Bassett Brothers of Company B, 126th New York

Tom Elmore

Captain
Member of the Year
Joined
Jan 16, 2015
Erasmus E. “Rofsy” Bassett and Richard A. “Dick” Bassett, brothers from the town of Barrington, New York, enlisted in Company B of the 126th New York. For Christmas, 1862, their father gave Erasmus a diary while he was home on leave. Erasmus entered many interesting details in his diary for 1863, including the following excerpts:

May 31: Company inspection a.m. Dick “Officer of the Day” … [Richard was then a Lieutenant in the company.]
June 6: Lieutenant Munson and Adjutant have some words at (color guard?) meeting [Erasmus was a Color Sergeant in the regiment]. Picnic at the stone mill. (Company) in Rock Run, bathing.
June 9: Sew some stripes on my pants. … Buy gold pen ($3.50), also a ham. Colonel Sherrill arrived from home. Dry and dusty.
June 10: Give color guard white gloves.
June 13: Dick is offered 1st Lieutenant in another [command]. … (Company) buys revolver and belt for Dick, and belt for Lt. L. [probably 2nd Lieutenant Meletiah H. Lawrence].
June 15: [At Centreville, Virginia] See several distinguished Genls., among them Schurz, Schimmelpfennig, Smith, Barlow, Reynolds, Doubleday, etc.
June 21: Dick speaks to Capt. to recommend me (for commission as the regiment’s Adjutant).
On July 2, he wrote: Start towards Gettysburg at 4 a.m., arrive near town, at (6:45 a.m.) form line of battle. 39th N.Y. goes out skirmishing, lose several.

Unfortunately his final entry was made the morning of July 2. Color Sergeant Erasmus Bassett was killed late in the day while going into action, carrying the National flag. The brigade was sent southward to halt the advance of Barksdale and Wilcox near the Plum Run ravine, then received severe artillery fire from E. P. Alexander’s batteries, by that time occupying the high ground near the Peach Orchard. Richard found his body at midnight and took the diary from his pocket, noting that fact as a final entry. Erasmus was temporarily buried in Ziegler’s grove, near the position occupied by the 126th New York on July 3, but he was later reinterred at Hillside Cemetery in Dundee, New York.

Richard composed the following letter for those at home: “We drew up in line of battle and charged across the ravine and up the hill on the other side … under a terrific fire of grape, canister and shell, driving the rebels off at the point of bayonet. … The colors were about a rod in front of the line of battle; but while we were crossing the ravine, I noticed they faltered and finally fell. Directly they were raised again. I then knew that my dear brother had fallen.” Late that night, lantern in hand, he found his brother’s body. Erasmus had been shot first through the thigh, then through the heart.

On July 15, Richard received a letter from Sergeant Edwin Jessop of his company from a U.S. Hospital (location unclear): “Dear Lieutenant, I believe you sometimes think of the boys absent from Company B and wonder where they all are, so I will write you a few lines ... Last Wednesday morning all that could walk to Gettysburg were taken aboard the cars and taken to Baltimore. From there we were brought to this place, arrived Friday morning about 6 … [the] boys that came with me are as follows: Reuben Bullock, Moses Booth, Ed. Coryell, C. M. Hyatt, Peter Norman, A. J. Potter, David Wilkin. Lieutenant Lawrence left us last week Tuesday [for York]. He had a bad leg; the division surgeon told him a twelve pounder had gone through his leg and not broke a bone.”

The following month, Richard wrote a letter to his wife while on picket the morning of August 5, 1863: “You ask if Sergeant Major Cook took the flag when Rofsy fell. He did not. It was a sergeant in Company E. I can’t speak his name just now; he was wounded and I have not had a chance to see him yet.” [This might be 1st Sergeant J. Edward Barnes, who was shot in both thighs on July 3 and died on July 12 at the hospital established in the Lutheran Seminary.]

Sources:
-Diary of Erasmus E. Bassett, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Carl A. Kroch Library, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
-Geneva in the Civil War, by H. Edmond Wirtz, Lecture, November 18, 1896, Geneva Historical Society, New York.
-Bassett Collection, Ontario County Historical Society, Canandaigua, New York.
-Travis W. Busey and John W. Busey, Union Casualties at Gettysburg.
 
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