by Gregory Kostka
THE THIRD U.S. INFANTRY REGIMENT IN THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG
The Third U.S. Regular Infantry Regiment participated in the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863 as part of the First Brigade of the Second Division of the Fifth Army Corps. The regiment consisted of just over 300 officers and enlisted men organized into six companies (B, C, F, G, I, and K). In addition to the Third Infantry, the First Brigade included the Fourth, Sixth, Twelfth, and Fourteenth Regular Infantry Regiments and counted about 1,700 officers and enlisted men. The Second Division of the Fifth Corps also contained a second brigade of Regular infantry, composed of the Second, Seventh, Tenth, Eleventh, and Seventeenth Regular Infantry Regiments, and a brigade of volunteer infantry regiments raised by the loyal States.
The First Brigade of the Second Division of the Fifth Corps was under the command of Colonel Hannibal Day of the Sixth Infantry. On the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, July 1, 1863, Colonel Day celebrated the 40th anniversary of his graduation from the United States Military Academy. He was born in 1804 in Montpelier, Vermont, and was 59 years old, although with his white hair and white beard he looked much older. Colonel Day received command of the First Brigade (Day's Brigade) just four days before he led the brigade into battle at Gettysburg.
Colonel Day replaced Brigadier General Romeyn Ayres, upon the latter's promotion to command of the Second Division. General Ayres began the war as an artillery captain in charge of a battery at the First Battle of Bull Run. Appointed as a Brigadier General in November 1862, he commanded the First Brigade during the Chancellorsville campaign. Command of the Fifth Corps was entrusted to Major General George Sykes, who began the war as a captain in the Third Infantry and commanded the regiment at the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861. He had served as commander of the Second Division of the Fifth Corps since its organization in early 1862.
The promotions of Colonel Day and Generals Ayres and Sykes occurred as a chain reaction to the elevation of Major General George G. Meade to command of the Army of the Potomac on June 28, 1863. General Meade was serving as commander of the Fifth Corps before his selection by President Abraham Lincoln to replace Major General Joseph Hooker as Army commander. General Meade's promotion created advancement opportunities for his subordinates. While all three officers were present with the Fifth Corps and immediately available to assume their new commands, Colonel Day was the most recent addition of the three officers to the Army of the Potomac.
At the beginning of the Civil War, Colonel Day was serving in Minnesota as lieutenant colonel of the Second Infantry. Upon the outbreak of hostilities, he led several companies of his regiment to Washington D.C., but they arrived too late to participate in the First Battle of Bull Run. Described by one of his soldiers as an "unfeeling man", he
surprised his command during the trip from Minnesota by arranging for a beer wagon to meet the troops each afternoon while they marched between St. Cloud and St. Paul, Minnesota. Initially serving in various capacities in the defenses of Washington, Colonel Day was ordered to Boston in December 1861 as Superintendent of the Volunteer Recruiting Service for the State of Massachusetts. During his service in Massachusetts, Colonel Day received his promotion to colonel of the Sixth Infantry.
On April 1, 1863, Colonel Day was finally relieved from recruiting duty and ordered to join the Sixth Infantry for his first field service during the Civil War. The actual transfer of the command of the Recruiting Headquarters in Boston was not completed until April 23d, and he did not arrive at the camps of the Second Division of the Fifth Corps near Falmouth, Virginia, until early May 1863, just after the Battle of Chancellorsville. A position in command of one of the Regular brigades was unavailable for the newly arrived colonel. General Ayres, his senior in rank, had been in command of the First Brigade of the division for almost two months and led the brigade at Chancellorsville. Command of the Second Brigade, to which the Sixth Infantry was then assigned, was exercised by Colonel Sidney Burbank of the Second Infantry, who had joined his regiment on April 14, 1862, and was assigned to command of the brigade the next day. Although Colonel Burbank was eight months the junior of Colonel Day in receiving his colonelcy, General Sykes declined to relieve an officer who had performed so gallantly at Chancellorsville. In fact, General Sykes wrote that the interest of his division would not admit of the change.
Consequently, the only command then available to Colonel Day was the Sixth Infantry, or as he noted, its skeleton of five companies and a total of less than 300 bayonets. It does not appear that he ever assumed command of his regiment in the field. The regimental return of the Sixth Infantry for May 1863, dated June 3, 1863, was signed by Captain Levi Bootes as regimental commander and listed the station of Colonel Day as "not known". The regimental return for June 1863 does not show that Captain Bootes was relieved of command at any time. On May 8, 1863, Colonel Day wrote the Adjutant General of the Army of the Potomac to complain that the small Sixth Infantry was not a suitable command for a colonel. The letter was addressed from the Camp of the Ambulance Train, Fifth Corps, and Colonel Day respectfully suggested that he would be more usefully employed on detached service in mustering or organizing new recruits. The application was approved by Generals Sykes, Meade, and Hooker and forwarded to the Adjutant General's Office in Washington.
Nine days later, Colonel Day repeated his request for a transfer, this time writing from the Headquarters of the Fifth Corps. He explained that "I have reason to believe that the Division Commander under whom my Regiment is serving does not want me, that although he applied for me with the other Colonels, he did not expect I would join." According to Colonel Day, the suggestion that he apply for detached service was made "in substance" by General Sykes. General Sykes did not record his reasons for trying to rid his command of Colonel Day, but Colonel Day did have a reputation as a heavy drinker. General George Crook, in reminiscences about his long military career, recalled that, while serving as a young lieutenant with then Major Day in California in 1852, not a day passed without the major getting drunk. At the funeral for a fellow officer who had died from alcoholism, Crook recorded Day's eulogy as follows: "Well
fellows, Old Miller is dead and he can't drink, so let us all take a drink."
Colonel Day's first application for detached service arrived in Washington, D.C., on May 11, 1863. The next day, Assistant Adjutant General Edward D. Townsend noted on the application that "Colonel Day has served with his Regiment in the field but a few weeks, and there is no duty to which he can be assigned at present without injury to the service." Given such an endorsement, General-in-Chief Henry W. Halleck showed no hesitation in rejecting the request on May 14th. While Colonel Day was left in the embarrassing position of being without a suitable command for over a month, he was the senior officer available to command the First Brigade upon the promotion of General Ayres to divisional command. The assignment of Colonel Day on June 28th to command the First Brigade resulted in his first and only combat experience during the Civil War. Given his brief exposure to his new command, he hardly had sufficient time either to judge the capabilities of his officers and men or to earn their trust and confidence before he commanded them in battle.
Organization of the Third Infantry
The four field officers of the Third Infantry, colonel, lieutenant colonel, and senior and junior majors, were absent on other duty in 1863 so the regiment was under the command of the senior line officer still present, Captain Henry William Freedley of Company C. Captain Freedley was the only graduate of the United States Military Academy among the officers present with the regiment at this time. He received his appointment to the Military Academy in 1851 from his uncle John Freedley, who was a two-term Whig member of Congress from Pennsylvania. He graduated from West Point in July 1855 ranked twenty-ninth in an Academy class of thirty-four cadets. Pending an opening in a line officer position in one of the ten Regular Infantry Regiments in existence at that time, he was assigned to temporary duty in Texas during the winter of 1855 and 1856. He joined the Third Infantry in New Mexico the following spring as the new second lieutenant of Company K. The Third Infantry was transferred to Texas in 1860, and Lieutenant Freedley served with Company K at Fort Clark, which was located 120 miles west of San Antonio.
Lieutenant Freedley was promoted to first lieutenant just before the start of the Civil War, but his war-time service had an inauspicious beginning when he became one of the first Regular Army officers captured after the fall of Fort Sumter. Shortly after the secession of Texas in early 1861, Lieutenant Freedley was ordered to serve on detached duty as an acting assistant quartermaster. He was given charge of the large wagon train organized to evacuate the west Texas forts of Fort Bliss, Fort Quitman, Fort Davis, Fort Stockton, Fort Lancaster, and Camp Hudson. These posts were occupied by the Eighth Infantry Regiment, and the wagon train accompanied the troops during their march to the Texas coast for transport to the North.
Freedley wrote after the war that he did not know why he was selected for to command the evacuation wagon train, but the appointment was considered by his fellow officers at Fort Clark to be a compliment to his loyalty. Considering how the duty ended, he wrote with considerable understatement that he would never forget Department Adjutant William A. Nichols, who apparently made the selection. On March 11, 1861, Lieutenant Freedley left Fort Clark and Company K for his new assignment, accompanied by a number a ragged Texas State troops assigned to relieve
the departing Federal garrisons. Unfortunately, the Civil War began at Fort Sumter well before the battalion of the Eighth Infantry could reach the Texas coast. Unaware that hostilities had begun, the battalion was surprised and captured by a large force of Texas troops near San Antonio on May 9, 1861.
Lieutenant Freedley was held as a prisoner of war in San Antonio and Richmond until August 1, 1861, when he was released on parole upon his promise not to exercise any of the functions of his office to the prejudice of the Confederate States until exchanged for a Confederate officer held by the Union. In order to reach Washington, D.C., from Richmond, he was forced to travel by a route that took him through Chattanooga, Nashville, and St. Louis. His promotion to captain was awaiting him upon his arrival in Washington in late August 1861. Captain Freedley remained on parole performing no duty whatsoever until June 1862 when he was appointed as an assistant to the Commissary General of Prisoners. He spent the next several months on duty at various prison camps in the Western States. He was finally declared exchanged as a prisoner of war pursuant to General Order No. 118 of August 27, 1862, although he did not learn of the order until that November.
In anticipation of the spring campaign season in 1863, Captain Freedley was ordered to join the Third Infantry in the field. On April 10, 1863, he arrived at the camp of the Third Infantry outside of Falmouth, Virginia. This was his first contact with the regiment since March 1861. After participating in the Battle of Chancellorsville as acting major of the regiment, he became regimental commander on May 7, 1863. Born in 1832 in Norristown, Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia, Captain Freedley led his command to the defense of his native State.
Captain Freedley was one of only fourteen officers still serving with the Third Infantry in the field. Captain Richard Gregory Lay, the only other officer present with the regiment who served in the antebellum Army, was acting major. Captain Lay also commanded Company G. The other two regimental staff officers were First Lieutenant Joseph Addison McCool of Company K, who served as regimental quartermaster since December 1861, and First Lieutenant John Whitney of Company G, who was acting adjutant of the regiment since April 20, 1863.
With the exception of Company G, the five other companies of the regiment present at Gettysburg (B, C, F, I, and K) were all under the command of lieutenants. Since March 1, 1863, First Lieutenant Daingerfield Parker (sometimes spelled Dangerfield) of Company E commanded Company B. First Lieutenant John H. Page of Company I commanded his company since January 20, 1863. Company C had been under the command of First Lieutenant George B. Butler, Jr., of Company D since February 15, 1863, but Lieutenant Butler was under arrest during the march of the regiment to Gettysburg. On account of Lieutenant Butler's arrest, Second Lieutenant August Kaiser of Company I was given the task of overseeing both Companies C and F. Another second lieutenant, Stanley Mourton of Company A, commanded Company K. Both second lieutenants received their company commands in May 1863.
The remaining five officers of the Third Infantry at Gettysburg were all second lieutenants: Louis McLean Hamilton of Company D, Isaac A. Helm of Company G, William Mitchell of Company B, George K. Pomeroy of Company E (on special duty with Company I), and James A. Snyder of Company C. However, Lieutenants Snyder and Hamilton were only nominally with the regiment at this time. Lieutenant Snyder had been serving as aide-de-camp to General Sykes since February 1862, and General Ayres selected Lieutenant Hamilton in May 1863 to serve as one of the officers on his staff.
Of the junior officers, Lieutenants Kaiser, Mitchell, and Mourton served as noncommissioned officers in the antebellum Army and were appointed from the ranks. Sergeant Kaiser received his commission in July 1862 and had previously served as first sergeant of Company G and as sergeant major of the regiment. Lieutenant Mourton had been first sergeant of Company H and also received his commission in July 1862. Lieutenant Mitchell was commissioned as an officer in April 1863 after more than eight years as a private, corporal, sergeant, and finally first sergeant in Company D of the Second Infantry. He joined the Third Infantry from the nearby Second Infantry on April 27, 1863, and was assigned to duty as provost marshal of the regiment. The other officers were civilian appointees, although Lieutenants McCool, Page, Butler, Whitney, Pomeroy, and Hamilton had some previous military experience as enlisted men in volunteer regiments.
March to Gettysburg
On the eve of the Battle of Gettysburg, the Third Infantry was located with the rest of the First Brigade at Union Mills, Maryland, near the border with Pennsylvania. The regiment marched 25 miles on June 30, 1863, from its previous camp near Liberty, Maryland, as the Union Army responded to the Confederate advance into Pennsylvania. The regiment first began its march northward with the Fifth Corps on June 13th from its camp overlooking Banks Ford on the Rappahannock River west of Fredericksburg, Virginia. Marching by way of Morrisville to Catlett's Station on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad on June 14th, the regiment followed the tracks to Manassas Junction on June 15th. The regiment covered 451/2 miles over that three-day period and earned itself a day of rest at Manassas Junction on June 16th, the same day Confederate infantry began crossing the Potomac River into Maryland. The next day, the regiment marched 17 miles to the northwest to Gum Springs, Virginia, passing en route through a portion of the battlefields of First and Second Bull Run and the town of Centreville. In a post-war reminiscence, John Page recalled that when passing through the former battlefield, he found the unburied bodies of men of Company I of the Third Infantry who were killed in action the previous August.
Beginning at 4:00 pm on June 19th, the regiment moved its camp eight miles further west to Aldie, Virginia, to cover one of the passes of the Bull Run Mountains while General Hooker endeavored to discover Confederate intentions. At some point during the stay in this area, the Third Infantry occupied a vacated Rebel camp, where John Page noted "we picked up souvenirs of it, consisting of little gray insects, and they remained with us." After a week in Aldie, orders were issued on June 25th for the Fifth Corps to resume the march northward the next morning. In this instance, "morning" occurred at 2:00 am with reveille, and the command to move was given at 4:00 am precisely. The regiment was on the road for 17 hours on June 26th and marched 27 miles. During that long march, the regiment passed through Leesburg, Virginia, and crossed into Maryland on the twin pontoon bridges established on each side of the mouth of Goose Creek opposite Edward's Ferry, Maryland.
After bivouacking about four miles north of Edward's Ferry for a few hours, the Fifth Corps resumed its march on June 27th. The time set to begin that day's march was again 4:00 am, but the long march of June 26th had taken its toll. The commander of the Second Brigade noted in his diary that "the regiments did not move out so promptly as usual, the men being quite slow getting ready for the march." Still, the Fifth Corps reached Ballenger Creek, just south of Frederick, Maryland, before nightfall on June 27th and went into camp. The men's shoes, which John Page recalled were newly issued at the start of the long march northward, had begun to give out and their clothing was in tatters, there being no change of clothing since leaving the Rappahannock. At night the men would wash their single shirt, only to put it back on the next morning to dry. According to John Page, a hot flatiron was passed along the line at night to press the seams of their trousers, not to put a military crease in them, but to reduce the misery produced by the Rebel lice.
The Army of the Potomac remained in camp on June 28th while the command of the Army was taken from General Hooker and given to General Meade. At least the troops were supposed to remain in camp, but, after months in hostile Virginia, many of the soldiers sought out the pleasures available in nearby Frederick. When the Third Infantry and the rest of the Army resumed its pursuit of the Confederate Army on June 29th, scores of soldiers fell out along the roadside as a consequence of their unauthorized visits. General Meade intended to position the Army of the Potomac between Emmitsburg and Westminster, in central Maryland about 20 miles north of Frederick, but his new command proved unequal to the task.
June 29th was General Sykes' first full day in command of the Fifth Corps, and he was understandably anxious that his troops make good progress on the march. Unfortunately, like the rest of the Army, the Fifth Corps was unable to reach its assigned objective and spent the night spread out between Liberty and Mt. Pleasant, Maryland. General Sykes sent a written apology to the Army commander, and his predecessor as Fifth Corps commander, for the poor performance of the Corps. General Meade was unconcerned, writing to General Sykes that congested roads had impeded the march of the Fifth Corps. He instructed his successor to cover as much ground as possible without fatiguing the men. Better progress was made on June 30th. The Fifth Corps ended the month in the vicinity of Union Mills, marching by way of Johnsville, Union Bridge, and Uniontown.
The last days of June 1863 were intensely hot and dry, and the troops suffered considerably on the dusty roads. Sunstroke, fatigue, and the temptations presented by a countryside previously untouched by warfare combined to thin the ranks slightly when the company officers counted their commands on the last day of June to prepare the muster rolls for May and June 1863. Straggling was especially severe in Company I, and Lieutenant John Page reported on June 30th that five enlisted men of his command were absent without leave since June 27th and another six men disappeared during that day's march. Most of these absent men were listed as present for duty on the August muster rolls, and it is possible that they caught up to the regiment in time to fight at Gettysburg. Of the marches that brought the regiment to Gettysburg, John Page wrote that "we of the line marched, cooked our meals, slept, and were too tired to do anything else."
On July 1st, the first day of fighting at Gettysburg, the Fifth Corps marched 18 miles north of Union Mills to Hanover, Pennsylvania. The Third Infantry arrived on the outskirts of the village shortly after a cavalry clash had occurred between the Union advance and a portion of Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart's errant troopers. Passing the site of this skirmish, the men of the Third Infantry had their first serious evidence that a major battle was imminent. Early in the evening on July 1st, just as the men were preparing a supper of freshly slaughtered beef, orders arrived from General Meade for the Fifth Corps to proceed to Gettysburg without delay. Resuming the march at 7:00 pm along the Hanover road (now Pennsylvania Route 116), the Second Division reached Bonaughtown, six miles east of Gettysburg, at midnight. The head of the column halted there to avoid running blindly into suspected Confederate positions, and the troops were permitted to lie down in the road for a few hours rest. The march was resumed at dawn on July 2d and by 7:00 am the entire Fifth Corps was deployed in line of battle parallel to the road in some farm fields east of Gettysburg near the current overpass of Pennsylvania Route 116 and U.S. Highway 15. This position was the far right of the Union line and, while here, soldiers from Day's Brigade were deployed as skirmishers.
At 10:00 am, the Fifth Corps moved to a reserve position behind the center of the Union line near the intersection of the Baltimore Pike (Pennsylvania Route 97) and the Granite School House Road. General Sykes established his headquarters at the site on what is known as Powers Hill. The soldiers took advantage of the wait to sleep, and sleep soundly according to John Page, or to make coffee after the long marches of the past few days. Unfortunately, the stay at Powers Hill resulted in the persistent rumor that the deployment of the Fifth Corps on the Union battle line was dangerously delayed to permit the men to make coffee. One general officer of the Third Corps even testified before the Joint Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War that General Sykes responded to an urgent appeal for troops by saying "that he would be up in time; that his men were making coffee and were tired". This is certainly one instance in which General Sykes does not deserve his nickname "Tardy George". The Fifth Corps was placed in reserve at Powers Hill by order of General Meade and promptly moved to support the Third Corps and give battle at his order. Once General Sykes had this order, he had no intention of doling his command out in pieces at the request of junior staff officers of the Third Corps.
Battle: Action in Plum Run and the Wheatfield
On the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg, the principal Confederate attack was directed on the afternoon of July 2d against the over-extended Union left flank in the woods, fields, and orchards west of the two Round Tops. At a 3:00 pm meeting at Army headquarters, General Meade ordered General Sykes to take the Fifth Corps to the left and to hold it at all hazards. While General Sykes and an orderly rode south along Cemetery Ridge to select positions for his troops, one of his staff officers raced to Powers Hill to start the three divisions of the Fifth Corps forward. John Page recalled that "a call to arms by all the field music brought us to our feet; the roar of the battle was load and not far off." The First Division of the Fifth Corps marched due west along Granite School House Road. Two of the brigades of the First Division would fight in the woods west of the Wheatfield, while the third would become the first Union troops to secure Little Round Top. General Ayres's directed the Second Division of the Fifth Corps to the southwest along a farm road (Blacksmith Shop Road) that brought the division to the Taneytown Road at its intersection with the Wheatfield Road.
Some if not all of the approximately 11/2-mile march was done at the double-quick as the division rushed to the sounds of battle coming from beyond the Round Tops. In support of a pension application for Private Charles Sanborn, Private James Morse of Company G wrote in 1884 that he would never forget this run, which seemed to him to last about an hour, because the stitches of his cartridge box gave way and spilled his ammunition along the farm lane. By this time in the war, the enlisted men of Company F were the only soldiers in the regiment who still carried a complete set of leather accoutrements. The enlisted men of the other five companies no longer worn a cartridge-box belt, which normally hung across the left shoulder of the soldier and held the cartridge box on the right hip of the soldier. Instead they simply wore their cartridge box on their waist belt. Unable to reattach his cartridge box to his belt, Private Morse carried the remains of the cartridge box into battle under his arm while waiting for someone to get killed or wounded so that he could take their cartridge box. When Private Sanborn was wounded, Private Morse was able to obtain the replacement cartridge box he needed.
The Third Brigade of the Second Division under Brigadier General Stephen H. Weed had previously been sent to report to General Sickles of the Third Corps. As the Third Brigade entered the field of battle along the Wheatfield Road, General Gouverneur K. Warren, Chief Engineer of the Army of the Potomac, redirected it to the crest of Little Round Top to reinforce the hard-pressed brigade on that hill. General Ayres arrived shortly afterwards with his First and Second Brigades, both composed entirely of Regular soldiers. He placed the brigades in the open area on the north slope of Little Round Top. One section of Captain Frank Gibb's Battery L, First Ohio Light Artillery, was already in place on the slope, so General Ayres began his line just to the north of these two guns. According to John Page, the brigades approached the battlefield "by the left flank at double time; came right front into line, on the run, as we reached the base of Little Round Top." The Second Brigade was deployed in line of battle facing west and extending toward the Wheatfield Road. The brigade numbered barely 850 rifles so the line could not have been more than 200 yards long. Day's Brigade was deployed in a column of regiments to the immediate rear of the Second Brigade. Directly west of the two brigades lay Plum Run, soon to earn the name Bloody Run, and the maelstrom of battle that became known as the Wheatfield.
About 5:00 pm, General Sykes ordered the two brigades of Regular Army soldiers to advance across Plum Run Valley to support Caldwell's Division of the Second Corps, which was then entering the Wheatfield from the north. Caldwell's four brigades had been removed from their position on Cemetery Ridge in an attempt to regain possession of the Wheatfield and its surrounding woods. These positions, initially held by units of the Third Corps, were now in Confederate control. As the Regulars moved off of the slope of Little Round Top, the Second Brigade remained in the advance with Day's Brigade in support. From right to left, the line of the Second Brigade consisted of the Second, Seventh, Tenth, Eleventh, and Seventeenth Regiments. As the troops crossed marshy Plum Run, the Second Brigade wheeled to the left about 45 degrees and began to climb the gradual incline that marked the far side of the valley. Confederates in the Devil's Den area on the far side of Plum Run fired into the left flank of the two brigades as they crossed the stream, and a company of the Seventeenth Infantry was detached as skirmishers to respond to their fire. The rest of the Second Brigade continued up the slope toward the Wheatfield. Someone commanded the double-quick, and the men charged, shrieking as they went, to the edge of a woods and a stone wall that
formed the eastern boundary of the Wheatfield. The charge placed the two brigades at a right angle to General Caldwell's troops in the Wheatfield so the men of the Second Brigade took cover behind the stone wall and waited.
It is unclear in what manner Colonel Day deployed the First Brigade as it advanced behind the Second Brigade through Plum Run Valley. Contrary to Army regulations and military custom, Colonel Day did not feel obliged to submit an after-action report regarding his conduct and that of his brigade in the Battle of Gettysburg. One of his regimental commanders reported that the First Brigade was formed in one line, another officer wrote that they occupied three lines, while a third officer referred to a column of battalions. With regard to the placement of the Third Infantry, the evidence suggests the Third Infantry was the right of the line or at least closer to the Wheatfield Road side of its line rather than the Devil's Den side. Lieutenant Page was unable to clarify the situation, writing years later: "I can assure you I was fully occupied looking into the rifle barrels of the enemy, without bothering myself with what was going on with the other regiments of our command." Whatever its formation, Colonel Day permitted the men of the First Brigade to lie down on the slope to avoid the Confederate fire on their left flank.
Despite his later claim to be fully occupied with his own command, Lieutenant Page found time to closely observe some of the battle swirling about the Wheatfield. Taking advantage of the halt on the slope above Plum Run, Lieutenant Page left Company I to the care of Second Lieutenant George K. Pomeroy and ran up to the stone wall near its intersection with the Wheatfield Road. General Ayres was there with his staff conversing with General Caldwell who had ridden over to seek support for his troops fighting in the Wheatfield. While the two generals talked, the staff and Lieutenant Page noticed General Caldwell's troops being driven back from the woods on the southern edge of the Wheatfield. Although General Caldwell insisted that his command was simply being relieved, General Ayres correctly observed that "a regiment does not shut up like a jack knife and hide its colors without it is retreating." General Caldwell put spurs to his horse and rode off to the right to rally his command, and Lieutenant Page hurried back to the Third Infantry.
As General Caldwell's troops fell back, General Ayres ordered the Second Brigade into the woods and field in its front in order to take the place of the retiring troops. General Sykes, watching the battle from the crest of Little Round Top, also sent an order that Ayres should advance his two brigades into the woods, but General Ayres had begun the movement on his own initiative well before the order would arrive. Wheeling left from its north-south line behind the stone wall, the Second Brigade swung into the Wheatfield toward Rose's Woods on the field's southern edge. A sergeant of the 22d Massachusetts Infantry, part of the First Brigade of the First Division of the Fifth Corps, wrote that the Regulars moved into the wheatfield as steadily as upon parade and "standing waist deep in the beautiful yellow grain, the blue strongly contrasting," dealt "sledge-hammer blows" against the enemy. It is not clear how this sergeant, whose own brigade was in disorderly retreat through Trostle's Woods at this moment, was able to observe the Wheatfield, but it is likely that the actual scene was a little more chaotic than later described.
Unbeknownst to General Ayres, the Confederates in Rose's Woods were just one of four Confederate brigades converging on the Wheatfield from
three directions: Rose's Woods on the south side of the field, Stony Hill on the west side, and Trostles's Woods on the north side. When the Second Brigade was about halfway through the pivot, Confederate troops attacking from the west began firing into the Second Brigade's exposed right flank. Six companies of the Second Infantry occupied the right of the Second Brigade's line and had advanced farthest into the Wheatfield. Major Arthur Lee, its commander, promptly stopped the regiment and ordered it to commence firing. The enemy fire directed at the Second Infantry was so intense that the flagstaff of the colors of the regiment was cut in two and Major Lee and 28 percent of the regiment became casualties.
To support the Second Brigade in the Wheatfield and Rose's Woods, General Ayres sent a staff officer to Colonel Day to direct him to deploy the First Brigade behind the stone wall from its position on the slope of Plum Run Valley. However, events outstripped orders and inside of three minutes Confederates had possession of that portion of stone wall nearest the Wheatfield Road, which gave them an ideal field of fire upon the right flank of Day's Brigade and upon the rear of the Second Brigade in the Wheatfield. Threatened on its front, flank, and rear, the outnumbered Second Brigade was compressed into the patch of woods at the southern end of the stone wall. One veteran of that brigade remembered seeing his regiment almost surrounded by the enemy with "men falling on every side, cursing, crying, shouting, with clubbed muskets." To prevent the destruction of his command, General Ayres gave the order to fall back to the position originally occupied on the north slope of Little Round Top. According to the commander of the Second Brigade, Day's Brigade was already in retreat when the order arrived from General Ayres for the Second Brigade to do the same.
When Lieutenant Page returned to the Third Infantry from the stone wall, he found Colonel Day astride his horse immediately behind the regiment. A staff officer reported to Colonel Day with the order to retire to the base of Little Round Top, just as soon as the Second Brigade succeeded in extracting itself from the woods. In the meantime, the position on the slope of Plum Run Valley was no longer so sheltered as the First Brigade came under fire from Confederates behind the stone wall and along the Wheatfield Road, only 35 yards away. Perhaps wanting to strike an air of calm for his men, Colonel Day took this moment to ask Lieutenant Page for a match as he wanted to light his pipe. Lieutenant Page obliged, and as Colonel Day bent over, his horse was shot through the neck and killed. Colonel Day was stunned by the fall and had to be carried from the field, leaving his brigade leaderless at a critical moment.
As the Second Brigade came out of the woods, Lieutenant Page recalled that the First Brigade joined the retreat without hearing any order. Word had spread that the Rebels were in their rear, which was a definite incentive to curiosity according to Lieutenant Page: "With one glance to the rear I saw all I wanted, and it was a race between the contestants to reach the base of Round Top first". The Plum Run Valley contained a "shallow stream filled with vegetable decomposed muck" and the going was difficult. After initially moving at the quick time, the troops noticed the battery officers with Gibb's section of artillery on Little Round Top waving their hats in an effort to clear Union troops from their field of fire. The two guns of Gibb's battery on the hill, as well as the rest of the battery on the north side of Wheatfield Road and Lieutenant Aaron Walcott's six-gun battery on the small rise between the tributaries of
Plum Run, wanted to employ canister against the Confederates swarming in the rear of the two brigades of Regular troops.
As the troops took up the double-quick to recross Plum Run and get out of the way, Captain Freedley's knee was shattered by a bullet. At six feet, six inches in height, and 300 pounds, Captain Freedley must have made a particularly conspicuous target. Pitching forward, he struck Lieutenant Page and both officers fell to the swampy ground. By the time Lieutenant Page got the mud out of his eyes, he was surrounded by Confederate troops. He also saw the artillery men waving their hats as a warning that the guns were about to fire. With no time to escape, Lieutenant Page crept behind a boulder in the valley to await the blast. He was not alone as a number of the men of his company, unable to make it back to the original line, also got behind the boulder. Captain Freedley was unable to move on account of his severe wound and laid exposed to the fire of both friends and enemies. While in this position, he was struck by bullets or pieces of canister two more times, but fortunately not seriously. At the time of his wounding, he had in his pocket an order, dated June 3, 1863, granting him a five-day leave of absence, which he had declined to take advantage of on account of expecting to meet the enemy.
As the remainder of the Third Infantry and the rest the Regular brigades passed through the gap between Gibb's and Walcott's batteries, they were met by General Sykes who helped rally the troops and placed them in reserve between the right of the Third Brigade of the Second Division on Little Round Top and the Wheatfield Road. Their participation in the battle was over. The initial position of the two brigades on Little Round Top was now occupied by the Third Division of the Fifth Corps, Brigadier General Samuel Crawford's division of Pennsylvania Reserves. Like the artillery, these troops held their fire while the Regular brigades withdrew from their front. It was an anxious wait as Confederates could be seen sweeping out of the woods recently vacated by the Second Brigade and swarming over the stone wall at the edge of the Wheatfield. Once in the Plum Run Valley, the smoke was so thick that the Pennsylvania troops waiting on the hill could barely distinguish friend from foe.
Finally, Gibb's battery was able to open fire with double canister and, according to Lieutenant Page, "everyone not having found shelter was killed." The Confederate ranks, already disorganized by the pell-mell charge, recoiled from Plum Run Valley. Walcott's battery in the valley itself held its fire too long and had to be abandoned when Wofford's Georgia Brigade, which had earlier outflanked the right of Day's Brigade, continued its advance to the stream. Stopped by canister and the rifles of the Pennsylvania Reserves in the swampy ground along Plum Run, the Confederates became the pursued as the Pennsylvania Reserves rushed down the hill following the route taken by the Regular brigades barely an hour before. While a few regiments advanced into the Wheatfield, General Crawford eventually reformed his command behind the shelter of the same stone wall that the Second Brigade had initially occupied.
The advance of the Pennsylvania Reserves passed through those members of the Third Infantry still huddled in the valley, and Lieutenant Page and his men were able to rejoin the remainder of the Third Infantry on Little Round Top. In their hurry to return to the regiment, Lieutenant Page and his men abandoned their regimental commander, who was left lying prostrate on the field. Captain Freedley later explained how he succeeded
in extricating himself: "During a temporary lull in the firing, and a slight repulse of the enemy, I called upon some skulking rebels near me to carry me into our lines; which unaccountably they did, apparently glad to have the opportunity to carry a wounded officer, which would prevent their being fired upon."
Lieutenant Page also had a goodly company of Confederates with him, men he wrote who had the good sense to lay low instead of trying to retreat. As Lieutenant Page approached the Union line, he noticed that troops of the Sixth Corps had also arrived on the field. Colonel William H. Penrose of the Fifteenth New Jersey Infantry of that Corps rode over from his command and the two officers shook hands. Colonel Penrose began the war as a second lieutenant of the Third Infantry, having been commissioned in May 1861, and received command of the Fifteenth New Jersey in April 1863.
Fighting on the Union left on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg had ended, and the Union lines had held. In the gathering darkness on July 2d, the medical orderlies and ambulance corpsmen of the Fifth Corps began searching the battlefield on and below Little Round Top for those wounded soldiers unable to reach the Union field hospitals. Eleven privates from the Third Infantry were assigned to daily or extra duty with the Medical Department or the Ambulance Corps. While they missed the fighting, they now participated in this grisly task of separating the wounded from the killed. By 2:00 am on July 3d, approximately 1300 wounded soldiers, comrades and foes alike, had been brought to the temporary field hospitals established behind the relative shelter of the two Round Tops.
The principal field hospital for the Second Division of the Fifth Corps was originally located on the Jacob Weikart Farm on the west side of the Taneytown Road about 1/4 mile south of current Sachs Road. On the morning of July 3d, when it became clear that the Confederates intended to renew the fighting, the hospitals were moved to safer locations on the east side of Rock Creek about two miles behind the lines. In the case of the Second Division field hospital, the relocation appears to have been made to the Jane Clapsaddle Farm on Lousy Run just south of the intersection of Sachs and White Church Roads. The Fifth Corps hospitals finally closed on August 2, the remaining wounded being transferred to Camp Letterman General Hospital established on the George Wolf Farm along the York Pike east of Gettysburg. Only three of the wounded soldiers of the Third Infantry, Sergeant Dennis O'Sullivan of Company F and Privates Michael Reilly of Company B and Edmond Howard of Company F, had to be sent to this hospital, the rest of the regiment's wounded having already been transferred to other general hospitals or returned to duty.
The fighting on July 2d did not end the Battle of Gettysburg. One more day of furious fighting still remained. On the afternoon of July 3d, Confederate General Robert E. Lee sent almost 12,000 soldiers forward in a desperate gamble to break the center of the Union position on Cemetery Ridge. The Regular infantry brigades took no part in that fight, remaining in reserve on the eastern slope of Little Round Top. Any officer or enlisted man who went to the crest on the opposite side of their position had a perfect vantage point from which to view the futile Confederate attack. Lieutenant Page was one of the officers who witnessed the battle from this vantage point, but the memories of yesterday's fight was probably sufficient for most of the men.
On July 4, 1863, the Third Infantry and the rest of the First Brigade made a reconnoissance in the direction of the Confederate right flank. Colonel Day was unable to command the brigade since he was still disabled by the concussion he suffered when his horse was killed on July 2d. In his absence, Captain Thatcher of the Fourteenth Infantry directed the reconnoissance. Because of the severe wound to Captain Freedley, Captain Richard Gregory Lay of Company G assumed command of the Third Infantry. Captain Lay was commissioned as an officer in June 1859. He joined the Third Infantry in New Mexico that September and was assigned to Company I. On April 25, 1861, he was captured with his company and Companies A and F in Matagorda Bay, Texas, by an armed Rebel steamship as the companies tried to sail from Texas upon learning of the start of the war. Lay and the rest of the captured troops were paroled within days and allowed to depart. After his return North, he served in a number of noncombat support positions while awaiting his exchange for a Confederate prisoner of war. He joined the regiment in the field for the first time on February 21, 1863, and commanded Company G at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863 and during the July 2d battle.
During the July 4th reconnoissance, the Third, Fourth, and Sixth Regiments advanced in line of skirmishers toward the Emmitsburg Pike, with the Twelfth and Fourteenth Regiments in support. Upon reaching the Peach Orchard at the intersection of the Emmitsburg Pike and the Wheatfield Road, the skirmishers came under fire from both artillery and infantry hidden in Pitzer Woods. Having discovered that the Confederates still occupied Seminary Ridge with a strong force, the brigade withdrew to Little Round Top. Upon its return to Little Round Top, the Third Infantry was immediately ordered out again and spent the night of July 4th on picket duty behind a stone wall somewhere between the Wheatfield and the Peach Orchard. Period maps indicate the longest stone fence in this vicinity separated a field and orchard near the Rose farm house, about 300 yards shy of the Emmitsburg Road. The regiment moved out so promptly that it deployed without Captain Lay, who had left the regiment to seek orders. During that night, the Third Infantry suffered its final two casualties and the Confederates began their withdrawal westward. The Battle of Gettysburg was over.
Casualties and Number Engaged
The five regiments in Day's Brigade each suffered casualties of about 20 percent of the men engaged, and most of these losses occurred during the retreat of the brigade across the gauntlet of Plum Run Valley toward Little Round Top. The Second Brigade also experienced the Confederate crossfire directed at the Wheatfield and Rose's Woods, and its casualty figures reflect that additional fighting. The Tenth and Seventeenth Regiments of the Second Brigade lost approximately 45 percent of their members in the brief battle, and the Seventh Infantry lost almost 40 percent of its men. These are tragic figures for the two brigades, particularly since Day's Brigade had little opportunity to inflict casualties upon the enemy in return and the stand of the Second Brigade had only minor affect in stemming the Confederate advance.
The Third Infantry memorial erected in 1909 along Ayres Avenue in Rose's Woods states that the regiment had six men killed, 66 men wounded, and one man missing for a total of 73 casualties out of 308 officers and enlisted men engaged. The source for these numbers is not indicated on the monument, but it was probably the Return of Casualties in the Union Forces at the Battle of Gettysburg compiled as part of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies in the War of the Rebellion. With respect to the Third Infantry, the Return of Casualties in the Union Forces differs from the statement of casualties contained in the official battle report of the Third Infantry, which is printed in the same volume of the Official Records. The regimental report, which unfortunately was prepared by an officer who was not even present at the battle and contains no information regarding the conduct of the regiment in the battle itself, states that the regiment lost eight enlisted men killed, four officers and 60 enlisted men wounded, and three enlisted men missing for a total loss of 75 men. The report was submitted on July 28, 1863, but a footnote in the Official Records indicates that this list was superseded by the tally included in the total Union casualties.
The National Archives in Washington, D.C. contains several slightly different records of losses of the Third Infantry in the Battle of Gettysburg. Two of these casualty records exist among the regimental returns for the Third Infantry, which are preserved on microfilm at the National Archives. A list of officers and enlisted men killed, wounded, and missing during the engagement at Gettysburg was prepared at the camp of the Third Infantry near Beverly Ford, Virginia, and signed by Captain Andrew Sheridan of Company A on August 5, 1863. Captain Sheridan was not present at the battle, but returned from detached service on July 7, 1863, and assumed command of the regiment in late July. According to this list, seven enlisted men were killed in the battle, 65 soldiers (four officers and 61 enlisted men) were wounded, and two enlisted men were missing for a total loss of 74 men. The list also notes that three of the wounded enlisted men had already died of their wounds as of August 5th.
The regimental return for July 1863 was completed a week after Captain Sheridan's casualty list and states that eight enlisted men were killed in the battle, 65 soldiers (four officers and 61 enlisted men) were wounded, and two enlisted men were missing for a total of 75 men. Finally, written records of the First Brigade of the Regular Division of the Fifth Corps contain yet another accounting of the regiment's losses at Gettysburg. According to this source, the Third Infantry had six enlisted men killed, 67 soldiers (four officers and 63 enlisted men) wounded, and one enlisted man missing, for a total loss of 74 men.
The various sources differ in their casualty totals between a minimum of 73 casualties (the Gettysburg monument and Official Records) and a maximum of 75 casualties (the regimental report and regimental return). The discrepancy between the regimental return and Captain Sheridan's list in the number of soldiers recorded as killed is explained by the transfer of one of the mortally wounded soldiers on Captain Sheridan's list to the regimental record of the soldiers killed in action. The number of wounded soldiers remained the same because of the failure of Captain Sheridan's list to include Sergeant Major Edward Lynch, who is shown as wounded on both the regimental return and the muster roll of the noncommissioned staff and band. The First Brigade record fails to include one of the missing soldiers. The monument and the Return of Casualties in the Official Records also fail to include this additional missing soldier. In addition, the monument and the Official Records probably failed to account for Sergeant Major Lynch.
An examination of the muster rolls and personnel records of the six companies of the Third Infantry engaged at the Battle of Gettysburg revealed that several more of the wounded enlisted men died within several months after the battle as a result of the wounds they received.
Using these sources of information, a final accounting of the casualties of the Third Infantry in the Battle of Gettysburg indicates that the regiment in fact sustained 75 casualties. Thirteen enlisted men were killed or mortally wounded, 60 soldiers (four officers and 56 enlisted men) were wounded but survived their wounds, and two enlisted men were missing in action and captured by the enemy.
The total in the previous paragraph does not include one additional member of the Third Infantry who, according to the Carded Medical Records of the Regular Army, was also wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg as well as several other enlisted men who later claimed to be slightly wounded in the battle, but whose names are not found in the official written records. The Carded Medical Records of the Regular Army, 1821-1884, which are preserved at the National Archives, contain an entry for Private Napoleon Long of Company B copied from the records of the Army General Hospital at Fort Columbus, New York, that states that Private Long received a skull fracture as a result of being struck by a shell fragment on July 2d at the Battle of Gettysburg. That Private Long suffered a skull fracture at some point in his military service is not in doubt, but it is likely that the entry is in error regarding the cause and date of the injury. How the error occurred is subject to conjecture.
Private Long was present at the battle on July 2d, but he is not listed as a casualty on either the regimental return for July 1863 or Captain Sheridan's earlier casualty list. If he actually received a skull fracture in the battle, the injury did not prevent him from being detached for service in August 1863 as the orderly for Lieutenant Colonel Jacob Ford Kent, an assistant inspector general on the headquarters staff of the Sixth Corps. Lieutenant Colonel Kent was a May 1861 graduate of the United States Military Academy and initially served in the Third Infantry. Wounded three times and captured at the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861, then Lieutenant Kent survived both his wounds and confinement in Libby Prison in Richmond, finally rejoining the Third Infantry in September 1862. During his next four months with the regiment, Kent would have meet Private Long and, perhaps more importantly, learned that Private Long listed his occupation as "servant" when he enlisted in New York City on July 22, 1861. In January 1863, Kent left the regiment to serve as an assistant inspector general with the rank of lieutenant colonel and eight months later he apparently requested and obtained the services of Private Long.
As for Private Long's skull fracture, he was admitted on September 16, 1863, to the Army General Hospital at Judiciary Square in Washington, D.C., with a fracture to the frontal bone of his skull. The hospital entry states that the injury was an accident, no reference is made to the Battle of Gettysburg. On October 8, 1863, Private Long was transferred to the general hospital at Fort Columbus, New York Harbor, arriving there on October 10th. In the two references to Private Long copied from the records of the Fort Columbus hospital, only the second entry, prepared when he was finally returned to duty on April 27, 1864, refers to the injury being a wound sustained at Gettysburg. Rejoining the regiment, he was discharged exactly three months later upon the expiration of his term of enlistment. Should Private Long be considered the 76th casualty of the Third Infantry at the Battle of Gettysburg or did an injury sustained as a staff officer's orderly assume greater significance during his long hospitalization?
If it is difficult to know for sure the exact number of casualties suffered by the Third Infantry at Gettysburg, archival records are also in slight disagreement regarding the number of members of the Third Infantry who actually participated in the battle. The Third Infantry monument on the battlefield lists 308 soldiers as present, which probably means 12 officers (excluding Lieutenant Hamilton on division staff and Lieutenant Snyder on Corps staff) and 296 enlisted men. A list preserved at the National Archives with the records of the First Brigade refers to 12 officers and 295 enlisted men being present. The regimental return for June 1863, which purports to indicate the whereabouts and status of every officer and enlisted man in the regiment just two days before the fighting on July 2d, states that there were 328 enlisted men present with the regiment on June 30th. Of these enlisted men, 303 were present for duty, 22 were on extra or daily duty as teamsters, hospital attendants, or ambulance drivers, two were sick, and one was in arrest. Another 128 enlisted men were absent from the regiment, but at least 25 of these absent soldiers were still present with the Army of the Potomac as clerks and orderlies at Army, Corps, division, or brigade headquarters. Perhaps the reference to 295 enlisted men on the regimental memorial, and 296 enlisted men in the brigade records, is meant to recognize only those enlisted men who were engaged in combat in the Plum Run Valley on the afternoon of July 2d. If so, it should be remembered that two staff officers and approximately 50 more enlisted men of the Third Infantry were present at the Battle of Gettysburg and some of these soldiers were certainly subjected to enemy fire.
The existence of these differences is hardly surprising since the initial records of both men engaged and casualties were prepared while the Army of the Potomac was on the move. Captain Dudley Chase, in command of a company of the Seventeenth Regular Infantry, recalled that the muster roll for his company for June 1863 was prepared from memory after the battle by an officer who had not been present. The date on which the muster rolls were required to be prepared, June 30, 1863, passed while the Fifth Corps was marching through Maryland. Captain Chase admitted that he at least was too busy and tired to be bothered with this administrative task at the time. He scribbled a few names on a scrap of paper that he afterwards used to light his pipe. The company muster rolls, once completed and submitted to the regimental adjutant, became the basis for the regimental return. In the case of the regimental return for the Third Infantry for June 1863, it was not finished by Lieutenant John Whitney and his orderlies and presented for Captain Sheridan's approval until July 31, 1863.
Those Killed and Mortally Wounded
The thirteen enlisted men specified in the regimental returns as killed or mortally wounded, and those additional enlisted men discovered to have died of their wounds, are listed by company as follows:
(1) Private James Beatty of Company B (mortally wounded). Private Beatty had been in the Regular Army for more than 13 years and was the most veteran soldier in the regiment to become a casualty. He had most recently reenlisted in Sante Fe, New Mexico, on February 8, 1860. He was born in Galway, Ireland, and was 38 years old when he reenlisted in 1860. He originally served in Company H until the companies of the Third Infantry were consolidated in March 1863. He received a gunshot wound to the chest. Brought to the field hospital for the Second Division of the Fifth Corps on July 3d, he died the same day. He was listed as mortally
wounded in the casualty list signed by Captain Sheridan, but he was listed as killed in action in the muster roll of Company B for August 1863 and the regimental return for July 1863.
(2) Private Luke Shaughnessy of Company B (killed). Private Shaunghnessy also served in Company H before that company was broken up to fill vacancies in the other companies. He was born in Philadelphia and enlisted in that city on May 29, 1861, at the age of 22. He worked as a boatman before his enlistment.
(3) Private Robert Furlong of Company C (killed). Private Furlong received a gun shot wound to his chest and died on the battlefield. He enlisted in New York City on July 26, 1858. He was born in London, England, in 1837, and worked as a laborer before his enlistment. Private Furlong was appointed as a corporal of Company C on February 23, 1862, and served as a noncommissioned officer until June 7, 1862, when he deserted from the Army. Companies C and E were stationed at isolated Fort Pickens, Florida, from April 1861 through May 1862 before joining the remainder of the Third Infantry in Virginia during the Peninsula Campaign. Corporal Furlong and 19 of his comrades deserted when the two companies made a brief stop in New York City during the voyage from Florida to Fortress Monroe, Virginia.
On January 7, 1863, Furlong had the misfortune of being recognized by Captain John McLean Hildt of Company D, who had been on recruiting duty in New York City since August 1862. Before his promotion to captain, Captain Hildt was a lieutenant in Company C and had served on the frontier and at Fort Pickens with Furlong. By January 1863, Furlong was using the name Dennis Sexton, but Captain Hildt was certain that Robert Furlong and Dennis Sexton were one and the same person. Captain Hildt placed Furlong under arrest as a deserter and notified his superiors. Pursuant to Special Order No. 23, War Department, January 21, 1863, Furlong was restored to duty as a private without trial on condition he make good the time lost by desertion. Since the regiment was then in winter quarters near Falmouth, Virginia, Private Furlong was sent to Fort Columbus on Governor's Island in New York Harbor, which served as the training depot for new recruits in the Regular Army. He finally rejoined the regiment in the field in March 1863.
Shortly after the death of Private Furlong (alias Dennis Sexton), the Pension Bureau received a Declaration for Obtaining a Widow's Army Pension from a Mary Sexton of New York City. It seems that Furlong had made good use of his seven-month unauthorized absence in New York City. On October 21, 1862, Furlong, as Dennis Sexton, and Mary Lenihan "were united in matrimony according to the rites of the Catholic Church" at St. Peter's Church in New York City. The bride was 22 years old, and the couple resided at 110 Pitt Street, New York, during their brief time together. In addition to Captain Hildt's affidavit identifying Furlong as Sexton, First Sergeant Theodore Kutcher and Private Nicholas Harper of Company C also certified that Dennis Sexton and Robert Furlong were the same person. The Pension Bureau was convinced and awarded Mary Sexton a widow's pension of $8.00 per month. The pension was discontinued in 1870 upon the remarriage of Mary Sexton.
(4) Private Robert Haley (or Healy) of Company C (killed). Private Haley enlisted in New York City on January 16, 1861. He was born in Patterson, New York, and worked as a laborer. He was 23 years old when he enlisted. Like Private Furlong, Private Haley also had a charge of desertion on his military record. Private Haley deserted on September 10, 1862, from the camp of the regiment in Rockville, Maryland, while the Army of the Potomac marched westward in response to the first Confederate invasion of Maryland. He rejoined the regiment on December 26, 1862. Despite missing the Battles of Antietam and Fredericksburg, he was also returned to duty without trial. In the battle, he received a gun shot wound to his head. Admitted to the divisional hospital on July 3d, he died on July 6th.
(5) Private Michael Gronstine of Company F (mortally wounded). Private Gronstine was born in Rockland County, New York, in 1831. He worked as a boatman before enlisting in New York City on May 1, 1861. He did not participate in the Peninsula Campaign in 1862. When the Third Infantry left Washington, D.C., in March 1862 for the field, Gronstine was left behind at Circle General Hospital with chronic rheumatism. He returned to duty July 10, 1862, and participated in the subsequent campaigns of the regiment. He died on July 11, 1863, at Gettysburg of wounds received in action. The nature of the wounds were not recorded. At 5'10", he was the tallest man in the regiment to be killed.
(6) Private Charles F. Long of Company F (mortally wounded). Private Long was wounded in both his left arm and left leg. The leg was amputated at the Second Division hospital, but Private Long died on July 24, 1863. He enlisted in Buffalo, New York, on August 22, 1862, and was the most recent recruit in the regiment to become a casualty. However, he was hardly a new recruit since he had earlier served two enlistments in the Regular Army. He was born in Wurttenburg, Germany, and was 39 years old when he reenlisted in 1862.
(7) Private Peter Sullivan of Company F (mortally wounded). Private Sullivan was born in Longford, Ireland, and was 28 years old when he enlisted in New York City on September 15, 1861. He was a laborer before his enlistment. He originally served in Company G of the First Infantry at Fort Columbus, New York Harbor. In February 1862, he was transferred to Company F in order to bring that company to full strength for field service. Private Sullivan was wounded with a gunshot wound to the left hip. A round leaden bullet entered the left side of his groin, just missed the femoral artery, and passed out at the lower margin of the glutemus maximus muscle. He was admitted to the hospital for the Second Division of the Fifth Corps and then transferred on July 24, 1863, to the Chestnut Street Hospital in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The wound proved fatal, and he died at the latter place at 4:00 p.m. on September 23, 1863. The company muster roll and enlistment records incorrectly refer to York, Pennsylvania, as the place of death.
Pursuant to an application filed with the Department of the Treasury on October 10, 1864, the pay due to Private Sullivan upon his death, $141.12, was paid to his father Patrick in Ireland in 1866. In 1880, a Catherine Sullivan living in Dalystown, Longford County, Ireland, filed a claim for a pension on the ground that she was the indigent mother of Private Sullivan. She wrote that Peter was born on January 8, 1834, at Cranary in Longford County and had emigrated to the United States less than two years before he was "compelled to enter the U.S. Army." To support her contention that she had been dependent upon Peter's support at the time of his death, she claimed that Peter sent her 14 Pounds British in 1862 and promised to bring her and her husband Patrick to America as soon as the war was over. For at least three years, the Pension Bureau could not understand her references to the Third Battalion of the Third Infantry as the unit in which her son served and would not
even begin to consider her application. The claim continued unresolved for several years until her death terminated the proceedings.
(8) Private Gaspard Kupferle of Company G (killed). Private Kupferle enlisted in New York City on January 9, 1861, and was initially assigned to Company E. He was born in Strasburg, France. He was 23 years old when he enlisted and had worked as a painter.
(9) Private John Pyne of Company I (mortally wounded). Private Pyne died at Gettysburg on July 28, 1863. He had been wounded in the left leg. Apparently the wound became infected because surgeons amputated the leg about three weeks after the battle. Private Pyne was born in Clare, Ireland, and worked as a tailor. He enlisted in Rochester, New York, on August 21, 1861. He was 18 years old when he enlisted. In April 1864, Margaret Pyne of Rochester filed a mother's application for pension with the Pension Bureau. Margaret had married a Michael Keough in 1842 in Clare County, Ireland, and John was born of this union the next year. Michael Keough died of Cholera in Toronto, Canada, in 1847. Two years later, Margaret married Thomas Pyne, who agreed to raise John and several siblings as his own children. Unfortunately, in the words of Margaret, Thomas "proved to be an idle and dissipated man." He deserted his wife and adopted children for the mineral fields of the west and would not contribute to their support. John helped to support the family before his enlistment, and afterwards, frequently sent money home from his soldier's pay. The Pension Bureau found the claim meritorious and provided a small monthly pension. (10) Private Patrick Sullivan of Company I (killed). Private Sullivan enlisted in New York City on September 17, 1861. He enlisted on the same day and at the same place as Private Peter Sullivan of Company F, and like his comrade, Patrick initially served in Company G of the First Infantry. These coincidences raise the question whether the two Sullivans were brothers. However, Catherine Sullivan, the alleged mother of Peter, made no reference to another son in the Army. Patrick was born in Cork, Ireland, and was 21 years old at the time of his enlistment. He was a peddler in civilian life. He received gun shot wounds to his chest and left leg. He was brought to a field hospital on July 2d and died that evening.
(11) Private Patrick Tighe of Company I (killed). Private Tighe was born in Leitrim, Ireland, and enlisted in New York City on August 27, 1861. He was 35 years old at the time of his enlistment and listed his occupation as laborer. He was the shortest man in the regiment to be killed at Gettysburg as his height was recorded as 5'41/2". Although Army regulations prohibited the original enlistment of married men, recruiting officers had little opportunity, and even less desire given the perpetual shortage of recruits, to confirm whether a potential soldier was actually unmarried. Unless the wife followed the soldier or afterwards complained of abandonment, it appears that married men could easily serve in the ranks of the Regular Army. Private Tighe was one of these married men since pension records show that he married a Catherine Carr at St Peter's Catholic Church in New York City on December 23, 1846. He would have been 20 years old at the time of his marriage, while Catherine was one year older. Catherine applied for a widow's pension in April 1866, and the pension application was promptly approved. She resided at 134 E. 45th Street, New York, at the time she submitted the application.
(12) First Sergeant Francis P. Litzinger of Company K (mortally wounded). Sergeant Litzinger received gun shot wounds to his thigh,
shoulder, and head. He was treated at the Second Division hospital, but died on July 22, 1863. He was born in Huntington, Pennsylvania, in 1833. His death cut short his second five-year term of enlistment in the Regular Army. He first enlisted in 1855 and reenlisted in Company K at Los Lunas, New Mexico, on March 25, 1860. He became a noncommissioned officer on June 1, 1860, at Los Lunas, and became a sergeant early the next year after the transfer of the Third Infantry to Texas. Shortly before the departure of Company K from Texas, he must have obtained the consent of then company commander Captain George Sykes to marry. According to pension records, Sergeant Litzinger married Maria Michaela on April 9, 1861, at Indianola, Calhoun County, Texas. Justice of the Peace Jonathan Cleveland officiated at the ceremony, which took place just three days before Companies B, D, G, H, and K left Indianola by steamer for New York City. Maria accompanied her husband to the North and resided at 272 North 4th Street, Washington, D.C., at the time of his death. She submitted an application for a widow's pension on August 1, 1863, pursuant to the Act of July 14, 1862. The application was approved by the Pension Bureau at a rate of $8.00 per month.
(13) Private Edward M. Williams of Company K (killed). Private Williams enlisted in Rochester, New York, on June 16, 1862, at the age of 18. He originally served in Company A before that company was broken up in March 1863. He was born in Monroe, New York, and gave his occupation as carpenter. In 1868, Edward E. Williams filed a claim for a father's pension on the ground that he had been dependent upon Private Williams for financial support up to the time of his death. The father's claim was supported by former Private Archibald McLean of Company K, who was also from Rochester and who was Private Williams' tent-mate in the regiment. McLean testified that on as many as three different occasions he saw Private Williams enclose a part of his pay, once $20.00, once $10.00, and once a smaller sum, in a letter to Mr. Williams for his use. In light of such testimony, a pension of $8.00 per month was approved in May 1868. In 1872, the senior Williams' wife, Rebecca, also filed a claim for such a pension. This claim was rejected because Rebecca was only the stepmother of Private Williams. His mother, the former Mary Ann Carothers, died in 1851 when he was six years old.
Commissioned Officers: The soldiers of the Third Infantry wounded in the fight on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg included the regimental commander and two of the six company commanders. Another officer was wounded while the regiment performed picket duty during the night of July 4th.
(1) Captain Henry William Freedley. As noted in the narrative of the battle, the regimental commander Captain Freedley of Company C was seriously wounded in the left knee during the retreat of the regiment on July 2d. A conical musket ball entered just below the knee joint and caused an incomplete fracture of the left tibia. He was taken to the general hospital of the Second Division, where he was personally attended to by Doctor Clinton Wagner, Surgeon-in-Chief of the Second Division of the Fifth Corps. Doctor Wagner recommended that the left leg be amputated at the thigh, but Captain Freedley refused to permit the operation. As a palliative measure, the Doctor resected the head of the fibula feeling assured that Captain Freedley would eventually "submit to the major operation of amputation so imperatively called for by the grave nature of [his] condition." Captain Freedley never did submit to such an operation,
but he also never regained effective use of his left leg. He spent almost two months in a hospital in Gettysburg and was then moved to a residence at 224 North Street, Philadelphia. He remained bedridden on account of his wound until June 1864, at which time he was finally able to move about with the aid of crutches.
On November 16, 1864, Captain Freedley felt well enough to apply for some light duty. He was assigned to the command of the Draft Depot at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and finished the war in this position. He spent the remainder of 1865 on duty as mustering officer for the State of Rhode Island. In the flood of brevet promotions that followed the end of the war, Captain Freedley was doubly recognized. He was brevetted major for conspicuous gallantry at the Battle of Chancellorsville and brevetted Lieutenant Colonel for gallantry and distinguished services at the Battle of Gettysburg. The Governor of Rhode Island even recommended Captain Freedley for the additional brevet of Colonel, but the War Department did not agree. Although still a captain in the Third Infantry, he would spend only two more months in actual contact with the regiment. He was assigned to quartermaster and commissary duty at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, with the Third Infantry in February and March 1866. The next month he returned to the East for recruiting duty in New York City.
In November 1866, Captain Freedley declined appointment as major of the Thirty-ninth Infantry explaining that disability arising from wounds prevented him from accepting the appointment. However, he accepted an appointment as major in the Fourteenth Infantry in September 1868 in anticipation of his imminent retirement from active duty. His final active duty assignment occurred between April and September 1868 in San Francisco, California, where he served on several staff positions at the headquarters of the Department of California. Shortly after his arrival in San Francisco, he requested to be ordered to appear before a Retiring Board meeting in that city. The hearing was held in August 1868, and the Board unanimously found him wholly incapacitated for active duty on account of his Gettysburg wound. He was officially retired on September 25, 1868, and except for a five-month period in 1869 and 1870 during which he served as Deputy Governor of the Soldier's Home in Washington, D.C., his military service was over.
He spent the last 20 years of his life in Baltimore, Maryland, and died on November 3, 1889, at the age of 57. He resided at 1516 Hollins Street, Baltimore, at the time of his death, and was buried at London Park Cemetery. A Samuel Freedley of Richmond, Virginia, wrote the Adjutant General that Major Freedley "died of the effect of his wound received at Gettysburg, which had broken out afresh, but he was also troubled by an affliction of the kidneys [Bright's disease], the latter however would not have been fatal." It had taken more than 25 years, but his Gettysburg wound had finally proved fatal. Barely five months before his death, Major Freedley married Wilhemina Wirz. However, the couple had cohabited for 12 years before the marriage and had two children, a daughter Nellie who was born on January 31, 1878, and a son Henry H. who was born on October 28, 1883. Wilhemina was 38 years old when she married Major Freedley and lived until 1929.
(2) Second Lieutenant Stanley Mourton. Lieutenant Mourton of Company A (acting commander of Company K) was also wounded during the battle on July 2d. Lieutenant Mourton was one of the seven noncommissioned officers of the Third Infantry to be commissioned as a lieutenant during the Civil War. He was born in Monroe, New York, and enlisted in the Army in Detroit
on January 29, 1858. He listed his occupation as a sailor at the time of his enlistment. He was transferred from the general recruiting service at Newport Barracks, Kentucky, to the Third Infantry and joined Company H in New Mexico on April 5, 1859. He was appointed a corporal in April 1860 and promoted to sergeant just one month later. He served as acting provost marshal at Fort Clark on the Texas frontier and was color sergeant of the Regular battalion at the First Battle of Bull Run. On October 25, 1861, he became first sergeant of Company H. In recognition of his excellent service during the Peninsula and Second Manassas Campaigns, twelve officers of the regiment requested in October 1862 that Sergeant Mourton be appointed as a commissioned officer. Their letter elicited a favorable response from Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and an offer of appointment was extended to Sergeant Mourton the next month. He accepted the appointment as a second lieutenant of the Third Infantry on November 8, 1862, the commission to date from July 18, 1862. He was then 30 years old.
Although his wound at Gettysburg was too serious to permit him to accompany the Third Infantry in pursuit of the retreating Confederates, Lieutenant Mourton was well enough to receive treatment outside of a military hospital. He obtained a sick leave of absence on July 8, 1863, and proceeded to Washington, D.C., where he took a room at the Kirkwood House Hotel. At the end of the month, Surgeon Basil Parris certified that Lieutenant Mourton was still unable to perform duty in the field and recommended that he be permitted to remain in Washington for medical treatment for another 20 days. The extension was granted on August 11th, but it probably would have been better if Lieutenant Mourton had never received an extension of his leave of absence.
On August 17, 1863, a detachment of the provost guard of Washington, D.C., responded to a disturbance at a reputed house of prostitution at 543 12th Street. Upon entering the dwelling, the officer of the guard found Lieutenant Mourton in a state of intoxication and anxious to fight. He was placed under arrest and turned over to Captain Henry B. Todd, Provost Marshal for the City of Washington. The commander of the guard reported that Lieutenant Mourton was ungentlemanly and insulting upon being arrested, and he faced additional charges for this conduct. Captain Todd permitted Lieutenant Mourton to return to the Kirkwood House while under arrest, but required him to report in person daily to the Provost Marshal's Office. General-in-Chief Henry Halleck took a harsh view of the incident and recommended that Lieutenant Mourton be dismissed from the service for drunkenness and for insulting the Provost Guard. The Secretary of War concurred, and the order of dismissal was issued on August 27, 1863.
Fortunately, his brother officers in the Third Infantry mobilized on his behalf and petitioned the Adjutant General for the reinstatement of Mourton to his former position and rank. The eleven officers of the regiment who signed the petition expressed surprise at the charge of drunkenness since from "a personal acquaintance of years his sobriety and military correctness of habits had been apparent to them." Divisional commander General Romeyn Ayres approved of the petition and added a personal endorsement to the effect that Lieutenant Mourton's gallant conduct at Gettysburg was another good ground for his restoration. The petition had the desired effect, and on September 19, 1863, the order of dismissal was revoked. Lieutenant Mourton quickly rejoined the regiment and served in various forts in New York Harbor for the next eleven months.
Unfortunately, the victory was short lived. In August 1864, Lieutenant Mourton was assigned to the regimental recruiting service at Ogdensburgh, New York. After serving at that recruiting rendezvous for more than a month without incident, Lieutenant Mourton suddenly disappeared. His last report to the regiment was dated October 12, 1864, and Sergeant Timothy McCarthy at the rendezvous reported on November 3rd that Lieutenant Mourton had been absent since October 18th. Lieutenant August Kaiser was sent to Ogdensburgh to investigate and reported without explanation that Lieutenant Mourton deserted on October 16th. A notice was published in the Washington Daily Chronicle of November 28, 1864, requiring Lieutenant Mourton to appear in Washington, D.C., within 15 days or face dismissal. He did not appear and was therefore dismissed from the Army on December 24, 1864, for desertion, disobedience of orders, and not accounting for public funds and property in his possession.
Nothing more is known about Lieutenant Mourton until May 1898 when a Gerald Avery of Crary, Ramsey County, North Dakota, filed an application for a pension on account of disabilities incurred during Civil War service. Avery claimed that he enlisted under the assumed name of Stanley Mourton at Detroit, Michigan, and that he was honorably discharged at New Baltimore, Virginia, on November 9, 1862, by reason of his appointment as a second lieutenant. He explained that he would not have made the claim for a pension were he not destitute. He was then 65 years old and was supporting a wife, the former Arian Burlingame, and a 14-year old son, Samuel. Among his varied ailments, he listed his Gettysburg wound, rheumatism contracted during the Peninsula Campaign, and a hernia produced by a portion of a percussion shell entering his cartridge box at the Battle of Malvern Hill.
If this applicant was in fact the former Lieutenant Mourton, it is far more likely that Mourton changed his name to Avery after his desertion in October 1864 than it is that he originally enlisted under an assumed name. However, the question was never resolved because the Pension Bureau rejected the application in October 1898 on the ground that Mourton never received an honorable discharge from the Army. He had ceased to be an enlisted man when he accepted his appointment as a commissioned officer, a commission that ended with his desertion and dismissal. Perhaps anticipating the rejection of his claim, Avery disappeared in August 1898 while on a trip to Fargo, North Dakota. Three months later, his wife still had received no word from her husband and wrote the Pension Bureau requesting whether they had heard from her husband. They had no information to provide.
(3) First Lieutenant Dangerfield Parker. While the military career of Lieutenant Mourton ended tragically, the service of another of the officers of the Third Infantry wounded in the Battle of Gettysburg remained exemplary. Lieutenant Parker of Company E (acting commander of Company B) was slightly wounded on July 2d, but did not have to leave the field. He was born in the State of New York on May 23, 1832, and was working as a civil engineer before the Civil War. He accepted an appointment as a second lieutenant on May 3, 1861, to date from April 26, 1861, and became a first lieutenant less than one month later. With the wounding of Captain Freedley, Lieutenant Dangerfield became the second most senior officer with the regiment at Gettysburg and, as acting field
officer, fell heir to Captain Freedley's horse for the reconnoissance conducted on July 4th. While on recruiting duty in July 1864, the now Captain Parker was assigned command of Fort Slocum during the attack of Confederate General Jubel Early against Washington, D.C. Captain Parker finished the Civil War in command of the Third Infantry at the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac. He remained associated with the Third Infantry for another 20 years at a succession of frontier posts. He was promoted to major of the Ninth Infantry in 1884 and to lieutenant colonel of the Twentieth Infantry in 1889. He saw service in the Spanish-American War and finally retired a Brigadier General.
(4) First Lieutenant George Bernard Butler Jr. Lieutenant Butler of Company D was wounded during the evening of July 4th while he was on picket duty in command of Company C. The bullet broke both bones in his right forearm and necessitated the immediate amputation of his right arm above the elbow. The surgery was performed that night at the hospital for the Second Division, and the 25-year old lieutenant nearly bled to death by the time he was carried from the picket lines to the field hospitals located more than two miles away. The records of the Second Division field hospital indicate that Butler was transferred to a general hospital on July 21st, but actually, his father brought his wounded son home to Fordham, New York, to recover. In September, Lieutenant Butler was ordered to report to the Army general hospital in Annapolis, Maryland, where he was admitted on September 28th. In November 1863, a retiring board chaired by General Irwin McDowell declared Lieutenant Butler fit to return to active duty notwithstanding the loss of his right arm. In response to this ruling, Lieutenant Butler submitted his resignation as an officer. The Secretary of War accepted Butler's resignation on November 24, 1863, to take effect immediately.
The resignation ended his troubled association with the regiment. Against his family's wishes, Lieutenant Butler first went to war as a private with the Seventh New York State Militia, a three-month volunteer regiment that rushed to the defense of Washington, D.C., in April 1861. Upon his discharge in early June 1861, he enlisted in the Regular artillery in New York City and was again sent to Washington. Finally convinced of his son's insistence upon being a soldier, George Butler Sr. secured an appointment for his son as a second lieutenant in the Third Infantry through the personal intervention of President Lincoln. Two of his brothers would serve as officers in the Seventh Infantry. Lieutenant Butler reported for duty at Fort Hamilton, New York Harbor, on September 2, 1861, and received an assignment with the Recruiting Service.
For the next 17 months, Lieutenant Butler served as an officer at various recruiting offices in New York State. He also found time to court Miss Emily Butterworth of New York City, and the couple was married in April 1862. She was the daughter of Samual F. Butterworth, a prominent attorney in New York City. Perhaps in an attempt to separate the suitors, Mr. Butterworth wrote the Adjutant General in January 1862 in an attempt obtain Lieutenant Butler's transfer to field duty: "I have a young friend, George Butler, he is a gallant, ambitious young man, and is exceedingly anxious to be attached to some regiment where he can participate in the War. I ask of you as a personal favor that you will give him a chance in the field, you will promote the public service and at the same time oblige an old friend."
Lieutenant Butler finally joined the Third Infantry in the field on February 15, 1863, and assumed command of Company C. Within a month, he
was complaining to the regimental and brigade surgeons about the reoccurrence of a childhood hernia. An application for a leave of absence on March 14, 1863, to procure a truss was rejected by General Hooker. Butler responded on March 26th by requesting an examination before a medical board to decide whether he had a hernia or not, but the Chancellorsville Campaign prevented the prompt appointment of the Board. Lieutenant Butler was able to participate in the Battle of Chancellorsville in late April and early May 1863, although he later explained that he was forced to march with his hand holding the weakened area of his abdomen and that he carried his pistol in a belt over his shoulder instead of around his waist.
Feeling somewhat better in May 1863, Lieutenant Butler tried to resume normal activities. On the evening of Sunday, May 25, 1863, he even performed a series of gymnastic exercises before an audience of officers of the Third and Fourth Infantries. This was apparently something he "had been in the habit of doing frequently before the recurrence of the hernia but had avoided since." Everything went well until, at the request of a Lieutenant Patterson, Butler permitted Patterson to throw him over Patterson's head. As he hit the ground, Butler again felt the hernia. Between May 25 and 28, 1863, he was listed as present sick in the regimental hospital for the Third Infantry. While in the hospital, he renewed his request for the medical board examination, which was endorsed by the regimental commander Captain Freedley. He also tendered his resignation as an officer on account of disability produced by hernia. The resignation was endorsed by Captain Freedley as follows: "Respectfully forwarded and its acceptance is urgently recommended". Nothing came of the resignation attempt, but the medical board was ordered by the First Brigade commander on May 27, 1863, and met the next day.
The decision of the medical board was not what Lieutenant Butler expected. The three surgeons composing the board pronounced Butler's case to be a temporary hernial protrusion produced voluntarily and concluded that the condition did not disable or disqualify him for any duty which he may be called upon to perform. The senior medical officer for the First Brigade responded to the board's finding by bringing charges against Lieutenant Butler for conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman in intentionally trying to produce a hernia to avoid military service. The resulting General Court Martial convened on June 12, 1863, at Benson House, Virginia, which was the day before the Fifth Corps began its march northward from its camps along the Rappahonnock River.
Although acquitted of the charge, some of the officers of the Third Infantry apparently deliberately deceived Lieutenant Butler by telling him that the verdict of the Court was actually against him. Overcome by depression, Lieutenant Butler attempted to desert on June 22d from the camp of the regiment near Aldie, Virginia. He would later claim he left the regiment in a desperate attempt to procure a truss to relieve his hernia since he had been unable to secure a proper leave of absence to acquire one. The provost guard of the First Brigade of the Second Division of the Eleventh Corps arrested him that evening "outside the pickets, caught straggling". He was returned to the provost marshal of the Second Division of the Fifth Corps under guard on June 25th with a note from Colonel Charles Coster, commander of the First Brigade of the Second Division of the Eleventh Corps, who had previously served as an officer in the Twelfth Regular Infantry and as colonel of the 134th New York Infantry: "He was found straying about the country. I knew him slightly when serving with the regulars and think that he is not altogether correct in his mind hence his strange conduct."
Consequently, Lieutenant Butler proceeded to Gettysburg and took part in the battle on July 2d while under arrest. The next day, General Ayres ordered Lieutenant Butler released from arrest for good conduct during the previous day's battle. He resumed command of Company C and then became the last man of the Third Infantry to be wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg. Butler was left handed and fortunately, despite the loss of his right arm, he was able to spend the remaining 44 years of his life as a professional artist. There are still numerous George Butler paintings that can be found in public art museums and private collections, including two paintings of Army officers in the collection of the United States Military Academy. A self-portrait of Butler is owned by the National Academy of Design in New York City.
After the war, Butler and his wife moved to Napa County, California, at which place his wife died in 1868 or 1869. While residing in California in August 1868, Butler attended the Retiring Board hearing regarding Captain Freedley as a witness for the captain. Butler testified that Captain Freedley received his wound at the Battle of Gettysburg while in actual command of the Third Infantry. Butler subsequently lived in New York and Italy. He remarried in 1875 at Capri, Italy, a Concetta Silvia. They had four children. He died on May 4, 1907, at the age of 70. His wife's request for a widow's pension was originally rejected on the ground that she had a net income of more than $250 per year. After appealing this decision, she eventually received a pension of $12.00 per month on the strength of such affidavits as this one from the British artist George Turner: "Her husband was an artist of reputation but not a business man at all and spent his money faster than he got it."
Enlisted Men: The 56 enlisted men specified in the regimental returns as wounded (other than those previously identified as mortally wounded) are listed by company as follows:
(1) Sergeant Major Edward Lynch. Sergeant Lynch was appointed sergeant major of the Third Infantry on October 26, 1862. He received this appointment just four days after being released from the Fairfax Seminary General Hospital in Alexandria, Virginia, where he had been admitted as a patient on September 9, 1862, for an undisclosed illness. His previous service in the regiment had been as a musician in the regimental band, but he apparently proved he was ready for administrative responsibilities by serving on daily duty in the Commissary Department in August 1862. He was born in Dublin, Ireland, and was 22 years old when he enlisted in the Army in New York City on July 21, 1858. He gave his occupation as laborer at the time of his enlistment.
He was wounded just 19 days before the expiration of his five-year term of enlistment. During the battle on July 2d, Sergeant Lynch was struck by a conical ball that resulted in severe flesh wounds to both his thighs and his buttocks. He was admitted to the divisional hospital on July 3d and treated with a water dressing. Sent to the Chestnut Street General Hospital in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on July 24th, he was transferred to the general hospital at Fort Columbus, New York Harbor, two months later. Sergeant Lynch was finally discharged from the Army on October 4, 1863, after he had sufficiently recovered from his wounds. His military career was hardly finished. On December 30, 1863, he accepted an
appointment, to date from December 14th, as a second lieutenant in the Veteran Reserve Corps. He served in this capacity for the remainder of the Civil War and was honorably discharged on June 10, 1866.
While serving in the Veteran Reserve Corps in the State of New York, Lieutenant Lynch married Lizzie Collins at St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Albany, New York. They were married on February 6, 1866, by Father Thomas Burke, who was apparently unconcerned that the bride was only 15 years old while the groom was 30. After less than two months out of the Army, Lynch reenlisted on August 3, 1866, this time in Nashville, Tennessee. He served in the Sixteenth and Thirty-fourth Infantry Regiments. By December 1866, he was once again a sergeant major. On August 4, 1868, he was discharged at Grenada, Mississippi, by reason of his appointment as a second lieutenant in the Thirty-third Infantry. He finally retired in March 1891 with the rank of captain. He died at the General Hospital, Washington Barracks, D.C., on September 16, 1908. Captain Lynch and his wife resided at 1326 Wallach Place in Washington at the time of his death. His wife survived him until June 1929. They are both buried at Arlington National Cemetery. They had one daughter, Nettie, who continued the family military tradition by marrying an Army officer, Colonel G.S. Bingham.
(1) Corporal James Keegan. Corporal Keegan enlisted in Boston on June 12, 1861, and initially served in Company H before the reorganization of the regiment in March 1863. He was born in Monaghan, Ireland, in 1839. He gave his occupation as laborer to the recruiting officer. The injury Private Keegan received on July 2d was described on various hospital admission records as either a gun shot wound to his right leg or a contusion to his leg by a shell. After initial treatment at the Second Division hospital, Corporal Keegan was transferred to McDougall General Hospital at Fort Schuyler, New York Harbor, on July 13, 1863. He was returned to duty on August 22d and was listed as present on the muster roll of Company B for August 1863. He reenlisted in the Army on March 8, 1864, at Fort Columbus, New York Harbor.
(2) Private John Bauer. Private Bauer was serving his second term of enlistment in the Regular Army. His first enlistment occurred in Philadelphia on March 5, 1856, and he reenlisted in the Third Infantry at Fort Clark, Texas, on January 5, 1861. He was 33 years old when he reenlisted and was born in the Rhineland area of France. The records of the Second Division hospital at Gettysburg indicate that he was wounded in the left ankle. On July 20th, he was transferred to the general hospital in York, Pennsylvania. On September 4th, he was admitted to the general hospital at Fort Columbus, New York Harbor. The records of this hospital refer to a gunshot fleshwound of Bauer's left thigh. Whatever the location of the wound, he was returned to duty on November 7, 1863, and rejoined the regiment in December. He was discharged on January 5, 1864, at Catlett's Station, Virginia, upon the expiration of his term of enlistment. Although he had originally agreed to serve five years, the term of enlistment for Regular soldiers enlisting on or after January 1, 1861, was reduced during the Civil War to three years to correspond to the volunteer service. Regular soldiers enlisting before 1861 were not so fortunate, and were held to their original five-year commitment.
(3) Private Charles Bowen. Private Bowen enlisted in Rochester, New York, on March 7, 1861. Born in Buffalo, he was 19 year old at the time of his enlistment and by trade a shoemaker. He was severely wounded in
the face during the battle. One bullet entered his mouth, knocking out six teeth and breaking his right lower jaw. Another bullet penetrated the right cheek and exited through the left eye. The left eye was completely destroyed and the tear duct of the right eye was severed. On July 9, 1863, he was transferred from a field hospital to Satterlee General Hospital in West Philadelphia. He spent part of September and October 1863 at the general hospital in Central Park, New York, and was admitted to the general hospital at Fort Columbus, New York Harbor, on October 20th. The wounds healed, but in the words of one examining physician, "left considerable deformity." He was transferred to the convalescence barracks at Fort Wood, New York Harbor, on January 28, 1864, to be forwarded to the regiment upon its arrival in New York City in February 1864. By this time he had less than one month remaining of his term of enlistment, and he was discharged at Fort Columbus on March 7, 1864.
Bowen returned to Buffalo after his discharged where he lived for the next 12 years. He resided at the Soldier's Home in Washington, D.C., between September 1876 and November 1878, but he was able to move to a boarding house when he secured work as a watchman for the Post Office Department. On June 14, 1881, he married Dora A. Childress at the First Baptist Church in Washington. Although the couple separated five years later, they never divorced, and Dora was eventually found to be eligible for a widow's pension. She worked as a domestic servant in Baltimore after their separation. Bowen died on April 16, 1905, of chronic pneumonia at Garfield Hospital in Washington. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. His wife lived another 12 years.
(4) Private John Houston. Private Houston received a gunshot wound in the right leg about six inches above his ankle. He was treated at the divisional hospital until July 13th and then transferred to the general hospital at Fort Schuyler, New York Harbor. He was discharged from the hospital on September 23, 1863, and sent to Fort Columbus. Five days later, he rejoined the regiment, which had arrived in New York City to enforce the draft. He was born in Williamsville, New York, and enlisted in nearby Buffalo on April 22, 1861. His parents died when he was young so he supported himself after their death by working as a farm hand in Canada. However, he recalled after the war that while residing in Canada he still returned to Buffalo to cast a ballot for Lincoln in the 1860 presidential election. Although he stated at the time of his enlistment that he was 18 years old, which would mean he was born in 1843, he later claimed to have been born on May 12, 1839. He never attended school, nor even saw one before his enlistment, but proudly stated later that "the Army learnt me all I know."
After his enlistment, Private Houston was sent to Fort Columbus, New York Harbor, to receive part of that learning. He was included in a large detachment of recruits who were dispatched to Washington, D.C., after the Union defeat at First Bull Run to replace the casualties sustained by the Regular battalion in that battle. He was assigned to Company H on August 5, 1861, and was one of the soldiers of that company who were transferred to Company B in March 1863. While a private in Company H, he was wounded at the Second Battle of Bull Run in August 1862. A musket ball struck his left hand while he fought in the line of battle formed by General Sykes' Regular Division on Henry House Hill as the last line of defense of the Union Army. The middle and third fingers of his left hand were amputated as a result of the wound. He was admitted to Columbian College General Hospital in Washington on September 1, 1862, but transferred to Satterlee General Hospital in West Philadelphia the next day. He was returned to duty on October 10, 1862, but did not rejoin the regiment in the field until February 1863.
After returning to the regiment in September 1863 following his Gettysburg wound, Private Houston served the remainder of his enlistment and was discharged at Fort Columbus on April 22, 1864. He drifted west after the war and worked in the Rocky Mountains as a laborer in the mining and railroad industries. Around the turn of the century, he became a resident at the National Military Home in Montgomery, Ohio. He later transferred to the western branch of the home in Los Angeles, California. He survived until June 30, 1934, and died at the Veteran's Hospital in San Diego.
(5) Private John Hunt. Private Hunt was listed on the muster roll of Company B for June 1863 as absent sick, having been admitted to St. Elizabeth General Hospital in Washington on June 14th with chronic diarrhea. Still he returned to the company in time to receive a wound to his left thumb on July 2d. Following treatment at the Second Division hospital, he was transferred to Satterlee General Hospital in Philadelphia on July 9th. He was returned to duty on August 27, 1863. Private Hunt enlisted in Boston on October 10, 1860, at the age of 26. He was born in Waterford, Ireland, and had worked as a laborer. On July 14, 1864, he reenlisted in the regiment at Fort Hamilton, New York Harbor.
(6) Private Timothy Hurley. Private Hurley enlisted in Boston on June 14, 1861. He was 27 years old at the time of his enlistment and had previously worked as a coal miner. He was born in Cork, Ireland. He was another of the transferees from Company H in March 1863. Private Hurley received a flesh wound in his right upper thigh in the battle. After receiving treatment at the divisional hospital for several weeks, he was transferred to the general hospital in York, Pennsylvania, on July 20th. He was returned to duty on September 2, 1863, and sent to rejoin Company B in the field, but he did not get beyond Baltimore. Admitted to the general hospital in Patterson Park, Baltimore, he was sent to a New York hospital the next day. Still, he was able to rejoin Company B at Culpepper Court House by the end of September.
Private Hurley was discharged on June 14, 1864, at Fort Hamilton upon the expiration of his term of enlistment. He immediately moved to the Keeweenaw Peninsula of Upper Michigan to secure work in the booming copper mines. However, he took some time off to be married. On July 29, 1864, he married Mary Murphy at St Ann's Catholic Church in Hancock, Michigan. The groom was 30 years old and the bride was 20 years old. Unfortunately, the couple had a short married life. He died at the Central Mine, Keeweenaw, Michigan, on February 6, 1868. His wife would claim in the resulting application for a widow's pension that the Gettysburg wound had become reinfected and was the cause of death. Seven months after his death, his daughter Elizabeth was born.
(7) Private Michael Joyce. Private Joyce enlisted in New York City on December 19, 1860, and initially served in Company H. He was a laborer in civilian life. He was born in Galway, Ireland, and enlisted when he was 22 years old. He was struck by a conical ball, which resulted in a severe flesh wound to his right thigh. Admitted to a field hospital on July 3d, he was sent to the general hospital in York, Pennsylvania, on July 13th. Although discharged and sent back to his company in September 1863, the return to duty was premature. On September 17, 1863, he was admitted to the Mansion House General Hospital in Alexandria, Virginia. Transferred
to the general hospital at Fort Columbus, New York Harbor, in October 1863, he did not return to duty until December 16, 1863, and did not rejoin the regiment until February 1864. Because Private Joyce enlisted in December 1860, he was held to a five-year term of enlistment, which he decided to terminate early by deserting on August 25, 1864. Just 10 days earlier, he had been arrested and hospitalized at Fort Hamilton, New York Harbor, for inebriation.
(8) Private William Lapp. Another of the Company H transferees to Company B, Private Lapp enlisted on October 19, 1860, in Rochester, New York. He was a 21-year old farmer at the time of his enlistment. He was born in Rome, New York. In a pension application, Lapp claimed he was wounded twice at Gettysburg. One bullet severed his left ring finger, while another struck him on the right side of his back. The carded medical records for Private Lapp only refer to the hand wound, but he did have a very long convalescence which might indicate the presence of another wound. He was among the first of the wounded to be transferred from the field hospitals, being admitted on July 5th to Satterlee General Hospital in West Philadelphia. On December 5, 1863, he was transferred to the convalescent hospital at Fort Wood, New York Harbor. He was not released to return to the regiment until January 16, 1864.
Private Lapp reenlisted in Company B on July 14, 1864. In April 1893, Lapp filed an application for a pension from St. Louis, Missouri, on account of his wounds and chronic diarrhea he claimed he first contracted at Harrison's Landing during the Peninsula Campaign. He mentioned that he had married an Annie Nelson in St. Louis the previous December. However, the pension application was rejected since Lapp deserted on October 20, 1864, during his second enlistment.
(9) Private Michael Reilly. At Gettysburg, Private Reilly received a gunshot wound to his left shoulder and arm, which broke the bone badly. As a consequence of the wound, surgeons were forced to remove about six inches of bone from the left arm. The operation saved his life, but rendered the arm entirely useless. Because of the seriousness of his wound, he remained at Gettysburg when the various field hospitals were finally closed at the end of July 1863 and was treated at Camp Letterman General Hospital. He remained there until early October 1863 when he was finally transferred to the general hospital at Fort Columbus, New York Harbor. He was returned to duty on March 17, 1864, in anticipation of his discharge from the Army the next day.
Private Reilly enlisted in New York City on March 18, 1861. He was born in Mayo, Ireland, and was 21 years old at the time of his enlistment. He gave his occupation as laborer. The records of the regimental hospital for the Third Infantry indicate that Private Reilly was treated for a wound to his ankle in early 1863, which was likely received at the Battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862, although he was not listed on the regimental return as one of the wounded. Less than two months after his discharge from the Army, he filed an application for a pension, listing as his address 389 H Street, Washington, D.C. The application was supported by an affidavit from Captain Daingerfield Parker, who commanded Company B at the battle and who was then assigned to the Recruiting Rendezvous at 393 19th Street in Washington. Reilly began receiving a pension of $8.00 per month in 1864, which was increased to $15.00 per month in 1866. He moved to Providence, Rhode Island, in August 1866. Beginning in 1875, he became a resident at the National
Military Home in Elizabeth City, Virginia, by which time he was receiving a pension of $18.00 per month.
(10) Private Joseph Simons or Simmons. Private Simons enlisted in Buffalo, New York, on May 6, 1861, and was initially assigned to Company H. He was born in Lockport, New York, and was 18 years old at the time of his enlistment. He came from a farm family. Private Simons was wounded in the right shoulder. He must have been able to reach a field hospital under his own power because he was listed in the carded medical records as admitted on July 2d, while most of the wounded were not recorded as admitted until July 3d. He was transferred to the general hospital in York, Pennsylvania, on July 19, 1863, and remained at that hospital, except for a two-week furlough, until January 5, 1864. After short stays in the general hospital at Fort Columbus and the convalescence barracks at Fort Wood, New York Harbor, he was returned to duty on February 21, 1864. He was discharged at Fort Richmond, New York Harbor, in May 1864 at the end of his three-year term of enlistment.
(11) Private Patrick Sullivan. Private Sullivan enlisted in Boston on June 12, 1861, and served in Company H before being transferred to Company B in March 1863. He was born in Waterford, Ireland, on May 3, 1838, and worked as a laborer before his enlistment. He was wounded in the right foot on July 2d. The ball entered just in front of the instep and came out at the heel, fracturing the bone. He was brought to a field hospital on July 2d and transferred on July 19th to the general hospital in York, Pennsylvania, where he stayed until September 4th. His next stop was the general hospital at Fort Columbus, New York Harbor. He was returned to duty on October 6, 1863, but he did not rejoin the regiment in Virginia.
Private Sullivan was discharged upon the expiration of his enlistment at Fort Hamilton on June 12, 1864. According to his pension application, he enlisted in Company K of the Third Infantry on October 3, 1864, for another three years and later served with Battery B of the Fourth Artillery between December 1867 and December 1870. By January 1882, when he first applied for a pension on account of the wound to his foot and assorted other ailments allegedly contracted during his nine years of military service, he resided in Clarendon, Monroe County, Arkansas. He afterwards lived in Washington, D.C., and the homes for disabled soldiers established in Elizabeth City, Virginia, and Montgomery, Ohio. He died at the latter home on December 2, 1926.
(1) Corporal David Rowland. Corporal Rowland enlisted in Rochester, New York, on December 3, 1860. He was born in Onondaga County, New York, and was a 21-year old farmer when he enlisted. Before his assignment to Company C, he was among the recruits sent by ship in an attempt to reinforce Fort Sumter, which sparked the Rebel bombardment of the fort and the start of the war. At Gettysburg, he was wounded by a ball that entered his right thigh about 3" below the hip joint and exited near the rectum. Brought to a field hospital on July 3d, he was transferred to Jarvis General Hospital in Baltimore 10 days later, but then immediately rerouted to a general hospital in New York City. He rejoined the company in the field in December 1863, but was recorded as "present sick" on the muster roll for that month.
On February 2, 1864, Corporal Rowland was admitted to Carver General Hospital in Washington, D.C., as a transferee from a Fifth Corps field hospital. His new ailment was rheumatism, which had earlier afflicted him
while stationed at Fort Pickens, Florida, in May 1861. Released on July 11, 1864, he was sent the convelescent camp near Alexandria, Virginia, and assigned to the Veteran Reserve Corps. Ordered to rejoin the Third Infantry in Washington on December 20, 1864, he remained only a single day before being admitted to Harwood General Hospital. He was released on May 9, 1865, and able to rejoin the regiment upon its arrival from the Appomattox Campaign. He was present for duty for the last seven months of his enlistment.
One of the Regular soldiers bound to a five-year term of enlistment, Rowland was discharged in St. Louis on December 3, 1865, as a sergeant. Just 16 days later, he married Emma Jane Smith in Vesper, Onondaga County, New York, at what would be their home until 1874. In April 1875, he applied for an invalid pension from their new home near Juniata, Nebraska. He claimed to be disabled by chronic rheumatism and resulting disease of the heart contracted in December 1863 in camp at Catlett's Station, Virginia. This claim, which certainly was supported by his medical records, resulted in a pension of $4.00 per month. He was receiving $12.00 per month by the time of his death in February 1889. Emmma was survive until 1936, dying in Richmond, Virginia, at age 90. Rowland's original pension application included a supporting affidavit from former Lieutenant August Kaiser, who had commanded Company C on the July 2d battle. Honorably mustered out of the Army in January 1871, the former noncommissioned officer of the Third Infantry simply returned to the enlisted ranks. In 1875, Kaiser was quartermaster sergeant of the First Infantry and stationed at Fort Randall, Dakota Territory.
(2) Private Anthony Bertrand. Private Bertrand enlisted on February 14, 1861, in New York City. He was born in Baccaret, France, in 1840 and had worked as a glass blower. He served in Company D before the ten companies of the regiment were reduced to six in March 1863. At Gettysburg, Private Bertrand was wounded in the left thigh. Like many of his comrades, he spent a couple weeks in a field hospital before proceeding first to York, Pennsylvania, then to a convalescent hospital in Patterson Park, Baltimore, and finally to Fort Columbus, New York Harbor. He was able to return to duty with the regiment in New York City in September 1863 to serve the remainder of his enlistment. He was discharged in February 1864 at the winter quarters of the regiment near Catlett's Station, Virginia.
According to the regimental return for July 1862, Private Bertrand was also wounded at the Battle of Malvern Hill on July 1, 1862, while a member of Company D. However, the carded medical records for Private Bertrand, derived from the list of casualties for the regiment prepared by regimental surgeon Sternberg, indicate that he was wounded at the Battle of Gaines Mill on June 27, 1862. It appears that the confusion surrounding General McClellan's "change of base" during the Peninsula Campaign affected the accuracy of some of the written records of this period.
(3) Private Cornelius Burns. Private Burns enlisted on February 12, 1861, in New York City. He was born in Roscommon, Ireland, and enlisted at the age of 22 after working as a laborer. He received a contusion to his right leg in the battle, which required admission to a field hospital on July 3d. Transferred to a general hospital on July 9th, he rejoined Company C on August 28, 1863, at its temporary encampment in New York City. He was able to serve in the field until November 1863, when he was sent to the regiment's invalid depot at Fort Columbus, New York Harbor.
He was discharged from the Army at this post in February 1864 upon the expiration of his enlistment.
(4) Private Michael Cloran. Private Cloran enlisted in New York City on January 8, 1861. He was 20 years old at the time of his enlistment and worked as a baker. He was born in Galway, Ireland. Private Cloran was wounded in his left thigh. Treated at Gettysburg until July 19th, he was then transferred to the general hospital in York, Pennsylvania. Returned to duty on September 5, 1863, he was sent to the convalescent hospital in Patterson Park, Baltimore, to await an opportunity to rejoin the regiment. The Third Infantry passed through Baltimore by rail on September 14, 1863, on its return to the Army of the Potomac, and it is likely he meet the regiment then. He is among the soldiers present for duty on the regimental return for September 1863.
Private Cloran managed to avoid the Peninsula Campaign when he deserted in New York City on June 7, 1862, during the brief stop of Companies C and E in that city while en route from Fort Pickens, Florida, to join the rest of the regiment in Virginia. He arrived at the camp of the regiment near Harrison's Landing on the James River in July along with nine of his fellow New York absentees. Private Cloran was not required to perform any additional service in the Army as a result of the incident and was discharged on January 8, 1864, at Catlett's Station, Virginia.
(5) Private Charles E. Davis. Private Davis was born in Boston in 1840 and enlisted in that city on February 5, 1861. He worked as a machinist before his enlistment and was initially assigned to Company D. Private Davis received a gunshot wound to his left thigh. Treated at the field and divisional hospitals at Gettysburg until July 19, 1863, he was then transferred to the general hospital at York, Pennsylvania. On September 4, he was sent to the general hospital at Fort Columbus, New York Harbor. By the time he arrived on September 6th, he was also suffering from chronic diarrhea. Cleared for duty on September 12th, Private Davis did not rejoin the regiment. He was admitted to the Mansion House General Hospital in Alexandria, Virginia, on September 15, 1863, where he would remain, except for a 30-day furlough, until discharged from the Army on February 5, 1864.
Private Davis had been previously wounded and missing in action while a member of Company D, although sources are in conflict regarding when and where this occurred. A card filed among the medical records for Private Davis indicates that he appeared on the list of casualties of the Third Infantry at White Oak Ridge, July 2, 1862, as wounded and missing. This list, prepared by the regimental assistant surgeon, cataloged the losses of the regiment at the Battle of Gaines Mill on June 27, 1862, and Malvern Hill on June 30th and July 1, 1862. Since Private Davis was both wounded and missing, it is likely he was among the Gaines Mill casualties since the soldiers who were seriously wounded at that battle and could not be evacuated were captured by the Confederates when the field hospitals at Savage Station were overrun. However, the regimental return for June 1862 does not list Private Davis, or any other enlisted man in Company D, among the wounded or missing at these battles. Nor does the return for July 1862 mention Private Davis as a casualty of the second days fighting at Malvern Hill. Instead Private Davis and eight other privates of Company D are listed on the regimental return for August 1862 as missing in action during the Second Battle of Bull Run on August 30, 1862. All eight of these Company D privates are accounted for on the
September 1862 regimental return. One arrived at Camp Chase, Ohio, five were in a general hospital in Philadelphia following their release by the Confederates, and Private Davis and two of his comrades rejoined the regiment at its camp near Sharpsburg, Maryland, shortly after the Battle of Antietam.
(6) Private William Edwards. Private Edwards enlisted in Boston on January 21, 1861, and was assigned to Company C shortly before the company left New York City to reinforce Fort Pickens, Florida, in April 1861. Like Private Cloran and 18 of his comrades in Companies C and E, Private Edwards was listed as a deserter as a result of the brief stop of the two companies in New York City on June 7, 1862, while en route from Fort Pickens to the Army of the Potomac. Perhaps the desertion of some of these men was unintentional and they simply missed the departure of the ship that carried their companies to Virginia. Nine of the alleged deserters rejoined the regiment by the middle of July, and Private Edwards was listed on the regimental return for July 1862 as absent without leave at Fort Hamilton, New York Harbor, June 7, 1863. He rejoined the regiment in the field sometime in August 1862 without apparent repercussion.
Private Edwards was the only wounded soldier in Company C whose general hospital was listed on the company's muster rolls. In the case of almost all of the other wounded soldiers, information regarding the nature and treatment of wounds had to be gleaned from the carded medical records and pension materials for the soldier, if any. Private Edwards received a contusion or gunshot flesh wound to his right leg on July 2d. He was treated at Gettysburg until July 9th, and than transferred to Satterlee General Hospital in West Philadelphia. On September 26, 1863, he was admitted to St. Joseph's General Hospital in Central Park, New York City. He finally arrived at the general hospital at Fort Columbus, New York Harbor, on October 19, 1863. where he remained until November 5th when he was returned to duty. On November 24, 1863, he was examined for transfer to the Invalid Corps by a board of examination at the convalescent camp near Alexandria, Virginia. He was determined to have a functional disease of the heart and was transferred to the First Battalion of the Invalid Corps. He was discharged from the Army on January 21, 1864, at Fort Columbus upon the expiration of his enlistment.
In 1897, Edwards filed an application for an invalid pension under the name William E. Keenan, stating that he had dropped his last name when he enlisted in 1861. He gave no reason for why he used an alias. Edwards or Keenan was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, on October 15, 1840, and had been a painter before the war. Shortly before his discharge in 1864, he married Bridget Talbot at Fort Hamilton. The couple resided in Brooklyn, New York, until Bridget's death in 1900. In information provided to the Pension Bureau in 1910, he stated he had two daughters alive, Anne who was born in October 1864 and Mary who was born in October 1876. He was residing with his younger daughter, Mary F. Brown, at 11 Stanley Street, Woodhaven, New York, at the time of his death on March 17, 1915.
(7) Private Philip Finnegan. Private Finnegan was wounded by a gunshot to his right arm. Admitted to a field hospital on July 3d, he was transferred to Satterlee General Hospital in West Philadelphia, on July 9th. On August 24, 1863, he was released to the Provost Marshal for discharge from the Army since his five-year term of enlistment had expired while he was hospitalized. He had enlisted in New York City on
July 21, 1858. regiment returned to Virginia after the battle. He was discharged on July 21, 1863, at Goose Creek, Virginia. At the time of his enlistment, he was 25 years old and by occupation a stone cutter. He was born in Cavan, Ireland.
(8) Private James Gillen (sometimes spelled Gillon or Gillan). Private Gillen was another of the veteran soldiers who was wounded shortly before his five-year term of enlistment was to expire. He enlisted on July 17, 1858, in Philadelphia. He was 23 years old when he enlisted and had worked as a bricklayer. He was born in Donigal County, Ireland. He was wounded in the left leg. Like his comrade in Company C, Private Cloran, Private Gillen was treated at Gettysburg until July 19th and then transferred to the general hospital in York, Pennsylvania. He was also sent with Cloran to the convalescent hospital in Patterson Park, Baltimore, on September 5, 1863. Four days later, Gillen was transferred to the Camden Street General Hospital in Baltimore, from which he inexplicably deserted on September 15th.
(9) Private Timothy L. Horen. Private Horen enlisted in Rochester, New York, on February 13, 1861. He was born in Claire County, Ireland, in 1839 and had been a farmer. According to the carded medical records, Private Horen received a shell wound to his left thigh. He was treated at a field hospital until July 13th, and then sent to the general hospital at Fort Schuyler, New York Harbor, spending one night at a Baltimore hospital en route. Here was returned to duty on September 23d and served on the garrison of Fort Columbus, New York Harbor. He finally rejoined the regiment in January 1864 at Catlett's Station, Virginia, just one month before the expiration of his enlistment.
(10) Private John McCoy. Private McCoy enlisted in Philadelphia on July 7, 1861. He was 21 years old when at that time and a former coal miner. He was born in Dundalk, Ireland. He originally served in Company D, before being transferred to Company C in March 1863. On July 2d, Private McCoy was struck by a ball about 2" below his left knee on the outer side of his leg. The ball passed through the bone and exited from the inner side of the leg. The wound was described as severe and resulted in the partial dislocation of the joint. He was treated at Gettysburg until July 19th and then at York, Pennsylvania, until September 4th. He was then transferred to the general hospital at Fort Columbus, New York Harbor. He was returned to duty on April 27, 1864, but would spend almost all of his last three months in the Regular Army in the post hospital at Fort Hamilton, New York Harbor.
Either McCoy eventually healed or the military was pretty desperate by the last months of the Civil War because he was allowed to enlist in the 213 Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry on February 18, 1865. He was honorably discharged in November 1865. While serving this second enlistment, he married Bridget Donlon. The ceremony was performed on August 23, 1865, in Philadelphia. They resided in Philadelphia and had three children, Catharine in 1871, Maggie in 1875, and John in 1878. McCoy died in October 1904 and his wife less than two years later.
(11) Private John O'Brien. Private O'Brien enlisted in Boston on December 21, 1860, at the age of 22. He was born in Tipperary, Ireland, and had worked as a laborer. The carded medical record for Private O'Brien prepared from the records of the Second Division field hospital indicates that he was a patient in the hospital as of July 5th, but it also erroneously indicates that he died on July 7th. He was very much alive and present with the regiment by the end of August 1863. He rose to
the rank of sergeant and reenlisted in the Army on July 21, 1864. No information is available regarding the nature of his wound.
(12) Private John Regan. Private Regan enlisted in Boston on September 29, 1860. He was born in Mayo, Ireland, was 22 years old when he enlisted, and had previously worked as a laborer. Three months before his enlistment, he married Bridget McKane in Charlestown, Massachusetts. She would remain in Boston during his Civil War service. Regan was among the 300 recruits who were sent to the Third Infantry in Texas in late 1860 and he was originally assigned to Company D. When Company D arrived in New York City in late April 1861 when the regiment was withdrawn from Texas, Regan apparently received a furlough in early May since pension records indicate that he was present at the baptism of his reborn son in Boston on May 18, 1861. He was listed as present for duty with the company in Washington, D.C., by the end of May 1861. He was transferred to Company C in March 1863.
At Gettysburg, Private Regan received a gunshot wound to his back. He was admitted to a field hospital on July 3, 1863, and transferred to Satterlee General Hospital in West Philadelphia six days later. He rejoined the company from absent sick on August 26, 1863. Between mid-October 1863 and late February 1864, he was again absent, not because of complications from his wound, but because he was suffering from a venereal disease. On February 23, 1864, he meet the regiment after its arrival in New York City. He also was permitted to reenlist in Company D on that same date despite having more than one year remaining on his original enlistment. He ended this second enlistment as a sergeant. After less than five months as a civilian, Regan reenlisted in Company D of the Third Infantry on July 15, 1867, and again served as a sergeant. This third enlistment was cut short when he suffered a heart attack in the hospital at Fort Larned, Kansas, on June 19, 1869, and died. He had been complaining of difficulty breathing and cardiac pain at intervals for several months. An autopsy was performed and his heart was shipped to the Army Medical Museum in Washington, D.C, for better examination.
(13) Private David Roche. Private Roche enlisted in New York City on June 25, 1861, and served in Company D until March 1863. According to the enlistment papers, he was 23 years old and worked as a laborer. He was born in Kerry, Ireland. While a member of Company D, Roche was apparently wounded at the Second Battle of Bull Run on August 30, 1862. The records for Cliffburne General Hospital in Washington, D.C., indicate that Private Roche was "remaining" as a patient there on September 1, 1862, pending transfer to Satterlee General Hospital, West Philadelphia. He was treated for a wound at Satterlee General Hospital, between September 3, 1862, and October, 22, 1862. The actual nature of the wound and the battle in which it was sustained is not recorded in the medical records. The regimental return for August 1862 includes Private Roche among the nine enlisted men of Company D missing in action at Second Bull Run. However, at least one of these soldiers, Private Charles Davis, has been found to have been really wounded during the Peninsula Campaign and was simply not previously accounted for in the regimental return. Is it possible that Roche could have been wounded on the afternoon of August 30th and transported to a general hospital the next day so as to be listed in the medical records of that hospital as a "remaining" patient. Or was he remaining there as a casualty from an earlier battle?
On the other hand, in a pension application filed in 1881, Roche himself stated that his first wound occurred at Second Bull Run and was a
gunshot wound to the left arm near his elbow. He supported the application with an affidavit from former Sergeant William A. Eagleson of Company C who stated he saw Roche wounded by a buck shot in the left arm about 2:00 P.M. at Second Bull Run. With regard to Roche's Gettysburg wound, Eagleson also added that "I received a slight wound myself at Gettysburg the same time as David Roche.". If true, Eagleson is another example of an enlisted man of the Third Infantry who was wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg, but whose name does not appear in any list of casualties. It is possible that the casualty lists only covered soldiers who had to leave the regiment and be admitted to a hospital, which means the actual casualty totals and percentage of losses for the Third Infantry and other Union regiments are higher than recorded.
There is no confusion regarding Roche's Gettysburg wound. He received a gunshot wound to his right foot near the instep. He remained at a field hospital until July 19, 1863, and was then sent to York, Pennsylvania. While he accompanied the regiment from New York City back to Virginia, he was admitted to Mansion House General Hospital in Alexandria, Virginia, on September 17th as unfit to return to the field. He was sent to Fort Columbus, New York Harbor, in October 1863, but at some point returned to the Washington area since he was a patient at the hospital at the convalescent camp near Alexandria between January 5 and 15, 1864. He was then sent back to New York City, where he rejoined the regiment in February 1864.
Private Roche reenlisted in Company C on February 20, 1864. A career soldier, four more enlistments were to follow in 1867, 1870, 1875, and 1880. The first of these additional reenlistments was in Company C, but after his discharge on February 20, 1870, from Company C as a sergeant, he enlisted four days later in Company A of the Fifth Infantry. He would serve in this regiment for eight years and rise to the rank of first sergeant. On April 27, 1877, Roche received the congressional medal of honor in recognition of his "gallantry in action" at Cedar Creek, Montana, and other locations between October 1876 and January 1877 during the winter campaign against the Sioux Indians in response to the Battle of Little Big Horn.
Roche's final reenlistment was in Company K of the First Infantry. While stationed at Fort Davis, Texas, on January 26, 1881, Roche severely injured his head when he was thrown from a horse. For 20 hours after the fall he was completely insensible, and he remained in the post hospital until his discharge for disability on July 2, 1881. The attending physician recorded on the disability certificate that Roche suffered a complete loss of memory, had constant headaches and dizziness, and frequent confusion of ideas. In November 1881, he submitted an application for a invalid pension from Miles City in Custer County, Montana, where he was employed as a servant, but by the next year he was residing in Worcester, Massachusetts. On September 16, 1886, Roche married Mary A. Webber at the Lincoln Square Baptist Church in Worcester. He died on November 11, 1914
(1) Sergeant Dennis O'Sullivan. Sergeant O'Sullivan was born in Waterford County, Ireland, and was 26 years old when he enlisted in Philadelphia on May 15, 1861. However, this was actually his second enlistment in the Regular Army. He enlisted the first time, also in Philadelphia, on September 17, 1855. After training at Fort Columbus, New York Harbor, he joined Company E of the First Infantry on the frontier on
January 28, 1856. He was discharged as a private at Fort Arbuckle upon the expiration of his first term of enlistment in September 1860. He returned to Philadelphia and was employed as a hatter during the interval between his two enlistments. After his enlistment in 1861, he served in Company G of the First Infantry at Fort Columbus, New York Harbor. In February 1862, the members of that understrength company were transferred to Company F at Fort Columbus so that the company would have sufficient men to take the field. He was appointed a corporal in Company F on July, 1, 1862, and was promoted to sergeant on May 1, 1863.
At the Battle of Gettysburg, Sergeant O'Sullivan was wounded in the lower part of the left leg. Sources are in disagreement regarding whether the wound was caused by a gunshot or solid cannon shot, but whatever the source, the projectile shattered the leg bone. Surgeons at Gettysburg amputated his left leg below the knee. He remained at a hospital at Gettysburg until early December 1863 and was then transferred to the General Hospital, Central Park, New York. He was eventually able to resume walking with the aid of an artificial limb provided by the Government. Unable to return to active duty, he received a disability discharge at this hospital on January 8, 1864. He returned to Philadelphia after his discharge, where he applied for a pension in February 1864. The pension was awarded the next month and he would receive it throughout the remainder of his life, except for a brief period during the war when he obtained employment as a laborer at the U.S. Arsenal in Washington.
O'Sullivan took advantage of the short interval between his two enlistments to be married in early 1861. Pension records show that he married an Annie Coyle at St. Paul's Church on Christian Street in Philadelphia. He couple resided at 518 Christian Street. Their first child, Julia, was born on July 14, 1863, just 12 days after O'Sullivan was wounded. It is assumed that O'Sullivan received a furlough for a few days after the Battle of Antietam in September 1862. The couple had seven more children at regular intervals; the last child, Daniel, was born on June 8, 1878. Annie died the next year, and O'Sullivan's health failed several years later. He spent the last 25 years of his life institutionalized in Norristown, Pennsylvania. He died there on January 22, 1910.
(2) Corporal Charles W. Struble. Corporal Struble was born in New York City in 1838 and gave his occupation as laborer at the time of his enlistment. He enlisted in Rochester, New York, on April 25, 1860, and was another transferee to Company F from Company G of the First Infantry. While serving with Company F during the Peninsula Campaign in 1862, he was left sick at White House, Virginia, on May 19, 1862. He was subsequently removed to New York for treatment. Although he rejoined the regiment in the field in August 1962, he found time during his brief absence to be married. On July 21, 1862, he married a Catherine Townsend in New York City. The couple would have five children during a twelve year span from 1865 through 1877 and one more child in 1890.
Corporal Struble received two wounds at the Battle of Gettysburg. One musket ball struck him in the left thigh. Another musket ball went through his left ankle, which necessitated the amputation of his left leg just below the knee. Removed to a hospital in York, Pennsylvania, he was eventually declared fit enough to serve in the Army's Invalid Corps. Instead, he requested a disability discharge, which was granted on December 7, 1863, while he was still a patient at that hospital.
The Strubles resided in Rochester where he remained a constant sufferer from his various wounds. He died there on January 29, 1900.
(3) Private Edmond Howard. Private Howard was an eight year Army veteran when he was wounded at Gettysburg. He first enlisted in 1855 and reenlisted at Fort Garland, New Mexico Territory, on February 16, 1860, while a private in Company A. He was 31 years old when he reenlisted and he gave as his place of birth Limerick, Ireland. At Gettysburg, he was struck in the right leg, and it had to be amputated shortly after the battle. He remained at the divisional field hospital until it was closed at the end of July 1863, and was then transferred to Camp Letterman General Hospital outside of Gettysburg. On September 3, 1863, he was transferred to Satterlee General Hospital in West Philadelphia, where he remained until discharged from the Army on October 12th. Like Sergeant O'Sullivan and Corporal Struble of Company F, Private Howard was discharged from the Army on account of disability resulting from his Gettysburg wound. They were three of only four soldiers of the Third Infantry to receive disability discharges on account of their Gettysburg wounds. All four soldiers had suffered wounds requiring amputations. After his discharge, Howard worked at the U.S. Repair Shops in Washington, D.C., until May 1865. He then became a resident at the Soldier's Home in Washington.
(4) Private John Logan. Private Logan received a gunshot wound in the right thigh near the hip, the ball passing entirely through his thigh. He was the most veteran soldier in the regiment to be wounded in the battle. He was born in Scotland and first joined the Army on June 6, 1850, in New York City. He was assigned to the Third Infantry and served in Company G then stationed in New Mexico. He reenlisted in Company G at Sante Fe on April 6, 1855, and was discharged at Fort Defiance, New Mexico, upon the expiration of his five-year term of enlistment. By the time he reached Albuquerque 17 days later he was ready to reenlist again, this time in Company F which was stationed in that city. He was 32 years old at the time of his most recent reenlistment. He was among the soldiers of Companies A, F, and I who were captured in Texas at the start of the Civil War. Released on parole shortly after his capture, he served as part of the training cadre at Fort Columbus, New York Harbor, until finally exchanged in October 1862.
Treated at the Second Division hospital after the battle, Private Logan was transported to a general hospital in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on July 24th. On September 26, 1863, he was admitted to the general hospital at Fort Columbus. He was able to return to active duty on February 21, 1864. He began another three-year term of enlistment on July 11, 1864, at Fort Hamilton, New York Harbor. Upon the expiration of that enlistment in July 1867, he enlisted in Company C of the Forty-fourth Infantry, but he returned to Company F for a final term of enlistment in 1870. On December 22, 1871, he was discharged at Washington, D.C., on account of long and faithful service and with a view to admission to the Soldier's Home in Washington. He was a resident at the Soldier's Home until his death on May 29, 1901.
(5) Private Peter McGrady. Private McGrady received a gunshot wound to his left leg or thigh, depending on which carded medical record is believed. He spent 21 days in the divisional field hospital outside Gettysburg. While most of his wounded comrades were then sent to York or Philadelphia, Private McGrady and a few others were transferred to a general hospital in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. On September 26, 1863, he
was admitted to the general hospital at Fort Columbus, New York Harbor, and he was not returned to duty until February 20, 1864. Three days later he reenlisted. His original enlistment was not to expire until August 17, 1864, but the Army was reducing the length of existing enlistments and offering bonuses to soldiers who would agree to another three years of service. McGrady first served in Company A and was 27 years old in 1861. He was a native of Liverpool, England, and worked as a stone cutter before the war.
(6) Private Patrick D. O'Donnell. Company F contained two Privates Patrick O'Donnell. The First Patrick O'Donnell enlisted in the Army on November 26, 1860, in New York City. He was initially assigned to Company G of the First Infantry, but was transferred to Company F on February 8, 1862, while that company was being reassembled at Fort Columbus. The second Patrick O'Donnell joined Company F at its camp near Harrison's Landing on the James River in Virginia, on July 8, 1862. To distinguish between the two men, company records identified the earlier arrival as Patrick O'Donnell #1 and the more recent arrival as Patrick O'Donnell #2. It was Patrick O'Donnell #2 who was wounded at Gettysburg.
Patrick O'Donnell #2 enlisted in Lowell, Massachusetts, on August 23, 1861, and was 32 years old. He listed his occupation as printer and was born in Herbertstown, Ireland. He was initially assigned to duty with Company D of the First Battalion of the Eleventh Infantry. It is not clear why he was removed from his original regiment, but the transfer was directed by Special Order No. 196 issued by the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac on July 7, 1862. At Gettysburg, Patrick O'Donnell #2 received a flesh wound to his right leg. Following treatment at a Fifth Corps field hospital, he was transferred to the general hospital in York, Pennsylvania, on July 19, 1863, where he remained until September 5, 1863. Although initially cleared for a return to duty, he was transferred on November 13, 1863, to the First Battalion of the Invalid Corps. In May 1864, his wound became reinfected and had to incised, which resulted a two-week hospital stay at the general hospital at Fort Columbus, New York Harbor. He would remain at Fort Columbus until the expiration of his enlistment on August 23, 1864.
The other Patrick O'Donnell apparently escaped the war without injury, although in an attempt to obtain a pension years later, he would claim to have received multiple wounds at the Second Battle of Bull Run in August 1862. The claim was not supported by company muster rolls or regimental records. Even more significant to the rejection of his claim was the fact that Patrick O'Donnell #1 was a "deserter at large as shown by the records of the War Dept." He reenlisted in Company F at Fort Hamilton, New York, on July 14, 1864, only to desert six days later. In an affidavit prepared in 1894, Patrick O'Donnell #1 admitted that after his reenlistment, he "got on a drunk and left the regiment, and never returned", but was under the mistaken impression he was covered by a presidential proclamation pardoning deserters. He was not.
(7) Private Cornelius O'Leary. Private O'Leary enlisted in Rochester, New York, on August 20, 1861. He was a 21-year old farmer at the time of his enlistment and had been born in Cork, Ireland. O'Leary was wounded when a ball struck his left foot, on the inside instep, and then passed through the middle part of his foot and exited between the fourth and little toes. He was treated at Gettysburg until July 19th, before being transferred to York, Pennsylvania, where he remained until early September. He was then sent to Fort Columbus, New York Harbor. By the
time he was returned to duty on October 2, 1863, the regiment had returned to Virginia. O'Leary was not sent to the field, but remained at Fort Columbus until the regiment returned to New York City in February 1864.
Private O'Leary was discharged at Fort Hamilton, New York Harbor, on August 20, 1864. He returned to Rochester after his discharge. In September 1867, he enlisted in the 44th Regiment of the Veteran Reserve Corps, but he was discharged 14 months later for habitual drunkenness. Beginning in the mid-1880's, O'Leary became a resident at a series of soldier homes, first in Washington, D.C., then Bath, New York, and finally Montgomery County, Ohio. In July 1892, he was judged insane by the Probate Court for Montgomery County and admitted to the Ohio State Hospital in Dayton, where he remained until his death on November 6, 1908.
(8) Private Gerhard H. Tholen. Private Tholen was also a veteran of frontier service in the Third Infantry. He first enlisted in the Army in 1855 and had reenlisted in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on January 19, 1860. He was 32 years old when he reenlisted and was a native of Hanover, Germany. Pension materials make no reference to the type of wound he sustained on July 2d, but he did receive a pension on account of a complete double hernia. He rejoined Company F in September 1863 and served the remainder of his five-year term of enlistment. He was discharged in Washington, D.C. on January 19, 1865, but reenlisted on June 5, 1865, and served for three years in Company I. He died on January 17, 1895 at the National Military Home in Leavenworth, Kansas.
(9) Private John Walsh. Private Welsh enlisted in Rochester, New York, on August 20, 1861. He was born in Queens County, Ireland, and was 27 years old when he enlisted. He had worked as a shoemaker. He was treated at York, Pennsylvania, and had not yet returned to duty by the end of 1863. He was discharged in August 1864 at Fort Hamilton, New York Harbor, at the end of his enlistment.
(1) Private Martin Birmingham. Private Birmingham enlisted in New York City on September 14, 1860. He was 26 years old when he enlisted and was by occupation a laborer. He was born in Roscommen, Ireland. Private Birmingham was wounded while the Third Infantry was advancing across Plum Run Valley at the double quick. A minie ball entered the outside of his left calf. The bullet fractured his fibia, followed along the bone a short distance, and exited three inches below his knee. He remained at a field hospital until July 24, 1863, when he was healed enough for transfer to the Mulberry Street General Hospital in Harrisburg. The leg was saved, but Birmingham would suffer from partial paralysis the rest of his life. He was transferred to the general hospital at Fort Columbus, New York Harbor, in October 1863. Despite having almost two years left in his enlistment, Birmingham never rejoined the regiment in the field. He remained at the Fort Columbus hospital until discharged from the Army on September 14, 1865. Birmingham had been absent from the regiment for two months during 1862. On August 12, 1862, Birmingham was admitted to a general hospital near Fort Monroe for rheumatism and was not returned to duty until September 27, 1862, thereby missing both the Second Battle of Bull Run and the Battle of Antietam.
(2) Private Thomas Carroll. Private Carroll was slightly wounded on July 2d, but the exact location of the wound is somewhat of a mystery. The field hospital records indicate he received a contusion to his right
knee, while the records of the hospital to which he was transferred on July 13th, McDougall General Hospital at Fort Schuyler, New York Harbor, state the wound was a contusion to the left instep. In pension materials, Carroll said he was wounded in the left leg below the knee. He was returned to duty from the Fort Schuyler hospital on August 28, 1863, and rejoined Company G in New York City on August 30, 1863. He was discharged at Fort Columbus, New York Harbor, on March 21, 1864, at the end of his enlistment, but he reenlisted in Company G just six days later for another three-year term. This enlistment expired in 1867 at Fort Lyon, Colorado.
At the time of his enlistment in New York City on March 21, 1861, Carroll gave his age as 27. However, he later reported to the Pension Bureau that he was born on January 6, 1839, which would mean he was actually 22 years old when he enlisted. He was born in Dublin, Ireland, and immigrated to the United States when he was 14 years old. He said he worked as a clerk before the war. While Private Carroll was a patient at Fort Schuyler, he most have received a furlough because he married Margaret Mathews in Tarrytown, New York, on July 31, 1863. By the end of April 1864, the couple had a son, George B. Carroll. George died when he was eight years old, and two other children of the couple died as infants. His second enlistment ended at Fort Lyon, Colorado, and afterwards Carroll and his wife lived in Kansas and Colorado until 1876 when they joined the gold rush to the Black Hills. Margaret died in Deadwood, South Dakota, in August 1881, of alcohol poisoning.
Carroll eventually moved to Montana and by June 1890, had taken up residence in Columbia Falls. He became a leading man in the community and served a justice of the peace for a number of years. On December 29, 1902, he married Margaret Shreve. The groom was almost 64 years old by this time, if you accept his 1839 birth date, while the bride was a 31-year old divorcee. They were married on the same day Margaret's divorce became final and, as justice of the peace, Carroll helped her get that divorce. They had one child, also named Margaret, who was born on June 14, 1906. Carroll finally died in Columbia Falls on June 21, 1919. His wife remarried a year later, but the daughter would receive a minor pension until she turned 16 in 1922.
(3) Private William Gill. Private Gill received a gunshot wound to his left side, in one hospital record the wound being referred to as a contusion. He was treated in a field hospital before being sent to the general hospital at Fort Schuyler, New York Harbor, on July 13th. On August 11, 1863, he was sent to Fort Hamilton and rejoined Company G in New York City by the end of the month. He enlisted in New York City on February 11, 1861. He was born in Kerry, Ireland, and was a 21 year old farmer when he enlisted. He was discharged on February 21, 1864, at the regiment's winter quarters near Catlett's Station, Virginia.
Before being transferred to Company G in March 1863, Private Gill served in Company E and was wounded while stationed with that company at Fort Pickens, Florida. Fort Pickens is situated on a barrier island on the pan handle of Florida and covers the entrance to Pensacola harbor. Like Fort Sumter outside of Charleston, South Carolina, Fort Pickens was occupied by Regular troops in early 1861 while Rebels occupied the mainland forts. Unlike Fort Sumter, Fort Pickens could be reinforced and resupplied without coming under fire from Confederate batteries. In April 1861, Companies C and E of the Third Infantry were among the first Union
troops to reinforce Fort Pickens, and they would remain at this post until May 1862.
During their 13 months at Fort Pickens, Companies C and E participated in the Battle of Santa Rosa Island in October 1861 and bombardments of the Confederate positions in November 1861 and on New Years Day 1862. The first bombardment lasted two days, November 22 and 23, and although Union casualties were light, one killed and seven enlisted men wounded, six of the wounded were members of Company E. Worse casualties were to result two days later. While the garrison was collecting the unexploded Rebel shells laying about the fort, one of the soldiers tried to empty one of the shells by knocking it against another shell. An explosion ensued, which caused the explosion of another shell. Five soldiers were instantly killed, most from Company L of the First Artillery, but also Private Frederick Verger of Company C, and seven other enlisted men were injured, including Private Gill who received a contusion.
(4) Private John Hennessey. Private Hennessey was wounded when he was struck in his right wrist by a ball, which lodged itself in the joint of the wrist and injured the wrist so severely that he never again be able to move the wrist or close the fingers of his right hand. Although first treated at a field hospital, Hennessey was among the first soldiers evacuated to Satterlee General Hospital in West Philadelphia. He was admitted on July 7th and remained there until late September 1863 when he was transferred to St. Joseph's General Hospital in New York's Central Park. While a patient at Satterlee General Hospital, Hennessey's wound became infected, which nearly required amputation of his forearm, but by incisions its loss was averted.
Private Hennessey was one of only four soldiers in the regiment who were discharged for disability on account of their Gettysburg wounds. Private Hennessey was discharged from the Army on October 16, 1863, while a patient at the Central Park hospital, even though his term of enlistment was not due to expire for almost three months. He had enlisted in Boston on January 9, 1861, at the age of 21. He was a shoemaker by trade and was born in Kerry County, Ireland. He returned to Boston upon his discharge and, within 11 days, had applied for an invalid pension since he was unable physically to resume shoemaking. He was able to resume soldiering, at least for a short time. On July 22, 1864, Hennessey enlisted in Boston in the 7th Regiment of the Veteran Reserve Corps, but he was discharged the next January on account of his disability.
On November 5, 1865, Hennessey married Mary J. Cantillion in Boston. They would have one child. In 1869, Hennessey moved to San Francisco, but it appears from the pension records that his wife and child may not have accompanied him. He was a resident of Sacramento, California, in 1880, but by the time of his death in June 1886, he was Prisoner No. 822 at Folsom Prison.
(5) Private John Herman. Private Hermann enlisted on July 12, 1858, in New York City, and was due to be discharged just 10 days after the battle on July 12, 1863. No information has been found regarding the wound he received or the location or duration of his hospitalization. It is likely that he was brought to a field hospital since the location at which he received his discharge is not recorded in the muster roll for Company G, which would have been noted had he been with the company on July 12th. That no medical record has been found for Private Herman from the Gettysburg field hospitals raises the possibility that he may have
died from his wounds and his identity was not known at that time. He was born in Cohessen, Germany, in 1837 and was by occupation a carver. He served in Company E before being transferred to Company G in March 1863.
(6) Private John or Johan Horner. Private Horner enlisted on September 8, 1860, in Rochester, New York. He was born in Baden, Germany, and immigrated to the United States in 1857. He had been a baker in civilian life and returned to this occupation when he left the Army. He was 21 years old when he enlisted. In the battle, Horner was struck by a ball that entered his left breast and came to rest at the juncture of his third rib and sternum. Fortunately, the ball did not enter the chest cavity. Doctors at a field hospital successfully removed the ball, and he was well enough to be transferred to the general hospital at Fort Schuyler, New York Harbor, on July 13, 1863 to rejoin Company G in New York City on August 30, 1863.
Hornor also sustained a second wound in the battle. The carded medical records of the Second Division hospital states the second wound was to Horner's leg, but Horner later claimed he cut his left wrist on a bayonet or other sharp object when he fell after being wounded in the chest. Promoted to corporal, Horner reenlisted in Company G on July 14, 1864, while in garrison at Fort Hamilton, New York Harbor. However, he deserted on September 3, 1864, while on detached service as a guard at a recruiting office in Williamsburg, New York. In 1892, Horner applied for an invalid pension on account of his Gettysburg wounds and chronic bronchitis. He was a resident of Buffalo, New York, at the time of his application. Of course, the application was rejected since he was still a deserter at large, notwithstanding the passage of almost 30 years. In later correspondence with the Pension Bureau, he admitted that he "had got sick of the service". After he was on duty at the recruiting office for three or four weeks, he injured his leg in a fall and went to a civilian hospital in New York City. Upon his release, he simply "made no effort to return to the recruiting office or to my regiment".
(7) Private Morris or Maurice Keyes. Private Keyes was wounded in the left arm. He was treated at the divisional field hospital between July 3d and July 9, and the carded medical records indicate that he was then sent to a general hospital. The name of that hospital has not been found, and the stay could not have been long, for he was again present with Company G by the end of July. Keyes was one of the frontier veterans still present with the regiment in 1863. He was in his thirteenth year of service in 1863, having most recently reenlisted on December 17, 1860, at Fort Clark, Texas. He was born in Cork, Ireland, and was 36 years old at the time of his 1860 reenlistment.
Keyes began yet another enlistment on July 14, 1864, upon his release from his five-year enlistment and his reenlistment in Company G at Fort Hamilton, New York Harbor, for three years. Further enlistments were to follow as carded medical records exist for Private Keyes, and it appears he remained a private throughout his military career, through March 1877. He may have been wounded in fighting with Indians in this subsequent service, or perhaps his Gettysburg wound became infected, for he was admitted to the Fort Lyon, Colorado, hospital on July 10, 1870, for a lacerated wound and the Fort Reynolds, Colorado, hospital on January 22, 1872, for a contused wound. He also struggled with alcoholism between May 1872 and May 1874, being admitted five times to the Fort Lyon hospital for inebriation, once for an 11-day period. However, no such medical record exists for Keyes after May 1874.
(8) Private Allen McCord. Private McCord enlisted in New York City on February 21, 1861, and was assigned to Company E. He was a 25 year old farmer from Tyrone, Ireland. He was the only wounded enlisted man in the regiment to top six feet, as he stood a towering 6'1/4" among comrades who averaged 5'6" tall. He received a gunshot wound to the right leg. He was treated in the divisional field hospital until July 19th and afterwards in the general hospital in York, Pennsylvania, until December 4th. After a week in the convalescent hospital in Patterson Park, Baltimore, he returned to the regiment in the field. He was discharged February 1864 upon the expiration of his enlistment.
(9) Private Charles M. Sanborn. Private Sanborn was born in Carroll, New Hampshire, in 1840 and enlisted in Boston on April 17, 1861. He had been a machinist before his enlistment. Two of his former comrades left detailed descriptions of the events surrounding the wounding of Private Sanborn when they filed affidavits in 1884 after his death in support of his wife's claim for a widow's pension. One of the affidavits was prepared by Edmund B. Whalen, who at the time of the battle was a corporal of Company E assigned to duty with Company G. According to Whalen, Sanborn was standing in ranks and in the act of loading his rifle, when he was struck in the groin and fell down. Whalen asked him where and how he was hurt, and Sanborn responded by pointing to the place where his wound was and saying "in his usual cool manner, `I guess I am good for about 3 months'." Private James Morse of Company G also remembered the wounded Sanborn. Private Morse's cartridge box had come apart during the race to the battlefield and he needed a replacement. When he saw Sanborn fall, Morse went over to him and asked whether he would be able to go on. Sanborn said no as he could not stand up, so Morse took his knife and cut Sanborn's belt and took his cartridge box. Morse also placed Sanborn's knapsack under Sanborn's head before Morse "went on with my Regiment into the fight". From this information, it would seem that Private Sanborn was wounded when the Third Infantry, as part of the First Brigade, was deployed on the slope of Little Round Top before its advance across Plum Run Valley toward the Wheatfield.
Sanborn was subsequently carried to a field hospital where he was diagnosed with a contusion of the testicles. On July 9, 1863, he was transferred to Satterlee General Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Released on September 21, 1863, he rejoined the regiment in the field at the end of October. He reenlisted in the Army on February 27, 1864, at Fort Columbus, New York Harbor, for an additional three years. He rose to the rank of sergeant before his discharge at Fort Lyon, Colorado, in 1867. After his military service, Sanborn supported himself as a house painter. In 1871, while residing at a boarding house in Chelsea, Massachusetts, he met Martha H. Daniels who was the cook at the establishment. They were married on August 17, 1872, in Quincy, Massachusetts, and resided in Rockland. The war wound obviously did not prevent Sanborn from having children as they had a daughter, Susie, just two months after they were married. A son William was born in July 1875 and a daughter Carrie in October 1877. Sanborn died on June 11, 1880, of kidney disease. Whalen and Sanborn remained in contact after the war, and Whalen attended his friend's funeral, writing the following about his deceased comrade: "He was when able to work a faithful, sober, and honest man."
(10) Private Lewis H. Spooner. Private Spooner enlisted in Rochester, New York, on June 10, 1861, and was one of the minority of soldiers in
the regiment who was actually born in the United States. Private Spooner was born in Monroe, New York, and had worked as a laborer before his enlistment. At the time of his enlistment in 1861, he gave his age as 21, but three years later when he applied for an invalid pension on account of his Gettysburg wound, he stated that he was now just 19 years old. In the battle, Private Spooner received a gunshot wound in the center of his right hand, which seriously splintered the base bone of the second finger of that hand. He did not rejoin the regiment until February 20, 1864.
On June 10, 1864, Private Spooner was discharged at Fort Hamilton, New York Harbor, upon the expiration of his enlistment. By July 6, 1864, he was in Marion, New York, and applying for an invalid pension, but he was not to receive one. It appears that just five days after he left Company G, Spooner reenlisted in Boston, Massachusetts, but under the name Henry L. Spooner rather than Lewis H. Spooner. The enlistment paper indicated that said Henry last served in Company G of the Third Infantry and was discharged June 10, 1864. He returned to Company G at Fort Hamilton, but deserted on June 29, 1864. The Adjutant Generals Office endorsed Spooner's pension application with the following note: "It is respectfully requested that you furnish this office with the present location of Lewis H. Spooner so that he may be arrested as a deserter." Perhaps not surprisingly, Spooner abandoned his claim for a pension.
(1) Sergeant Thomas G. Duncan. Sergeant Duncan was actually a member of Company E, but he was attached to Company I for muster and pay purposes. While the privates in Company E were transferred to other companies in March 1863, Sergeant Duncan was permitted to retain his noncommissioned rank in Company E while serving as an additional noncommissioned officer with Company I. He enlisted at Newport, Kentucky, on July 23, 1860. He was 24 years old at that time and was born in Carlville, Ohio. He had worked for a photographer before his enlistment. The wound Sergeant Duncan received is not recorded. He was treated at Gettysburg for only a few days before being admitted to Satterlee General Hospital in West Philadelphia on July 7. He was returned to duty on August 20, 1863, and rejoined the regiment in New York City.
The military service of Sergeant Duncan illustrates the best and worst of the Regular soldier in the Civil War. In the Battle of Santa Rosa Island outside of Fort Pickens, Florida, on October 9, 1861, then Corporal Duncan was slightly wounded and specifically mentioned in his commander's report for conspicuous service. However, he was completely unavailable to the regiment for the 1862 battles before Richmond. On June 22, 1862, he was admitted to the hospital at White House Landing, Virginia, on account of syphilis. While the Battle of Gaines Mill was raging on June 27, 1862, Duncan was on board a hospital steamer en route to Philadelphia. He was not returned to duty until July 31, 1862, so he was presumably present with his company by the Second Battle of Bull Run. Beginning in October 1863, Sergeant Duncan was on detached service at Second Division headquarters as part of divisional provost guard, but he was again unavailable for duty during most of March and April 1864 due to a reoccurrence of the venereal disease. Finally, he deserted on May 2, 1864. He was apprehended in July 1864 and served the remainder of his term of enlistment as a private. He was discharged at Philadelphia on July 23, 1865.
(2) Private Peter Daly. Private Daly was wounded in the left hand. Treated at a field hospital until July 9, he was also hospitalized at
Satterlee General Hospital in Philadelphia, St. Joseph's General Hospital in New York City, and Fort Columbus, New York Harbor. He was returned to duty on November 6, 1863, and sent to join the regiment in Virginia. Private Daly first enlisted in 1854 and reenlisted on July 10, 1859, at Fort Chadbourne, Texas. He was born in Meath, Ireland, and was 30 years old when he reenlisted. Private Daly originally served in Company G of the First Infantry, but that company was broken up in February 1862 to bring Company I of the Third Infantry up to sufficient strength to take the field. While in the First Infantry, he had been absent as a deserter from January 12, 1860, until April 11, 1861. He was required to make good most of the 15 months of his five-year term of enlistment he missed as a deserter. He was finally discharged on June 15, 1865, at the camp of the regiment near the Headquarters of the Army of the Potomac in Northern Virginia.
(3) Private Edwin Spitzer. Private Spitzer enlisted in Rochester, New York, on February 15, 1861. He was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1840 and was a farmer. He originally served in Company E, but was transferred to Company I in March 1863. During the retreat of the Third Infantry across Plum Run, Private Spitzer received a gunshot wound in the back. The minie ball entered near the spine on the back of his neck, injuring several vertebra, before passing downward through the left shoulder about six inches and existing his body. He was not brought off the field until after the fighting had ended on July 2d. Following initial treatment at a field hospital near Gettysburg, he was transferred to the General Hospital in York, Pennsylvania, where he stayed from July 20 through September 4, 1863. Unable to immediately return to duty, Spitzer spent the fall and winter of 1863 shuttling between hospitals at Governor's Island, New York, Washington, D.C., and Alexandria, Virginia. He was finally able to rejoin the regiment on February 1, 1864, at Catlett's Station, Virginia, for a final 15 days of active duty before the expiration of his enlistment. According to Spitzer's discharge certificate, signed by Lieutenant John Page, Spitzer also received a gun shot wound to his right leg during the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863, although the muster roll for that month does not list him as wounded in the battle or otherwise unable to perform duty.
Following his discharge, Spitzer initially returned to New York and resided in Clarendon, Orleans County. He first applied for a invalid pension in 1867, claiming disabilities from both his Gettysburg and alleged Chancellorsville wounds as well as damage to his right thumb caused by an accident in February 1863 received during bayonet drill. He was married twice. His first wife was Mary Brockway who died near Washington, Kansas, in the fall of 1880. They had one daughter, Susie, who was born in 1872. On January 8, 1882, Spitzer married Mary Ellen Umback of Vernon County, Wisconsin. She was 22 years his junior, having been born on August 8, 1862. They had at least four children, William, Earl, Jessie (born April 10, 1897), and Millie (born November 14, 1901). Spitzer died at his home in Donny Brook, North Dakota, on April 19, 1907. His widow subsequently moved to Everett, Washington, where she passed away on May 10, 1940.
(1) Corporal Frederick (or Friedrich) Lehmann. Corporal Lehman enlisted in Buffalo, New York, on April 13, 1861. He was born in Prussia, Germany, in 1840 and had worked as a blacksmith before his enlistment. He was appointed a corporal on October 1, 1862. In the fighting on July 2,
he received a gunshot wound to his right thigh, which required treatment, first at a field hospital until July 19th and then at the general hospital in York, Pennsylvania through August 24th. He was then sent to rejoin the regiment, but spent another week at hospitals in Baltimore, before proceeding to New York City. Upon his arrival on September 3, 1863, he was promoted to sergeant. He served the remainder of his three-year term of enlistment and was discharged at Fort Columbus, New York Harbor.
Lehmann resided in Louisville, Kentucky, until his death on August 15, 1879. On January 11, 1866, he married Louisa Lentz at the German Evangelical St. Paulis Church in Louisville. They had five children, two of whom died as infants. At the time of Lehmann's death, Louisa was left with a cottage at 2308 Montgomery St. in Louisville worth about $1000 and two milk cows, and from the selling of milk she supported herself and her children. Louisa died September 4, 1926.
(2) Private Herman Dersh. Private Dersh was born in 1837 in Hesse Cassel, Germany. He was a painter when he enlisted in Philadelphia on July 12, 1858. He was wounded just 10 days before his five-year term of enlistment was to expire. A ball entered the left side of his neck, below the ear, and lodged in his cheek bones, completely paralyzing the left side of his face. He was treated at the divisional field hospital and transferred to Satterlee General Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July 9th. He did not have the bullet removed during either hospitalization. Much of his subsequent disability, he became nearly blind in his left eye and deaf in his left ear, was blamed on his refusal to ever have the bullet extracted. Sufficiently recovered by August 7, 1863, he was sent to the hospital Provost Marshal for discharge on account of his enlistment having ending while he was a patient.
After his discharge, Dersh resided in Reading, Pennsylvania. He married Elizabeth Davies on March 19, 1864, and their first child was born almost exactly one year later, March 20, 1865. They would have five additional children. Dersh first applied for an invalid pension in 1867 on account of his facial disability. In 1886, he began seeking an increase in the pension amount on account of disability resulting from a second wound he allegedly received at Gettysburg. According to Dersh, after being wounded in the head and while lying on the field, another ball entered just below the left arm and lodged in his shoulder. Reference to this wound did not appear in the records of the divisional hospital, but a medical examination in the late 1880's did reveal a scar. Dersh also produced affidavits from three of his former comrades, Sergeant Charles Schaefer of Company E, Private Thomas Sullivan of Company C, and Private George Lucas of Company K, who said they saw or heard that Dersh was wounded multiple times. According to Private Sullivan, it was "the common report and understanding that Dersh was fatally wounded and would not recover."
Former Sergeant Schaefer was the only one of the three who claimed first-hand knowledge of Dersh's second wound. Sergeant Schaefer had been first sergeant of Company E, but that company had been used in March 1863 to fill the ranks of other companies, so he was acting first sergeant of Company G at the time of the battle. In his affidavit, Schaefer claimed he was wounded in the fighting on July 2d, which led to his encounter with the wounded Dersh. While making his way to a field hospital to have his wound treated, Schaefer noticed a number of wounded soldiers from the regiment laying under some trees in an orchard. As he passed by the
group, Dersh called out "Charlie don't you know me?" Dersh was so disfigured in his face that Schaefer at first failed to recognize him. Schaefer stopped to talk to Dersh for a few minutes and found that he was not only wounded in the face but also in the shoulder. Is the story accurate? Schaefer is not specified among the wounded on either the regimental return or Captain Sheridan's list. Perhaps Schaefer received only a slight wound that went unrecorded since he was able to return to the regiment and resume duty after the hospital visit. If that is the case, the total number of casualties suffered by the Third Infantry fails to reflect Sergeant Schaefer and perhaps other soldiers whose wounds were minor.
(3) Private Francis Fitzsimons or Fitzsimmons. Private Fitzsimons enlisted in New York City on March 19, 1861. He was born in Longford, Ireland, and was 21 years old when he enlisted. He gave his occupation as laborer. No information is available regarding his Gettysburg wound, but it was the second wound he received in combat. Private Fitzsimons was also wounded in the hand at the Second Battle of Bull Run on August 30, 1862, and listed as missing in action on the regimental return for that month. He was not captured. Instead, he managed to retreat with the rest of the Army and was admitted to Trinity General Hospital in Washington, D.C., on September 1st. He was subsequently transferred to the general hospital in Chester, Pennsylvania, where he would remain until February 17, 1863. The regiment finally learned about his whereabouts in October 1862, and the regimental return for that month listed him as gained from missing in action at Chester, Pennsylvania, on October 16th. He rejoined the regiment in person in early March 1863.
Whatever his Gettysburg wound, Private Fitzsimons never recovered sufficiently to return to the regiment. He was admitted to Satterlee General Hospital in West Philadelphia on July 7th and then transferred to the general hospital at Broad and Cherry Streets in Philadelphia in late September. At the end of January 1864, he was recovering from his wound at the convalescence hospital in Philadelphia. He remained at this hospital until discharged from the Army on March 19, 1864, at the end of his enlistment.
(4) Private George Hastings. Private Hastings was an 18 year old farmer when he enlisted in Rochester, New York, on June 30, 1862. He was born in Monroe, New York. He originally served in Company A and was transferred to Company K in March 1863 when the regiment was reduced from ten to six active companies. Private Hastings was wounded in the left thigh on July 2d. He was treated at the divisional field hospital until July 19th and then transferred to York, Pennsylvania. On September 6, 1863, he was admitted to the general hospital at Fort Columbus, New York Harbor, and sent to the regiment a week later. He was able to accompany the Third Infantry to Washington, but was not strong enough for field duty. Instead, he was admitted to the Mansion House General Hospital in Alexandria, Virginia, on September 15th. He enjoyed a 30-day furlough in October, before rejoining the regiment in December 1863. He ended his service on June 30, 1865, at the camp of the regiment near Fort Craig in Northern Virginia.
(5) Private James Kearns. Private Kearns was wounded by a minie ball that entered his body from behind his upper left arm, passed through his left shoulder, exited from his neck, and finally struck his lower left jaw. In 1915, Kearns wrote a detailed account of his care and treatment, which he indicated was pretty typical for Regular Army soldiers wounded
at Gettysburg. According to this account, he spent about a week at a Fifth Corps field hospital until the doctors gave orders for every man who was badly wounded, but ambulatory, to walk to the Gettysburg train depot, a distance of about two miles, for transfer to a general hospital. Perhaps Kearns left a little earlier than ordered for he was listed as "deserted July 6, 1863", in the records of the Second Division hospital. He was hardly a deserter, as he was admitted to Chestnut Hill General Hospital near Philadelphia on July 7th. On account of his broken jaw, his hospital diet consisted of corn starch. According to Kearns, "all the Regulars were then ordered to their own Hospital at Governor's Island, New York Harbor, [but] when on our way to said Hospital we stopped at St. Joseph Hospital, New York City, where we remained for two of three months and then went to our Hospital on Governor's Island." St. Joseph's Hospital was located in New York's Central Park and Kearns was admitted on September 27, 1863. The actual transfer to the general hospital at Fort Columbus on Governor's Island took place on October 20, 1863.
When the Third Infantry was withdrawn from the field in February 1864 and sent to garrison the forts about New York Harbor, Kearns was finally able to rejoin Company K, but first he had to avoid transfer to the Invalid Corps. "I preferred to be with [my company] as most all the Regulars did who were wounded and could possibly keep out of said Invalid Corps." During part of his service in New York, he was detached for service in the Provost Marshal's Office in Brooklyn to guard draft substitutes lest they desert before joining their regiments in the field. However, he also spent more than two months in the post hospital at Fort Hamilton suffering from syphilis. Kearns accompanied the Third Infantry to Washington, D.C. in October 1864, but explained in his post-war account that his shoulder wound rendered him unfit for field duty when the regiment left for Petersburg, Virginia in late February 1865. Instead, he claimed he was transferred to the Invalid Corps and served as a guard at one of the Washington hospitals until May 1865. Actually, he was a patient in one of these hospitals, having been admitted on December 22, 1864, for a reoccurrence of the venereal disease.
Kearns was born in Kerry, Ireland, on March 9, 1844, and immigrated as an infant with his family to Ottawa, Canada. His mother died when he was about seven years old, and he was sent by his father to live with a farm family about 10 miles from Ottawa. In 1862, he "took a notion to come to the United States" and in June secured work on a farm near Rochester, New York. The farmer's son came home as a lieutenant and, within a month, Kearns was enlisting in Rochester. In early August 1862, he was assigned to Company A of the Third Infantry, which was still stationed at Fort Columbus and needed recruits before it could join the rest of the regiment in the field. When Company A was consolidated with Company K in March 1863, the date of Kearn's enlistment was inadvertently changed from July 30th to July 3d on the company muster rolls. He was therefore discharged on July 3, 1865, at the camp of the Third Infantry near Fort Craig in northern Virginia. He wanted to reenlist, but needed special medical clearance on account of the shoulder wound, or was it the venereal disease, which was not obtained until July 6, 1865.
Three years later he reenlisted again, this time in Company E. During his six years in the West, he served in several staff positions in St. Louis and Fort Leavenworth and with his company at various posts in Kansas and the Indian Territory (Oklahoma). He ended his final enlistment as a sergeant in charge of a mail station about 50 miles north of Camp
Supply in the Indian Territory. Kearns would take special pride in the fact that during his nine years of service, he was not once under arrest. Kearns subsequently served as an Irish cop in Chicago until his retirement in 1903. In 1915, he resided at 2825 Division St, Chicago. He died on January 1, 1917.
(6) Private Timothy Linahan. Private Linahan was born in 1840 in Kerry, Ireland, and had been employed as a laborer before his enlistment. He enlisted in Chicago on July 27, 1858, and was another transferee to Company K from Company A in March 1863. He was wounded in the right leg. Entitled to his discharge from the Army on July 27, 1863, he was actually discharged on August 13th from the general hospital in York, Pennsylvania, where he had been a patient since July 20th.
(7) Private Max Miller (or Muller). Private Miller enlisted in Philadelphia on June 20, 1861. He was born in Baden, Germany. He was 19 years old and a baker when he enlisted. At Gettysburg, he received a flesh wound to his left thigh. Admitted to the general hospital in York, Pennsylvania, on July 20th upon transfer from a field hospital, he was sent to New York City in September to rejoin Company K. Like Private Hastings, Miller accompanied the Third Infantry to Washington in September 1863, but had to be admitted to the Mansion House General Hospital in Alexandria, Virginia, rather than take the field. On October 5, 1863, he was sent back Fort Columbus, New York Harbor, where he remained until the regiment arrived in February 1864. He reenlisted in the Army on March 28, 1864.
(8) Private William Nash. Private Nash received a gunshot wound of his left thigh during the battle on July 2d. The ball entered his thigh on the outer side about midway between the hip and knee. Missing both leg bones, it emerged on the inner side of his thigh at a point nearly opposite and a little below the point of entrance. After initial treatment at the hospital of the Second Division established near Gettysburg, he was transferred on July 19th to the general hospital in York, Pennsylvania. In late September 1863, he was sent to the convalescent hospital in Patterson Park, Baltimore. Although he was returned to duty on October 15, 1863, he was not listed as present with the regiment until December 1863. Private Nash enlisted in Rochester, New York, on June 21, 1861. He was a 30 year old laborer and a native of Mayo, Ireland. He reenlisted in Company K on March 28, 1864, and was discharged at the end of this three-year enlistment at Fort Harker, Kansas. He worked as a farm laborer in Iowa after his discharge. In 1882, he was a resident of Trenton, Missouri, where he began receiving a small pension on account of a difficulty in walking due to the effects of his Gettysburg wound.
(9) Private Franklin A. Shedd. Private Shedd enlisted in Cleveland on September 17, 1860, and was originally assigned to Company A. He was born in Richmond, Ohio. He was 21 years old and by trade a laborer when he enlisted. He was sent to a hospital in Philadelphia for treatment of his wounds. His five-year term of enlistment was terminated early when he was permitted to reenlist on July 25, 1864, while stationed with the regiment at Fort Hamilton, New York Harbor.
The two enlisted men of the Third Infantry listed as missing in action after the Battle of Gettysburg were both missing because they were captured by Confederates. Private John Carroll of Company F was discovered to be missing and unaccounted for when the regiment
reassembled on Little Round Top after the battle on July 2d. Private Thomas Sullivan of Company C was somehow lost on the evening of July 4th while the regiment performed picket duty. The prisoners were forced to accompany the retreating Confederates back to Virginia in July 1863. They arrived in Richmond on August 2, 1863, and were held at one of the Richmond prisoner of war facilities. They were paroled at City Point, Virginia, on September 29, 1863. Private Carroll rejoined the regiment at its camp near Culpepper, Virginia, on October 9th. The date of Private Sullivan's return is not recorded, but he did serve the remainder of his three-year term of enlistment and was discharged at Fort Richmond, New York Harbor, on April 17, 1864. He was 21 years old at the time of his discharge. He was born in Cork, Ireland, and worked as a teamster before his enlistment. He enlisted in New York City and originally served in Company D. Private Carroll enlisted in Boston on August 3, 1861, at the age of 21. He was born in Galway, Ireland, and had been employed as a spinner before his enlistment. He originally served in Company A. None the worse for wear after his three-month captivity, Private Carroll reenlisted in the Army in Washington on February 21, 1864.
While Privates Carroll and Sullivan were being held by the Confederates in Richmond, they were joined by another enlisted man from the Third Infantry, Private Robert Hope of Company C. Private Hope was among the troops straggling during the march of the regiment to Gettysburg. In fact, the muster roll for Company C for June 1863 indicates that he disappeared during the first day's march of the regiment from the Rappahannock River. He finally rejoined the regiment in July, but not for long. The August 1863 muster roll indicates that Private Hope deserted from the camp of the regiment near Goose Creek, Virginia, on July 22, 1863. Whether he intended to desert or was simply foraging is unknown since he never had the opportunity to rejoin the regiment. He was captured by Confederates and sent to Richmond. While Privates Carroll and Sullivan were paroled, Private Hope remained in captivity. He died on December 19, 1863, at General Hospital No. 21 in Richmond of chronic dysentery.
Aftermath of the Battle
The Battle of Gettysburg was the last major engagement of the Third Infantry during the Civil War. Although numerous battles remained to be fought in 1864 and 1865, the regiment would suffer only one more battle casualty during the remainder of the war. The regiment, along with the rest of the Fifth Corps, participated in the unsuccessful pursuit of the Confederate Army back into Virginia in July and August 1863. During this march, Colonel Day ended his brief association with the First Brigade. On July 18, 1863, from the camp of the brigade near Berlin, Maryland, Colonel Day applied to the Adjutant General to be placed on the Retired List after a continuous service of forty years on account of a "physical inability to pursue an active campaign in the field." The application was accepted to take effect on August 1st. After his retirement, Colonel Day commanded Fort Hamilton, New York Harbor, until July 1864 and then served on various military commissions and courts marshal.
While encamped near Beverly Ford on the Rappahannock River in Virginia in mid-August 1863, the Third Infantry and the other Regular infantry regiments in the Fifth Corps were detached from the Army of the Potomac and sent to New York City to enforce the draft laws. The troops proceeded by rail to Alexandria, Virginia, and sailed to New York City by steamer. During its one-month stay in New York, the Third Infantry was
quartered in Washington Square with the Fourth Infantry. While several of the Regular regiments remained in New York throughout the fall and winter to recruit, the Third Infantry returned to Virginia in September 1863. The regiment participated in the Bristoe Station and Mine Run Campaigns in October and November 1863 and went into winter quarters near Catlett's Station, Virginia. In February 1864, the Third Infantry was withdrawn from campaign service on account of its small size and sent to garrison the forts in New York Harbor. By this time, the regiment could muster only 200 enlisted men present for duty. In October 1864, the regiment returned to Washington, D.C., and encamped at Camp Relief situated on the hill (known as Granly Hill) at the then end of 7th Street Northwest.
The Third Infantry rejoined the Army of the Potomac on February 25, 1865. During the campaign that resulted in the surrender of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox, the Third Infantry acted as guard to the headquarters train of the Army. After the surrender, the regiment marched from Farmville, Virginia, to Washington D.C. to participate in the grand review held in May 1865 to honor the victorious Union troops. The Third and Tenth Infantry Regiments were the first infantry regiments in the parade and the only Regular Army infantry units to appear in the two days of the grand review. By October 1865, the Third Infantry was en route west for a return to frontier service. It has participated in the several wars of this century and currently is stationed at Fort Myers, Virginia, as the "Old Guard" of the Army.
When the monuments at Gettysburg to the Regular Army troops were dedicated in 1909, one member of the Third Infantry who participated in the Battle of Gettysburg was able to attend the dedication ceremony at the battlefield. Patrick Reily had enlisted in the Army in New York City in February 1861 and was present at the battle as a private in Company B. He was 70 years old when he traveled to Gettysburg to attend the ceremony.
The following sources were used in the preparation of this paper:
The National Archives (Written Materials):
Record Group 15: Records of the Veterans Administration, Civil War Pension Application Files. Entries are filed by application and certificate numbers. Information regarding the nature of wounds, wifes and children, and post-military life were derived from pension files.
Record Group 94: Written Records of the Office of the Adjutant General.
Entry 53: Muster Rolls of U.S. Army Infantry Regiments.
Entry 529: Carded Medical Records, Regular Army, 1821-1884. Information regarding the nature of wounds and the hospitals at which treatment was received were derived from this source.
Appointment, Commission, and Personal Branch (ACP) entries for certain commissioned officers. Information regarding Captain Henry Freedley came from this source.
Record Group 153: Records of the Office of the Judge Advocate.
Records of the Proceedings of the U.S. Army General Courts-Martial. The Lieutenant Butler Court Martial is item L.L. 663.
Record Group 391: Preliminary Inventory of the Records of the U.S. Regular Army Mobile Units, 1821-1942.
Entry 1101: Letters, Orders, and Reports Received From or Relating to Members of the 3d Infantry, 1861-1865.
Record Group 393: United States Army Continental Commands, 1821-1920.
Part II: Polyonymous Successions of Commands, 1861-1870.
Entry 284: Miscellaneous Records of the First Brigade, Second Division, Fifth Army Corps.
The National Archives (Microfilm Records by film number):
M233: Register of Enlistments in the U.S. Army, 1798-1914.
M619: Letters Received, Adjutant General's Office (Main Series) 1861-1870.
M665: Returns from Regular Army Infantry Regiments, 1821-1916.
M725: Indexes to Letters Received, Adjutant General's Office (Main Series), 1846, 1861-1889.
M1064: Letters Received by the Commissions Branch of the Adjutant General's Office, 1863-1870. Information regarding Lieutenants Butler and Mourton came from this source.
M1105: Registers of the Records of the Proceedings of the U.S. Army General Courts-Martial.
M1125: Name and Subject Index to Letters Received by the Appointment, Commission, and Personal Branch, Adjutant General's Office, 1871-1917.
M1281: Summary Statements of Quarterly Returns of Ordnance and Ordnance Stores on Hand in Regular and Volunteer Army Organizations, 1862-1867.
T288: General Index to Pension Files, 1861-1934.
The Papers of the Burbank-Van Voorhis Family (Item #130) in the Library of Congress Manuscript Division. Colonel Sidney Burbank commanded the Second Brigade of Regular infantry at the Battle of Gettysburg.
Parker, Dangerfield, Service in the Third Infantry during the War of the Rebellion. In the Old Guard Museum, Building 249, Sheridan Avenue, Fort Myers, Virginia.
Page, John, Untitled Manuscript. In the Old Guard Museum, Building 249, Sheridan Avenue, Fort Myers, Virginia.
Busey, John W. and David G. Martin. Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg. Hightstown, New Jersey: Longstreet House, 1986.
Chase, Dudley H. "Gettysburg." Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the U.S., Commandery of the State of Indiana, War Papers, Vol. 1. Indianapolis: Published by the Commandery, 1898.
Coco, Gregory A. A Vast Sea of Misery: A History and Guide to the Union and Confederate Field Hospitals at Gettysburg. Gettysburg: Thomas Publications, 1988.
Crook, George. The Autobiography of General George Crook. 1946.
Cullum, George W. Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. from Its Establishment, in 1802, to 1890 with the Early History of the United States Military Academy, 3 Vols. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Company, 1891.
Gross, George J. The Battlefield of Gettysburg. Philadelphia: Collins, 1866. The allegation that General Sykes delayed the deployment of the Fifth Corps by permitting his command to make coffee came from this source.
Heitman, Francis B. Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army, 2 Vols. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1903.
Henry, Guy V. Military Record of Civilian Appointments in the United States Army, 2 Vols. London: George W. Carleton, 1869.
Lewis, F.W. "The Regular Infantry in Gettysburg Campaign", part of the article "To Commemorate the Services of the Regular Army in the
Gettysburg Campaign". Journal of the Military Service Institute of the United States, Vol. 44 (1909), pp. 39-49.
Meyers, Augustus. Ten Years in the Ranks U.S. Army. New York: The Sterling Press, 1914.
Moore, Frank, ed. The Rebellion Record: A Dairy of American Events. Volume III. New York: Putnam, 1861.
Pfanz, Harry W. Gettysburg: The Second Day. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1987.
Powell, William H. The Fifth Army Corps. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1896.
Powell, William H. Powell's Records of Living Officers of the United States Army. Philadelphia: L.R. Hammersly & Company, 1890.
Raus, Edmond J. Jr. A Generation on the March-The Union Army at Gettysburg. U.S. Army Military History Institute, 1987.
Sifakis, Stewart. Who Was Who in the Civil War. New York: Facts on File Publications, 1988.
U.S. Government, Government Printing Office. Medal of Honor, 1863-1968. Prepared for the Subcommittee on Veteran's Affairs of the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare of the United States Senate, 1968.
U.S. Government, War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Series I, Vol. 27, Part 1, contains the official Union reports of the Battle of Gettysburg.
Weygant, Charles H. History of the One Hundred and Twenty-Fourth Regiment, N.Y.S.V.. Newburgh, New York: Journal Printing House, 1877. This contains another supposed eye-witness account of the making-coffee incident.