Chancellorsville
In early December, 1862 the 61st and the 11th Corps left Washington for Fredericksburg, Virginia. Fortunately for the 61st the 11th Corps did not reach Fredericksburg in time to participate in Burnside's attacks. The regiment then went into winter quarters at Aquia Landing near Fredericksburg.
On April 27, 1863 the 61st crossed the Rappahannock River at Kelly's Ford, twenty miles northwest of Fredericksburg as Major General Joseph Hooker began his campaign against the Army of Northern Virginia. The 11th Corps, now led by Major General Oliver Otis Howard, followed the 5th and 12th Corps east down the Orange Turnpike towards the Confederates at Fredericksburg. However on April 30 Hooker ordered the Union force to halt, leaving the 11th Corps to dig in on the Orange Turnpike in an area known as "The Wilderness." The 11th Corps was positioned facing south on the turnpike and the 61st and Schurz's 3rd Division dug in near the intersection of the Orange Turnpike and Brock Road. The 1st Division was on the right and the 2nd Division was to the left of Schurz's Division.
May 1 passed quietly for the 61st. While fighting waged down the turnpike to the east the 61st spent the day improving their trenches and playing cards. The next day, May 2, also began quietly for the 11th Corps. However during the afternoon pickets from the 61st and other 11th Corps units reported a large body of Confederates moving west towards the Federals' right flank. However, neither Howard nor Hooker investigated and therefore, except for one brigade of the 1st Division which faced west, the 11th Corps continued to face south.
Then at about 5:30 p.m. on May 2, as the 61st prepared their suppers, gunfire exploded to the west down the Orange Turnpike. The 1st Division, outnumbered and out-positioned, was soon racing down the Orange Turnpike into Schurz's Division. Dinner was quickly forgotten as the men of the 61st scrambled for their equipment. As one member of the 61st recalled afterwards:
"No one ever saw men hustle on their traps and get into line any quicker than we did; each man picked up everything he had, not one of them leaving anything behind; and by the time we had gotten into line and taken arms, they had crowded us so much from the right as to turn me 'right about.'"
Already crowded by the dense woods, the 61st could not change fronts in the midst of the retreating 1st Division and was swept up in the rout, along with Schurz's other regiments. As General Schurz wrote in his report after the battle, "The 61st, which I had counted among the best I had, and which had never been guilty of any discreditable conduct, could do nothing."
The 61st retreated about a quarter of a mile down the turnpike to a clearing near the Wilderness Church. Here the 61st rallied with other remnants of the 1st and 3rd Divisions. The 61st formed near Battery I, 1st Ohio Light Artillery and served as support for Captain Hubert Dilger's Battery. The Federals, outnumbered more than three to one, held off the Confederate attack for
The Wilderness Church
about twenty minutes before retreating further down the Orange Turnpike. After about another quarter of a mile the 11th Corps attempted one final stand. Reinforced by Colonel Adolphus Buschbeck's brigade from the 2nd Division, the Federals desperately tried to hold off the Confederate advance near Dowdall's Tavern, General Howard's former headquarters.
While the Union line held in the center, the flanks were unprotected and were soon overrun. The remaining 11th Corps soldiers retreated down the turnpike to Chancellorsville, where the rest of the Army of the Potomac formed to face the enemy. Captain Dilger held off the pursuing Confederates with one of his guns and two companies of the 61st remained with Dilger as infantry support.
Dowdall's Tavern
That night the 11th Corps reformed near the Chancellor House. They spent the rest of the battle behind the lines and only fired their weapons once more during the campaign. One night a couple of the skirmishers opened fire, putting everyone on edge. Private James Yeazel of Company B, thinking he saw something, fired a round into the darkness before returning to sleep. The next morning the Federal pickets did not find any Confederate dead but they did find a dead cow nearby.
On May 6 the 61st and the rest of the Army of the Potomac retreated back across the Rappahannock River and the campaign was over. In the two hours of fighting on May 2 the 61st lost sixty men, or about one-sixth of the regiment. There were also psychological wounds, which would haunt the 61st and the other 11th Corps units for the rest of their lives, even after participating in some of the Union's greatest victories. Already considered outsiders by the rest of the Army of the Potomac because of the large number of foreign soldiers in the ranks, at Chancellorsville the 11th Corps lost any chance to earn their comrades' respect. The 11th Corps, in their first battle as part of the Army of the Potomac, needed to make a good first impression. Instead their first battle turned into a disaster. Even though other corps might not have fared any better in their position, and even though there were some bright spots in the 11th Corps' performance, such as Captain Dilger, it did not matter. The overall performance of the 11th Corps proved to the rest of the Army of the Potomac that they had been right about the 11th Corps, which soon became known throughout the army as the "Flying Dutchmen."
Just as the rest of the Army of the Potomac used Chancellorsville to justify their prejudice against the 11th Corps, so too did the 11th Corps' soldiers use Chancellorsville to prove that they had been right about General Howard. Already resentful towards Howard for replacing the popular German Franz Sigel, the men of the 61st and other 11th Corps units blamed Howard for the disaster and never forgave him. Captain Frederick S. Wallace of the 61st wrote after the war that Howard's "exhibition of personal courage was creditable, but the most humble volunteer had scant respect for the man who they knew was responsible for the disaster." And James Peabody, who served as sergeant in Company B of the 61st, was still bitter about the battle more than twenty-five years later when he wrote "No, the Eleventh Corps did not ruin General Howard; but he ruined the reputation of the Eleventh Corps forever."
