years old, and having gone out as the junior second lieutenant in 1862, he was, when thus promoted, the ranking captain of the regiment, and was, I think, the only officer remaining, of those on the original ros- ter. Captain Stowits was commissioned as major, but resigned before muster. Lieutenants Connelly, Head, Conry and Ely became captains, and Frank Casey, Peter Kelly, John S. Man- ning, John Gordon, Charles H. Waite and Joseph Pratt, were appointed lieutenants. Two other regiments having been con- solidated with the One Hundredth, the whole body was mustered out at Albany, so that the Board of Trade regiment did not receive the ovation which would otherwise have greeted it.
A few more words for the bold Germans of Wiedrich's battery. Early in February the gallant captain was promoted to lieuten- ant-colonel of the 15th New York artillery. Lieutenant Sahm was promoted to captain, but soon after died, and Captain Winegar took command. But the organization was still best known as "Wiedrich's Battery." Sixty of the men reënlisted as veterans, being more than half of the original members. The
498
WIEDRICH'S BATTERY, ETC.
battery went through with Sherman to Atlanta, and thence to the sea, and participated in nearly every battle on the route.
The nature of artillery service is well shown by a survey of its casualties. It did not suffer very severe loss at any one time, but whenever the foe made a stand it was brought to the front, and generally some of its men were killed or wounded. At Lost Mountain, June 4th, two men were wounded ; at Ack- worth station one was killed ; at Kenesaw Mountain one man was killed and one wounded ; at Peach Tree Creek, July 20th, one was killed and five were wounded, and at the siege of At- lanta Lieutenant Henchen was killed, and two men were mor- tally wounded. The battery accompanied Sherman to the sea, and thence on his triumphal march northward, but was not in any other serious engagement, and in 1865 was mustered out, with the rest of the victorious army of the Republic.
At this time a conscription law had been passed, and the large bounties paid by cities and towns to escape the draft at- tracted a host of dubious recruits, who needed much watching and were generally sent to the front under guard. After the Gettysburg invasion, a law was passed in this State directing that there should be a militia regiment in each assembly dis- trict. Dr. George Abbott, of Hamburg, raised a new regiment for the fifth district. This was sent to Elmira in the summer of 1864, under Colonel Abbott, Lieutenant-colonel C. C. Smith and Major William C. Church, and kept there near four months, acting as guard both for the rebel prisoners and for unreliable recruits. Numerous detachments of Col. A.'s regiment went through even to Petersburg, with recruits, and it speaks well for the discipline of the militiamen that not a rebel nor a bounty- jumper ever escaped from their grasp.
During the early part of 1864, the One Hundred and Six- teenth New York remained in camp near Franklin, Louisiana. That camp they so constructed and ornamented that it was con- sidered one of the great curiosities of the southwestern army. From this pleasant abiding place the One Hundred and Six- teenth departed, on the fifteenth of March, for the celebrated Red river campaign. With some twenty thousand other troops it marched to Alexandria, where they were joined by fifteen or twenty thousand more, and the whole force took its way up
499
THE 116TH ON THE RED RIVER.
the Red river. On the 8th of April, the Nineteenth corps, to which the One Hundred and Sixteenth belonged, reached a point eight miles above Pleasant Hill. Eight miles ahead of it was the Thirteenth corps, with a large cavalry force still farther in advance, while parts of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth corps, forming the command of Gen. A. J. Smith, were eight miles in rear of the Nineteenth.
The enemy suddenly attacked the cavalry in force, captured their artillery and supply-train, and then overwhelmed the Thir- teenth corps, and sent them back in utter rout. The Nineteenth corps was formed in line of battle, and the men of the One Hundred and Sixteenth New York, with their comrades, awaited the onslaught of the victors. The latter came on with exultant yells, but the Erie county men held their fire till their foes were within a few paces, and then delivered it with such telling effect that the rebels instantly fled, and did not return that day. In this conflict, sometimes called the battle of Sabine Cross Roads, the regiment had two killed and nineteen wounded.
It would seem that the position thus maintained might have been held, but Gen. Banks thought otherwise, and the corps re- treated, at midnight, to Pleasant Hill. Then the whole army awaited the attack of the foe. They came, attacked, and were driven back, with heavy loss. The One Hundred and Sixteenth being sheltered by a rude fortification of rails, on their front, lost only two men killed and ten wounded. But even this victory was only valued by General Banks as giving him another oppor- tunity to escape. At midnight, the whole army was again moved to the rear, and halted but a short time till it reached Alexandria. While there, the One Hundred and Sixteenth and a few other regiments built the celebrated dam, by which our fleet of gunboats, imprisoned above the Red river rapids, was enabled to float down and escape the foe. The army then re- turned to the Mississippi.
In the forepart of July, the Nineteenth corps went back by sea to northern Virginia, arriving at Washington the same day that Bidwell's brigade won the victory of Fort Stevens. After numerous fruitless marches, the whole army in northern Vir- ginia was placed under a young commander, till then but little known, General Philip H. Sheridan. His command was soon in
,
500
IN THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY.
the Shenandoah Valley, where Sheridan and Early moved back- ward and forward, each apparently satisfied if he could hold the other in check, and prevent his aiding one of the main armies. This continued till the 19th of September, when the battle of Ope- quan Creek was fought. After a stubborn fight between the Sixth and Nineteenth corps (the 49th New York was in the former, the 116th in the latter,) and the rebels, with no great advantage on either side, the Eighth corps and Custer's cavalry, which had been held in reserve, charged and utterly routed the foe. Nine men killed and forty wounded was the cost of this victory to the One Hundred and Sixteenth.
The army pressed forward rapidly after the beaten enemy, overtook him at Fisher's Hill, and inflicted the most com- plete defeat, capturing two thousand prisoners and twenty-one pieces of artillery. Sheridan chased Early up the valley as . much farther as it was thought best to go, and then returned toward his base of supplies. Early, with some reinforcements, immediately gathered up his command as best he could, and followed. . At Cedar Creek he managed to surprise the Eighth corps, utterly routing them and capturing twenty-four pieces of artillery, Sheridan had gone forward, and was many miles down the valley. Gen. Wright ordered the army to retreat. . The reb- els followed in exultant and somewhat disorganized pursuit.
When four miles were thus passed, thundering cheers told of the arrival of Sheridan. After his famous ride from "twenty miles away " the fiery little. general was in the field, turning the retreating lines toward the enemy. The men were formed in battle order, and then allowed to make coffee. While the One Hundred and Sixteenth was at this welcome task, another out- burst of cheers was heard, rapidly approaching nearer. In a few moments " Little Phil," on his celebrated coal-black steed, rode along the line of the regiment.
" Boys," he cried, "this should never have happened if I had " been here. But we are going to our old camp to sleep to-night. " for we're going to get the tightest twist on them you ever saw. " I tell you we'll lick them out of their boots before night, if you'll "only fight." The wildest cheers rent the air, the " boys " flung their caps on high, and swore that if "Little Phil " would only lead them no enemy on earth should stop them.
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