North Jerseyans' role in battles of 1862

By Steve Janoski

Editor's note: This is another installment of the paper's ongoing series concerning the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. We expect at least two more articles concerning what Civil War soldiers from this region did during the battles of 1862 including Antietam and Fredericksburg.

One must wonder if there was ever an evening in the twilight of his long life that James R. Evans sat down on one of the wooden benches outside of the Pompton Plains Train Station and gazed out across the flat, open plains of Pequannock, wondering how, exactly, he had made it there.

He had moved to the township in 1875 after securing a job with the railroad, and was the station agent of the Jackson Avenue stop for 26 years during its heyday. He had a wife and two sons, and besides minding a telegraph line that connected to his house, he served as a local constable and a trustee on the Board of Education.

But there was a time in Evans' life that was not so simple, and not so quaint. And, if this were a movie, now might be when the camera closed in on the eyes of the old man, and the cacophony might slowly rise in the background until it became a deafening roar of cannons and crackling rifle fire, mixed with the screams of the wounded and the stomach-churning sound of soft lead splitting open human skulls.

And the idea that he would be sitting where he sat, listening to the steady insect rattle of another New Jersey night, would seem even more remarkable.

A scourge upon the land

When the first lanyard on the first cannon to fire on Fort Sumter was pulled at 4:30 a.m. on Friday, April 14, 1861, the sound could have easily been mistaken by the educated as the groan of a nation being wrenched apart by two opposing forces so great that the echoes would reverberate in the history of the world.

And, when an utterly defeated Union army streamed back into the streets of Washington just three months later after the Battle of Manassas, one could have mistaken that as the death rattle of the 72-year-old American Republic, which, founded in the spirit of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," stood in stark contrast to a Europe still dominated by monarchies.

But in reality, that sound was much more that of a rattlesnake gathering its wits than a nation nearing death, and it's likely that few in the South predicted the storm that was about to strike as a result - or that it would burgeon from the muzzles of the rifles held by men just like Evans.

Too young to fight, too eager to stay

Evans was born in New York City on Sept. 12, 1845 to a Canadian father and a New York mother. Just 16 years old when the conflict began, he did what all young men do when they're itching to fight in a war that doesn't want them yet: he lied about his age.

And so Evans, now newly born in 1843, was able to sign up as a musician in the 62nd New York Volunteer Infantry on June 30, 1861.

According to the New York State Military Museum and Veterans' Research Center, the regiment was raised under "special authority" of the War Department and recruited from throughout New York before being placed under the command of Colonel John Lafayette Riker.

David Sanders of the online Anderson Zouaves Research group wrote that although the 33-year-old Riker had been born into the New York elite, the fireman/lawyer would suffer a series of personal tragedies (including the death of his wife, son, and father) in the early 1850s that left him in shambles.

However, like so many other NYC firemen, he joined the war relatively quickly after its outbreak in a fierce show of patriotism and an obligation to do his "civic duty."

The 62nd adopted the somewhat ostentatious (or, one might say, gaudy) uniform of the French Zouave infantry units. Featuring short jackets, bright sashes, red fezzes, white leggings, and tremendous balloon-like trousers, they were easily distinguished from the rest of the troops, who wore the more staid dark blue jacket that the North became known for.

The 950 volunteers called themselves "Anderson's Zouaves," so named for Major Robert Anderson, the commander and hero of Fort Sumter, and they entered camp near Bayonne, which was, at the time, "a closely wooded locality, its shore commanding a view of the broad bay and the City of Newark."

"These are almost exclusively young, sturdy, healthy fellows who have passed a strict examination by the surgeon and received his unqualified encomium," one paper wrote. "They drill at least six hours a day, devoting their leisure to gymnastics, quoit-playing, wrestling, and the occasional sparring match. The propinquity of the bay, too, affords opportunities for bathing and oyster and clam bakes, which are by no means neglected."

The praise, however, was not ubiquitous, and the regiment gained a reputation for being a little rough around the edges.

"In October 1861, this regiment was the most sloppy, unclean and generally disgraceful regiment in Union service," wrote Phillip Haythomthwiate in his "Uniforms of the Civil War" in 1975. "The gaudy Zouave costume always attracted a rowdy element, but this corps contained nothing but vagabonds who stole from friend, foe and civilian alike."

They trained through the summer at Camp Astor on Rikers Island, and were sent to Washington and brigaded with four other regiments under General John J. Peck, who was similarly not impressed with the New York/New Jersey unit.

"It was mortifying to find so much neglect of duty, so much inefficiency, and so low a concept of the soldiers' position as in the Anderson Zouaves," Peck wrote. "Its organization was defective and unfortunate."

Regardless, they continued to train, and gradually formed yet another fragment of the magnificent collection of soldiers - soon to be known as the Army of the Potomac - that were slowly accumulating around the capital.

Commanded by General George B. McClellan, a talented organizer but an utter failure on the battlefield, the 120,000-man army was in fantastic shape by the spring of 1862. The ever-cautious general, however, might have sat near Washington indefinitely if not for the constant cajoling of Abraham Lincoln, who realized far faster than his general that in order to win a war, one must fight it.

To satisfy Lincoln, McClellan created a plan that would put his lumbering army on boats and transport its by sea to the Virginia Peninsula, a long stretch of land jutting out into the Chesapeake and flanked by the York River to the north and the James River to the south.

Once offloaded, the army would march on Richmond from the southeast, simultaneously catching the rebels by surprise, seizing their capital, and ending the war.

Lincoln, eager for any movement, consented, and on March 26, the 62nd broke camp and sailed for Virginia.

The Peninsula Campaign 

Drive down the Virginia Peninsula toward the sea on Interstate 64 during the daylight hours, and it isn't much different than any other highway. It's nicely paved, the lanes are well-marked, and greenery bookends either side of the asphalt - in other words, it's boring.

At night, something curious happens. The sky falls inwards and drapes a sinister blanket across the landscape, and it's only then one realizes how few lights there are. The road narrows in the mind of the driver from that of a 20th century highway to an eerie trail winding through dense, overgrown swamps thick with vines, and even in the safety of a car it can be unnerving.

All over, signs with famous names - Mechanicsville, Malvern Hill, Seven Pines - stand-a thorough reminder that men died all around, and did so in great numbers. All the while, a brief glance at Google Earth will show that if one was to step off of Route 64 in the wrong spot at the wrong time of year, especially near the murky Chickahominy River, very little has changed over the last century-and-a-half in the swampy lowlands.

It was in that atmosphere that Evans and the rest of the 62nd got its introduction to war. Not the war that had been talked about back in the streets of New York City, or in the halls of Congress, but real, ugly war that haunts the mind and stains the soul.

The Union army landed on the Peninsula on March 17 and began its crawl toward Richmond. Two weeks later, it was barely 15 miles from its starting point, and the historian James McPherson in "Battle Cry of Freedom" wrote that by April 5, the Union troops approached the old Yorktown battlefield - the same ground where, in 1781, the combined American and French armies forced the surrender of a major British army and effectively won the country's independence.

The irony was lost on no one that four score and one year later, two great armies of that same country faced each other, one hoping for independence yet again and the other seeking to save the very nation the first battle had created.

At that moment, McClellan could have ended the war swiftly had he chosen to sweep aside the 13,000 Confederates in his path and march on Richmond. But rebel commander John Magruder, an inherent showman, used a plethora of tactics to convince the Union general that his force was 10 times stronger than it was, and Evans' regiment, which would figure prominently into the spring's fighting, settled in for a month-long siege that ended only when the overall Confederate commander, General Joseph E. Johnston, called for a withdrawal.

The 62nd was one of those pursuing the retreating rebels, and met its first real combat at the Battle of Williamsburg, where it fought through the woods until a Confederate counterattack stopped its advance.

In spite of its less-than-stellar reviews earlier in the war, the regiment performed well, and the unit chaplain, John Harvey, later wrote to the Utica Morning Herald and Daily Gazette that the troops had started firing at 3:40 p.m. and "continued hard at work till dark."

The soldiers were so well trained that they were laughing and joking while they fought, and their fire, a captured North Carolinian told Harvey, had a devastating effect on their foes.

"The advantage of the winter's drilling was now plainly seen and felt," wrote Harvey. "The men were as steady and obeyed the word to 'fire' by files, platoons, divisions, or battalions, as coolly as if on parade."

McClellan himself praised Peck for the excellent service of the brigade, and Peck said that he was "bound to mention the Anderson Zouaves in particular as worthy of praise." Peck would later tell the chaplain that he was proud of the New Yorkers.

"They have done well, and now I know I can rely on them," Peck told Harvey.

Three weeks later, Evans' regiment would see intense action again during the Battle of Seven Pines as Johnston, knowing that the much smaller rebel army could not hold Richmond through a siege, turned and attacked the Union army just seven miles from the capital.

The 62nd was in the thick of it again, and at one point, the IV corps commander Erasmus Keyes personally led the regiment in a counterattack to save a crumbling flank. The fight would be the last for the New Yorkers' hard-luck colonel; he was cut down while "coolly smoking a cigar" as he led the regiment on horseback.

"The losses in the 62nd were not so great as in some of the other regiments," Keyes wrote in his after-battle report. "Its conduct was good, and its colonel, J. Lafayette Riker, whose signal bravery was remarked, met a glorious death while attacking the enemy at the head of his regiment."

That "glorious death" came with a price, for now Riker's 14-year-old daughter was an orphan. Keyes left that part out.

 

The Zouaves were driven back, however, and the corps was forced to retreat. A second day of fighting followed, but repeated Confederate attacks failed against a line reinforced, in part, by the troops of another proud son of New Jersey- Phil Kearny, whose gallant service and reputation would earn him the naming rights to a certain Hudson County town years later.

Kearny, something of a professional warrior, had fought in Algiers with the French and in Mexico with the Americans. While in Mexico, he was hit in the arm with grape shot, leading to his arm's amputation, and so he often fought with his sword in one hand and his horse's reins between his teeth.

A division commander during Seven Pines, he led his troops to shore up the faltering Union line, shouting, "I'm a one-armed Jersey son-of-a-gun, follow me!" Few were as highly respected by men on both sides as he.

Johnston was also wounded, and history would change directly as a result of the bullet that struck him; once he was out of commission, Robert E. Lee was appointed his replacement.

The ever-aggressive Lee immediately attacked the Union army, determined to drive it away from Richmond and pin it against the Chickahominy. He was, for the most part, successful, and the series of fights that took place along the flood-prone river came to be known as the Seven Days' Battles.

Evans' regiment would be the thick of it once again, and its troops would witness one of the more brutal spectacles of the war during the July 1, 1862 fight for a place called Malvern Hill.

'It was not war - it was murder'

In all wars, there are some assaults that should not be made for the simple fact that they are one step short of suicidal. Due to its wicked combination of technological advances and ancient tactics, the Civil War would see an inordinate amount of these, but perhaps none was so terribly obvious as the one at Malvern Hill.

McPherson wrote that the hill, which rises 150 feet above the surrounding land and is flanked by deep ravines on each side, was held by four Union divisions (about 55,000 men) and supported by 150 heavy artillery pieces (not counting the 50 pound shells from the gunboats on the nearby James River).

In the war's first example of Lee's fighter's heart getting the best of him, he decided to hurl his men up the slopes head on, believing that the now-perennially-retreating Union army was a step from breaking.

That army would prove to be a bit more resilient than he thought, however.

The rebels attacked, but were pounded mercilessly by artillery fire until one unit after another broke and fled. Those that did manage to get within rifle range were mowed down by massed small arms fire; a good portion of those bullets were courtesy of Evans and his regiment.

General Albion P. Howe, who took over the 62nd's brigade after Peck was promoted during the Seven Days, wrote that "the enemy again came down upon the left and center of our division in strong force, and was again repulsed...the 62nd New York, on the left of my brigade, gallantly joining with the left of the division in the repulse."

At the end of the battle, 5,500 Confederates lie on the field, their farthest push barely reaching within 200 yards of the main Union line. Confederate General D.H. Hill, whose division had been decimated, uttered the now-famous phrase, "It was not war - it was murder."

But, even as the victorious Union army stood in perfect position to counterattack the exhausted rebel army lying wounded in front of it, McClellan ordered a retreat. Kearny, ever a New Jerseyan, was so enraged that he told fellow officers that, "Such an order can only be prompted by cowardice or treason" - daring words to say against one's commanding officer in any war, at any time.

Regardless, the campaign was over. The armies had fought for two months in the dank Virginia swampland, and together had amassed a remarkable 30,000 casualties. The 62nd had taken on roughly 49 casualties during the heavy fighting at Seven Pines, and another 45 during the Seven Days' Battles. Just four months after seeing its first real action, a ninth of the regiment was gone.

Evans, miraculously, was not among them.

And as the Army of the Potomac sailed back toward Washington, its second major campaign a bloody failure only because of its commander's spinelessness, one must wonder how the young Evans felt about the slaughter he'd witnessed.

He would have time to mull it over, of course - as Union leadership was shuffled about and the strategy changed, the 62nd would not see action again until December of that year.

But even as they rested, other New Jerseyans would begin rising to the call, signing their names on the enlistment papers, and gathering into camps as the strength of the state that twice voted against Lincoln was raised for "the cause."

It would be those like Pequannock's Colonel Moses Nelson Wisewell, the 35-year-old commander of the 28th New Jersey, or the Pompton-born David Austen Ryerson of the 13th NJ, who would see their share of bloodshed as their newly created units were rushed into the maelstrom of war, and many others, now buried in the cemeteries we live next to and drive by every day, followed with them.

Those stories, however, remain to be told.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com


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