Home History 79th at Wilderness and Spotsylvania Part 1

79th at Wilderness and Spotsylvania Part 1

Written by William Beard

Monday, 30 April 2007

The 79th New York at the Wilderness and Spotsylvania ©1999 William A. Beard III The Seventy-Ninth Thistle, Seventy-Ninth New York Highlanders National Newsletter, Vol.II No. 2 Winter 1999 (pp. 15-19) After surviving the winter in East Tennessee, the Highlanders slowly made their way back to Virginia, and arrived at Annapolis, Maryland, on the 6th of April, 1864. They were greeted by the regiments of the Ninth Corps who had elected to re-enlist and went on furloughs while the 79th and some other regiments stayed in the field. On the 11th, “A” tents were issued for the first time in about a year, and Todd says that, “We enjoyed the luxury of occupying tents in which we could stand upright.” The army was busy massing for a large operation, and it would be one that would decide the fate of the Eastern Theater. The Army of the Potomac was reorganized to start this new campaign. General U.S. Grant was made a Lieutenant General by the President and Congress, and he was put in charge of all of the armies. He chose to go with General Meade and the Army of the Potomac, whereas, he could have gone with General Sherman to Atlanta. Veteran regiments were placed with less experienced regiments in order to teach them. This put the 79th with an unfamiliar brigade and under a new division commander. The 79th was placed in the Ninth Army Corps under General A.E. Burnside (who took direct orders from General U.S. Grant and not from General Meade, who had been in charge of the Army of the Potomac since Gettysburg). The Ninth Corps was an independent command until May 25, (some sources say the 24) 1864. The Highlanders were in the 3rd Division under the command of Brigadier General O. B. Wilcox. They found themselves in the 2nd Brigade commanded by Colonel B. C. Christ until May 12, when Colonel Wm. Humphreys took over command of the 2nd Brigade. Colonel David Morrison returned to the regiment from brigade command, and he was in command of the 79th regiment. Grant’s army of 118,000 men outnumbered Robert E. Lee’s army of only 62,000 men almost two to one. Grant wanted to cross the Rapidan River and cut behind the Army of Northern Virginia’s flanks, to get between them and Richmond. General Lee was a few steps ahead and sent troops to stop the Federals. For two days the two armies struggled in a battle called the Wilderness. Lee was able to stop Grant by using the Wilderness’s thick forests and undeveloped land to his advantage. The battle was very costly to both sides costing the Federals 17,666 casualties. Confederate casualty lists are not complete, but the loss of General Longstreet among others was a big blow to their army. Longstreet had been wounded by friendly fire; the same volley that killed General Micah Jenkins. A few days before the battle of the Wilderness, the 79th marched to join the rest of the army and they were reviewed by President Lincoln along their way. The regiment was guarding the wagon train on Thursday May 5, 1864, when they were relieved by the division of colored troops under General Ferrero’s command. The Highlanders soon found themselves in the confusion of a battlefield. An officer told Morrison that he was to report to General Sedgwick. The officer had been mistaken and Morrison dispatched Chaplain Kennedy to ride to Meade’s headquarters to make sure. Kennedy was struck by the carnage of the battle. There were dead and wounded so thick in the road that he had trouble getting his horse through. He commented that it “looked like the day of doom.” The 79th was ordered to stay near Meade’s headquarters and to be ready to move at a moment’s notice. Soon they were called out to fall in reserve and support a portion of the line held by the Fifth Corps. The 79th was then sent to support a section on the right of General Hancock’s Second Corps. The battle here was very intense and desperate. The whole of the Ninth Corps had been separated and fought in different places throughout the line. The Highlanders saw very little fighting while they were held in reserve. The lay of the land was so difficult as to make it possible to see much in front of their position. Every man remained under arms all night, but nothing occurred to disturb them. Before the afternoon the regiment joined the rest of the brigade, formed a line, and made temporary breastworks. The brigade was in the center of the line and saw no action during the day, but was able to make an impressive breastwork. They were in a forward position and were not connected on one side by another unit for some distance. At dark, a sergeant went out into the wilderness to deliver a message to headquarters of the brigade’s condition. It took him three hours to make it to headquarters and back. The story is well told in Todd’s regimental history of the 79th. For the past few years when a Yankee general was defeated, he would retreat across the river and then was soon replaced. This was not the case this time. Grant and Meade were not going to leave. Grant had something that Lee didn’t, which was more troops to glean from and certainly better supplies. The war of attrition was now on. Grant simply started moving around Lee in an attempt to get past him and get on his flanks. This next move began as a race between the lead units of both armies and ended in one of the bloodiest battles of the war. For the Union Army it was second in the bloodiest engagements; only beaten by Gettysburg. As costly battles go for the Union Army the list begins with Gettysburg, Spotsylvania, Wilderness, Antietam, Chancellorsville, and Chickamauga, in that order. All of these battles had more than 15,000 casualties for the Federal Army. In most cases the Confederate losses were much less. At the Wilderness and Spotsylvania the Confederates inflicted many more casualties into the Union Army than they suffered themselves. Our story now goes to the 79th’s involvement in the second most costly battle for the Union Army: Spotsylvania. On the morning of May 8, 1864, Christ’s brigade moved along the Orange County Turnpike toward Fredricksburg. False rumors had spread through camp that Spotsylvania Court House was in possession of the Union Army, and this was cause for celebration. The party was premature because Anderson’s (Longstreet’s) Confederate Corp had pushed all Federal forces back and retaken the area around Spotsylvania Court House. Anderson took over Longstreet’s command after “Old Pete” had been wounded at the Wilderness. Lieutenant Colonel John More of the 79th had been assigned to General Wilcox’s staff. He got a detail of Highlanders from Company D to capture a local civilian and use him as a guide to find the most direct road to Spotsylvania. They succeeded in their task and the man led them down the road until they found the Confederate pickets. The man was allowed to return home as promised. If he had shown them the wrong way, More had given orders to shoot the man.

Last Updated ( Saturday, 19 December 2009 )

 

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