A Baptism at Groveton: The Fight at Brawner’s Farm with the 19th Indiana

     Two days before his regiment’s baptism of fire at Brawner’s Farm, Private Hank Gaylord of the 19th Indiana wrote home while in camp upon the Cedar Mountain battlefield. The camp stunk to high heaven- unburied horses and men lay strewn in the area.

          “When we first came here yesterday, a detail of ten men from each company was taken for the purpose of carrying rails to pile on the dead horses and burn them, and to decently bury many of the soldiers, some of whom were not put into the ground at all, but simply covered with a little straw and earth. We have had some awful hot weather lately, but now it is quite comfortable in the daytime and rather cold during the night,” he wrote.

          The following day, the 19th Indiana would march out of camp to pursue Stonewall Jackson’s troops who had stolen a march on John Pope’s army and taken positions near the old Bull Run battlefield. On the night of August 28th, the 19th Indiana as part of General John Gibbon’s Fourth Brigade of General Rufus King’s division would clash with Jackson’s men near John Brawner’s farm on the Warrenton Pike in an engagement called the Battle of Groveton.

          Today’s post features three accounts from soldiers in the 19th Indiana covering the opening stages of this important meeting engagement of the Second Battle of Bull Run.

 
Major Isaac M. May of the 19th Indiana would sustain a mortal wound at Brawner's Farm and die a week later on the battlefield in Gainesville, Virginia. The final resting place of the 30-year-old Virginia native's remains are unknown: he was buried by a soldier of Co. A of the 19th Indiana along with a Wisconsin soldier, but both were killed in action before they could explain to May's widow and family where they buried the major. 

At the foot of Cedar Mountain, Culpeper County, Virginia

August 26, 1862

          Having nothing to do just now in the shape of camp duty and no letters to answer owing probably to our not having received any mail since one week last night, I thought I would try my hand at writing a few lines for the paper. At present we are encamped close to the foot of Cedar Mountain on the north side near where their battery which did the worst work among our men was planted. We can see plainly where Jackson’s big gun was stationed.

          Our division is camped as near in a body as it can be. This regiment with the 2nd, 6th, and 7th Wisconsin are now in General Gibbon’s brigade, formerly King’s brigade. [see "How the Iron Brigade Was Wrought: Gainesville through Antietam with the 2nd Wisconsin"]. He is a regular officer, was captain in the 4th Regular battery of artillery. Our only fault with him is he is a little too strict to suit us, although I suppose none to much so for our own good.

          There are any number of graves of Rebel soldiers right here in our camp; also, the carcasses of horses killed in the fight. When we first came here yesterday, a detail of ten men from each company was taken for the purpose of carrying rails to pile on the dead horses and burn them, and to decently bury many of the soldiers, some of whom were not put into the ground at all, but simply covered with a little straw and earth. We have had some awful hot weather lately, but now it is quite comfortable in the daytime and rather cold during the night.

19th Indiana regimental colors

          On the morning of the 5th, our brigade started out on a reconnoitering expedition from Fredericksburg down through Spotsylvania County. Our regiment, the 2nd and 7th Wisconsin, and the 3rd Indiana Cavalry and a Rhode Island battery went out on the Telegraph Road; the 6th Wisconsin, Harris’ Light Cavalry, and a section of a battery of artillery went further to the right for the purpose of tearing up the track and burning railroad bridges and buildings of the Virginia Central Railroad. I think our force went out the Telegraph Road simply for the purpose of keeping off any force which might happen to be in the neighborhood of the railroad.

          The first day after leaving camp we had a little skirmish; that is the cavalry charged a couple of times and the artillery fired a few rounds. The 3rd Indiana Cavalry lost one man killed and three taken prisoners. The day was extremely hot and many of the boys were so overcome with heat that they had to fall out a couple of miles from the place where we were drawn up in line of battle. When we got to the place where the artillery was stationed, only 16 men were in the ranks in our company and not over 150-200 in the whole regiment; the 2nd and 7th Wisconsin regiments were no better off than us. The night we stood picket about half a mile in advance where we had stopped to fight.

This map from the American Battlefield Trust depicts the fighting at Brawner's Farm on the evening of Thursday August 28, 1862. Gibbon's brigade was marching along the Warrenton Pike approached the burg of Groveton when General Jackson dispatched two brigades to attack the federal column. General John Gibbon faced his four regiments to the left to meet the attack as did General Abner Doubleday. The 19th Indiana was on the left of Gibbon's line and near the Brawner Farm. The regiment lost nearly 260 casualties out of the 423 men engaged in the fight, a 61% casualty rate.


          The next day we were again ordered forward, our cavalry scouring the woods in all directions for the distance of four or five miles. We marched till noon that day when the cavalry thought they saw signs of a considerable force getting in our rear. We were immediately turned about and marched till about 3 o’clock when we heard the artillery booming in front of us. The skirmish that afternoon, as far as our brigade was concerned, was confined to the cavalry and artillery. The cavalry was skirmishing at intervals all night. We camped that night near the scene of the second skirmish. The next day we went to Spotsylvania Courthouse, camped there one night, and the next day we went back into camp again at Fredericksburg.

          I don’t know but we gained considerable by the expedition, but I cannot see it in that light as all those who were not able to go on with us the second day were taken prisoners, together with a train of forage wagons which came out after grain. Our regiment lost 38 men, seven of them out of our company. This is rather a shabbily written and put together letters, but I only say I will try and do better some other time.

 

Captain William Wade Dudley, Co. B, 19th Indiana Volunteer Infantry. Dudley had turned 20 years of age on August 27th 1862 and led his company into the fight at Brawner's Farm the following day. By early October 1862, the former Richmond, Indiana merchant had been promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel and would lead the 19th Indiana through Gettysburg where he sustained a wound in his right leg that eventually required amputation. Discharged for that wound in June 1864, Dudley would later receive a brevet brigadier general's commission in 1865. This image of Lieutenant Colonel Dudley was taken in Richmond, Indiana in January 1864 while the regiment was home of veterans' furlough. 

Two days later, Hank and the 19th Indiana took part in the Battle of Groveton, followed by the Second Battle of Bull Run. Captain William W. Dudley of Co. B of the 19th Indiana provided the following description of the engagement at Groveton where Hank’s company G and Co. B operated in concert:

On the evening of the 28th of August 1862, the 19th Indiana was ordered to engage the enemy on the western edge of the old Bull Run battlefield. We came up in fine style and this company [B] was on the left of the whole line which was soon pouring in a raking fire into the enemy in front. We had been firing but a few moments when a Rebel battery was posted on our left and Lieutenant Colonel A.O. Bachman ordered me to wheel on it and silence it. I immediately wheeled companies B and G to the left and opened a deadly fired on it, and soon the dire ceased, but it was merely for the sake of changing the position, for directly it opened again in front of my company.

I then threw back my right and directed all of my fire on these two guns and finally silenced them altogether. My whole fire was now directed at the two regiments of infantry directly in front of us and we continued this until ordered to retire further down the hill. The whole company heaved in a most gallant manner throughout the fight and sustained, as brave men, the honor of our noble state.

 

Reunion ribbon belonging to a 19th Indiana soldier who attended the first annual Iron Brigade reunion held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in June 1880. Brigade reunions continued until 1933. 

Private Hank Gaylord sustained a wound at Groveton as did Corporal Thomas J. Wasson of Co. B, who described the battle and his experiences afterwards thus:

I received a flesh wound on my leg last Thursday night August 28th while in battle. Our brigade suffered very heavily, losing about 750 killed, wounded, and missing. The fight took place after dark about eight miles west of Manassas Junction on the Centreville Pike. It opened with artillery and then the infantry followed. We fought in the open field at a distance of 50 yards. The balls fell like hail but I saw no man run. Everyone stood up and fought like men, but it was no use; they had too many men for us. Our forces fell back to the edge of a grove and got our wounded off the field. We started about midnight to Manassas and got there about sunrise.

I left from there to go to the hospital, walking two miles to the hospital at the celebrated Weir House, Beauregard’s old headquarters. There I found all the boys from our company. I stayed there over night and walked the next morning to Bull Run, going to the general hospital and styed there overnight. The next morning, I started for the cars at Fairfax Station which was about ten miles. I walked part of the way and gave out and got into an ambulance and rode the balance of the way. We got to the station at dark, the train was loaded, and hundreds lying on the ground had to wait until morning.

I got up on an old cart and rode into Washington, arriving there the next morning. We then got everything to eat we wanted from the good women of Washington. We stayed there all that day and the next day in the afternoon, we started for the cars to go to Philadelphia. We arrived in Baltimore about midnight where we partook of refreshments and started there about daylight. We came very slow and arrived at Wilmington, Delaware about 10 o’clock where it appeared as if every man, woman, and child was at the depot with baskets filled with something to eat splendid pies, cakes, peaches, apples, and pears. I filled my haversack with these delicacies. We arrived at Philadelphia in the middle of the afternoon and were placed in ambulances and carriages and drawn off to the hospital. We got plenty of accommodations here and every attention given to us that is needed.

Corporal Wasson would be killed in action the following year on the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg.

According to historian Alan Gaff, "After the Iron Brigade had buried their dead at Brawner Farm in 1863, soldiers wrote that the bodies had been decently interred. That was a lie for families back home. According to a post-war account by Rufus Dawes, the unburied bodies had been eaten by wild hogs. There was nothing left to bury beyond a few bones and scraps of uniforms. I have a copy of the Quartermaster report on gathering bodies after the war. Each body recovered was marked on a map with a small dot. There were virtually no dots on the Brawner Farm site since there was nothing to recover. It is a gruesome end to the story, but whatever was left of the dead from Gibbon's brigade is still there. You are actually walking on unmarked graves."

 For further reading on the 19th Indiana, readers are encouraged to check out Lance Herdegen's superb studies of the Iron Brigade including The Men Stood Like Iron: How the Iron Brigade Won its Name or The Iron Brigade in the Civil War and Memory . Also check out Alan D. Gaff's Brave Men's Tears: The Iron Brigade at Brawner Farm. 

For a broader study of the Northern Virginia campaign of the summer of 1862, I highly recommend John J. Hennessy's 1999 book Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas. It is a model campaign study, well-written, and meticulously researched. 

 

Sources:

Letter from Private Henry D. “Hank” Gaylord, Co. G, 19th Indiana Volunteer Infantry, Steuben Republican (Indiana), September 13, 1862, pg. 1

Letter from Captain William W. Dudley, Co. B, 19th Indiana Volunteer Infantry, Richmond Weekly Palladium (Indiana), September 12, 1862, pg. 2

Letter from Corporal Thomas J. Wasson, Co. B, 19th Indiana Volunteer Infantry, Richmond Weekly Palladium (Indiana), September 19, 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 t...
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 ...
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 h...
Read more

The Wizard of Oz and the Civil War

Image
T he 1939 film The Wizard of Oz has delighted viewers for 85 years and ranks as a personal favorite, especially during the Halloween season. While watching it with the family the other night, I wondered if there were any connections between the film and the Civil War. Not surprisingly, the answer is yes and those connections touch both the blue and the gray.           Interestingly both “witches” in the film not only had Civil War ancestors but had connections with Civil War soldiers from Ohio. Margaret Hamilton, the “Wicked Witch of the West,” was born in Cleveland, Ohio on December 9, 1902, to attorney Walter Jones Hamilton and his wife Mary Jane Adams; Margaret’s grandfather was Judge Edwin Timothy Hamilton. Judge Hamilton had served as a private in Co. D of the 84 th Ohio Infantry during the summer of 1862. The 84 th Ohio, a three months’ regiment, served nearly the whole of its service attached to the Railroad District in western Ma...
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 se...
Read more

In front of Atlanta with the 68th Ohio

Image
  The arrow corps badge of the 17th Army Corps was worn by many members of the 68th Ohio in the latter days of the war.       Private Edward A. Bigelow of Co. F of the 68th Ohio Volunteer Infantry wrote this brief account of the Battle of Atlanta just two days afterwards to his father back home in Henry County, Ohio. The regiment formed a part of Colonel Robert K. Scott's three regiment all-Ohio brigade consisting of the 20th, 68th, and 78th regiments, being designated the Second Brigade of the Third Division of Frank Blair's 17th Army Corps. Bigelow's letter originally appeared in the Napoleon Press newspaper and was copied in the Toledo Daily Commercial which was providential as no known copies exist today of the wartime Napoleon Press.  
Read more

Charging Battery Robinett: An Alabama Soldier Recalls the Vicious Fighting at Corinth

Image
W riting 30 years after the Battle of Corinth, James A. McKinstry of the 42 nd Alabama recalled his experiences storming Battery Robinett with Colonel William P. Rogers of the 2 nd Texas and expressed guilt that it was perhaps his action that brought about the colonel’s demise. “On seeing a line of Federals approaching, and before giving the situation a thought, I immediately raised my gun and fired full into the breast of a Federal sergeant, who was in front of the column, and only a short distance from us.  'Twas then that Captain George Foster shouted, "Cease firing, men! cease firing!" and waved his handkerchief, then I realized the true situation. 'Twas too late! That fatal volley had been turned on our little band from the muzzles of 1,500 muskets. I was still standing just as I was when I fired my last shot, and within a few feet of Colonel Rogers, when a Minie ball went crashing through my left hip and turned me half round; another went tearing through my ...
Read more

Cook & Brother of New Orleans

Image
    The lockplate of a New Orleans-made Cook & Brother Enfield rifle produced in 1862 shows the fine craftsmanship that became the hallmark of the maker throughout the Civil War. Note the stars and bars flag at left, an emblem used on C&B's production throughout the war and the Cook & Brother, N.O. 1862 markings. Earlier production weapons at New Orleans had the flag located just above the maker's name while later weapons produced in Athens, Georgia would have a modified flag and Athens on the plate followed by the serial number.        In the spring of 1861, two English-born businessmen, Ferdinand and Francis Cook of New Orleans, perceived the need for the South to have its own domestic production of firearms and  set out to prove "that rifles could made here as well as in Yankee land or in Europe." The brothers  elected to produce copies of the British Model 1853 .577 caliber Enfield rifle as this was considered the benchmark longarm...
Read more

I Want to See a Battle: A Hoosier at Shiloh

Image
W riting in his diary, Private Manius Buchanan of the 29 th Indiana recalled the eagerness with which his regiment marched towards Savannah, Tennessee with the sounds of the battle of Shiloh ringing in their ears.           “The forced march was kept up until 2 p.m. when we were halted until 4 p.m,” he noted. “The rest was really needed, but the continual question is ‘Why are we stopped here?’ The sound of battle increased in volume and anxiety to be up and doing grows more intense. As I am weak from a late sickness, I am urged to fall to the rear; but no, in common with all, I want to see a battle and fear this will be my only chance.” The regiment would go into action the following afternoon, and of the four neighborhood boys who had enlisted together in Co. B, only Buchanan escaped unscathed. One afternoon's exposure to the horrors of battle was all it took to satisfy this Hoosier's desire to see the elephant. “I wanted to see a battl...
Read more

An Interview with Forrest in May 1864

Image
  “The noise of battle is the only music that ravishes the senses of Forrest.” I t was May 1864. Back east, the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac were locked in the deadly dance of the Overland Campaign while in Georgia, General William Tecumseh Sherman's army squared off against General Joseph E. Johnston and the Army of the Tennessee in the campaign for Atlanta.       Based in relatively quiet northern Mississippi, General Nathan Bedford Forrest bided his time waiting for a Federal advance from Memphis. Earlier in the month, General Samuel Sturgis led a brief campaign into Mississippi but Forrest was sure Sturgis would venture out again. In the meantime, he tried to keep his reorganized command intact despite persistent demands from his superiors that he return the absentees and deserters who inflated his ranks (nearly 1,000 in number) to their original commands.      Around this same time,  an old acquaintance from Me...
Read more