I Don't Thirst for More Fight: An Iron Brigade Sergeant Remembers Gainesville and Second Bull Run

The men of General John Gibbon's brigade became known as the Black Hat Brigade since they wore the regulation black Hardee hats like the one shown above that belonged to a soldier in Co. C of the 2nd Wisconsin. Comprised entirely of western regiments (19th Indiana, 2nd, 6th, and 7th Wisconsin, later to be joined by the 24th Michigan), the brigade became well known as "one of the most colorful and distinguished brigades that fought for the Union," stated historian Alan Nolan. After proving their mettle at Gainesville, Second Bull Run, South Mountain, and Antietam, they became known as the Iron Brigade of the Army of the Potomac. The red circle on the hat dates from 1863 and represents the corps badge for the First Brigade of the First Division of the I Army Corps. 


The fight at Gainesville, Virginia on August 28, 1862, marked the first time Sergeant Willie Hutchins of Co. B of the 6th Wisconsin of the Iron Brigade had seen action. The former native of Vermont struggled with the words to describe to his brother what the experience was like.

“I have been in battle and now know what a man’s feelings are but I cannot describe it,” he wrote. “At first there is a touch of anxiety as to the result, then an unnatural feeling, I don’t know what, but like to a man who has a long time thirsted for something and sees it within his reach. After that the sight of my comrades falling around me made me a perfect devil. Two of them were my tent mates; one shot through the head and probably mortally wounded while the other has a flesh wound in the leg. I had one bullet go through my pants and one landed on the bayonet of my gun. One passed between my legs and into another man’s leg; one near my head and cut the whiskers for our captain and my righthand man had a ramrod knocked out of his hand. I don’t thirst for more fight, although if there is to be one, I am in."

          Willie Hutchins’ account of Gainesville and Second Bull Run was sent to his brother Charles Hutchins in Vermont; it first saw publication in the October 10, 1862, edition of the Brandon Monitor.

 

The 6th Wisconsin went into action at Gainesville armed with .58 caliber Model 1861 Springfield rifle muskets, having received these arms the previous fall. Soldiers were expected to keep their firearms in first class order, always ready for inspection and use. A standard weapon check before an engagement (if time allowed) would have the regimental commander form the company into line, then inspect each man's musket, making sure that the lock mechanism worked properly and that the barrel was clean. The soldier would insert the ramrod into the barrel and the captain would then tap the butt of the gun on the ground and listen for the bright ping which indicated the barrel was free from powder residue. A dirty gun would either misfire or not fire at all. 


          Retreating before Jackson’s whole force we arrived on the 28th of August at Gainesville where signs of Rebels were apparent. McDowell ordered the 2nd Wisconsin and 19th Indiana forward to take a battery while our regiment and the 7th Wisconsin were lying in the road as a reserve. While here, the artillery on both sides opened and for the first time we heard the real thunder of battle. Shells and solid shot fell all around us or burst in the air over our heads. My own feelings were hard to express. It was the grandest sight I ever saw.

          Soon the rattle of musketry was heard and the cheers of the men. Word soon came for us to go to the support of the 2nd and 19th. Over the fence we sprang and on a double quick we went in. It was now dark, but a perfect sheet of fire could be seen from both our own lines and those of the Rebels. Riderless horses dashed by. Wounded men passed us, but still on we went until only a few yards intervened between us when the Rebels opened the ball with two pieces of artillery, throwing grape and canister and our ranks commenced thinning.

          Our rifles spoke and gradually their fire slackened. Pretty soon we heard the order given by the Rebel officers: “Charge bayonet- forward- double quick- march!” We withheld, as if by instinct, our fire for a few seconds and then gave them one volley. They had started yelling like demons, but our boys gave yell for yell and they broke. After that we held our ground and gave them a perfect shower of bullets for some time and retired, taking our killed and wounded with us to the timber a short distance in our rear. We laid down for an hour or two then started for Manassas which place we reached day daylight the next day.

Among the casualties suffered by the 6th Wisconsin at the Battle of Gainesville was 18-year-old William Bickelhaupt of Co. F from Milwaukee. The native of Hesse-Darmstadt was wounded in the chest during the fighting and would live nearly two months before dying at College Hospital in Georgetown, D.C. on October 22nd. He is shown here wearing a kepi, an enlisted man's single-breasted 9-button frock coat, and heavy sky blue wool kersey overcoat. 


          General Irvin McDowell complimented us highly for our conduct, saying that considering the great disparity of forces engaged it was the hardest fought engagement of the war. We fought one hour and ten minutes and our brigade lost nearly 800 men. The 56th Pennsylvania and 76th New York regiments fought with us and their loss was about 200 men making the whole loss about 1,000 men. A Rebel captain who was taken prisoner asserted that they lost 1,500-2,000 men and also said that we were opposed to the old Stonewall Brigade that never before showed their backs to an enemy. The fight, unproductive of results as it may seem, was really our salvation as had it not occurred, we would have been ignorant of the presence of so large a force of the enemy and should inevitably have been cut off. However, it taught us how to fight and in the battles of the 29th and 30th we were shining lights.

          On the 29th, we laid on our arms supporting a battery and dodging shell and solid shot. We supported it until noon of the 20th when our division was ordered into the timber of the center for the purpose of clearing it and forcing the Rebels back and driving them from the railroad track behind which they had taken refuge and poured into us a perfect hailstorm of bullets. Here the New York regiments of our division, or some of them (they all deny the soft impeachment, one New York regiment laying it on another from the same state), broke and skedaddled, crying out “our regiment is cut to hell, we are cut to pieces, etc.”

Colonel Lysander Cutler
6th Wisconsin

Our General John Gibbon, who was with us, ordered us to shoot the first one who attempted to break through our ranks and even strode in among them with a drawn sword and cocked pistol, swearing he would kill them if they did not face the music. A few, to their credit be it spoken, fell into our ranks and stood up like men while others contented themselves with lying down amongst us; when our attention was drawn off by another squad of cowards, they left. We were then lying down while our skirmishers were feeling the Rebels. The skirmishers drove in the Rebel sharpshooters on their reserve and drove the reserve back on to the main body and then fell back. They reported the Rebels in force behind the railroad and in three lines waiting to receive us: one lying down, one on their knees, and one standing. They also reported the entire rout of the New York troops and the withdrawal of the balance of our brigade.

General Gibbon, who had stayed with the 6th Wisconsin, then ordered us to fall back with our face to the enemy until we got out of the timber and then about-faced us and we started home on the double quick. Our general rode in front of us and when we got clear of the timber he turned around saying, “Good for the 6th. Boys, you never did any better on drill.” He proposed three cheers which were given with a will, the shot and shell whistling about our ears funny. Our ranks were never straighter and the men had step perfectly. All the orders we heard was occasionally “guide colors” and “steady.”

We had got not more than a quarter of a mile when two Rebel regiments filed around the timber and deployed into the timber to nab the whole batch of us, but
“we wont thar.” When we reached our battery, Battery B of the 4th U.S. Light Artillery, we were greeted with a perfect ovation in the shape of cheers and congratulations. We then fell into position in rear of the battery as a support and stayed amidst a perfect shower of lead till the battle dried up. Our regimental loss was about 50 killed and wounded, the most of which we left behind in the woods having no means to carry them away with us.

General John Gibbon led the Iron Brigade through Second Bull Run and Antietam, once remarking that to be successful "an army commander must be as near a despot as the institutions of his country will permit." One soldier in the 2nd Wisconsin remembered Gibbon as a "striking" individual. "He is of medium height, rather slim, fair complexion, a tolerably good-looking man, what the girls would call passable. He is without a doubt the best brigadier in the service. He thoroughly understands his business and is as cool and collected in the field of battle as when quietly at ease in his tent." Hank Gaylord of the 19th Indiana agreed but offered "our only fault with him is that is a little too strict to suit us although I suppose none too much for our own good." 

While we were supporting the battery, we laid in a splendid place to see the whole operations of the left wing of our arm and the disgraceful cowardice of the New York and Pennsylvania troops. Men scared to death, fleeing in every direction, having thrown away their arms and accoutrements and in some instances, officers threw away their swords to expedite them getting away. One or two regiments lost their colors and it got to be a common sight to see a set of colors coming out with not more than one or two men around them. As a contrast, one brigade of General Jesse Reno’s division went in and came out broken up. When they got to the edge of the field, the color bearers waved their colors and almost by magic the brigade was formed (and a good-sized one, too) and went in again, and the next time they came out they came out in order.

Well Charlie, I have been in battle and now know what a man’s feelings are but I cannot describe it. At first there is a touch of anxiety as to the result, then an unnatural feeling, I don’t know what, but like to a man who has a long time thirsted for something and sees it within his reach. After that the sight of my comrades falling around me made me a perfect devil. Two of them were my tent mates; one shot through the head and probably mortally wounded while the other has a flesh wound in the leg. One poor fellow had his face stove up with a bullet and two more were shot through the left breast. Others were hit in the arms, more in the legs. I had one bullet go through my pants and one landed on the bayonet of my gun. One passed between my legs and into another man’s leg; one near my head and cut the whiskers for our captain and my righthand man had a ramrod knocked out of his hand. I don’t thirst for more fight, although if there is to be one, I am in.

 

Your brother,

Willie

      Willie Hutchins would survive Antietam, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg but would not survive the war. Promoted to regimental quartermaster sergeant in June 1864, he was killed in action August 19, 1864 at the Weldon Railroad near Petersburg, Virginia. 

Source:

Letter from Sergeant William W. Hutchins, Co. B, 6th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, Brandon Monitor (Vermont), October 10, 1862, pg. 2


   For further reading on the 6th Wisconsin, 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 and Alan T. Nolan's The Iron Brigade: A Military History.

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. 


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