A Journal of the American Civil War: V1-4

By Theodore P. Savas

Balanced and in-depth military coverage (all theaters, North and South) in a non-partisan format with detailed notes, offering meaty, in-depth articles, original maps, photos, columns, book reviews, and indexes.

126th NY Infantry at Harpers Ferry – First Confederate Regiment from Santa Rosa to Chickamauga – Long road to Bentonville – Book reviews – complete list of contents and index for Volume One

• Language: English
• Publisher: Savas Publishing
• Release date: Dec 31, 2021
• ISBN: 9781954547186

Book preview

Editorial Introduction

In the opening phase of the Antietam Campaign, when the Army of Northern Virginia moved into Maryland in September 1862, the presence of a Federal garrison at Harpers Ferry presented an unacceptable danger to the Confederate rear. To neutralize this threat, General Robert E. Lee directed Stonewall Jackson to possess the high ground around Harpers Ferry and force out or capture the Federals stationed there. Maryland Heights, the strategic key to Harpers Ferry, was the critical objective of the flower of Lee’s army. Among the troops standing in their way were the scrub-faced recruits of the 126th New York Infantry, barely three weeks into their terms of enlistment.

After a confused but spirited firefight on the wooded, rocky Heights, Jackson’s sinewy veterans eventually caused the Federal forces defending the eminence, including the 126th, to scramble pell-mell down the mountainside, leaving Maryland Heights and consequently the fate of Harpers Ferry itself, in the hands of the Confederates. Many blamed the loss of Maryland Heights on the inexperienced 126th New York. This neophyte regiment, which held the center of the Union line, was accused of breaking and running at the first sign of trouble, thus triggering a general rout among the defenders. The New Yorkers, however, relate a different story: one of courage under fire and the reluctant acceptance of orders to retreat.

New York author Dr. Wayne Mahood presents an intriguing look at the Union debacle on Maryland Heights from the perspective of the young New Yorkers in their first encounter with the enemy. In addition to respected secondary sources, Mahood utilized private correspondence, official reports, contemporary newspapers, and testimony from a Court of Inquiry investigating the Harpers Ferry surrender, in preparing this article. Their honor tainted at the start, the 126th amassed a frightful casualty list throughout the balance of the war in a tragic rebuttal to the hard stories told of them at Harpers Ferry.

A handful of the South’s fighting generals first tested their combat leadership abilities during the fall of 1861 on the Gulf of Mexico’s windswept island of Santa Rosa. Accompanying these leaders, which included the likes of Richard H. Anderson, John K. Jackson and James Chalmers, were two hand-picked companies of green soldiers from the 36th Georgia Infantry. With the later addition of companies from other states, the unit’s name was officially changed to the 1st Confederate Regiment Georgia Infantry, becoming the first of only seven regular infantry regiments to serve the Confederacy.

The 1st Confederate served in the backwaters of the war during the first two years, missing the bloodbaths of Shiloh and Murfreesboro. In April of 1863, half of the regiment remained behind to man Mobile Harbor’s Fort Gaines while the balance of the unit travelled north to Tennessee — and active campaigning. The move heralded an end to the regiment’s remarkably good luck in avoiding major combat. Five companies of the 1st Confederate were assigned to Benjamin Cheatham’s hard-hitting division of the Army of Tennessee. The motley assemblage of companies turned in a solid, if not stellar, performance in the war’s Western Theater from Chickamauga to Bentonville. It lost over 50% of its numbers in the former engagement, and surrendered only a handful of tired veterans shortly after the latter.

The relative safety provided by Fort Gaines’ masonry walls was unappreciated by at least one soldier who was ordered to remain — Lt. Colonel George Smith. Smith, a capable and energetic officer who actively lobbied for a field command, eventually got his wish. In March of 1864 the five companies left behind for the lonely sojourn in Mobile joined the Army of Tennessee and their old comrades prior to the opening of the Atlanta Campaign. Smith finally received his opportunity to distinguish himself on the battlefield.

Author C. Pat Cates has travelled extensively over the past several years conducting research on the 1st Confederate. Making fine use of contemporary newspapers and other uniformly overlooked sources to produce this article exclusively for Civil War Regiments, Cates chronicles well the history of this regular army unit, a varied and active field service of quiet bravery and unending endurance for the cause of the Southern Confederacy.

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Civil War Regiments, over the course of the past year, has become a patron member of the Association for the Preservation for Civil War Sites and a contributor to APCWS’s Fisher’s Hill project. In addition, CWR has made donations to HeritagePac, the Richard Garnett Memorial Fund, and other preservation-related causes. We are extremely pleased to welcome Mr. A. Wilson Greene to the staff of CWR as our Preservation Editor beginning with Volume Two, Number One. Besides standing alone as a premier historian in his own right, Mr. Greene is a knowledgeable, ardent, and successful preservationist, and in his capable hands we entrust The Preservation Report. We will continue to provide both unit-specific preservation information, and expanded preservation-related articles. We are also happy to announce that Volume Two will boast a distinguished Editorial Advisory Board.

This issue signals the end of Volume One and our first full year of publication. A full-volume, four issue index is included in this issue. We again extend our thanks to all our subscribers for helping to make Civil War Regiments a steady contributor to CivilWar historiography, and to all of our authors who generously contributed their time and hard work. Thanks also to our advertisers who had faith in a fledgling publication.

Theodore P. Savas David A. Woodbury

Some Very Hard Stories Were Told…

The 126th New York Infantry at Harpers Ferry

Wayne Mahood

¹

At Camp Douglas on the cold, windy shores of Lake Michigan, more than 600 miles from home, 25 year-old prisoner-of-war Corporal George W. Sheldon of the 126th New York Volunteer Infantry sat stewing. On October 2,1862, he wrote to a Hamilton College classmate: Some very hard stories have been told of our Regt, by some malicious person in another regiment at the [Harpers] Ferry, and I think therefore I must give you a short account of the fight on Maryland Heights. And he did — over eight hand-written pages, including a crudely drawn map.² Sheldon put himself into this letter with the enthusiasm that apparently characterized his life and that would later contribute to his death at the battle of Chapin’s Farm.³ Sheldon’s letter referred to a battle the Confederates regarded as only a footnote to bloody Antietam in the Maryland Campaign.⁴ To the vanquished, however, only exoneration by a Court of Inquiry would assuage hurt feelings. ⁵

In many respects the captive Sheldon and his comrades’ fates were determined by the Union’s bungled response to the notorious lost orders, ⁶ wherein the dispositions of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s scattered forces and their various objectives were outlined. The orders revealed that the Army of Northern Virginia was to resume its march along the Hagerstown road September 10 with Major General Thomas J. Jackson’s command in the advance. The bulk of Major General James Longstreet’s wing was to pursue the main road as far as Boonsborough, [sic] Major General Lafayette McLaws, with his and General Richard H. Anderson’s divisions of Longstreet’s command, would detour long enough to capture Maryland Heights, while the division of Brigadier General John G. Walker would take possession of Loudoun Heights, if practicable. General Daniel Harvey Hill’s division would serve as rear guard while General J.E.B. Stuart would cover the route. Once the Federal garrison at Harpers Ferry was neutralized, the Confederates would then join the main body of the Army of Northern Virginia at Boonsboro or Hagerstown. Interestingly, an argument has been made that this was a change of plans, due in part to updated information obtained from Lt. Milton Rouse, a daring scout from the 12th Virginia Cavalry who had just been paroled by Colonel Dixon S. Miles on the 5th of September.⁷

Possession of the surrounding high ground would virtually assure the capture of Harpers Ferry, described by the 126th’s regimental historian as a mere selvedge of land…where, before the war, our government had an armory, an arsenal, various machine shops and extensive flouring mills. ⁸ Author and historian Shelby Foote succinctly described the geographical vulnerability of a soldier in that town: Low-lying Harpers Ferry, more trap than fortress, was dominated by heights that frowned down from three directions: Bolivar Heights to the west, Maryland Heights across the Potomac, and Loudoun Heights across the Shenandoah. Seizure of these heights with guns bearing down on the compact mass of bluecoats, should be something like shooting fish in a rain barrel.⁹

Once his forces were across the Potomac, General Lee had counted on the Federals to withdraw the garrison of approximately 13,000 from Harpers Ferry and nearby outposts, including Martinsburg, West Virginia.¹⁰ According to Jedediah Hotchkiss, Jackson’s celebrated topographer, Lee hoped to draw McClellan further from his base of supplies than the valley of the Monocacy; preferred to contend with him beyond the Blue ridge (here called the South mountain), where, at the same time, he could threaten an invasion of Pennsylvania, which was one of the cherished designs of Stonewall Jackson.¹¹ The success of the Maryland Campaign and, necessarily, the fate of Harpers Ferry, rested with the occupation of Maryland and Loudoun Heights.¹²