Union Blue and Militia Gray: The Role of the New York State Militia in the Civil War - Chapter 6 - The Last Two Years
In early March 1864, President Lincoln designated Ulysses S. Grant as general-in-chief of all Union forces with the rank of lieutenant general Grant immediately began to plan for a coordinated offensive by the four main armies to begin in early May. Meanwhile, the Army of the Potomac languished in its winter encampments around Culpeper, Virginia, in the triangle formed by the Rappahannock and Rapidan Rivers.
It soon became apparent that unless some drastic measures were taken, the Union army would face a manpower crisis. The three-year regiments, organized in 1861, were scheduled for demobilization in the late Spring of 1864. Forming the bulk of the veteran troops, these units were essential to Federal success. A program of inducements, such as increased bounties, thirty-day furloughs and the right of continued service in the same regiment, prompted many units to re-enlist almost en masse. [l] Yet many soldiers had had enough, and of the five New York militia regiments that had converted to three-year volunteers, four of that group accepted separation. Each of these militia units: 2nd (82nd Vols.), 9th (83rd Vols.), 14th (84th Vols.) and 79th, had participated in all the major campaigns of the Army of the Potomac. The 9th Regiment amassed a total of fifteen battle honors from skirmishes at Harper's Ferry on 4 July 1861 through the horrendous assaults at Cold Harbor on 1-3 June 1864. They departed for home on 8 June, and arrived in New York City for mustering-out. Twenty officers and eighty-seven soldiers still remained from the original pre-war militia group. These men were paid off and discharged. The remainder, all later volunteers, transferred to the 97th New York Volunteers. The reception of the militia men seemed muted, as noted by the regimental historian, since "many of the Regiment, which courageously carried the banner of its country through three years of campaign, were scarcely noticed by the scrutinizing hands of Public Opinion." [2]
The 14th Brooklyn participated in nineteen campaigns since its mobilization, and their modern regimental monuments at Bull Run, on the edge of the Cornfield at Antietam, and on McPherson's Ridge at Gettysburg are indicative of their gallantry and sacrifice. In early May 1864 the regiment fought at the Wilderness and Spotsylvania, where over 125 men were killed or wounded. Since the beginning of the war, 8 officers and 223 militiamen had become casualties. The regiment mustered-out of Federal service on 22 May, and reverted to its National Guard status. Yet the unit remained largely un-reconstituted as evidenced by the report of Major David Dean, inspector of the 5* Brigade, on 1 November. Dean noted that the unit consisted of only 150 officers and men under the command of Colonel E.B. Fowler. He did not inspect the unit because of the low strength, and the poor condition of the uniforms and equipment caused by the recent campaigns. Yet he hoped that state authorities would quickly take steps to return the unit to the status of a "valuable and efficient corps." [3]
The 79th Highlanders had quite a different experience. After participating at Spotsylvania with the DC Army Corps, they began their return to New York City on 13 May. Five days later, the 7th and 69th Regiments escorted them to City Hall, and then on to the Jefferson Market Armory where a collation was enjoyed. That evening, they attended a banquet held for them at the Caledonian Club. [4]
Only the 20th Regiment (80th Vols.) elected to continue its service. In early 1864 the regiment was encamped at Brandy Station, Virginia. From there, on 13 February, Colonel Theodore Gates, 7 Officers and 161 enlisted men, returned to Kingston, New York on thirty-five days veterans' furlough. Visiting Albany, the officers were honored by the Assembly by being invited to seats on its floor. On 18 March they received a new national color, and then boarded the steamer Thomas Cornell at Rondout for the return to the front. The 20th maintained an additional enviable record since they were finally mustered-out on 29 January 1866, long after the war had ended. [5]
In late June 1864, Confederate Lieutenant General Jubal Early and his Second Army Corps conducted a raid on Washington D.C. Marching out of the northern end of the Shenandoah Valley, the Confederates crossed the Potomac, and after a victory at Monocacy, threatened the capital. In response, Governor Horatio Seymour authorized the mobilization of seven National Guard regiments (4th, 6th, 11th, 84th, 93rd, 96th and 99th) for one hundred days' service. The 11th Regiment, under Colonel Joachim Maidhoff, however, refused to go, alleging that they were not liable for duty out of the state. The departure of the others was suspended by orders of the governor, pending settlement of a dispute as to their liability for conscription during their absence. Maidhoff was arrested and tried by court-martial for disobeying orders. Convicted, he was sentenced to be cashiered and prevented for one year from holding military office. Maidhoff appealed this sentence to the governor, who restored him to duty but censured the officers and soldiers of the 11th for the "want of zeal and alacrity in the discharge of their duty." [6]
In the end, only the 84th and 93rd Regiments actually mobilized. Assembled on 11 July, the 84th drew weapons, uniforms and equipment, and departed on the transport Merrimack. The regiment numbered 692 officers and men when they arrived at Baltimore. Moving forward, they patrolled the Potomac River, where they effectively broke up a contraband smuggling operation. Soon thereafter, the unit experienced an outbreak of typhoid fever which rendered more than one-fourth of the entire unit unfit for duty. Following in the wake of Major General Phillip Sheridan's victorious Army of the Shenandoah, the 84th garrisoned Winchester and Martinsburg prior to their mustering-out on 20 October. [7]
For the remainder of the war, the National Guard was largely occupied in home defense, another of their major missions. State and city officials had long concerned themselves with the defenses of New York harbor. In 1861 both the governor and Brigadier General Thomas Hillhouse, the adjutant general, remarked on the inadequate state of the harbor defenses even though these technically came under the jurisdiction of the Federal government. The shortage of soldiers was a continual worry for Mayor Opdyke, who worried over the possibility of European ironclad warships entering the harbor. Yet his pleas in 1863 for more men and weapons received frustrating, but courteously negative replies from the secretary of war. [8]
Beginning on 2 July 1863, Major General Wool, commanding the Department of the East, attempted to activate the state National Guard to man the harbor defenses in the absence of Federal troops. Yet on 12 July, the war department expressly countermanded that authority, much to the disappointment of senior National Guard officers who welcomed this opportunity for active service. Brigadier General John Sprague had argued in a letter to Brigadier General Lorenzo Thomas, the U.S. Army adjutant general, that two thousand National Guardsmen, in rotations of one month through a five-month period, could have become proficient enough to provide a well-trained, cohesive force for the defense of the city. [9]
By April 1864, Major General Dix, the current commander of the Eastern Department, received instructions to strip his command of all available Federal troops to reinforce the Union armies in the field. Governor Seymour received a request to begin mobilizing his National Guard units in the city for limited special duty to guard deserters and stragglers. On 6 June, Colonel Charles Burtis' 15th Regiment from Queens County mustered into service for sixty days to occupy Forts Richmond, Hamilton and Sandy Hook. They were later replaced by the 37th and 69th Regiments through July. In support of these operations, the state legislature had already passed, on 27 April, an appropriation of one million dollars for "defense of the harbor of New York and the frontier." [10]
In 1864 the defense of the northern and western frontiers of the state created additional strains on state resources. During August, reports alerted the authorities to bodies of "lawless characters, many, deserters from the U.S. Army, who were threatening a hostile invasion" from Canada. Since the Federal government had no troops on the frontier, the state necessarily became dependent upon the National Guard. The 65th and 74th Regiments in Buffalo readied themselves for service and the commissary general of ordnance transferred suitable quantities of weapons and ammunition to the arsenal at Dunkirk for their support. On 16 September about one hundred insurgents captured a steamer off Johnson's Island on Lake Erie. The state mustered four companies of the 65th and 74th regiments to guard the arsenal, and city of Buffalo for periods up to ninety days. A citizen's committee, sailing in a chartered tug, managed to thwart the depredations of the insurgents, but a further scare on 30 October resulted in the retention of the 74th Regiment on harbor patrol duty for almost a week. [11]
Meanwhile, on 21 October, Confederate raiders crossed from Canada to St. Albans, Vermont where they robbed a bank and created considerable consternation. As a result, the state sent five hundred rifles and twenty thousand rounds of ammunition to the 32nd Regiment at Plattsburg to be distributed as circumstances dictated. Since the northern and western borders extended a distance of over 500 miles, portions of the 33rd (Ogdensburg) 34th (Malone), 48th (Oswego) and 54th (Rochester) Regiments entered state service during the Winter and Spring of 1865. [l2]
During 1864 considerable numbers of National Guard units mobilized for duty at the prison at Elmira to guard prisoners-of-war. This service normally lasted one hundred days. On 5 September, Company A of the 50th Regiment (DeWitt Guard) mustered-in, and immediately received a complete issue of uniforms, equipment and Enfield rifle-muskets. At Elmira they guarded Barracks No. 3, where they contrasted the treatment given to enemy prisoners with the stories told by returned Union men who had received much worse treatment in prison camps in the South. At one time, over 10,000 prisoners were interned around Elmira. Other members guarded the Union "substitute" camp to prevent Union deserters from escaping. The company escorted conscripts and replacements to and from Baltimore and the depot at City Point, Virginia. On one memorable trip, the guardsmen escorted over 1100 replacements on a fifty-five hour trip by rail and steamer with no rations and only a few casks of water. [13]
The National Guard continued to support the volunteer forces. Throughout 1864 over 2,200 guardsmen received commissions in the Federal armies, and in that year 1,865 soldiers received commissions in the National Guard. Although the guard continued to grow in professionalism and experience, the governor failed to order any encampments because of a lack of necessary camp equipage. [14]
The end of military operations in the Eastern Theater, caused by the surrender of Lee's army on 9 April 1865, set off universal acclamation. The New York National Guard, however, performed one last sad duty. The assassination of President Lincoln caused deep and abiding sorrow. In Brooklyn on 17 April, Major General Hermanus B. Duryea published arrangements (General Order No. 6) for the observance of the funeral. The national flag would be lowered to half-staff over all arsenals and armories, and all commanding officers suitably shrouded these locations in mourning. Minute guns fired for one hour beginning at noon on 19 April. Crepe shrouded the colors and guidons of each regiment for six months, and all commissioned officers wore a black badge of mourning on the left arm for the same period. In Manhattan, Major General Sandford ordered the 7th Regiment to form the honor guard to escort the president's casket to City Hall upon its arrival to lie in state. [15]
During the Civil War years the New York National Guard, and its predecessor as the state militia, performed valuable service on active military operations in Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania. In four years, 34,672 guardsmen mustered into Federal service. At home they helped to suppress some of the most serious riots that this county has ever experienced. Doubly significant is this contribution when it is remembered that their participation in this episode came on the heels of a very difficult campaign around Gettysburg. In their own state, guardsmen protected private property from marauders and participated in the defense of New York harbor. Their contribution remains consistently remarkable when it is borne in mind the speed with which guardsmen responded to calls for their mobilization. Furthermore, they often performed duty with obsolete or unserviceable equipment and weapons, or none at all. Resources allocated for their training and upkeep could never be called abundant, and guardsmen often paid for their own armory facilities and weapons. Consider Colonels Marshall Lefferts and Daniel Butterfield who paid for subsistence and transport for their units out of their own pockets, pending credit from the state government.
New York State has long recognized their service, and attempted to preserve the heritage and contribution of its National Guard. The 69th Regiment continues to serve its state and nation, most recently in Iraq in the Winter of 2005. The 14th Brooklyn and the 22nd Regiment survived (at least until 1990) as the 1st Battalion, 187th Field Artillery Regiment and the 102nd Engineer Battalion, New York Army National Guard, respectively. A number of other units trace their lineage to the Civil War era, or earlier, in one way or another. In view of the distinguished conduct of these units, this policy is appropriate.
No less significant was the National Guard's role in raising the volunteer forces from New York which did the major portion of fighting in the war. It is clear that these forces would have been far different without the experience and organization of the militia forces from which they sprang.
Chapter Six Footnotes
1. Bruce Catton, A Stillness at Appomattox (New York: The Fairfax Press, 1984), 480.
2. John Jaques, Three Years Campaign with the 9th Regiment N.Y.S.M. (New York: Hilton & Co., 1865), 4.
3. C. Tevis, History of the Fighting 14th Regiment NGSNY (New York: Brooklyn Eagle Press, 1911), 143; New York State, Annual Report of the Adjutant General (Albany, NY: n.p., 1865), 62. Hereinafter cited as: AG.
4. William Todd, 79th Highlanders, New York Volunteers 1861-65 (Albany, NY: Press of Brandow, Bartow & Co., 1886), 472.
5. Theodore Gates, Ulster Guard (20th Regiment N.Y.S.M.) (New York: Benjamin H. Tyrell, Printer, 1879), 534-535.
6. AG, 1865,40.
7. Ibid.,, 48.
8. AG, 1862, 26; Ernest A. McKay, The Civil War and New York City (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990), 150.
9. New York State, Inspector General's Report (Albany, NY: C. Wendell, Legislative Printer, 1863), xxvi.
10. Ibid.. 12.
11. AG, 1865, 19.
12. AG, 1866, 15.
13. History of the DeWitt Guard, Company A 50th National Guard Regiment (Ithaca, NY: Andrews, McChain& Co., Printers, 1866), 165-170.
14. AG, 1865, 30
15. AG, 1866, 31.
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