136th New York Infantry Regiment's Civil War Historical Sketch
Taken from Final Report on the Battlefield of Gettysburg (New York at Gettysburg) by the New York Monuments Commission for the Battlefields of Gettysburg and Chattanooga. Albany, NY: J.B. Lyon Company, 1902.
In the summer of 1862 the President of the United States called for "300,000 more" troops to suppress the Great Rebellion. This call met with a prompt response throughout the entire North. In the State of New York regiments were raised in each senatorial district. In the Thirtieth District, comprising the counties of Allegany, Livingston, and Wyoming, 1,000 patriotic young men rendezvoused at Portage where a regiment was quickly organized, which was designated by the state authorities as the One hundred and thirty-sixth New York Volunteers. It was mustered into the service of the United States on September 26, 1862, with the following field officers in command:
James Wood, Jr. Colonel,
Lester B. Faulkner: Lieutenant Colonel,
David C. Hartshorn: Major.
Leaving Portage October 2, 1862, the regiment moved to Virginia, where It was assigned to Smith's (Second) Brigade, Steinwehr's (Second) Division, Eleventh Corps, then encamped in the vicinity of Fairfax Court House. Its first experience under fire occurred at Chancellorsville, where it sustained a slight loss. It was not actively engaged in this battle, for the brigade, then under command of Gen. F. C. Barlow, was absent on a reconnaissance at the time the Eleventh Corps was attacked. After the battle the regiment returned to its camp near Brooke's Station, on the Aquia Creek Railroad.
Remaining in camp about six weeks it started, June 12, 1863, on the Gettysburg campaign. After a series of long and toilsome marches the regiment arrived at Emmitsburg, Md., on June 29th, having marched twenty-two miles that day, and thirty-eight miles within the preceding twenty-four and one-half hours, over roads heavy with mud and rain, and blocked with wagon trains. Leaving Boonsboro Gap at 4:40 p. m., on Sunday, June 28th, and moving by way of Frederick, the column arrived at Emmitsburg at 5 p. m., on the 29th, having accomplished this remarkable march of thirty-eight miles without any straggling or murmurs of complaint. On the 30th there was a general muster of the army, at which the One hundred and thirty-sixth reported 23 officers and 529 men present for duty, including noncombatants.
On July 1st, the Eleventh Corps was ordered to Gettysburg, pursuant to a plan for a concentration of the left wing of the army at that point. The corps started in the morning, with Col. Orland Smith's Brigade, to which the One hundred and thirty-sixth New York belonged, bringing up the rear. This brigade was then composed of the following regiments:
33d Massachusetts Col. A. B. Underwood,
136th New York Col. James Wood, Jr.,
55th Ohio Col. Charles B. Gambee,
73d Ohio Lieut. Col. Richard Long.
On arriving at Gettysburg, General Steinwehr, the division commander, halted the brigade and formed it in line of battle, by battalions in mass, in rear of Cemetery Hill, the rest of the corps, except Wiedrich's Battery, having passed through the town and engaged the enemy in the open fields on the farther side. Smith's Brigade advanced through the cemetery to the front of the hill overlooking Gettysburg, from which position it was apparent that the Union troops, First and Eleventh Corps, were retreating, and falling back through the streets to Cemetery Hill. Colonel Smith placed his four regiments so as to resist any attack which might be made on the hill. But the long line of the brigade, with its waving colors and resolute appearance, caused the Confederate generals to hesitate until the opportunity for a successful attack was lost.
Smith's Brigade held this very important and exposed position at the base of Cemetery Hill during the fighting of the two succeeding days. The One hundred and thirty-sixth New York was on the left, where it held the extreme left of the Eleventh Corps line, and joined the right of the Second Corps. It lay along the Taneytown Road behind a stone wall that bounded the west side of the road, and at the base of the western slope of Cemetery Hill, from whose crest the Union batteries at times delivered a heavy fire over the regiment. From his position on the Taneytown Road, which at this point is very near the Emmitsburg Road, Colonel Wood sent out most of his men as skirmishers and sharpshooters who, during the second and third days' fighting, were subject to a continuous and deadly fire from the Confederate sharpshooters who occupied positions at close range. Some of the men of the One hundred and thirty-sixth occupied houses in the outskirts of Gettysburg, the line of the Eleventh Corps running along the eastern edge of the town. This skirmishing and sharpshooting was so active and continuous that the regiment, without participating in any other fighting, lost 106 men killed and wounded during the second and third days. Some of these casualties occurred in the great cannonade which, on the third day, preceded Longstreet's assault on the Second Corps. Many of the Confederate gunners directed their fire against the Union batteries on West Cemetery Hill which, in turn, were firing over the heads of the men in the One hundred and thirty-sixth.
After Gettysburg the regiment participated in the pursuit of Lee's retreating army, and with its corps returned to Virginia. In September (1863) the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps were ordered to Tennessee to relieve General Rosecrans' army which was then shut up in Chattanooga without any line of supplies. Arriving in Tennessee the regiment was placed on guard duty along the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad, between Anderson and Tantalon. On October 26th it was relieved, and rejoined the brigade at Bridgeport. On the 28th it was engaged in the famous midnight battle at Wauhatchie, where the brigade marched to the relief of Geary's Division of the Twelfth Corps, but encountered the enemy on the way, the Confederate brigade of General Law Hood's Division, Longstreet's Corps — having occupied a high hill that commanded the road. Under orders from General Steinwehr, three regiments of Smith's Brigade, numbering in all about 700 muskets, charged up the steep declivity in the darkness. They had received orders not to fire, but to use the bayonet only. The five Confederate regiments under Law, about 1,800 strong, abandoned the crest of the hill after a brief resistance, leaving the line of their retreat strewn with rifles, swords, hats, caps, and haversacks.
In the following month, on November 23d, the regiment was engaged in the battle of Missionary Ridge near Chattanooga, Tenn., in which Lieut. Charles F. Tresser was mortally wounded. It then marched with the Eleventh Corps to the relief of Burnside's army, which was besieged at Knoxville, Tenn. This was a long march, during which the men suffered for lack of tents and blankets, and were obliged to forage on the country through which they passed for rations and subsistence. One man died from exposure. The corps returned to Chattanooga on December I7th, and the men reoccupied their former camp in Lookout Valley, where they remained during the winter.
In April, 1864, the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps were consolidated, forming a new corps, the Twentieth, the command of which was given to Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker. Under this arrangement the regiment was placed in the Third Brigade, Third Division. The brigade, which was commanded by Colonel Wood, of the One hundred and thirty-sixth New York, was composed of the following commands:
20th Connecticut: Col. Samuel Ross,
33d Massachusetts: Lieut. Col. Godfrey Rider,
136th New York: Lieut. Col. Lester B. Faulkner,
55th Ohio: Col. Charles B. Gambee,
73d Ohio: Maj. Samuel H. Hurst,
26th Wisconsin: Lieut. Col. Fred. C. Winkler.
The division was commanded by Maj. Gen. Daniel Butterfield, formerly chief of staff, Army of the Potomac.
Breaking camp on May 1, 1864, the regiment started with Sherman's army on the Atlanta campaign. With faces turned southward the men commenced the long victorious march on which there was to be no retracing of their footsteps. The enemy's forces were first encountered at Buzzard Roost and Rocky Face Gap, Ga. They were driven from their position, an action in which the One hundred and thirty-sixth participated, but with slight loss.
On May 15, 1864, the regiment was actively engaged at the battle of Resaca, Ga., in which it sustained a loss of eighty-one in killed and wounded. In this battle Butterfield's Division captured a battery of four brass Napoleon guns,— twelve-pounders. After daily skirmishes, the principal ones occurring at Cassville, Dallas, New Hope Church, Kenesaw Mountain, Pine Knob, Lost Mountain, and other localities, in some of which the fighting involved the whole regiment, the division found itself in position July 2oth, at Peach Tree Creek. Here the line of the Twentieth Corps was attacked by the Confederate army under General Hood, which made repeated and desperate assaults on the Union position, only to be repulsed with terrible loss. The men of the One hundred and thirty-sixth bore an honorable part in this battle, during which one of their number, Priv. Dennis Buckley, of Company G, captured the battle flag of the Thirty-first Mississippi, knocking down the Confederate color bearer with the butt of his musket and wrenching the colors from his grasp. While Buckley was waving the captured flag defiantly at the ranks of the enemy a bullet fired at him struck the flagstaff, glanced, and hit him in the forehead, killing him instantly. A year or more after the war closed the War Department gave a Medal of Honor to be delivered to the mother of Dennis Buckley, in recognition of his heroism at the battle of Peach Tree Creek and the capture by him of one of the enemy's flags.
On the morning of July 22d the brigade advanced within two miles of Atlanta, where it occupied various positions during the siege that followed. For six weeks the One hundred and thirty-sixth lay in the trenches before the city under fire daily, many of the men being killed or wounded while in the works, which, towards the close of the siege, were advanced to within close range of the enemy's lines. The Confederate troops evacuated Atlanta during the night on September 1st, and the Twentieth Corps, now under command of General Slocum, entered the city and took possession. "Atlanta was ours, and fairly won."
With the occupation of the city came a period of rest and quiet for ten weeks, a pleasing respite from the privations and dangers of the previous campaign. On November 15, 1864, refreshed and strengthened by its stay at Atlanta, the regiment started with Sherman's army on the March to the Sea. The corps was under the command of Gen. A. S. Williams, General Slocum having been placed in command of the left wing, which composed of the Fourteenth and Twentieth Corps, was designated the Army of Georgia. The division was commanded by Gen. William T. Ward, who had succeeded General Butterfield, while on the Atlanta campaign; the regiment was under Lieutenant Colonel Faulkner.
The army arrived at Savannah, December 11, 1864, and immediately laid siege to the city, which was evacuated on the 21st.
After a month's stay at Savannah the army started northward January 16, 1865, on the campaign of the Carolinas, arriving at Goldsborough, N. C., on March 24th, after a march of 454 miles, part of which was made over difficult roads and over many rivers and swamps, some of which had to be waded through. In crossing the Edisto River the men waded half a mile in water from twelve to thirty-six inches deep. Skirmishing with the enemy was a frequent occurrence, while a general engagement with Johnston's army occurred at Averasborough, N. C., March 16, 1865, and at Bentonville, N. C., March 19-21, 1865. In the fighting at Bentonville, Maj. H. L. Arnold, who was in command of the regiment, was severely wounded. During the campaign in the Carolinas the brigade was commanded by Gen. William Cogswell, formerly colonel of the Second Massachusetts, an able and fearless officer.
Leaving its camp near Goldsborough, N. C., on April 10th, the regiment started on its last, homeward march. Passing through Richmond, Va., May 11th, and then the battlefields of Chancellorsville and Spotsylvania, it arrived at Alexandria on the 19th. On the 24th it marched proudly in the final Grand Review at Washington, and thence out the Bladensburg Pike, where it encamped while waiting for its muster out.