Mustered in on Sept.
26, 1862 at Portage, NY from recruits from Alleghany, Livingston, and Wyoming
Counties of Western NY.
They left Portage
on Oct 2, 1862 under the command of: Col. James Wood Jr., Lt. Col. Lester
B. Faulkner, and Maj. David C. Hartshorn. The regiment moved to Virginia
where they were assigned to the Second Brigade, Second Division, Eleventh
Corps then encamped near Fairfax Court House. Its first experience in battle
occurred at Chancellorsville, where it sustained a slight loss. It was
not actively engaged in this battle, as the Brigade, under the command
of Gen. F. C. Barlow, was absent on reconnoissance at the time the Eleventh
Corps was attacked. After the battle the regiment returned to it’s camp
near Brook’s Station, on the Aquia Creek Railroad.
After remaining in
camp for about six weeks they started on the Gettysburg campaign on June
12,1863. After a series of long marches, over roads heavy with mud, and
blocked with wagon trains, they arrived at Emmitsburg, MD at 5 P.M. on
the 29th with no stragglers. On the 30th there was a general mustering
of the Army at which the 136th reported 23 officers and 539 men present
for duty.
On July 1st, the
Eleventh Corps was ordered to Gettysburg, pursuant to a plan for concentration
of the left of the Army. The Corps started in the morning with the Second
(Smith’s) Brigade, consisting of: 136th NY, 33rd Mass, 55th Ohio, and 73rd
Ohio, bringing up the rear.
On arriving at Gettysburg
the division commander, Gen. Steinwehr, 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, passed through 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
this position it became apparent that the Union troops were falling back
through the streets to Cemetery hill. Col.Smith placed his four regiments
so as to resist any attack which might be made upon the hill. But the long
brigade line , 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 136th NY was on the left,
where it held the extreme left of the Eleventh Corps and joined the right
of the Second Corps.
It lay along 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 delivered
a heavy fire over the regiment’s heads. From his position on the Taneytown
Road, which at this point is very close to the Emmitsburg road, Col. Wood
sent out must of his men as skirmishers and sharpshooters who, during the
second and third days’ fighting, were subject to a continuous and deadly
fire from Confederate sharpshooters who occupied positions at close range.
Some men of the 136th occupied houses in the outskirts of town, the line
of the Eleventh Corps running along the eastern edge of town. This skirmishing
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 the casualties occurred in the great cannonade of the
third day. Many of the Confederate gunners directing their fire at the
Union guns on west Cemetery Hill.
After Gettysburg
the regiment participated in the pursuit of Lee’s retreating army, and
with its corps returned to Virginia. In Sept. the Eleventh and Twelfth
Corps were ordered to Tennessee to relieve Gen. 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 Oct. 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 General Law’s
brigade of Hood’s Division, Longstreet’s Corps—-having occupied a high
hill that commanded the road. Under orders from Gen. Steinwehr, three regiments
of Smith’s Brigade numbering in all about 700 rifles charged up the steep
slope in the darkness. They 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 23rd, the regiment was engaged in the battle of Missionary
Ridge near Chattanooga, Tenn., in which Lieut. Charles F. Tressler 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 of exposure. The Corps returned to Chattanooga
on Dec. 17th, and the men reoccupied their former camp in Lookout Valley,
where they remained for 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 136th NY, was
composed of the following commands: 20th Conn., 33rd Mass., 136th NY.,
55th Ohio, 73rd Ohio, 26th Wis. 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 no retracing their steps. The enemy’s forces were first
encountered at Buzzard Roost and Rocky Face Gap, Ga. They were driven from
their position in action in which the 136th 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 regiment found itself
involved, the division found itself in position on July 20th, at Peach
Tree Creek. Here the line of the Twentieth Corps was attacked by the Confederate
Army under Gen. Hood, which made repeated and desperate assaults on the
Union position, only to be repulsed with terrible loss. The men of the
136th bore an honorable part of this battle, during which one of their
number, Pvt. Dennis Buckley, of company G, captured the battle flag of
the 31st Miss., knocking down the 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 the Medal of
Honor to the mother of Dennis Buckley, in recognition of his heroism at
the battle of Peach Tree Creek and the capture of one of the enemy’s flags.
On the morning of
July 22nd the brigade advanced within two miles of Atlanta, where it occupied
various positions during the siege that followed. For six weeks the 136th
lay in the trenches before the city under fire daily, many men being killed
or wounded while in the works, which were advanced to within close range
of the enemy’s lines. The Confederate troops evacuated Atlanta during the
night of Sept. 1st and the Twentieth Corps under Gen. Slocum entered the
city and took possession
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 Nov. 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, Gen. 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 Gen. Butterfield, while on the Atlanta campaign; the
regiment was under Lt. Col. Faulkner.
The army arrived
at Savannah, Dec. 11, 1864, and immediately laid siege to the city, which
was evacuated on the 21st.
After a months stay
at Savannah the army started northward on Jan. 16th 1865 on the campaign
of the Carolinas, arriving in Goldsborough, NC. on Mar. 24th, after a march
of 454 miles some of which was made over difficult roads and through rivers
and swamps. In crossing the Edisto River the men waded half a mile in water
twelve to thirty-six inches deep. Skirmishing with the enemy was a frequent
occurrence, while general engagements with Johnston’s army occurred at
Avrasborough, NC on Mar. 16th and Bentonville, NC on Mar. 19-21st. In the
fighting at Bensonville, Maj. H. L. Arnold, who was in command of the 136th,
was severely wounded. During the campaign in the Carolinas the brigade
was commanded by Gen. William Cogswell, formerly of the 2nd Mass., an able
and fearless officer.
Leaving its camp
near Goldsborough on Apr. 10th the regiment started on its last homeward
march. Passing through Richmond, VA on 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 then out the Bladensburg Pike, where it encamped while waiting for
its muster out.
The above history of
the 136th New York Infantry was contributed by Lynn Sortore, thanks Lynn.
Return
to Regimental Histories Page