Paper Lions
IN ITS NOVEMBER 1862 report on the disastrous surrender of the U.S. garrison at Harpers Ferry, Va., two days before the Battle of Antietam, the Army commission investigating singled out the performance of one regiment as worthy of special condemnation, calling attention “to the disgraceful behavior of the One hundred and twenty-sixth New York Infantry.”
Recruited from the state’s Finger Lakes region, the 126th New York had been in service for barely three weeks when it was surrendered at Harpers Ferry on September 15, 1862. The 126th had been ordered to Harpers Ferry only a week after mustering in, along with
