Tobias's Story: The Life and Civil War Career of Tobias B. Kaufman

By Doug Kauffmann

The focus of the book is a biographical telling of the Civil War career of Colonel Tobias B. Kaufman. Colonel Kaufman has rightly been called one of the most illustrious of the Civil War heroes of Central Pennsylvania by the well-known Pennsylvania Civil War soldier and author, J. Howard Wert. Kaufman rose from a Private to a Colonel during the war. Kaufman was a natural leader and a tough and courageous fighter. Kaufman fought in some fifteen major battles including Glendale, Second Bull Run, Antietam, Gettysburg, The Wilderness, and Spotsylvania. This biography features not only the career of Colonel Kaufman, but also a summary history of his first regiment, the First Pennsylvania Reserves. Of particular interest in his personal career was his dramatic capture on the Bermuda Hundred Peninsula and the heart-warming story of the return of his pistol by his Confederate captor some thirty years after the war.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 17, 2012
• ISBN: 9781479718825

Doug Kauffmann

Doug Kauffmann is pastor of the Connie Maxwell Baptist Church and Children’s Home in Greenwood, SC. He earned a BA degree in History from Duke University and a Master of Divinity degree from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY. He is married to Sally Hill Kauffmann and has two daughters, Anna and Christina. In addition to his ministerial duties, Kauffmann also enjoys teaching and is an Adjunct Professor of World Religions at Lander University in Greenwood, SC. His interest in Civil War history began with a reading of the classic work by Glenn Tucker, High Tide at Gettysburg, in preparation for a visit to the Gettysburg Battlefield in 1994. His great grandfather, Colonel Tobias B. Kaufman, fought at Gettysburg.

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Tobias’s

           Story

THE LIFE AND CIVIL WAR CAREER OF TOBIAS B. KAUFMAN

DOUG KAUFFMANN

Copyright © 2012 by Doug Kauffmann.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2012917322

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4797-1881-8

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4797-1880-1

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4797-1882-5

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Contents

Preface

Part I

Part II

Epilogue

Appendix 1      Pennsylvania Historic Resource Survey Form

Appendix 2      Brief Biography of Tobias Kaufman

Appendix 3      Tobias Kaufman: List of Antiques-Papers

Appendix 4      Resources on the First Pennsylvania Reserves

Appendix 5      Letters Written from Tobias to his Sister, Susan

Appendix 6      Kauffman Family Background

Appendix 7      Biographical Sketch on Tobias’s Father, Benjamin Kauffman, and Family

Appendix 8      Herr Cemetery and Springville Cemetery

Appendix 9      Background of the Military Organization of the Pennsylvania Reserves and Military Organization in General in the Civil War

Appendix 10      Memorial Day Speech by Colonel Tobias B.Kaufman, written between 1900 and 1910

Endnotes

Preface

I have a great-grandfather who was a colonel in the Civil War. He fought for the north. His name was Tobias Kaufman. He was my great-grandfather on my dad’s side. He was captured once by Confederate soldiers, but only after he put up a fight. I’m proud of that! Dad told us how Tobias ordered all the Confederates to surrender even though he was outnumbered. They finally got him down on the ground and took his pistol away. Tobias was taken to a rebel prison. Years after the war, the Confederate soldier who took Tobias’s pistol found out where Tobias lived. He returned the pistol to him and told Tobias that he was a very brave man. Dad showed us the pistol! I held it carefully. ‘Wow,’ I thought, ‘My great-grandfather held this pistol in his hands, and he fired it in battle!’ Dad showed us an old wooden box that belonged to Tobias. In the box was a spur, a wooden spoon that Dad said Tobias used in prison, and a pocket watch. Dad showed us a saber that belonged to Tobias. Dad showed us several newspaper articles written about Tobias, but I can’t remember what they said.

These are my childhood memories of Colonel Tobias B. Kaufman—simple, proud, innocent impressions. In 1985, my father and mother retired in Savannah, Georgia. While visiting them in the midst of their move, I saw Tobias’s wooden box. Dad let me look through it and showed me the newspaper articles written about Tobias. One was written about a reception held in his honor in 1910 at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, by members of the regiment of which he was a colonel. The other articles were written after his death and provide an account of his life and career. As a young man in my early thirties, I was encountering my great-grandfather, Tobias, for the first time in many years. From my reading that night, I stored away a few more facts about him. He served in two different regiments. He was shot in the arm at Antietam while serving as a captain in the first one, the First Pennsylvania Reserves. He was promoted to major in the spring of 1863. After he was discharged from his first regiment in 1864, he went home to the Carlisle area, raised a company of men, and enlisted in a second regiment. He was made colonel of this second regiment, the 209th Pennsylvania Infantry. It was as a colonel serving on the Bermuda Hundred Peninsula in November 1864 that he was captured in a surprise night attack. I told my wife, Sally, a southern girl from South Carolina, about my renewed memories of my Yankee colonel ancestor; and we had a lively discussion about him that night in Savannah.

During the fall of 1993, my older daughter, Anna, was given the assignment to write about how the actions of one of her ancestors influenced her life. Sally, always one to offer a creative idea, suggested that our daughter research Tobias’s capture. She could explain that had Tobias been killed instead of being taken prisoner, he would not have lived to marry, have children, and set in motion the events that led to the life of his great great-granddaughter, Anna. From that assignment came another learning episode about Tobias for me. Dad was gracious to send us copies of the newspaper clippings about Tobias in which we found accounts of his capture. I was also reminded of the many battles in which Tobias fought. As we studied Tobias’s career, we were impressed at how he went from a private to a colonel during the course of the war. Dad also sent a picture of Tobias. It was a special treat to associate his handsome and friendly face with my childhood memories of the man and the stories of his life that happened so long ago. Anna completed her assignment. I had copies made of Tobias’s picture to give to the family for Christmas. I placed a framed picture of him in my bedroom and closed the chapter on another brief encounter with Tobias.

In May 1994, a dramatic change took place in my interest with Tobias. A dear friend, Scott Smith, and I were planning a weekend excursion to Baltimore, primarily to go to a Baltimore Orioles baseball game, but also to sightsee in the Baltimore and Annapolis area. In planning the trip, I noticed that Gettysburg was only an hour or so from Baltimore by car and suggested to Scott that we take a quick trip up there to tour the battlefield. I had always wanted to go to Gettysburg. Though I knew little about the actual events of the battle, what I had stored in my memory banks about the drama and grandeur of this, the largest of all American battles, had long filled me with a sense of wonder about the three-day epic. Scott agreed to my suggestion. To prepare for our trip to Gettysburg, I purchased a book about the battle, High Tide at Gettysburg by Glenn Tucker, and began to read about this compelling and decisive battle in our history. As I think back now, I am amazed that while I was reading the book, it did not immediately occur to me to think about whether Tobias had fought at Gettysburg or where he might have been during the battle. My imagination was filled with the military strategies, the quirky turns of events, and the dynamic personalities of the decision makers. I found myself in tears as I read of the inspiring heroism and the personal drama of friends fighting friends and Americans fighting Americans. My imagination raced as I tried to envision those hallowed battlefield locations that are now etched in our country’s history and legend, such as Cemetery Ridge, Seminary Ridge, the Peach Orchard, the Wheatfield, Little Round Top, and Big Round Top. It took me about a week to finish Tucker’s book. Each night as I sat down to read I became more and more captivated by the heritage of sacrifice that is our Civil war. I felt a growing desire to read all I could about Gettysburg and the Civil War. I began making plans for where on the battlefield I wanted to go and what individuals and regiments I wanted to trace and… and then in a moment of wonder and realization, after my passion for studying the Civil War had been ignited, it dawned on me, Tobias was there! Somewhere in the midst of this three-day American epic, Tobias was there. I suddenly remembered from my past readings that Gettysburg was one of those many battles in which Tobias had fought. Now I was on a mission! My passion for the Civil War now took on an extremely personal dimension. I was determined to trace Tobias through our Civil War and through him.

There were countless heroes who took part in our Civil War. One of them was Tobias B. Kaufman. There are countless stories of beloved Civil War ancestors to be rediscovered and retold. One of them is the story of Tobias B. Kaufman. In the years since May 1994, I have done my best to learn about Tobias’s life. I have been with my daughters to visit his home place in Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania. The farmhouse in which he grew up was built in the early 1800s and is structurally well-preserved, as are a spring house and barn. All three buildings date from the early 1800s. (For information on the farm from the Pennsylvania Historical Resource Survey, see appendix 1.) On the Memorial Day weekend in 1995, during the sesquicentennial celebration of the founding of Boiling Springs, I dressed as a Union officer and read a Memorial Day speech that Tobias had written and delivered in the last years of his life. My daughters and I have visited Gettysburg and Antietam to walk the ground on which he fought. My younger daughter, Christina, and I have been to the Richmond battlefields and have seen the places where Tobias fought in the battles of Mechanicsville, Gaines’ Mill, and Glendale. I have been to visit other fields where Tobias led men in battle such as Henry House Hill at second Bull Run, the Wilderness, and Spotsylvania. Christina and I have been to Iowa to visit the town of Belmond. Tobias moved there in 1873 with his wife Clara and young son, Percy, to make a new life, to face a new challenge. He lived there nearly forty years. There his one daughter, Maude, and his second son, Howard, my grandfather, were born. Tobias became a successful businessman, banker, mayor of the town, and committed leader in the local chapter of the veteran’s organization, GAR, the Grand Army of the Republic. He built a beautiful home there in 1892, which is wonderfully restored and currently serves as the Andrews Funeral Home. I have come to know Tobias in the pages of old newspapers, on rolls of microfilm, in the pages of his military and pension records, in his numerous personal papers, and on the pages of many wonderful books and articles that tell the story of our Civil War. (For a brief biography of Tobias’s life and career, see appendix 2. For a list of Tobias B. Kaufman’s Civil War artifacts, see appendix 3.)

Having come to know a great deal about Tobias B. Kaufman, I want to tell his story. I possess a lot of boyhood wonder and family pride in his story; but I also have, I trust, the objectivity of a historian. What appears in the following pages is the story of Tobias’s military career as well as a historical look at the regiments, brigades, and divisions in which Tobias fought. No man fights alone, and to understand Tobias’s part in the Civil War, you have to understand and appreciate the men with whom he fought as well as the men he fought against. I will also give further details about Tobias’s civilian life. While I have sought to be historically accurate, I do, from time to time, express my own thoughts on Tobias’s experiences and accomplishments. The sources of direct quotations are provided parenthetically. I cite books and articles that have been valuable in providing an understanding of the military history related to the campaigns and battles in which Tobias fought. (For a discussion of helpful sources on the First Pennsylvania Reserves, see appendix 4.) When I provide quotations from letters and newspaper articles of the day, I have left the mistakes in spelling and grammar as I found them. The original sources are much more interesting that way.

Part I

Tobias was born October 19, 1837, on a farm in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, five miles south of Carlisle. The farm was located on the banks of the Yellow Breeches Creek, which remains one of the best trout fishing rivers in Pennsylvania. A few miles east of the farm was an area known as Boiling Springs. The Boiling Springs Tavern was founded in 1832 on property adjacent to the bubbling springs that gave the area its name. In 1845, Daniel Kauffman, no direct relation to Tobias, founded the village of Boiling Springs on property he purchased from his father, Abraham. Today Boiling Springs remains a thriving community whose residents are acutely aware and deeply proud of their heritage. In 1995, the people of Boiling Springs celebrated the sesquicentennial of their town and produced a lovely book on their first one hundred and fifty years entitled At a Place Called the Boiling Springs. Tobias found a prominent place in the book’s chapter on the military history of the town’s citizens.

Cumberland County is located in the Cumberland Valley of central Pennsylvania. In 1863, during the celebrated invasion of the Army of Northern Virginia into Pennsylvania, General Robert E. Lee’s Second Corps, under the command of General Richard Ewell, marched through the Cumberland Valley within a few miles of Tobias’s home place. In fact, General J. E. B. Stuart and many of his cavalry crossed the Yellow Breeches at Boiling Springs during the early morning hours of July 2, 1863. Stuart was trying desperately to reunite with Lee’s infantry in time to make a contribution toward a Confederate victory at Gettysburg. He was too late. While Stuart was passing through Tobias’s hometown, Tobias was marching toward Gettysburg from the east. Tobias would arrive that day in time to charge down Little Round Top and help stop an impassioned Confederate assault on the left wing of the Army of the Potomac. General James Longstreet, Lee’s Old Warhorse, proudly and deservedly called the efforts of his First Corps the best three hours fighting ever done by any troops on a battlefield. However, we are getting ahead of ourselves. When Tobias was born to Benjamin and Martha Kauffman on their farm in 1837, no one could know that the greatest battle ever fought on American soil would take place some thirty miles away and that Tobias would be there.

Tobias grew up in a large Mennonite family. His father, Benjamin, was a member of the New Mennonite church. That was a branch of the Mennonite church that was very conservative and committed to the traditional Mennonite teachings of pacifism and strict moral purity. Tobias was a devoted Christian. In three letters written to his sister Susan during the early months of the war, Tobias refers to his interest in his faith and his hometown Sunday school. (See appendix 5 for a copy of the letters. For a summary of the Kauffmann family background, see appendix 6. See appendix 7 for a biographical sketch of Tobias B. Kaufman’s father, Benjamin Kauffman. See appendix 8 for info on two cemeteries in the Boiling Springs area where family members of Tobias B. Kaufman are buried.) During his forty years in Belmond, Iowa, after the war, Tobias developed a reputation as a Christian gentleman beyond reproach. The fascinating question unfolds as one studies Tobias’s military career, How could a young man who truly honored his Mennonite heritage and upbringing become such a hard-nosed fighter who participated so willingly and fervently in the Civil War? Certainly the cause inspired him! He was a committed patriot who believed in preserving the Union. It is also likely that he held abolitionist principles. Many in the Mennonite church were involved in the Underground Railroad. Daniel Kauffman, who founded the village of Boiling Springs, was a Mennonite who was fined often and dearly for his participation in the Underground Railroad. That Tobias was willing to fight in the Civil War as a Mennonite was unusual but not unprecedented. That this Mennonite farmer/teacher demonstrated such a remarkable ability for military leadership and an aggressive fighting spirit does make his story rare.

It is not surprising that Tobias grew up strong, disciplined, and well-educated. Such qualities might be expected of children raised on a Mennonite farm. At one time, his father owned as many as 260 acres of farmland in the Boiling Springs area. Tobias had several sisters but only one brother, Benjamin Jr. Tobias must have spent countless hours at hard labor on the family farm. Tobias was also devoted to learning. He was a teacher when the Civil War began. He was also attending a normal school, which was a school to train teachers. In April 1861, Tobias was a single man of twenty-three.

Like so many other Pennsylvanians, Tobias volunteered in 1861 when Lincoln extended his initial call for 75,000 troops. Pennsylvania’s quota was quickly filled, leaving thousands of young men like Tobias with no unit in which to serve. Governor Andrew Curtin quickly remedied the situation. Curtin was a staunch defender of the Union war effort and an outspoken opponent of the Confederate cause. It was his belief that Pennsylvania needed an army of state troops to guard against any Confederate attacks that might come from Virginia through Maryland. Curtin called for the formation of a Pennsylvania Reserve Volunteer Corps that would be composed of thirteen regiments of infantry, one regiment of cavalry, and one regiment of artillery. On June 8, 1861, Tobias was mustered into the First Pennsylvania Reserves as a member of Company I. Following the Union defeat at the battle of first Bull Run, it became apparent that the Union was going to need thousands more soldiers to defend the capital and to prosecute the war successfully. Lincoln extended an urgent call for more troops. The Pennsylvania Reserve Corps had already been formed during the months of June and July, and Governor Curtin immediately released them for service in the federal army. Within weeks, the Reserves were stationed near Washington DC, and their presence near Washington was a great relief to Lincoln and the residents of the capital.

Tobias was mustered into service at Camp Wayne, West Chester, Pennsylvania, on June 6, 1861. A Declaration of Pension Certificate dated on Tobias’s seventy-fifth birthday, August 19, 1912, and signed by Tobias states that he was mustered into service as a private. It also states that during Tobias’s time of service in the First Pennsylvania Reserves, he held the ranks of corporal, second lieutenant, captain, and major. His first promotions came quickly. Copies of his pay requests acquired from the Pennsylvania State Archives in Harrisburg indicate that he was being paid as a second lieutenant as early as June 21, 1861. In November 1861, Company I had a vacancy at captain. An election by the members of Company I was held. The two candidates for the position were First Lieutenant Isaac Graham and Tobias. Tobias won by a narrow margin. The vote was 42-39. After five months of service, Tobias was now captain of his company. He had no prewar military experience and no political connections to aid his advancement. He was simply a natural leader who quickly gained the confidence of his fellow soldiers and the respect of his superiors. (For further information on the organization of the Pennsylvania Reserves and how Civil War armies in general were organized, see appendix 9.) Tobias tells his sister, Susan, about his election as captain in a letter written to her dated November 24, 1861. He does not mention this important news until near the conclusion and then only in an offhand manner: I have been elected Captain of the company but do not act as such until I receive my commission. It is a very responsible post but I think I am able for it and intend trying to do my duty. His Mennonite upbringing is well reflected in his humility and devotion to duty. As we shall see, he was more than able for his duties as captain.

The Pennsylvania Reserves spent the fall and winter months of 1861-62 in the environs of Washington DC undergoing military training. Like most of the Union troops under McClellan’s command in the east, they saw very little combat during their first year of service. However, the Reserves made up for their first year’s inactivity with plenty of hard fighting during the next two years. Most of the regiments in the Reserves completed their three years of service on May 31, 1864. They spent their last day of active service fighting the battle of Bethesda Church near Richmond.

During the fall of 1861, the Reserves participated in two dramatic military ceremonies. On September 10, at Tenallytown near Washington, the regiments in the Pennsylvania Reserves received their official regimental flags. Those present for the occasion were President Abraham Lincoln, Secretary of War Simon Cameron, General George McClellan, Governor Andrew Curtin, and other dignitaries. Governor Curtin was welcomed by President Lincoln, and then he presented the regimental flags to the colonel of each regiment. Accompanying Governor Curtin in presenting the flags was the first commanding general of the Reserves, George McCall. Following the presentations, Governor Curtin stood on the seat of his carriage and addressed the men of the Reserves. Tobias and the remainder of the First Reserves were present on that memorable day. (For an account of the event see J. R. Sypher’s History of the Pennsylvania Reserves, Part One, pages 114-18.)

The Pennsylvania Reserves were also privileged to participate in an even grander event on November 20. On that day, a grand review of a major portion of the Army of the Potomac was conducted by President Lincoln and General George McClellan. The number of troops reviewed was 75,000. Tobias describes the event in a letter to his sister, Susan, dated November 24, 1861. Tobias states that it was the largest body of men ever reviewed at one time on this continent and that he saw President Lincoln, General McClellan and staff, Secretaries Cameron and Seward and a number of other distinguished persons. (See appendix 5, Letter 2, for Tobias’s full account of the event).

The first major combat in which Tobias participated was the Seven Days battles of June and July 1862. During the war, Union and Confederate troops often gave different names to the same battle. The Union troops were inclined to use the name of the closest river whereas the Confederates preferred the name of the closest town. For example, the Union used the name Bull Run, while the Confederates used the name Manassas for the first major battle of the war. In this account, where there is a difference in the name of a battle, I will normally use the name that Tobias would most likely have used as a Union soldier.

McClellan had led his Army of the Potomac on the Peninsula campaign in the spring of 1862. Most of his army had traveled by water to Fortress Monroe on the tip of the Virginia peninsula. From the fort, the army slowly, steadily made its way up the peninsula until by June the army was within a few miles of Richmond. The Pennsylvania Reserves had been assigned to Irvin McDowell’s First Corps and were stationed near Fredericksburg, Virginia, throughout most of the spring. It was not until June 9 that the Reserves were released from McDowell and assigned to Fitz-John Porter’s Fifth Corps of McClellan’s army. They arrived in mid-June and were placed on the far-right wing of the army in the most advanced position near the village of Mechanicsville. Along with the remainder of the Fifth Corps, they were positioned north of the Chickahominy River in what was to be an exposed position at the outset of the Seven Days battles. From their location, the Reserves were close enough to Richmond to see church spires in the distance and to hear the church bells ringing. Tobias and his comrades must have entertained thoughts of entering Richmond as military conquerors. However, Mechanicsville was as close as Tobias and the Reserves ever got to Richmond during the Peninsula campaign. As fate would have it, in November 1864 Tobias did enter the Confederate capital, not as a victor, but as a prisoner. He was confined at the infamous Libby Prison.

During the Peninsula campaign, the division known as the Pennsylvania Reserves was led by their original commander, General George McCall, and was organized into three brigades. Tobias’s regiment was known as the First Reserves (italicized below):

Generals Reynolds and Meade emerged during the war as two of the leading generals in the Union army. The soldiers of the Thirteenth Reserves, better known as the Bucktails, became famous during the war as superior woodsmen and marksmen. Few regiments in the Union army gained greater celebrity. Each man in the regiment wore a squirrel’s or deer’s tail in his cap as testimony to his shooting skill. They were best known as a frontline skirmishing unit and found themselves in many hot spots during the war. They fought in the same brigade as Tobias throughout most of their three years of service (1861-64).

The Union Fifth Corps was an inviting target for the coming Confederate offensive launched by Robert E. Lee and his leading generals, James Longstreet, A. P. Hill, Daniel H. Hill, and Stonewall Jackson. On June 25, 1862, an intense series of battles began during which McClellan’s Army of the Potomac was pushed back from the threshold of Richmond. The rapid succession of battles became known as the Seven Days battles. Six major battles were fought in those seven days. McClellan saved his army by executing a change of supply base from the Pamunkey River to the James River. The Union army also inflicted greater casualties on the continually attacking Confederate forces, but the victory went to the Army of Northern Virginia for saving Richmond and ending McClellan’s Peninsula campaign.

The Reserves were intensely involved in three of the six battles. The first battle of the Seven Days was initiated by Union troops south of the Chickahominy. It is known as the battle of Oak Grove. Neither side gained a victory or a tactical advantage. One reporter sized up the matter well when he called the engagement the battle of casualties. The two sides lost 1,100 casualties between them, and the armies finished the day where they started (William J. Miller, The Battle of Oak Grove, Civil War A Magazine of the Civil War Society, June 1995, pages 55-56).

The second battle of the Seven Days was the battle of Beaver Dam Creek (also known as Mechanicsville). It was fought on June 26. This was the first battle that Robert E. Lee planned and executed as the commander of the newly named Army of Northern Virginia. Lee was present on the field to watch the battle and to see how his troops would perform against the Union forces behind Beaver Dam Creek. The Union soldiers he watched that day were the men of the Pennsylvania Reserves. They were the only Union troops engaged in the battle. They held an excellent defensive position behind Beaver Dam Creek and the swamps lining the creek on either side. The Reserves were happy to hand Lee a defeat in his first battle. They could only have wished that every fight against Lee and his charges would turn out similarly.

Lee’s battle plan was for Stonewall Jackson’s troops, recently arrived from their famed Shenandoah Valley campaign in the spring of 1862, to turn the right or northern flank of the Reserves, thereby compromising their position and forcing them to retreat. This flanking movement was to be accompanied by a direct advance of A. P. Hill’s troops against the fleeing or otherwise engaged troops of the Reserves. Daniel H. Hill and James Longstreet were to follow up on A. P. Hill’s attack. Lee’s plan, however, was not carried out. His plan was aggressive and workable; but bad communications, bad maps, and bad roads helped the Pennsylvania Reserves earn a hard-fought victory. Jackson was delayed, and inaccurate maps compounded his problems. A. P. Hill was expecting Jackson to begin his battle in the early morning hours. Jackson was six hours behind schedule. In the late morning, Jackson sent word of his delay to one of Hill’s brigade commanders. That message was never passed on to A. P. Hill. By 3:00 p.m., Hill was anxious and angry. He decided to take matters into his own hands. Without consulting Lee, he launched his division in an all-out attack on the well-protected lines of the Reserves. That proved to be a costly mistake. Hill expected that Jackson would be positioned on the Reserves’ flank to join him in the assault. Fortunately for the Reserves, Jackson was not there.

Tobias’s regiment took part in the early stages of the battle by going forward and covering the withdrawal of the Bucktails, who had been serving as the main pickets or skirmishers for the division. A. P. Hill’s advance forced the Bucktails to give way. Tobias’s regiment was then placed in reserve until A. P. Hill sent his brigade under J. R. Anderson to turn the right flank of the Reserves. General Reynolds ordered his brigade, including Tobias’s regiment, to help defend the right flank. Anderson’s Confederates made a spirited assault but were repelled by a determined first brigade, which was supported by the excellent work of Cooper’s artillery battery. Samuel P. Bates, in his History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers, provides the following account of the First Reserves’ part in the battle:

It [the regiment] was soon after, ordered by General Reynolds, to the support of Cooper’s Battery, which was being fiercely assaulted by large forces of the enemy. The First Regiment held the center of the brigade, and for three hours of terrific fighting against vastly superior numbers, maintained its original position, repulsed the enemy and slept upon the ground so gallantly held. The loss in this engagement was seven killed and 20 wounded. (Bates, page 547)

Lee had wanted the Union right flank crushed by a coordinated attack from A. P. Hill’s and Stonewall Jackson’s troops. How fortunate for the Reserves that Jackson’s troops never arrived to fight that day. A concerted flank attack from Jackson, the kind for which he became so famous, would have spelled disaster for the Reserves, and possibly for Tobias. In mid-September 1862, Tobias and the Reserves got their chance to fight against Jackson and his men at the battle of Antietam. On that occasion, Tobias was wounded in the arm. If the Reserves had been forced to fight both Hill and Jackson on this day at Beaver Dam Creek, it might have meant not only injury but also death for our young captain.

In the battle of Beaver Dam Creek, the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps suffered the following losses: 38 killed, 172 wounded, and over 100 missing. The casualties of the First Reserves included seven killed and twenty wounded. The Confederate casualties totaled between 1,400 and 1,600. Many of these injuries were to company and regimental officers. The Reserves were in great spirits after having been victorious in their first major battle. (The third brigade of the Reserves had won a minor battle on December 19, 1861, at Dranesville, Virginia. The other two brigades of the Reserves were present on the battlefield but were not engaged.) However, McClellan realized that with Jackson moving on their flank and rear, the Reserves would be in a vulnerable position if they remained at Beaver Dam Creek. McCall received orders to withdraw his troops just before dawn on June 27. The Fifth Corps was ordered to take up a position six miles from Beaver Dam Creek at Gaines’ Mill. Later that day, the next battle of the Seven Days was fought, and the Reserves were in the thick of the fight.

General Fitz-John Porter found an excellent defensive position from which his Fifth Corps could receive Lee’s next attack. On the left end of his line, Porter placed his troops on a terraced plateau that allowed his artillery to fire over the heads of his soldiers, who were placed on a sloping hillside in front of the batteries. Much of the Union line on this end of the field was positioned behind the steep banks and the swampy area of Boatswain Creek. As the Union line spread toward the east, the ground flattened out into farming terrain. While the defensive advantage went to the Union troops, the numerical superiority was enjoyed by Lee. I know of no battle during the Civil War in which Lee’s entire army on the field outnumbered the Union side. However, Lee was a master at arranging his troops in such a way as to hold a numerical superiority at key locations on the field of battle. Such was the case at Gaines’ Mill. On this day, Lee would bring six divisions composed of 55,000-60,000 men into action. Lee knew from his surveillance that McClellan only had one corps, or three divisions, on the north side of the Chickahominy River. While McClellan’s troops south of the Chickahominy significantly outnumbered Lee’s, they would be of little help to Porter on this day. McClellan did send General Slocum’s division from the Sixth Corps across the Chickahominy to reinforce Porter late in the day. Counting Slocum’s division, the Union troops numbered 30,000 to 35,000 at the battle of Gaines’ Mill.

Lee had two objectives at Gaines’ Mill. First, he wanted to crush Porter’s corps in their isolated position. Second, he hoped to cut McClellan off from his major supply depot at White House Landing on the Pamunkey River. The Richmond and York