USA > Pennsylvania > Beaver County > History of Beaver County, Pennsylvania, and its centennial celebration, Volume I > Part 56
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Up to May 24th the regiment had been following the rebel retreat, and engaged afterwards in building rifle-pits and slash- ing timber along the Chicahominy, and many of the men had sickened and died, among whom was Colonel Wilson.
In the battle of Fair Oaks, May 31st, the boys of the IoIst distinguished themselves for stubborn bravery, when with their small division they held a position in advance of the whole army and maintained it against overpowering numbers until, outflanked and threatened with utter annihilation, they were compelled to draw back to the second line of works. In this desperate conflict every third man in the regiment was either VOL. I .- 33.
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killed or wounded, but they inflicted damage on the foe equal to or greater than that which they had themselves received.
After the battle of Fair Oaks the regiment was variously employed, and though not engaged in any of the great battles, rendered important services at different points. During the remaining part of the year 1863, and the early part of 1864, they had frequent encounters with bands of the enemy, as they were met by detachments sent out to scour the country bordering on the Albemarle Sound and the Chowan River.
In April, 1864, the regiment was in camp at Plymouth, near the mouth of the Roanoke River. The enemy was known to be building an iron-clad ram at Hamilton, a point on the river above, and General Wessels had obstructions placed in the river and prepared in every way to dispute the passage of the ram. About the middle of the month he was attacked in force by the enemy, and after a terrible struggle lasting for several days he was overpowered by superior numbers and compelled to surrender. The entire regiment, with the exception of a few absent on a fur- lough or detached service, fell into the hands of the enemy. The prisoners were taken to Andersonville, where the enlisted men were imprisoned and the officers were sent to Macon. They were subsequently moved about from prison to prison, and were finally exchanged at Wilmington in March, 1865. Most of the officers of the IoIst escaped at various times, and after in- credible sufferings, hunted by cavalry and bloodhounds, a part of them succeeded in reaching the Union lines, while others were recaptured and returned to prison. The enlisted men were ex- changed at various times and places, but before the final ex- change took place in March, 1865, over half of them had died. The skeletons of the companies still remained intact, and to these new recruits were added, and in March eight new com- panies were assigned to the regiment, but these were never con- solidated with the original companies, and on the 25th of June, 1865, the regiment was mustered out of service at Newbern, N. C.
The 134th Regiment, P. V. I. (nine months) .- This regiment was recruited in compliance with a call for troops to serve nine months, issued by Governor Curtin in July, 1862. Companies E and I were from Beaver County, with J. Adams Vera and John W. Hague their respective captains. The companies were
Joseph H. Wilson. Colonel of the IoIst Regt., P. V. I.
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mustered into the service at Camp Curtin, and Washington being threatened by the advance of the enemy in the second Bull Run campaign, the regiment was ordered to the Capital before its organization was completed. There it was sent to Arlington Heights, and at that place its regimental organization was completed with the following field-officers: Matthew Stan- ley Quay of Beaver, Colonel; Edward O'Brien of Lawrence County, Lieutenant-Colonel; John M. Thompson of Butler County, Major. The regiment was variously engaged in the defenses, not being fortunate enough to participate in the Bull Run, South Mountain, and Antietam fights, through no fault of its own, and until the 30th of December lay in camp near the latter battlefield. While here Colonel Quay was stricken down with the typhoid fever, and the command devolved upon Lieu- tenant-Colonel O'Brien. Later, Colonel Quay returned to duty, but was so much reduced by disease that he was compelled to resign.
In the battle of Fredericksburg, in the formation of Tyler's brigade for storming the heights in the last grand struggle of the day, the 134th had the post of honor in the brigade, the right of the first line. During the brief time the regiment was in the conflict it lost 14 killed, 106 wounded, and 19 missing, many of the latter known to be wounded. Colonel Quay, though unfit for service, refused to remain behind, and served as aid on the staff of General Tyler throughout the battle. In his official report General Tyler bears this testimony to Colonel Quay's faithfulness :
"Colonel M. S. Quay, late of the One Hundred and Thirty- fourth, was upon my staff as volunteer aid-de-camp, and to him I am greatly indebted.
"Notwithstanding his enfeebled health, he was in the saddle early and late, ever prompt and efficient, and especially so during the engagement.".
Burnside's defeat was followed by the historic "mud march," his effort to retrieve disaster by a new campaign being rendered abortive by the bad weather and the sudden deepening of the roads, making it impossible to move his artillery and trains. But "Fighting Joe" Hooker assuming command of the army, its morale was soon restored.
The next important engagement in which this regiment took
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part was the battle of Chancellorsville, when, on May 3d, it fought bravely and lost very heavily, having 48 killed, wounded, and missing. General Tyler, in his official report, said of it: "The One Hundred and Thirty-fourth was second in line, and no set of men could have behaved better. The officers, one and all followed the example of their Colonel, who was constantly on the alert; they were very active, and not a man shirked his duty." The term of service of this regiment expired shortly after the Chancellorsville engagement, and it was ordered to Harrisburg, where, on the 26th of May, it was mustered out of the service.
The 139th Regiment, P. V. I. (three years) .- This regiment was organized at Camp Howe, near Pittsburg, under Colonel Frederick H. Collier. Company H, Captain John A. Donald, was recruited in Beaver County in part. The regiment was immediately upon its organization ordered to the front, and arrived at Washington on the 3d of September, 1862. The dead of the second Bull Run battle were still unburied, and the regiment was at once assigned to the mournful duty of interring them. They buried over 1700 bodies, and then joined the army at the battle of Antietam, but did not become engaged. At Chancellorsville the regiment lost 123 in killed, wounded, and missing. In the battle of Gettysburg it fought on the extreme left of the Union line, and with its brigade, on the 2d, held the enemy in its front in check all the rest of that day.
At the brilliant affair at Rappahannock Station, and in the preliminary movements at Mine Run, the 139th was present and took a vigorous part. Later, in the Wilderness, it bore the brunt of some of the fiercest assaults of the enemy, and lost in killed and wounded 196, including nearly every commissioned officer; and at Spottsylvania Court-House and Cold Harbor it fought bravely and lost heavily. In Sheridan's triumphant clearance of the Shenandoah Valley the 139th took part, and in the hard fought battles of Winchester, Fisher's Hill, and Cedar Creek suffered severely. The regiment took part in the final and successful assault at Petersburg, and was subsequently moved to North Carolina with other troops to the support of Sherman, but, Johnston having surrendered, it was not needed and so was ordered to return to Washington, where, on the 21st of June, 1865, it was mustered out of the service.
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The 140th Regiment, P. V. I. (three years) .- Companies F, H, and I of this regiment were recruited in Beaver County, cap- tains, Richard P. Roberts, Marcus Ormond, and James Darragh. The regiment rendezvoused at Camp Curtin, where, on the 8th of September, 1862, a regimental organization was effected, with the following field-officers: Richard P. Roberts of Beaver County, Colonel; John Fraser of Washington County, Lieuten- ant-Colonel; and Thomas B. Rodgers of Mercer County, Major.
On the roth the regiment moved to a point on the Northern Central Railway near Baltimore, where it was posted to keep open communications with the front, and after Lee was driven back from Antietam into Virginia the men were occupied with drill and instruction. Ordered to the front in December, they were assigned to Zook's brigade, First Division of the famous Second Army Corps, and went into camp at Falmouth.
April 28, 1863, the regiment moved on the Chancellorsville campaign, arriving at the Chancellor House, May Ist. During the desperate fighting here they had their full share and did their part nobly. On the morning of the 3d, while the 140th was supporting the 5th Maine Battery, the Chancellor House near by, which was being used as a hospital, took fire. A part of Company F, under Captain Thomas Henry (now of New Brighton), was ordered to rescue the inmates from the flames. Thirty-three wounded men and three women, who had taken refuge in the cellar, were saved from the burning house.
The next important engagement of the regiment was at Gettysburg, in that awful and glorious struggle which dealt to the Rebellion its death-blow and gave to American history one of its brightest pages.
Gettysburg may not only be named with Marathon and Ther- mopylæ, Balaklava and Waterloo, and the other great and de- cisive battles of the ancient and the modern world; but no battle of modern times shows a greater, or, perhaps, even so great a percentage of casualties to the troops engaged. The greatest losses in European battles were at Mars-la-Tour, in the Franco-Prussian War, where the 3d Westphalian had casualties of 49.4 per cent in killed and wounded; at Metz, where the Garde-Schutzen lost 46.1 per cent; and at Balaklava, where the British loss was 36.7 per cent. In the Union army there were sixty-three regiments during the Civil War that lost more
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than 50 per cent. in single engagements, and one hundred and twenty whose loss exceeded 36 per cent. At Gettysburg no less than twenty-three Union regiments had casualties of more than 50 per cent. The loss of the Ist Minnesota was 82 per cent., of the IIIth New York 71 per cent., of the 14Ist Penn- sylvania 63 per cent., of the 147th New York 60 per cent., and of the 19th Indiana 56 per cent.
The 15Ist Pennsylvania, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel George F. McFarland, principal of the McAlister Academy in Juniata County, and consisting of school teachers and their boys, had such heavy losses that the Confederate General, Heath, said afterwards, "The dead of the 15Ist marked the line of battle with the accuracy of a dress parade."
The Second Corps arrived on the field of Gettysburg on the morning of the 2d and took position on the left center, stretch- ing away from the heights above the cemetery, towards Round Top. On this day the 140th was in the thick of the fight. Sickles, who occupied the extreme left with the Third Corps, had been nearly smashed. Parts of the Fifth Corps, which had been sent to his relief, had met a like fate. This terrific fighting was about the fatal wheat-field and the wood beyond. Finally Hancock sent Caldwell's Division to repair the disaster that seemed in- evitable. The brigades of Cross and Kelly, which went in first, were terribly cut up, and Colonel Cross was killed. Then came the brigades of Zook and Brooke as a forlorn hope. Zook was killed almost before his troops reached the spot where death was holding high carnival, when the command of his brigade fell upon Colonel Richard P. Roberts of the 140th. With desperate courage these two small brigades now pushed forward, and suc- ceeded in driving the enemy from the woods and the ridge beyond the wheat-field. But this gallant action, achieved at fearful cost, did not save the position. Sickles's weak point, the angle at the Peach Orchard, had been hopelessly broken, and the enemy had turned the right of Caldwell's position, com- pelling him to retire. The 140th was not again ordered into the thickest of the fight at Gettysburg, but remained on the left center under a heavy artillery fire during the night and the fol- lowing day. In this action the fighting had been terrific, the 140th losing in killed and wounded 263, more than half its effective strength. Colonel Roberts, Captain David Acheson,
Jacques Reach ny
Col. R.PRalerts
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and Lieutenant A. M. Wilson were among the killed, as was also Quartermaster-Sergeant Smith, who, not yet having been mus- tered in, need not have gone into the fight, but thought his duty was there, went in, and was killed.
In the later movements of the Army of the Potomac during the summer and fall of 1863, the regiment took its part and went into winter quarters with the army on the line of the Rapidan. In the campaigns of 1864 and 1865 the 140th went through the trying marches and the awful struggles of those years; was in the battles of the Wilderness, of Spottsylvania, of North Anna, of Cold Harbor, losing tremendously in all these battles; took part in the fearful assaults at Petersburg and fought its last fight at Farmville on the 7th of April, 1865, being mustered out of the service at Washington, May 31, 1865.1
The 162d Regiment, 17th Cavalry (three years) .- By the call of the President, of July 2, 1862, Pennsylvania was required to raise three regiments of cavalry. The 17th was one of these, of which Company A was recruited in Beaver County. This company was raised as an independent company of cavalry by a special order from Governor Curtin, issued, after the call of President Lincoln in July, to D. M. Donehoo and James Quigly Anderson of Beaver, Pa. It was named the "Irwin Cavalry," in honor of W. W. Irwin of Beaver County, who was at this time Commissary-General of the State of Pennsylvania, and after the close of the Civil War served two terms as State Treasurer.
The regimental organization was effected October 18, 1862, at Camp Simmons, near Harrisburg, with the following field- officers: Josiah H. Kellogg, Colonel; John B. McAllister, Lieu- tenant-Colonel; David B. Hartranft, Coe Durland, and Reuben R. Reinhold, Majors.
The regiment left for Washington on the 25th of November, 1862, where it went into camp on East Capitol Hill, but was soon ordered to the front, and continued in active service with the Army of the Potomac to the close of the war. It had its
1 From Major Thomas Henry of this regiment we have received the following statement of its casualties:
Killed.
Died of Wds.
Died.
Wounded.
Company F.
H. I.
I33
I3
I3
5
12
IIO
7
4
14
19
363
33
26
20
67
Enrolled. I20
I3
9
I
36
.
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first brush with the enemy at the town of Occoquan, where it encountered Hampton's Legion on the 22d of December, being compelled to retreat after a sharp skirmish.
Chancellorsville was the first important battle in which the 17th took part, and the service which they rendered there was so singular that it is worth relating. "Stonewall" Jackson had driven the Eleventh Corps and was pressing on to sever the Union army, with no adequate force to oppose him. General Pleasanton, returning from a flanking movement against Jack- son, came upon the scene just in time to perceive the extent of the disaster, and immediately ordered Major Keenan to charge full upon the head of the advancing rebel column in order to hold them until he could get his artillery into position. Then with two squadrons of the 17th he cleared the field of fugitives and stopped what cannon and ammunition he could, getting into position twenty-two cannon, double shotted with canister. The guns were aimed low to strike in front of the enemy, and the men were ordered not to fire until the word was given, so as to deliver the whole weight of metal at once. For a moment a deception was created by the enemy displaying a Union flag, and then the immense masses of rebels poured over the field in full charge upon the guns. The rest concerns the 17th, and we will quote what General Pleasanton says of it :
I immediately gave the order, "fire," and the fire actually swept the men away; it seemed to blow those men in front clear over the parapet. · We had this fight between musketry and artillery there for nearly an hour. At one time they got within fifty yards of the guns. There were two squadrons of the 17th Pennsylvania Cavalry left. This remaining regiment I had was composed of raw men, new troops, and all I could do with them was to make a show. I had them formed in single line, with sabres drawn, with orders to charge in case the enemy came to the guns. They sat in rear of the guns, and I have no doubt that the rebels took them for the head of a heavy column, as the country sloped back behind them, and they could not see what was back of them.
In a general order, issued immediately after the battle, Gen- eral Pleasanton says :
The coolness displayed by the 17th Pennsylvania Regiment, in rally- ing fugitives, and supporting the batteries (including Martin's) which re- pulsed the enemy's attack under Jackson, on the eve of the 2d instant, has excited the highest admiration.
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With its division, and under General Buford, the regiment moved northward to Gettysburg, where it arrived on the night of the 30th of June. The inhabitants received the boys in blue with enthusiasm.
On the morning of the Ist of July, Buford met the enemy in force about a mile and a half from the town on the Cashtown Road. For four hours he held at bay a third of the entire rebel army, until Reynolds and Howard were able to reach the field. In his report General Pleasanton says: "To the intrepidity, courage and fidelity of General Buford and his brave division, the country and army owe the field of Gettysburg." During the remainder of the battle the cavalry moved upon the flanks of the infantry, preventing flanking movements by the enemy, and protecting the lines of communication with the base of supplies.
We cannot follow the regiment in its successive campaigns. It bore an honorable part in almost every engagement from this point on to the close of the war, as is witnessed to in what was said by General Devin in his farewell order to the 17th, in which he uses this language:
In five successive campaigns, and in over three score engagements, you have nobly sustained your part. Of the many gallant regiments from your State none has a brighter record, none has more freely shed its blood on every battle field from Gettysburg to Appomattox. Your gallant deeds will be ever fresh in the memory of your comrades of the Iron Brigade and the First Division.
These meager outlines do not do justice to the record of heroism and devotion which was made by the regiments in which we are interested here, but they must suffice. The men in these regiments who went from Beaver County I were equal in intelligence and bravery to those from any other part of the land, and, dead or living, they have their place on Glory's page, and their reward in the preservation of the Union for which they fought. Beaver County will not forget them or ever cease to honor them.
It would be improper to close this chapter without some notice of the service rendered during this gigantic struggle by the men who, at the crises in the war, entered the militia of the
1 Captain Bulford's Co. H, of the 87th Penna. Infantry was organized at New Brighton, but few, if any, of the men were from Beaver County.
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State and put themselves at the disposal of the Government for any post of duty or danger to which they might be called. Two important calls for the militia were made, one in 1862 and one in 1863, the history of which is in brief as follows:
MILITIA OF 1862
After the second battle of Bull Run the triumphant rebel forces were pressing northward, and an invasion of the territory of Pennsylvania was evidently contemplated by them. On the 4th of September Governor Curtin issued a proclamation, call- ing on the people to arm and prepare for defense. On the 10th, the enemy being already in Maryland, he issued a general order, calling on all able-bodied men to enroll immediately for the defense of the State and to hold themselves in readiness to march upon an hour's notice, properly officered and equipped, offering arms to such as had none, and promising that they should be held for service only so long as the emergency lasted. On the 11th, acting under the authority of the President of the United States, the Governor called for fifty thousand men. The response was prompt and enthusiastic, and companies and regi- ments began at once to move forward to the State Capital. On the 14th the head of the Army of the Potomac met the enemy at South Mountain and hurled him back through its passes, and on the evening of the 16th and the following day a fierce battle was fought at Antietam. In the meantime the militia had rapidly concentrated at Hagerstown and Chambersburg, under the command of General John F. Reynolds, then com- manding a corps in the Army of the Potomac, and who, the following year, bravely fell at the opening of the battle of Gettys- burg.
Fifteen thousand men were pushed forward to Hagerstown and Boonsboro, and a portion of them stood in line of battle in close proximity to the field, in readiness to advance, while the fierce fighting was in pro- gress. Ten thousand more were posted in the vicinity of Greencastle and Chambersburg, and "about twenty-five thousand," says Governor Curtin, in his annual message, "were at Harrisburg, or on their way to Harrisburg, or in readiness and waiting for transportation to proceed thither." The Twenty-fifth regiment, under command of Colonel Dechert, at the request of General Halleck, was sent to the State of Delaware, to guard the Dupont Powder Mills, whence the National armies were principally supplied. But the enemy was defeated at Antietam, and
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retreated in confusion across the Potomac. The emergency having passed, the militia regiments were ordered to return to Harrisburg, and in accordance with the conditions on which they had been called into service, they were, on the 24th, mustered out and disbanded.I
The Beaver County companies of the militia of 1862 were Co. C. of the 6th Pennsylvania Regiment, Capt. George S. Barker; and Co. F. of the 14th Pennsylvania, Capt. James S. Rutan. These two companies served at Chambersburg.
EMERGENCY AND STATE MILITIA TROOPS OF 1863
The victories of the rebel arms at Fredericksburg in Decem- ber, 1862, and at Chancellorsville in May, 1863, encouraged the enemy to undertake once more the invasion of the North. The full gravity of the crisis was not appreciated either by the people or the general Government; but some alarm was felt by the latter, and as a precautionary measure, by order of the War Department of the 9th of June, 1863, two new military departments were established: that of the Monongahela, under the command of Maj .- Gen. W. T. H. Brooks, with headquarters at Pittsburg; and that of the Susquehanna, under the command of Maj .- Gen. Darius N. Couch, with headquarters at Harris- burg. On the 12th of June, Governor Curtin called out the entire militia of the State. The response was prompt, and large numbers of troops proceeded at once to Harrisburg. A diffi- culty now arose. The general Government refused to accept on this first call any troops for less than six months, and the men who had suddenly left their homes, expecting to serve only for the emergency, were unwilling to be mustered into the service of the United States. While the North was still incredulous that an invasion in force was contemplated by the rebel leader, and this delay in enlistments was existing, the enemy was steadily ad- vancing, masking his movements behind his cavalry, and by the middle of the month (June) he had struck the Union forces under General Milroy at Winchester and dispersed them. It was evi- dent now that he intended to cross the Potomac in force, nor did he long delay. During the 24th and 25th the main body of the rebel army crossed the Potomac at Shepherdstown and Williamsport, and on the 26th the Army of the Potomac crossed
1 Bates's Hist. of Pennsylvania Volunteers, vol. v., p. 1146.
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at Edwards's Ferry. On that day, the 26th, Governor Curtin issued his second proclamation, declaring that the enemy in force was advancing upon the border, and calling for sixty thou- sand men to be mustered into the service of the State for ninety days, or for the emergency. Under this call twenty-eight regi- ments of infantry, numbered from the 32d to the 60th, besides several independent companies and batteries, were organized. Five of these regiments, the 54th to the 58th inclusive, were organized in the Department of the Monongahela, in camps near Pittsburg.
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