My, My...A FREE Copy of The Iron Brigade in Civil War and Memory

What is this?--A FREE BOOK OFFER: Each person who views the book trailer for my book “The Iron Brigade in Civil War and Memory: The Black Hats from Bull Run to Appomattox and Thereafter” and posts a comment about it here will be entered into a drawing. My book publisher Savas Beatie will choose one person at random who will win a FREE copy of the book. They will select a winner five days after this is posted, so don’t delay.

 

Link to trailer on YouTube: http://youtu.be/1NxoiCBfFvU

 

We knew that the rebs were scooped

In Gettysburg at midday July 3, 1863, one of the wounded Iron Brigade men--Pvt. James "Mickey" Sullivan of the 6th Wisconsin--found one of the band members to help him and, hanging onto the railing on the stairs, climbed to the cupola of the railroad depot. “I saw what appeared like the whole Rebel Army in a chunk start for our lines with their infernal squealing yell. It seemed as if everything stood still inside of me for a second or two, then I began to pray.”  An officer of his division, watching from Culp’s Hill with the Iron Brigade regiments, called it an irresistible sight: “On they came, banners waving in the battle smoke, cannon roaring, men shouting, horses neighing, small arms crashing in volleys! Still they came on…nothing stops them…. They almost reach our main line of battle with a fairly well-filled line of their own, as it seemed from our location.”

          Sullivan’s prayer (though he admitted he “was, and am not yet noted for the frequency and fervency of my prayers”), was that the Confederates would “catch h—l.” It seemed after a few long, anxious minutes he said, as “if the fire from our lines doubled and doubled again, and I could see long streaks of light through the Rebel columns, but they went forward. I was afraid they would capture our guns.” Another Wisconsin soldier said later watching the heavy Confederate losses that he “felt bad for the poor cusses who went down, but it had to be.”

        Sullivan watched as the Confederate infantry seem to melt as the Union infantry opened on them. “…[W]e could hear the Northern cheer. We knew that the rebs were scooped, and the old Army of the Potomac was victorious. The dozen or so wounded soldiers around Sullivan “were wild with joy, some cried, others shook hands, and all joined in with the best cheer we could get up. I forgot all about my wound and was very forcibly reminded of it when I went to shout as I had to sit down to keep from falling.” A Confederate officer came to see what the clamor was about and “when told that Lee was cleaned, he growled out if we d---d Yankees were able to cheer we were able to go to Richmond,” said Sullivan, who  admitted “our fellows felt good anyway, and the reb went out and we saw no more of him.”

To all appearances they saved the field

The survivors of the Iron Brigade watched the fighting of July 2, 1863, at Devil's Den, Little Round Top, the Wheatfield and Peach Orchard from their lines on Culp's Hill at Gettysburg.    “We could plainly see that our troops were giving ground,” said a Wisconsin officer. “Our suspense and anxiety were intense. We gathered in knots all over the hill watching the battle…. As the sun was low down a fine sight was seen. It was two long blue lines of battle, with twenty or thirty regimental banners, charging forward into the smoke and din of battle. To all appearances they saved the field.” Suddenly, in the fading light, about 7 p.m., the rebel yell went up in front of Culp’s Hill and the far right of the Union line was attacked by forces under the command of Confederate General Edward “Allegheny” Johnson. Another attack centered on Cemetery Hill, but it flared sharply and quickly stalled when it was not supported. Johnson’s men were more successful on the far right of the Union line. Most of the Culp’s Hill defenders from the Union Twelfth Corps, had been sent to the left and only a brigade of New Yorkers under General George S. Greene remained in position. Greene insisted on constructing defensive works proved the difference, although a portion of the abandoned Federal works on the lower part of Culp’s Hill were occupied. Just as the lines on the far left were firing volley after volley, an officer came looking for Rufus Dawes of the 6th Wisconsin with orders to report to Greene. The 6th Wisconsin and the 14th Brooklyn were sent to the right to assist in repelling an attack. In the brush and darkness, Wisconsin Color bearer I.F. Kelly remembered struggling in the brush, darkness, and trees with his 11-foot flag staff. The first mounted officer Dawes encountered in the darkness was Greene, who took a card from his pocket and wrote his name and command, handing it to the young officer. He told Dawes to take his regiment into the breastworks hold. Dawes ordered, “Forward—run! March!” As the 6th Wisconsin reached the line, rebels in the dark rocks rose up and fired a volley. Greene was unaware the Confederates were occupying the breastworks and the rebels were just as surprised by the arrival of the Wisconsin men. After the volley, the Confederates went back down Culp’s Hill. “This remarkable encountered did not last a minute,” said Dawes. “We lost two men, killed—both burned with the powder of the guns fired at them.” One of the wounded was Color bearer Kelly, struck by a spatter of lead off a rock that cut his neck. The wound bled freely. Soldiers around him found a rag and wet it from canteens before wrapping it around his neck. The 6th Wisconsin remained in the line until midnight when they were relieved by troops of the Twelfth Corps who returned to the works after supporting the far left of the Union line. The Wisconsin and New York regiment returned to their original positions without further incident.

A hard day for mothers

One hundred and fifty years ago tonight, the weary survivors of the 6^th Wisconsin of the Iron Brigade reached Culp’s Hill. They were greeted with friendly helloes from the Black Hats of the 2^nd and 7^th Wisconsin, 19^th Indiana, and 24^th Michigan. From a regimental wagon, a dozen spades and shovels were pulled and the soldiers began constructing earthworks. It was believed by some in the army that such breastworks made a soldier cautious and sapped his will to fight, but any such notions were knocked out of the Black Hats on McPherson’s Ridge earlier in the day. “The men worked with great energy,” one officer said. “A man would dig with all his strength till out of breath, when another would seize the spade and push on the work.” The spades were also passed to men from the other regiments and soon a strong defensive line was in place.

            The Iron Brigade regiments occupied the far left of the Union line along Culp’s Hill, almost facing north. A 7th Wisconsin officer remembered the “rocky faced hill” as “not hard to hold against attack. We piled stone along our front. Dandy for defence, and got water…from springs at the foot of the hill.” Rations were issued, but coffee fires were banned. The men quietly ate sugar and hardtack and “water was our helper with the cold grub.” With the work finished, the men settled in and reflected on what had befallen their Western Brigade.

           The officers of the regiments called the rolls on Culp’s Hill and were staggered by the grim final numbers. The brigade had taken 1,883 into the fighting that morning. Now only 691 remained around the battle flags. The 6th Wisconsin, which escaped the heavy fighting on McPherson’s Ridge, sustained losses of 48 percent. The 7th Wisconsin lost 42 percent, the 19th Indiana 72 percent, and the 2nd Wisconsin 77 percent. The newest and largest regiment of the brigade, the 24th Michigan, suffered an 80 percent loss—the largest number of casualties of all the Union regiments in the battle. Among the captured and wounded were three of the five regimental commanders—Lucius Fairchild of the 2nd Wisconsin, John Callis of the 7th Wisconsin, and Henry Morrow of the 24th Michigan.

           Rufus Dawes of the 6^th Wisconsin tried to put the somber night into words: “Our dead lay unburied and beyond our sight or reach. Our wounded were in the hands of the enemy. Our bravest and best were numbered with them…”

          July 1, 1863, had been a hard day that would be long remembered by mothers in faraway Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan....

 

June 30 -- A day of reflection

A century and a half has passed and it is a time of reflection and memory about the Iron Brigade of the West at Gettysburg.

 

           The Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan soldiers camped at Marsh Creek south of town that night of June 30th some 150 years ago were much changed since being called to Washington. Later it was said to be a sight never seen again—the Western regiments  swinging along with an easy stride toward the Marsh Creek camp, the famous black hats now more serviceable than showy. One who saw them said they “looked like giants with their tall black hats,” and recalled the veterans of the  2^nd, 6^th, 7^th Wisconsin, 19^th Indiana, and 24^th Michigan moved with a “steady step” and filling the “entire roadway, their big black hats and feathers conspicuous….”

         Two years of service, the letters, journals, and diaries they left, revealed the bright hopes of 1861 and 1862 were gone for the veterans. The survivors gathered in close, tight messes to share food, drawing on each other support. While they marched and died, enduring unspeakable hardship, the homefolk “growled” about high prices, short money and hard times. The army tossed out the used-up soldier and the “patriotic” speculators fleeced them of their pay. The soldiers fought well, but were denied victory by incompetent generals. Officers used their rank to get through sentry posts to forage and their authority to execute a weak soldier unable to face combat.

         Only one of three soldiers was still in ranks from the regiments formed in 1861; the others dead from battle or illness or even homesickness. Scores of the early volunteers were sent home sick and disabled; some gone only God knows where or why. The survivors were first dependent on the men of their campfires and then to their small companies and then to their regiments. They were isolated from the homefolk, misused by their generals and the country’s leaders, cheated by sutlers, snubbed by Easterners because of their Western origins. They trusted only their comrades and the few officers who have proved to be skillful and brave. They are a hard lot, good soldiers, and proud of their reputations.

            Only the men of the 24^th Michigan, even after 10 months in service, marched toward Gettysburg feeling they still had something to prove. The Michigan regiment and its famous brigade saw only limited service at Fredericksburg when the Wolverines first came under fire and their colonel called out, “Steady, men, those Wisconsin men are watching you.” The Michigan regiment joined in the spirited river crossing during the Chancellorsville Campaign, but it was not the kind of fighting endured at Second Bull Run, South Mountain and Antietam. It was only after Chancellorsville that the Michigan regiment’s coveted black hats arrived. “They made our appearance,” a Wolverine said, “like the name of the brigade, quite unique.”

            The Western men would regard the upcoming fighting at Gettysburg as the turning point of the Civil War. In many ways it was the last great fight for the “Boys of ’61,” those bright volunteers who flocked to the National flag in a swell of patriotism after Fort Sumter. The army itself was changing into something that seemed more sinister. In the camps, the veterans were unsettled by recruits who enlisted to collect bounties and newspapers reporting lack of support for the war back home. After the first three days of July 1863, it would all be different, partly to a change in the way the war was fought and partly because of the men brought in fill the battle-diminished regiments.

                     But on that quiet evening of June in 1863 at Marsh Creek, all that was yet to come…

Men of the Cloth in the Civil War

Religion in the army was largely a personal matter. Many soldiers carried their own bibles and religious objects. The more formal service was left to regimental chaplains, who usually received appointment by the unit commander on the vote of field officers and company commanders. Such chaplains had to be a regularly ordained minister of a Christian denomination and received the pay and allowances of a captain of cavalry. The chaplain’s main duties included overseeing the moral condition of the men in their regiments, conducting Sunday services, and assisting at the burial of soldiers. Conscientious chaplains also visited hospitals and guard houses and ministered to the individual needs of soldiers. Military officials made regular efforts to weed out the incompetent, but were often unsuccessful. The proportion of Catholic to Protestant chaplains was one to 20 although Catholic historians believe the ratio of their faith to Protestants in the Army was at least one in six. There was little friction between the Catholic and Protestant chaplains and most men of the cloth were regarded as sincere, hard-working religious men.   

Hardtack, Salted Pork and Soldier Food

Now I sit me in my seat,

And pray for something fit to eat.

If this damn stuff my stomach brake,

I pray that God my soul will take.

 

Oh, thou who blessed the loaves and fishes,

Look down upon these old tin dishes;

By thy great power those dishes smash,

Bless each of us and damn this hash.

            A Volunteer’s Prayer

 

           Rations for the soldiers had to be easily transported as well as resistant to spoilage. Fresh cuts of beef, soft bread and vegetables could be issued in established camps, but soldiers on the march existed on what they could carry in their haversack—coffee, salt, sugar, hard bread and salted beef or salted pork. Regulations called for a daily issue of 16 ounces of hardtack, 20 ounces of salt beef or 12 ounces of salt pork. The meat was packed in a brine solution sufficient to preserve it for two years.

           By late 1863, desiccated potatoes and desiccated vegetables, which were scalded and then pressed and dried into sheets, were issued as an antiscorbutic to prevent scurvy.  The soldiers in the Iron Brigade called them “desecrated vegetables” and generally did not eat them.
          Coffee, usually issued in bean form, was always popular and was pounded or crushed, then boiled in water in tin cups.
          Hardtack was a square biscuit made of salt, flour and water and then baked. It could be soaked in water and fried in the sizzling fat of the issue salt pork which was called “sowbelly” by the soldiers.
          Soldiers on both sides took to “foraging” to supplement their food rations. Orders generally prohibited the theft of private property in the form of pigs, chickens, corn and sweet potatoes.  A brigade commander requested his men not steal, but added, “Boys, do not go hungry,” which, one Black Hat private observed, “in war time means take what you want whenever you can get it.”
          One French officer with the Army of the Potomac in 1862 an estimated 2,000 wagons, drawn by some 12,000 animals, were necessary to feed an army of 100,000 men and 16,000 horses at only two days march from a base of operations.