A Thousand May Fall

by Brian Matthew Jordan

  11.Jones, Lee’s Tigers Revisited, 281–82; George B. Fox to A. L. Harris, November 14, 1885, Bachelder Papers, 2:1144–45; Michael Wiedrich to John B. Bachelder, January 20, 1886, Bachelder Papers, 2:1181–82; J. Clyde Miller to John B. Bachelder, March 2, 1886, Bachelder Papers, 2:1210–13; Alfred J. Rider to J. B. Bachelder, August 20, 1885, Bachelder Papers, 2:1118–19; Peter F. Young to J. B. Bachelder, August 12, 1867, Bachelder Papers, 1:310–11; OR, vol. 27, pt. 1, p. 752; Fritz Nussbaum, as quoted in Smith, Camps and Campaigns, 226; Henry Perry Smith, ed., History of the City of Buffalo and Erie County (Syracuse: D. Mason & Co., 1884), 1:294; J. W. Jackson, as quoted in Reed, “The Gettysburg Campaign—A Louisiana Lieutenant’s Eye-Witness Account,” 189; Fred Smith, “Historical Sketch,” in New York Monuments Commission for the Battlefields of Gettysburg and Chattanooga, Final Report of the Battlefield of Gettysburg, 3:1247.

  12.Peter F. Young to J. B. Bachelder, August 12, 1867, Bachelder Papers, 1:310–11; Alfred J. Rider to John B. Bachelder, October 3, 1885, Bachelder Papers, 2:1129; 107th Ohio Descriptive Books, RG 94, NA; Culp, The 25th Ohio Vet. Vol. Infantry, 79; M. Browne to J. B. Bachelder, April 8, 1864, Bachelder Papers, 1:148–49; Schurz, The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz, 3:25; “From the 11th Army Corps,” Norwalk Reflector, July 21, 1863.

  13.Schurz, The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz, 3:25; Nussbaum, as quoted in Smith, Camps and Campaigns, 226; National Tribune, July 15, 1909; Young to Bachelder, August 12, 1867, Bachelder Papers, 1:310–12; Peter F. Young Carded Medical File, RG 94, entry 534, Box 2845, NA; George Billow Pension File, RG 15, NA; Semi-Centennial Register of the Members of the Phi Kappa Sigma Fraternity, 1850–1900, 171; Andrew B. Booth, comp., Records of Louisiana Confederate Soldiers and Louisiana Confederate Commands, 139; Jones, Lee’s Tigers Revisited, 285; Tuscarawas Advocate, August 7, 1863; Richard Rollins, “The Damned Red Flags of the Rebellion”: The Confederate Battle Flag at Gettysburg (Redondo Beach, CA: Rank and File Publications, 1997), 131; OR, vol. 27, pt. 1, p. 713; “A Tiger at Gettysburg,” The Opelousas Courier [Opelousas, Louisiana], August 7, 1909.

  14.Smith, Camps and Campaigns, 101; J. W. Jackson as quoted in Reed, “The Gettysburg Campaign,” 189; Whittier, “The Left (Ewell’s) Attack at Gettysburg,” 90–93; Guelzo, Gettysburg, 342–43; George Billow, “Casualties of the 107th in the Gettysburg Battle,” Summit County Beacon, July 30, 1863; OR, vol. 27, pt. 1, pp. 372, 456–57, 752; OR, vol. 27, pt. 2, p. 475, 480–81; William Henry Mayo Diary, July 2, 1863, Mayo Family Papers, Box 1, Huntington Library.

  15.Culp, The 25th Ohio Vet. Vol. Infantry, 79; Richard Magee Diary, Connecticut State Library; Smith, Camps and Campaigns, 104; OR, vol. 27, no. 2, p. 320; 107th Ohio Regimental Descriptive Books, RG 94, NA; Busey and Martin, Regimental Losses, 107.

  16.William Garrett Piston, “Cross Purposes: Longstreet, Lee, and Confederate Attack Plans for July 3 at Gettysburg,” in Gary W. Gallagher, ed., The Third Day at Gettysburg & Beyond (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 45; OR, vol. 27, pt. 2, pp. 320–22, 360–61; Alfred Lee, “Reminiscences of the Gettysburg Battle,” Lippincott’s Magazine 6 (July 1883), 59; James Longstreet, “Lee’s Right Wing at Gettysburg,” B&L, 3:339–354.

  17.Schurz, The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz, 3:27; Fritz Nussbaum, as quoted in Smith, Camps and Campaigns, 227; Smith, Camps and Campaigns, 105.

  18.Smith, Camps and Campaigns, 109; Nevins, A Diary of Battle, 249; Schurz, The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz, 3:29, 31–33.

  19.Andrew Harris to Friend Lough, July 11, 1863, Andrew L. Harris Papers, Box 1, Folder 1, OHC; Harris to Bachelder, Bachelder Papers, 2:747; Nussbaum, as quoted in Smith, Camps and Campaigns, 227; The Civil War Diary of Private John Flory, Co. C, 107th Ohio, 19.

  20.Gregory A. Coco, A Strange and Blighted Land: Gettysburg: The Aftermath of a Battle (El Dorado Hills, CA: Savas Beatie, 2017), 6; Stiles, Four Years Under Marse Robert, 220; F. A. Wildman to dear wife, July 12, 1863, Wildman Family Papers, OHC; Smith, Camps and Campaigns, 120; Nevins, ed., A Diary of Battle, 251–52; Schurz, The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz, 3:37; “Editorial Correspondence,” Norwalk Reflector, July 21, 1863; Busey and Martin, eds., Regimental Strengths and Losses, 104–5.

  21.Harris to Bachelder, March 14, 1881, Bachelder Papers, 2:747; Smith, Camps and Campaigns, 123–24; Gregory A. Coco, A Vast Sea of Misery: A History and Guide to the Union and Confederate Field Hospitals at Gettysburg, July 1–November 20, 1863 (Reprint ed., El Dorado Hills, CA: Savas Beatie, 2017), 105; Daniel Welch to the author, email correspondence, August 8, 2017; Caspar Bohrer Pension File, RG 15, NA; Medical and Surgical History of the Civil War (Reprint ed. Wilmingrton, NC: Broadfoot Publishing Co., 1991), 12:489, NA; 107th Ohio Regimental Descriptive Books, RG 94, NA.

  22.Schurz, The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz, 3:39–40; Thompson, “From Chancellorsville to Gettysburg: A Doctor’s Diary,” 313; “300 Arms and Legs,” Ohio Democrat, July 17, 1863; Andrew Harris to Friend Lough, July 11, 1863, Andrew L. Harris Papers, Box 1, Folder 1, OHC; Butts, ed., A Gallant Captain, 88; Ronald D. Kirkwood, “Too Much for Human Endurance”: The George Spangler Farm Hospitals and the Battle of Gettysburg (El Dorado Hills, CA: Savas Beatie, 2019), 313; Alfred J. Rider to John B. Bachelder, October 3, 1885, Bachelder Papers, 2:1128–30.

  23.“The Firemen’s Celebration,” Wooster Republican, July 16, 1863; “The Fourth in Canton,” Stark County Republican, July 9, 1863; “The 4th in Akron,” Sandusky Register, July 8, 1863; “The Fourth in The City,” Daily Cleveland Herald, July 6, 1863.

  24.“Telegraphic,” Daily Cleveland Herald, July 6, 1863.

  25.“Editorial Correspondence,” Norwalk Reflector, July 21, 1863; Elyria Independent Democrat, July 22, 1863; Lee, “Reminiscences of the Gettysburg Battle,” 60; Kirkwood, “Too Much for Human Endurance,” 210–11, 221–22.

  26.Barnet T. Steiner to William Steiner, July 8, 1863, in Smith, Camps and Campaigns, 235–36.

  27.“The 107th,” Stark County Democrat, July 15, 1863; “The 107th at Gettysburg,” Sandusky Register, July 28, 1863; “Casualties of the 107th in the Gettysburg Battle,” Summit County Beacon, July 30, 1863.

  28.William H. Heiss Pension File, RG 15, NA; 107th Ohio Regimental Descriptive Books, RG 94, NA.

  29.Smith, Camps and Campaigns, 124; OR, vol. 27, pt. 1, p. 720.

  30.Ibid., 120, 126.

  31.Ibid., 120, 126, 135; OR, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 146–47, 708–9; John Thomas Scharf, History of Western Maryland (Philadelphia: Louis H. Evarts, 1882), 1:570; Thomas Chalmers Harbaugh, Middletown Valley in Song and Story (N.p.: T. C. Harbaugh, 1910), 155; Leander Schooley, as quoted in Eric J. Wittenberg, J. David Petruzzi, and Michael F. Nugent, One Continuous Fight: The Retreat from Gettysburg and the Pursuit of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, July 4–14, 1863 (El Dorado Hills, CA: Savas Beatie, 2008), 152, 196; 107th Ohio Regimental Descriptive Books, RG 94, NA.

  32.Smith, Camps and Campaigns, 135; OR, vol., 27, pt. 1, pp. 708–9; Summit County Beacon, July 30, 1863; 107th Ohio Regimental Descriptive Books, RG 94, NA; Wittenberg, Petruzzi, and Nugent, One Continuous Fight, 254; Richard Slotkin, The Long Road to Antietam (New York: Liveright, 2012), 196; Thomas Brownfield Searight, The Old Pike: A History of the National Road (Uniontown, PA: Published by the Author, 1894).

  33.107th Ohio Regimental Descriptive Books, RG 94, NA; Smith, Camps and Campaigns, 135–50, quote at 137; OR, vol. 27, pt. 1, pp. 709–10. Meade’s retreat from Gettysburg has invited no shortage of debate and controversy. For a perceptive analysis, see A. Wilson Greene, “From Gettysburg to Falling Waters: Meade’s Pursuit of Lee,” in Gallagher, The Third Day at Gettysburg & Beyond, 161–201.

  34.Steven J. Ramold, Baring the Iron Hand: Discipline in the Union Army (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2009), 316–43.

  35.Ramold, Baring the Iron Hand, 316–43; Revised United States Army Regulations of 1861 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1863), 493.

  36.Seraphim Meyer to Theodore Meysenburg, July 4, 1863, and Meysenburg to Meyer, July 5, 1863, Seraphim M
eyer Court Martial Records, RG 153, NA; Meyer to Meysenburg, July 14, 1863, Seraphim Meyer Compiled Service Record, RG 94, NA; OR, vol. 27, pt. 2, pp. 322–23; Wittenberg, Petruzzi, and Nugent, One Continuous Fight, 299; Kent Masterson Brown, Retreat from Gettysburg: Lee, Logistics, and the Pennsylvania Campaign (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 322; Nevins, A Diary of Battle, 261; Smith, Camps and Campaigns, 139; Brooks, Washington in Lincoln’s Time (New York: Century Co., 1896), 96; John G. Selby, Meade: The Price of Command, 1863–1865 (Kent: Kent State University Press, 2018), offers a vigorous defense of Meade in the weeks after Gettysburg.

  37.Smith, Camps and Campaigns, 140–42, 150; OR, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 149–50.

  38.Seraphim Meyer Court Martial Records, RG 153, NA; Seraphim Meyer to Theodore A. Meysenburg, July 18, 1863, Seraphim Meyer Court Martial Records, RG 153, NA; Thomas P. Lowry, Curmudgeons, Drunkards, & Outright Fools: Courts-Martial of Civil War Union Colonels (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003); Brian Matthew Jordan, “The Unfortunate Colonel,” The Civil War Monitor 6, no. 4 (Winter 2016): 54–63, 74–76.

  39.Seraphim Meyer Court Martial Records, RG 153, NA; Brian Matthew Jordan, “Forming Up, Falling Back, Digging In: The Politics of Movement in a Civil War Regiment,” paper delivered at Society of Civil War Historians Biennial Meeting, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, June 1, 2016.

  40.Seraphim Meyer Court Martial Records, RG 153, NA.

  41.Ibid.

  42.“Our Recent Victories,” Milwaukee Daily Sentinel, August 3, 1863; “National Thanksgiving,” New York Herald, August 4, 1863; George Henry Gordon, A War Diary of Events in the War of the Great Rebellion, 1863–1865 (Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1882), 168–69; Smith, Camps and Campaigns, 146–47; Noble, The Seventeenth Regiment Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, 2; Harry S. Stout, Upon the Altar of the Nation, 248–49.

  CHAPTER 7: “WE ARE NOT COWARDS”

  1.Franklin McGrath, comp., The History of the 127th New York: “Monitors” in the War for the Preservation of the Union—September 8th, 1862, June 30th 1865 (N.p.: n.d.), 68; Gordon, A War Diary of Events in the War of the Great Rebellion, 169–70.

  2.McGrath, History of the 127th New York, 68; Gordon, A War Diary of Events in the War of the Great Rebellion, 169–70. On ruins and lone chimneys, see Nelson, Ruin Nation.

  3.Gordon, A War Diary of Events in the War of the Great Rebellion, 173–74; Smith, Camps and Campaigns, 152; McGrath, History of the 127th New York Volunteers, 69; Albert Rowe Barlow, Company G: A Record of the Services of One Company of the 157th New York Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion (Syracuse: A. W. Hall, 1899), 147.

  4.John Purdy, The Colombian Navigator, or Sailing Directory for the American Coasts (London: R. H. Laurie, 1839), 128; McGrath, History of the 127th New York, 70–73; Stratton Lawrence, Folly Beach (Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2013), 12; Barlow, Company G, 148; Henry F. W. Little, The Seventh Regiment New Hampshire Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion (Concord: Ira C. Evans, Printer, 1896), 102; “At the Siege of Charleston,” Independent Statesman [Concord, New Hampshire], December 2, 1875; Smith, Camps and Campaigns, 152–54; John Brunny to esteemed friend, December 29, 1863, in Society of Separatists of Zoar Records, Box 96, Folder 1, OHC; enlisted man, as quoted in Stephen R. Wise, Gate of Hell: Campaign for Charleston Harbor, 1863 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1994), 38; “From the 107th O.V.I.,” Stark County Republican, November 19, 1863; James B. Legg and Steven D. Smith, “The Best Ever Occupied . . .” Archaeological Investigations of a Civil War Encampment on Folly Island, South Carolina (Columbia: South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, 1989), 18; Gordon, A War Diary of Events, 224.

  5.Robert N. Rosen, “Charleston, Siege of (1863–1865),” in Walter B. Edgar, ed., South Carolina Encyclopedia (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2006); Wise, Gate of Hell. On the Fifty-fourth, see Egerton, Thunder at the Gates: The Black Civil War Regiments That Redeemed America (New York: Basic Books, 2016).

  6.OR, vol. 28, pt. 2, pp. 29–30, 39; Gideon Welles, diary, July 26, 1863, in William E. Gienapp and Erica L. Gienapp, eds., The Civil War Diary of Gideon Welles, Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy: The Original Manuscript Edition (Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield: University of Illinois Press, 2014), 258–59; George H. Gordon to E. W. Smith, September 11, 1863, RG 393, pt. 2, entry 2282: Letters Sent January 1863–March 1864, NA; Wise, Gate of Hell, 137–38.

  7.“From the 107th,” Summit County Beacon, September 24, 1863; John Brunny to esteemed friend, December 29, 1863, in Society of Separatists of Zoar Records, Box 96, Folder 1, OHC; McGrath, History of the 127th New York, 73; Smith, Camps and Campaigns, 153; Gordon, A War Diary of Events, 224–25; Wise, Gate of Hell, 119–20; Legg and Smith, “The Best Ever Occupied . . .”, 13, 18, 21; Moore, Complete History of the Great Rebellion (Philadelphia: W. S. Burlock and Company, 1881), 388; E. Milby Burton, The Siege of Charleston, 1861–1865 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1970); W. Scott Poole, South Carolina’s Civil War: A Narrative History (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2005), 92.

  8.Smith, Camps and Campaigns, 160–61; Gordon, A War Diary of Events, 224; Jacob Lichty to dear brother, September 27, 1863, Thomas J. Edwards Papers, Box 2, Folder 1, BGSU; Kelby Ouchley, Flora and Fauna of the Civil War: An Environmental Reference Guide (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2010).

  9.Fritz Nussbaum to Friend Cary, November 14, 1863, in George S. Phillips Papers, Box 2, Folder 1, Huntington Library; Mahlon Slutz Reminiscences, Indiana State Library; McGrath, History of the 127th New York, 73–74; Stark County Republican, November 19, 1863; Jacob Lichty to dear brother, September 27, 1863, Thomas J. Edwards Papers, Box 2, Folder 1, BGSU; “Death of Capt. Steiner,” Stark County Republican, August 20, 1863; “From Company D, 107th Regiment,” Stark County Republican, October 8, 1863.

  10.Jacob Lichty to dear brother, September 27, 1863, Thomas J. Edwards Papers, Box 2, Folder 1, Jerome Library, BGSU.

  11.Andrew Harris to dear Sir, August 6, 1863, Andrew L. Harris Papers, MSS 322, Box 1, Folder 1, OHC; Oscar D. Ladley to Mother, July 16, 1863, Oscar D. Ladley Papers, Wright State University; Smith, Camps and Campaigns, 153–54; George Billow Pension File, RG 15, NA; 107th Ohio Regimental Descriptive Books, RG 94, NA; Jacob Lichty to dear brother, September 26, 1863, Thomas J. Edwards Papers, Box 2, Folder 1, Jerome Library, BGSU; William Siffert Compiled Service Record, RG 94, NA.

  12.General Orders No. 34, September 24, 1863, RG 393: Records of United States Continental Army Commands, 1821–1920, pt. 2, entry 5367: General and Special Orders May 1863–February 1864, NA; Report of Division Inspector, December 22, 1863, 107th Ohio Regimental Books, RG 94, NA; Jacob Lichty to dear brother, September 26, 1863, Thomas J. Edwards Papers, Box 2, Folder 1, BGSU; enlisted man, as quoted in Legg and Smith, “The Best Ever Occupied,” 23; Brigade Inspector’s Report, December 24, 1863, 107th Ohio Regimental Books, vol. 5, RG 94, NA; John E. Florance, Jr., “Morris Island: Victory or Blunder?” The South Carolina Historical Magazine 55, no. 3 (July 1954): 143–52.

  13.General Orders No. 27, December 18, 1863, in 107th Ohio Regimental Books, RG 94, NA; 107th Ohio Regimental Books, vol. 4, RG 94, NA; Ramold, Baring the Iron Hand.

  14.107th Ohio Regimental Books, RG 94, NA; General Orders No. 36, September 30, 1863, RG 313, pt. 2, entry 5367: General and Special Orders May 1863–February 1864, NA; Mark Will-Weber, Muskets and Applejack: Spirits, Soldiers, and the Civil War (Washington, DC: Regnery History, 2017); Arnold James Cooley, Cooley’s Cyclopaedia of Practical Receipts, 6th ed. (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1897), 2:1418–19; McGrath, History of the 127th New York, 87–88.

  15.Jacob Lichty to dear brother, September 26, 1863, Thomas J. Edwards Papers, Box 2, Folder 1, BGSU; Christopher Hager, I Remain Yours: Common Lives in Civil War Letters (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018).

  16.Daniel Joseph Ryan, A History of Ohio, with Biographical Sketches of Her Governors and the Ordinance of 1787 (Columbus: A. H. Smythe, 1888), 186–87;
Frank Conover, ed., Centennial Portrait and Biographical Record of the City of Dayton and of Montgomery County, Ohio (Chicago: A. W. Bowen & Co., 1897), 151; Reid, Ohio in the War, 1:1025; James W. Low, Low’s Railroad Directory for 1862 (New York: Wynkoop, Hallenbeck & Thomas, Printers, 1862), 97; Wood Gray, The Hidden Civil War: The Story of the Copperheads (New York: Viking Press, 1964), 150–51; John Brough, as quoted in Richard F. Miller, ed., States at War, Vol. 5: A Reference Guide for Ohio in the Civil War (Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 2015), 230; Arnold Shankman, “Soldier Votes and Clement L. Vallandigham in the 1863 Ohio Gubernatorial Election,” Ohio History 82, nos.1–2 (Winter-Spring 1973): 90; Richard H. Abbott, Ohio’s Civil War Governors (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1962), 36–38; Speech of John Brough at the Union Mass Meeting, at Marietta, Ohio, June 10, 1863 (Springfield, OH: Springfield Republic, 1863); Jonathan W. White, Emancipation, The Union Army, and the Reelection of Abraham Lincoln (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2014), 25; “Brough’s Platform,” Newark [Ohio] Advocate, August 21, 1863; “The Meeting on the Square Last Night,” Daily Cleveland Herald, June 16, 1863; “The State Union Convention—The Ticket,” Daily Cleveland Herald, June 18, 1863.

  17.Shankman, “Soldier Votes and Clement L. Vallandigham,” 88; White, Emancipation, the Union Army, and the Reelection, 25; Vallandigham, A Life of Clement L. Vallandigham, 314.

  18.Arnold Michael Shankman, “Candidate in Exile: Clement Vallandigham and the 1863 Ohio Gubernatorial Election” (PhD diss., Emory University, 1969), 146, 182; “Birthplace of John Brough,” Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly 28 (1919): 373; David Tod, as quoted in Miller, ed., States at War, Vol. 5: A Reference Guide for Ohio in the Civil War, 237–38; “Riot at Wooster,” Tiffin Tribune, August 14, 1863.

  19.Shankman, “Soldier Votes and Clement L. Vallandigham,” 90; “From the 107th Ohio,” Wooster Republican, January 21, 1864; Kepler, History of the Three Months and Three Years Service of the Fourth Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry, 275; White, Emancipation, the Union Army, and the Reelection, 20; “Appeal to the Soldiers,” Daily Cleveland Herald, October 9, 1863.