Giving Tone and Character to the Army: A Buckeye at Cedar Mountain

In January 1862, the 66th Ohio Volunteer Infantry left the state with 900 men bound for service in northern Virginia. Assigned to Erastus B. Tyler’s brigade of James Shields’ division along with the 5th and 7th Ohio regiments, the 66th Ohio campaigned for months in the Shenandoah Valley against Stonewall Jackson’s forces before taking a shellacking at the hard-fought Battle of Port Republic on June 9, 1862. Two months later, the 66th Ohio took part into another desperate struggle against Stonewall Jackson’s army at Cedar Mountain; the regiment lost 94 casualties and was so reduced that only 60 men of the regiment were left in the ranks that evening.

Two days after the defeat at Cedar Mountain, army commander General John Pope reviewed the regiment. A few weeks before, Pope had complimented the men of the regiment, stating “I want these men to give tone to my army.” The battered remnant that stood at attention before him that August morning must have presented quite the contrast from the last time Pope had seen them. “The 66th regiment being ordered to wheel by companies presented a sorrowful sight,” recalled Private William A. Brand of Co. G. “There was not over a color guard in any one company and in Company B, Private Charley Weaver wheeled alone and represented officers and men of that fine company which marched from Camp McArthur in January last.”

William Brand’s account of the Battle of Cedar Mountain was one of the numerous letters he wrote under the nom-de-plume of D.N. Arbaw (W.A. Brand spelled backwards) and had been published in the August 28, 1862 issue of the Urbana Citizen & Gazette.

Two battle-worn colors that were carried by the 66th Ohio during the Civil War. The regiment saw action at Port Republic, Cedar Mountain, Antietam, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg before being sent west along with the rest of the 12th Army Corps to join the Army of the Cumberland in September 1863. There it saw action on Lookout Mountain and a few days later at Ringgold. As part of Sherman's army in 1864, it took part in numerous engagements of the Atlanta campaign, most notably at Resaca, New Hope Church, Kolb's Farm, and Peach Tree Creek. It later marched to the sea and through the Carolinas before taking part in the Grand Review in May 1865. The regiment truly made a grand loop through the Confederacy.  

Culpeper Courthouse Virginia

August 13, 1862

          The evening before we moved from Little Washington, General Erastus B. Tyler visited each regiment of the brigade, which we all still call “the Old Third” and bade the soldiers’ farewell. He spoke of the regret he felt at being ordered away from the command he loved and said he had begged General Pope to permit him to remain. At the review of our brigade, the day before, this had been asked by General Tyler but refused by General Pope. The latter General said “these men” pointing to our old brigade “are just the men I want. They look like soldiers who have seen service and can be depended upon. I want these men,” said he, “to give tone to my army.” Think of it, reader: a little band of heroes, scarcely numbering a thousand, wanted by one of our ablest generals to give tone to his army! Who seeks for compliments, look elsewhere for better. No troops received greater honor than just that demand upon us. General Tyler was ordered to Washington to organize brigades and fit them for the field. He parted from us with tears and us from him with regret, though at times his harshness galled us.

Major General John W. Geary

General John W. Geary assumed command of the brigade to which was adduced the 28th Pennsylvania, and we marched off reaching Hazel River Thursday afternoon August 7th. The next day we moved around camp rather leisurely and expected a rest of a day or two. Quartermaster Brand was sent out with a heavy escort of cavalry and infantry guards on a foraging expedition. General Geary’s instructions were just as proper as could be given. “You go for forage. Get forage under General Pope’s order if you can; if not, get it anyhow. I want it understood that my brigade shall be first in war, first in the field, and first in the heart of the country.” The quartermaster, thus instructed, procured a large amount of forage for the brigade and quite a supply of domestic rations for the regiment. He returned some three hours after the regiment had moved to Culpeper. 

Culpeper was reached about 9 o’clock Friday evening and the wagon train being some miles behind, it did not reach camp until 1 o’clock next morning. The men slept upon the dirty mulatto soil of which this country is made. At daybreak the regiment was eating breakfast. Soon thereafter it was formed in line and the arms and accoutrements were inspected by the staff officers. Arms were stacked, and the boys put up Sibley tents having been so instructed by General Geary. Hardly had tents been pitched when an orderly rode up with an order from the General to fall in. The line was soon formed, the roll called (Oh, what an affecting thing it is, this roll call before an engagement). At noon the brigade moved out through the town and took the road toward Cedar Mountain. They marched to the rear of our lines and remained until half past three when they were ordered to the front. The 28th Pennsylvania, which numbered 1,200, was ordered to the protection of a signal corps on our right and was not brought into action. This left “the old Third Brigade” in a condition to perform their duty without any drawbacks.

Map of the Battle of Cedar Mountain from my book  Army Life According to Arbaw; map by Hal Jespersen.The entire brigade suffered heavily at Cedar Mountain, the neighboring 29th Ohio being reduced to just 83 men. 

At 4 o’clock the brigade took a position in a corn field in front of six heavy batteries which had been erected on Cedar Mountain and were playing upon them with effect. They remained here half an hour, lying down, and hugging mother earth as closely as circumstances and soil would permit, some even digging holes in the ground to let their faces down. There was a stream of shells flying about them and in front a quarter of a mile distant were two lines of Rebel infantry pouring volley after volley into their ranks, sweeping them down by dozens. But they held the position for half an hour, and then advanced under a galling fire. Several times they were compelled to halt, so murderous was the fire. Still they advanced again and again until within 100 yards of the infantry and it was discovered that there were thousands upon thousands of them disposed in gullies, ravines, and behind fences. A 64-lb gun now opened upon them at a short range with grape, canister, and short pieces of railroad iron. Another halt and the enemy attempted a flank movement with overpowering numbers. This compelled the brigade to fall back beyond our first position. They retired slowly and kept up the fire all the way, the enemy keeping close to our rear.

The 3rd Maryland now reinforced us and the brigade again advanced. They had moved but a few hundred feet when the enemy confronted them with heavy volleys of musketry and checked the advance. Another attempt was made to surround the brigade and again they retired and found that the 3rd Maryland had skedaddled. And now for four hours had this brigade of 800 men been fighting and charging the enemy whose number was at the smallest estimate 12,000. No support had been given them during this time, although hosts were lying over in the rear and the force of Rebels drove them back far beyond the first position. Now they number less than 400. The 66th Ohio was counted by Colonel Charles Candy at 8:30 p.m. and numbered 60 men.

Colonel Charles Candy, 66th O.V.I.

Colonel Candy, now in command of the brigade, reported the circumstances to General Banks and was ordered by him to advance again, ordered to “give tone and character to this army.” And rallying about him the little squad, he pushed out toward the enemy, sending forward Captain Joseph Van Deman (Co. K) and twelve men as skirmishers. The Captain has not been heard from since. The brigade reached the edge of the woods and was proceeding through on a road when they heard suddenly a thousand commands, “Halt! Halt! Halt!” Immediately the enemy’s guns flashed and bang, bang came the terrific reports of their pieces. The slaughter was dreadful- 30 of our 60 fell dead or wounded, but most all were brought off. The enemy had surrounded us and under the cover of the forest, each man had now to look out for himself. They made their way back to the rear of the lines and only twelve men could be found. Friday night each company slept upon one blanket so great was our decimation.

"If true courage and pure grit will give tone to this army, the Third Brigade has set fair example which the Eastern troops have but to follow and win victories. God bless Tyler’s old brigade! But I fear it is to be pushed forward until but one man remains." ~ William A. Brand, 66th O.V.I.

One would suppose that General Pope would have been satisfied with the “tone and character” we have already given to his army, but not so. When an advance was contemplated on Tuesday morning, the Third Brigade was ordered to be prepared to march to the front at 4 a.m. and there take a position. While the Third Brigade was in this death struggle, fired upon from front and each side by infantry and heavy batteries of artillery to the right for a mile and a half at from 5-7 p.m., a terrible conflict was going on. General Samuel W. Crawford with the 28th New York, 5th Connecticut, 2nd Massachusetts, and 10th Maine, together with Bayard’s and some Pennsylvania cavalry, had charged across a very large stubble field to a wood in which the Rebels were concealed. Wherever they stopped a moment in the advance, there lay from 20-50 dead and in the wood, the hand-to-hand fight must have been one of desperation as the Rebel and Federal dead lay side by side scattered over an area of 30 acres in dense underbrush. In this charge the loss of officers was very heavy, literally leaving regiments without any officers.  

General John Pope

Under the armistice agreed upon by the two commanding Generals, many officers visited the battlefield on Monday. From our regiment, Quartermaster Joseph Brand and Adjutant Robert Murdoch took an excursion which proved to them very interesting. They report that of our dead they must have seen 500 and of the Rebels not quite so many, as they had already buried a large number and their officers all carried off. They rode around the Rebel side of the battleground and could see the great advantage of their position- meeting as they rode Rebel officers and their burying parties. In riding up near the pickets, they met General Jubal A. Early and his staff and had a very interesting conversation with the Adjutant General. The conversation turned upon the calamities of the war, it causes, its effects, and its probable duration. Currency being introduced, our party proposed exchanging Confederate notes for greenbacks or even Virginia bank paper, but all declared they had none of our paper, nor even Virginia paper. After many compliments from each party and all in social pleasantry, they separated, wishing each other a safe deliverance personally from the casualties of impending battles.

They report the track of the battle resembling that of a tornado and the struggle of the “old Third Brigade” as having torn up the very earth; the cannon balls and bomb shells had left impressions over almost the entire surface. Our dead had all been robbed, their pockets being turned inside out, and the officers had all been stripped and left naked in the broiling sun. One officer from Boston had $2,000 in his pockets, making a good haul for some Tiger of whom it is said they fight for money obtained in this way. They met with a squad of about 20 of the Louisiana Brigade who fought at Port Republic and they said that the Louisiana Brigade and Wheat’s Battalion fought us over Clark’s battery- that Wheat’s Battalion marched down in full view to draw our fire; when the brigade charged and fired as they went and took the battery. They contend that after we took it from them, they charged back again and retook it a second time, but they were told that our retreat was not from them but from the heavy reinforcements advancing from the bridge. The loss of horses, they report, was very great; they were laying strewn all over the field and especially on the right where the cavalry had charged, and at the batteries on the left many crippled horses were still hobbling about over the field.

During the armistice on Monday, Jackson fell back and it was supposed that he was in full retreat but this morning our lines all fell back to their old position and it may easily be conjectured that Jackson is again advancing and that in all probability the great battle of the war will transpire either near the old battle ground or at this place (Culpeper) in a day or two.

Private Augustus Tanner, Co. I, 66th Ohio Volunteer Infantry

The race between Pope and Jackson was to get possession of this place and the struggle will be to hold it. If Jackson was retreating or marching to Richmond, Pope would pursue him and hence we know that the present calm will soon be broken by the terrible long roll and the wild battle cry and many thousands of both armies will bite the dust. On Monday the brigade was reviewed, our regiment in command of Lieutenant Colonel Eugene Powell and the 66th regiment being ordered to wheel by companies, it presented a sorrowful sight.  There was not over a color guard in any one company and in Company B, Private Charley Weaver wheeled alone and represented officers and men of that fine company which marched from Camp McArthur in January last. 

General Geary commanded the brigade in the hottest of the fight and by his daring and self-possession won the confidence and admiration of our soldiers. Since the battle he has issued a circular to the “Men of Ohio” in which he compliments our old brigade highly and says we have sustained our reputation as fighting men and done honor to our state.

And now the fight is over, the terrible excitement has passed away; the wounded have been removed to the hospitals at Washington and amongst the remaining members of the old regiment, the query is “have we given tone and character to the army?” Is General Pope satisfied with the manner in which our brigade gives tone? Reader, if marching up to the mouth of the cannon, standing under the muzzles of 10,000 guns belching forth fire and iron, if charging upon a force which has just driven us back and which we know is ten times superior to our own and that without flinch or falter; if true courage and pure grit will give tone to this army, the Third Brigade has set fair example which the Eastern troops have but to follow and win victories. God bless Tyler’s old brigade! But I fear it is to be pushed forward until but one man remains.

Source:

Letter from Private William A. Brand, Co. G, 66th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Urbana Citizen & Gazette (Ohio), August 28, 1862, pg. 2



Comments

Post a Comment

Most Popular Posts

Arming the Buckeyes: Longarms of the Ohio Infantry Regiments

Image
     A common question that comes up in conversation about Civil War Buckeye regiments is "What were they armed with?" We are fortunate in that the state of Ohio kept good records of how the regiments were armed when they went into service, this being especially true for those regiments which went into service in 1861 and 1862. The state adjutant general's reports for 1861 and 1862 have been heavily drawn upon to construct this article, as well as consultation with Phil Spaugy who has done extensive research on how Ohio's troops were armed during the war.      Buckeyes carried a fairly wide variety of weapons into the field, and the below article breaks this down into weapons of both domestic manufacture and imported arms. The early days of the war found the state of Ohio practically bereft of longarms; as an example, when the 1st and 2nd Ohio Volunteer Militia left the state in late April 1861, they left unarmed, being armed at Lancaster, Pennsylvania on their way to
Read more

Dressing the Rebels: How to Dye Butternut Jeans Cloth

Image
     In the early days of the Civil War,  the Southern states found themselves with an abundance of cotton but a shortage of cloth with which to make army uniforms. The trade in cloth prior to the war had largely been to send raw cotton or wool north to New England (or Great Britain) where it was converted into usable cloth; but now that trade was broken and the Southern states were thrown upon their own resources in their efforts to properly clothe the Confederate army.  This collection of Confederate enlisted men's frock coats and shell jackets gives some indication of the variety of shades of butternut worn during the war. All of them are shades of yellow brown, some heavier on the yellow and some heavier on the brown. The blue used around the collar or as rank insignia indicates that the soldier was in the infantry. Surviving Confederate uniforms are considered rather rare and command quite a healthy price in the collecting market. For an in-depth study of how Confederate jacke
Read more

Bullets for the Union: Manufacturing Small Arms Ammunition During the Civil War

Image
       Civil War bullets are perhaps the most common item collected from the era; the two armies expended bullets by the millions during the four years’ conflict and spent or deformed bullets of all shapes and sizes have made fascinating and affordable collectibles since the guns went silent in 1865.       I recently acquired a display piece featuring 35 different types of small arms ammunition used during the Civil War, including everything from a small .28 caliber ball up to a .69 caliber three-ring Minie and it triggered some questions: how did the Federal army obtain its small arms ammunition during the war? Where did the lead come from to make the bullets, and where and how was the ammunition manufactured? This post seeks to answer those questions. A typical .58 caliber 3-ring Minie bullet   “Whenever the blasts of war blow in the ears of men who trade in the implements of destruction, they are apt to experience more joy than the true warrior, for then comes the harvest of gain.
Read more

The Cannons are Now Silent: The Field of Death of Tupelo

Image
       The smoke of battle had drifted away from the battlefield at Tupelo, Mississippi on the hot afternoon of July 14, 1864, but the carnage of war lay spread across the open fields. “Scattered at intervals over the field of a few yards are dull gray blotches half shaded by grass,” an officer from the 7 th Minnesota Infantry recorded. “These are the Rebel dead. They have fought their last battle and lie generally in attitudes of rest; some of them look as if they had welcomed death. On the faces of two is imprinted a smile. One is a boy of 16 with delicate features, almost girlish in their beauty. His last gaze seems to have been directed toward his hand on the forefinger of which was a ring. A circle of purer white indicates its place; the ring was carried off as a trophy of the field.” The following account of the Battles of Tupelo and Old Town Creek was written by an unknown officer of the 7 th Minnesota Infantry, his account appearing in the August 5 th 1864 edition of the
Read more

The Vaunted Enfield Rifle Musket

Image
     The English-made Model 1853 .577 caliber Enfield Rifle Musket was widely regarded as the best infantry arm in the world at the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861. Favorable international press describing its efficiency in the Crimean War and in suppressing the Indian rebellion led to the widespread desire of American infantrymen (both Federal and Confederate) to be armed with these accurate and well-made arms. The lock plate of this well-worn P1853 Enfield rifle musket produced in 1862 shows the typical markings of a British-made weapon that made it through the Federal blockade.  ( Army of Tennessee Relics ) Enfield-pattern weapons were imported into the states by the tens and hundreds of thousands during the war years; one estimate stated that the Federal government purchased 500,000 while the Confederates purchased another 400,000. The Confederate government dispatched Captain Caleb Huse to Europe in April 1861 to purchase weapons and Huse focused on securing all the Enfi
Read more

Straw Already Threshed: Sherman on Shiloh

Image
  W illiam Tecumseh Sherman was enjoying retired life in New York City when just before Christmas in 1889 he was presented with an article written by John Cockerill, a former drummer boy in the 24 th Ohio who was visiting his father Colonel Joseph Cockerill of the 70 th Ohio of Sherman’s division when the Battle of Shiloh began. Cockerill’s article, originally published in the New York Journalist and later featured in the January 1893 issue of Blue & Gray Magazine, Sherman later pronounced as “the best war story ever written” and the truest account of Shiloh.           On New Year’s Day 1890, General Sherman composed the following letter to his friend Marshall P. Wilder thanking him for sending along Cockerill’s article and giving his own explanation of Shiloh. “This to me is straw already threshed for we have fought this battle on paper several times, a much more agreeable task than to fight with bullets,” he concluded. “When in England some years ago I was gratified to liste
Read more

Federal Arms in the Stones River Campaign

Image
  T he following list, constructed after many years of research, lists unit by unit which type of weapons were carried by the Army of the Cumberland during the Stones River campaign. A number of sources were consulted including state ordnance reports, Federal quarterly ordnance reports (thank you Research Arsenal ), Ken Baumann’s Arming the Suckers, regimental histories and memoirs, captured ordnance reports, and consultation with knowledgeable experts in the field of firearms. Some of this information has been shared on the blog before in “ Rosy’s Heavy Metal: Artillery of the Army of the Cumberland ” or “ Shoulder Arms: How Sheridan’s and Davis’s Divisions Were Armed at Stones River ” but this is the first time the army as a whole has been presented. The overall conclusion I drew from looking at this data is that the Army of the Cumberland in December 1862 was an organization in the midst of transformation as far as arms. Many of the regiments still retained their original issue
Read more

Escape of Captain Henry H. Alban of the 21st Ohio Infantry

Image
Captain Henry H. Alban was among the dozen officers of the 21 st Ohio Volunteer Infantry who were captured on September 20, 1863 at the Battle of Chickamauga. The regiment had held its position atop Snodgrass Hill against repeated Confederate assaults and now battered and without ammunition, with the darkness of evening enveloping the hill, the remainder of that gallant band found themselves at the mercy of the 54 th Virginia. A total of 12 officers and 121 enlisted men surrendered; the regiment’s colors were taken, and the men marched off the field into captivity. Captain Henry Harvey Alban, Co. F, 21st O.V.I. Captain Alban along with the rest went through a series of Confederate prison camps before arriving at Columbia, South Carolina in October 1864. Determined to make an escape, he watched for his chance and one night made his leap for freedom, successfully eluding the local camp guard and setting out along the railroad to head for the mountains of eastern Tennessee and
Read more

Knapsack Compression: Wilbur Hinman recalls the first step of becoming a veteran

Image
L ooking back on his experiences during the war, Captain Wilbur Hinman of the 65 th Ohio (perhaps best known as the author of Si Klegg and His Pard ) recalled that the first road along which his regiment marched was strewn “with debris. A pair of six-mule wagonloads might have been gathered of notions that had been flung aside by a thousand suffering “tenderfeet.” “The average young patriot started for the war with a wheelbarrow load of clothing, a bed quilt or two, books, photograph albums, toilet articles, and gimcracks of every sort,” he wrote. “Neither he nor the good homefolks had the slightest conception of the capacity of a knapsack, nor did they for a moment imagine that before the close of his first day upon the road every pound he carried would seem a hundred.” To the true mark of a veteran soldier was one who “learned to dispense with every unnecessary ounce of weight, and just in the ratio that he did this he increased his efficiency as a soldier. It was of the highest
Read more

Federal Arms in the Chickamauga Campaign

Image
T he ordnance returns of the Army of the Cumberland at the end of September 1863 show the results of a transformational year in weaponry. Since taking command of the army at the end of October 1862, General William S. Rosecrans had repeatedly pestered the War Department to supply his regiments with better firearms both to improve the command’s efficiency as well as expand its striking power. The results speak for themselves: for the infantrymen at the end of September 1863, 90% of them now carried Class I long arms (36,058 out of 39,959), 8.3% carried Class II arms, and a mere 1.5% carried Class III weapons. Most of the foreign-made weapons (except Enfields) were gone, and by and large the army had settled on a single common .58 caliber ammunition, although a few .54 caliber and .69 caliber weapons remained within the ranks. The English-made Enfield rifle musket was by far the most common arm, carried by 56% of the men while the second-most common arm was the .58 caliber M1861 Spring
Read more