The Second New Hampshire at Gettysburg

John Hartwell

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The Gettysburg monument of the 2nd Regiment, New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry is located in the Peach Orchard, on the east side of the Emmitsburg Road, near the intersection of Birney Avenue.
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It is in the form of a pyramid, 13 feet high, on each beveled corner is sculpted a musket, with the Third Corps Diamond below the butt. On three sides of the base are the inscriptions:

South side:
2d New Hampshire
Vol. Infantry
3d Brig. 2d Div. 3d Corps​

West side:
Engaged
24 officers, 330 enlisted men
July 2, 1863​

East side:
Casualties
Officers 7 killed 14 wounded
Enlisted Men 18 killed 119 wounded missing 35

It was one of several monuments dedicated on July 2, 1886, during the Third Corps Reunion, attended by over a thousand veterans and their families.


The full story of the 2nd N.H. at Gettysburg is well sketched in Britt Eisenberg’s “Their Stories” blog: To do or Die: Col. Edward Bailey and the 2nd New Hampshire at the Peach Orchard

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Edward Bailey, "The Boy Colonel"
A more personal recollection can be found in A Minor War History, by Martin Haynes, Co. I, 2nd N.H. (1916), transcribed from a letter written July 4, 1863 to “the girl I left behind -- now for more than 50 years the wife of the soldier boy.” (pp.107-8) (in brackets [] are notes Haynes added when the letter was published in 1916):


Gettysburg, Pa., July 4, 1863.

I WRITE on the blank pages of an orderly's book, which George Slade picked up. It is the only paper I have, as I lost my knapsack and all its contents in the battle day before yesterday. Our corps was engaged that day, and the Second Regiment was in the very fiercest of the fight and met its heaviest loss yet in any one battle. About two hundred are gone out of our little regiment, but, as usual, I came through all right. I don't know now how I did it. While we lay supporting a battery, before we had fired a shot, one shell burst right in my group. The man who touched me on the right [Jonathan Merrill] had his thigh cut away, and the two at my left
[Lyndon B. Woods and Sergeant James M. House] were very severely wounded — and I never had a scratch. Talk about luck !

A little while after, we charged to save the battery, and it was a wild time. As many of our wounded were left in the hands of the rebels, no accurate list can be made now. Charlie Vickery and a Seventeenth man in my company are killed. [
Vickery did not die until the 11th.] Joe Hubbard, Lieutenant Dascomb, Frank Chase and Johnny Barker are among the killed. [Barker recovered from his terrible wound and lived many years with a trephined skull.] Ed Kenniston was shot through both legs. I blundered onto him in the field hospital near where we bivouacked. He was lying by a stone wall, in a field packed with wounded men. He had lost everything but the bloody clothes he wore. I fixed him up with what I had left — filled my canteen with water and laid beside him, with my haversack, in which there happened to be a few really tasty pieces of grub. Ed* wants father to go down and tell his folks it is only a flesh wound, and with a little assistance he will be able to stand on his feet.

George Slade wants me to send you this wayside rose that he picked on the battlefield. The Johnny who had the overhauling of my knapsack got a fine picture of a certain black-eyed Yankee girl, but he didn't have the reading of any of her letters.

A shell burst right on our colors, early in the action, breaking the staff into three pieces. The batteries were so close together, some of them, that they threw grape at each other. I never was under such an artillery fire. Gen. Sickles lost a leg.

There was a great fight yesterday, but not over the same ground as the day before. The rebels made a tremendous effort to smash our lines [Pickett's charge,] but were thrown back in great disorder and leaving a great many prisoners in our hands. We were not in it, simply because they didn't happen to hit the part of the line we were holding, but struck a little to our right. Today we are waiting for something to turn up. Out to our front the skirmishers are industriously popping away, but it is a little early for the real business. Before night, somewhere along the line, we will probably have a real old-fashioned Fourth of July celebration, with plenty of fireworks. The armies are holding practically the same lines we started in on here, but the advantage is surely with us.

Our new recruits stood up to their work like men — none did better. I cannot write more now, but when this fight is over and I can get my hands on some writing paper, I'll try to do better.

[*Many, many years afterward, Ed. came from Dayton, Ohio — where he was an inmate of the National Military Home — to the Weirs reunion, especially "to see Mart Haynes." There, in the Second Regiment house, he told to an interested audience the story of his being wounded of being discovered and relieved by me, substantially as given in my letter, but with greater illustration and detail. And he closed with a climax which I had omitted in my letter and in the long lapse of years had all but forgotten. "Then Mart, said, 'Ed., it's going to rain, and you are in no shape to lay out without any cover. I've lost my whole outfit, but I'll see if I can pick up something for you.' And he went off, and in half an hour he came back. He said, 'Don't ask any questions, Ed.' And he covered me up with an officer's overcoat — a splendid garment, heavily braided — tucked me in, and made me comfortable. I honestly believe he saved my life." I loathe a thief, but I am glad I stole that overcoat.]

The 2 July 1886 3rd Corps Reunion was apparently a grand affair. General Daniel Sickles, of course, provided the keynote speech:
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(Glad we got that cleared up!
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)
 
Haynes also wrote, A History of the Second Regiment New Hampshire Volunteers, which in my opinion is one of the better regimental histories of the battle, in which mention is made of several adjacent Federal regiments and batteries. On July 2, the 2nd New Hampshire squared off against the 21st Mississippi, which was considerably larger, and it was the main reason why the 21st required a few minutes to reorganize before moving on to Bigelow's 9th Massachusetts Battery near the Trostle house.

Other first-hand accounts:
- July 5 letter of Private Edwin Young to Mr. Spring, detailing the death of the latter's son, Henry Spring.
-Diary of John H. Burrill, Company A.

The regiment was formed with four existing militia companies that wore gray at the beginning of the war, which were replaced with standard Federal blue (Military Images, vol, 24, no. 3, Nov-Dec 2002). The Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. 8, notes that in June 1863 the regiment requisitioned 35,000 explosive musket shells, of which 13,940 were received. They are mentioned on the third quarter returns of 1863 (1 July to 1 October); about 10,000 were used in action. Haynes mentions these in, A Minor War History, p. 95. In the same source it is mentioned that mascots of the regiment included a Newfoundland dog and a Maltese cat.

College alumni: 2nd Lieutenant Enoch George Adams, present at Gettysburg, graduated from Yale College in 1849.

I just realized that on my detailed list of casualties the only two examples of exploding cartridge boxes occurring on the battlefield (on either side) involved members of the 2nd New Hampshire, which apparently highlights the added danger of using explosive musket shells. A shell that burst near Corporal Thomas Bignall's (Company C) box drove the cartridges into his body, which began to explode - death came quickly. Sergeant James M. House (Company I) was also severely wounded when a shell fragment exploded his cartridge box.
 
Ranger Karlton Smith did one of the anniversary walks this year on the 2nd New Hampshire.

And am I the only one who thinks that Colonel Bailey looks like a 14 year old wearing a fake beard?

Ryan
With that baby-face, no wonder they called him "the Boy Colonel!"
He probably grew the beard to make himself look older ... didn't work!
 
As mentioned in the above post, Karlton Smith did an excellent battlefield walk of this regiment in July. The public television station in my area just replayed it this afternoon and this evening. David.
 
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