Local Civil War soldiers fight it out at Gettysburg

The idea that any one of us might one day make a decision that will change the course of the history of the world might be a little disconcerting. It would be a heavy burden to bear, to be sure, especially when we don’t know when that day might come, or what decision will do the changing.

But the reality is that, over the course of three days in 1863, men from this area — regular folks like us who lived along the meandering Pompton and Pequannock rivers in the farmland that made up Passaic and Morris counties — actually did do things that have resonated across the ages and swayed the course of events over the centuries.

Those men were, by all accounts, just like us, the only difference being that they were born earlier. They saw the same snows fall on the same hills, watched the same rivers flood in the early spring, and walked the same main streets that we do today.

Now, they are buried in our towns, mute witnesses watching from beneath stone slabs as we wait at the Ringwood Avenue traffic light or amble out of a Pequannock town meeting, utterly absorbed in our everyday lives.

In their own lives, though, they were extraordinary. And at Gettysburg, the little Pennsylvania hamlet of then 2,500 situated just 10 miles from the Maryland border, they proved it in a fashion that ensured that word of their deeds would live far longer than their bodies.

In some ways, they were like the town of Gettysburg itself — famous for nothing in particular before 170,000 soldiers converged there and caused its name to become immediately synonymous with death and devastation on an unimaginable scale, and put it on par with places like Marathon, Hastings, and Waterloo in how it would affect the path of the human race.

It may sound like hyperbole, but it is assuredly not. The importance of what happened on the overgrown, rocky heights around Gettysburg over the course of those three balmy days 150 years ago cannot be overstated, and how those brave souls from Morris and Passaic counties fought can never be forgotten.


Longest spring on record

If, after the disastrous Battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862, the Union cause had seemed bleak, by the late spring of 1863, it was in total shambles.

The northern Army of the Potomac had been taken over by a new general, the Massachusetts-born "Fighting Joe" Hooker, and he promptly whipped the soldiers back into shape before taking them into action at Chancellorsville that May, where he was promptly defeated in spectacular fashion.

As usual, the army had performed well, but the overwhelming incompetence of its commander, who was replaced soon after, led it to failure.

General George Meade replaced Hooker, and he followed the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia north as it invaded Pennsylvania in the hopes that one last, great victory, this time on northern soil, would either clear the path to Washington or bring about foreign intervention from England or France.

Using the mountains of Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley as a screen, the Southerners, commanded by the legendary Robert E. Lee, were likely headed toward Harrisburg until a chance run-in between a brigade of Confederate infantry and some Union cavalry sparked the bloodiest battle in American history.



The first day’s fight

Legends abound about why exactly the rebels were marching down the Chambersburg Pike on the morning of July 1. Popular myth says that Confederate division commander Harry Heth had heard that there were shoes in Gettysburg, and moved to seize them for his troops, many of whom had made the long walk from Virginia barefoot. Others say he knew exactly what awaited him.

Regardless, when his lead brigades ran into the Union cavalry of General John Buford, a fight quickly ensued. Buford, a career soldier, recognized the value of the series of ridges around Gettysburg, and his men used their new breach-loading carbines to fight a frustrating delaying action that gave the Union infantry time to arrive.

Soon, thousands from each side had arrived, and units dove headlong into the battle as commanders from both armies sent couriers to other commanders telling them to get to the little crossroads with all possible speed. By the afternoon, Union soldiers had formed a wide semi-circle northwest of the town that held against repeated attacks until eventually, outflanked and outnumbered, they broke and ran.

It looked as if the Army of the Potomac had been defeated once again, but slowly, the panicking troops rallied on a hill with a cemetery on it just south of the town, and the Confederates, tired and disorganized, rested instead of pressing the attack.

More federal troops arrived that night, and by morning, the Confederates were facing a fortified position that extended east to neighboring Culp’s Hill.



‘They held their own’

By the morning of July 2, the Union line resembled a gigantic fish hook, with the barb at Culp’s Hill and the shank on Cemetery Ridge, which ran south away from Cemetery Hill before culminating in two rocky hills: Little Round Top and Big Round Top.

With federal troops now firmly entrenched on the high ground and the prospects of a frontal assault looking grim, Lee ordered General James Longstreet to take the 17,000 men of his I Corps and turn the Union left to attack Cemetery Ridge and the Round Tops.

Standing in his way was the Union III Corps, led by a New York Democrat named Dan Sickles. Sickles, who was made a general more because of his political affiliations than his expertise in the field, decided that the ground in front of Cemetery Ridge looked a bit higher, and thought that moving his men forward might give them a better position. What it really did, however, was create an isolated salient in the Union line; now, the shank sat a mile in front of the rest of the hook.

A good many Morris County troops were with Sickles that day, and many, like those in the 7th and 8th New Jersey, would be in the forefront of the action.

The 7th was a veteran unit that had fought in the war’s most vicious battles, and among them was the 23-year-old Lewis Kerr, who was very likely a resident of Pequannock and would be buried in the graveyard of the First Reformed Church of Pompton Plains.

David Hann, a New Jersey reenactor who has been portraying a 7th New Jersey soldier for the past 27 years, said that unlike many other regiments, the 7th was made up of men from every corner of the state.

"Passaic County had a company, Morris County had a company…and you had firemen from Hoboken, watermen from Cape May, and German iron molders [in the same regiment]," Hann said.

The 7th’s mission was to support Battery B of the 1st New Jersey Light Artillery, which also had a strong Morris County contingent made up of 18-year-old Theodore F. Ackerman, 21-year-old Charles Monks, and James B. Onderdonk (age unknown), all of whom were from Pequannock and are now interred at the First Reformed Church of Pompton Plains.

Butler was also represented, and working the cannons alongside their Pequannock brethren were 17-year-old Abram Brown, 24-year-old James Walker, and John Luther (age unknown). They now lie in the borough’s Manning Avenue graveyard.

The Jerseymen were in a precarious position, however, and none realized it faster than Meade himself. Just as he was about to order them back into line, however, Longstreet’s attack began, and it was Battery B’s guns, commanded by A. Judson Clark, who "announced to the assembled corps commanders that ‘the ball had opened,’" Samuel Toombs wrote in his 1888 book "New Jersey Troops in the Gettysburg Campaign."

Southerners had emerged from the woods Battery B’s front, but the heavy lead shells quickly made them decide against attacking.

"[Clark] opened fire, using shell and shrapnel, firing slowly with good effect… the fire of the battery drove [the rebels] back to the cover of the woods," wrote Sergeant Leander McChesney in his book "History of Battery B."

Clark wrote in his official report that after repelling the attack with canister shot — tin shells filled with hundreds of little lead balls that exploded like a shotgun shell — his guns engaged the rebel artillery in a duel that the New Jerseyans would convincingly win.

"[Clark] passed from gun to gun directing the fire of each, character of missile and time of fuse," wrote McChesney. "As soon as he was satisfied with the effect of battery fire, he gave the order ‘Fire at will,’ and from that moment our six Parrott guns poured a stream of shell and shrapnel into the enemy’s batteries."

Soon, however, other rebel batteries opened on them with what Clark called a "rapid and severe" fire, and Longstreet’s infantry came in hard behind it. Battery B, along with the 7th — which Toombs wrote was forced to helplessly endure the duel — would soon be engaged in one of the most violent maelstroms of war ever seen on this earth.

Clark’s Morris County cannons, which kept up a "very destructive" fire, opened wide gaps in the Confederate ranks moving toward the Peach Orchard, and dying and mutilated men fell by the score. Still, all along the line, the Southerners surged.

The nearby 8th New Jersey, which was the home unit of Pequannock’s George Decker and Henry Morgan as well as Butler’s Isaac Ogden, was ordered to cross a nearby (and soon to be infamous) wheat field and take up a position behind a stone wall, Toombs wrote.

Numbering just 198 men, they were struck head-on by General James Kershaw’s brigade of South Carolinians, which numbered somewhere around 1,300, and in a few minutes, a "sharp, severe, and bloody struggle" commenced, wrote Toombs.

"The 8th fought with the gallantry and bravery which proved them worthy followers of the heroic Kearny," he wrote. "Their ranks were rapidly thinned, and as they fell slowly back, their colors became entangled in a tree. The remnant of brave fellows rallied around them with cheers and re-formed to meet the advancing foe. At this point the 8th was subjected to a severe musketry fire and sustained heavy losses."

Their colonel fell wounded, and by the time the regiment was relieved, it had lost nearly a third of its strength.

South Carolina and New Jersey would prove to be mortal enemies that day, and Hann said that just as the 7th’s colonel, Louis Francine, was about to order the regiment backwards to avoid the cannonade, Battery B came under direct assault from Kershaw’s Carolinians.

Battery B limbered up quickly as its horse-drawn pieces tore through the 7th’s ranks, creating a mass of confusion. To counter this, Francine had all 331 men fire once at the incoming rebels, and then ordered a bayonet charge to distract them from the retreating cannons.

Soon, the "devoted little band swept across the field with shouts of confidence," Toombs wrote, but quickly, the "hopelessness of the 7th’s effort was apparent, and all knew that any further advance meant certain annihilation for the brave Jerseymen."

"[A charge] was attempted, but the enemy’s fire was so severe that we were compelled to fall back," the 7th’s Major Frederick Cooper later wrote.

Francine went down, mortally wounded, as did Lieutenant-Colonel Price, who rallied the regiment until he himself fell. Cooper took over, and withdrew under heavy attack. The regiment lost nearly 40 percent of its number, but Kerr would survive.

Battery B, which now has a large monument on the field, fired 1,300 rounds at Gettysburg — so many, Hann said, that the barrels of their cannons had to be scrapped after the battle.

And the 7th, Hann said with no small degree of pride, had proved its mettle.

"They really stood tall against Kershaw, and you’re talking about a regiment against a brigade," he said. "The 7th New Jersey held their own."



The 13th at Culp’s Hill

Meanwhile, the men of the 13th New Jersey held a position on the extreme right flank of the Union line — at the barb, as opposed to the shank — and in that regiment were two soldiers from Pompton Lakes: the 27-year-old Capt. David Austen Ryerson and his 25-year-old brother, Peter.

It is written in the "Biographical and Genealogical History of the City of Newark and Essex County" that the brothers were of Huguenot descent, their ancestors having arrived from Holland in the earliest part of the 18th century and settling in the Pompton Valley shortly thereafter.

They’d signed up for the 13th in the summer of 1862, and at least one source attributes the decision to grief over the death of their 63-year-old father, who’d been killed leading a regiment of New Jerseyans at the 1862 Battle of Williamsburg.

The 13th had survived a lead baptism at Antietam, and by Gettysburg was considered a strong, reliable group of about 360 veterans. During the day on July 2, it had been shuffled around to provide support to whomever was being attacked, but found itself back on Culp’s Hill in the early hours of July 3 just as the Union troops were attacking to recoup ground lost the previous night.

"The Union artillery opened along the whole line, and from this time until ten o'clock a fierce, stubborn, and desperate battle was waged. On the success of the Twelfth Corps now depended the safety of the army," Toombs wrote, somewhat dramatically. "The continued roll of musketry, the deafening roar of the artillery were listened to by the waiting army with apprehension. The long lines of wounded men being carried to the rear gave evidence of the severity of the struggle."

As the fight raged, the 13th stayed mostly in support until David Ryerson’s company became embroiled in a southern counterattack.

The Confederates, consisting of mostly men from Stonewall Jackson’s legendary legions, "fought madly," said Toombs, "heroically and with a bravery which only Jackson’s men could show, but they were at a disadvantage — the Union line, sheltered by the rocks and immense boulders up to the face of which the rebels charged again and again, enabled them to inflict serious injury upon their assailants, and heavy as the Union loss [were] that of the enemy was [terrible]."

Ryerson’s company helped repulse the attack and send the rebels streaming back in disorder.

"At the first fire [the Confederates] were completely checked, and at the second they broke in confusion and fled, leaving their dead and wounded on the field," wrote one veteran.

Sometime during the fight, however, David Ryerson was shot. How serious it was, or where he was hit, is unknown, but it was serious enough that he was listed as a casualty. However, he would not follow his father’s footsteps to the other side just yet — he would live, to fight again another day.

And the Union position — all of it — was safe.



Their legacy

As the smoke cleared on the evening of July 3, it was not yet clear that the battle was over. However, heavy rains moved into the area on July 4, and Lee began the process of staging a slow, painful retreat back to Virginia. After a combined 51,000 American casualties, the great fight was over.

There would be more battles, of course — the war would last for two more grueling years — and hundreds of thousands more would die, but the southern army would never again be that strong, and the northerners would never again come so close to total defeat.

The great invasion was turned back, and the men of Morris and Passaic counties had stood firm in defense of their homes, which for once, had not seemed so distant.

Many would serve out the remainder of the war, and some would not survive it. But all who fought on the fields of Gettysburg would be able to say, without exaggeration, that they’d helped breathe new life into a nation that, at least for a few days, was in its death throes.

They were, and still are, heroes deserving of the highest honors.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

http://www.northjersey.com/community/history/more_history_news/216388111_Local_Civil_War_soldiers_fight_it_out_at_Gettysburg.html

Civil War, New Jersey, Gettysburg, History

New Jersey reenactors take the field for Gettysburg's 150th anniversary

An hour-and-a-half before the searing July sun breaks the horizon over the rolling fields of southern Pennsylvania, a bugle call cuts through the darkness to stir a still-sleeping army from its slumber.

Slowly, ghostly figures tumble out of their canvas tombs to light the fires that will boil their morning coffee and cook their breakfast bacon. Before long, after more snooze-button-style bugling, more men emerge, buttoning shirts and pulling on blue woolen jackets before the morning roll is called.

It's not the first time that these fields, which are located just a few miles northeast of the small village of Gettysburg, Pa., have seen this spectacle, but if things don't change soon, it might be one of the last.

Undoubtedly, Civil War reenacting is a bit of an odd pastime, and few who are not in "the hobby," as it's called by those in the know, can understand what drives thousands of men, women, and children to dress up in Victorian era clothing to party like it's 1863. Tell someone, with any degree of seriousness, that you're a reenactor yourself, and you can quite literally watch the look on their face change to what can only be described as a cross between incredulousness and pity.

In reality, though, this peculiar pursuit is much closer to a massive theater production than many in the public realize, and it's designed to breathe temporary life into the shadows of history for a few short days to give citizens a lesson they couldn't glean from their high school teachers.

And it certainly does that - from the loud, flea-market atmosphere of Sutler's Row to the sulfur clouds floating over the swarms of rifle-toting men that fight out the battle, the sights and sounds offered by the 150th reenactment of the Battle of Gettysburg could not be replicated in any classroom.

Sadly, though, as the current flock of reenactors continues to gray, the future of this undertaking may be in danger. Although about 8,000 living historians make the trek to the hamlet 40 miles from Harrisburg, it's a far cry from the now-legendary 135th anniversary, which had a remarkable 40,000.

On top of that, a civil war has erupted within the hobby itself as a growing number of reenactors - called "campaigners" or "progressives" by their mainstream counterparts - have split away to form their own groups that take the term "living history" to an extreme. They held their own event the weekend prior, and this not only cut into the number of participants at the official reenactment, but led to widespread confusion amongst the general public about which show is the "real" one.

This combination of an aging population and brutal internal politics may be creating a death spiral for the hobby, one that many, like West Milford's Mike Belgie and his reenacting compatriots, want to avoid at all costs.



A dying breed

For years, many thought that Gettysburg's sesquicentennial anniversary would be the hobby's moment of glory, especially after the triumphant 135th saw tens of thousands of Union and Confederate troops take to the field to perform a raucous full-scale recreation of the infamous Pickett's Charge.

And, although numbers aren't crucial to the reenactors themselves - Belgie says they often enjoy smaller performances more than these "mega-events" because of the increased flexibility and decreased stress - there was a sense that the 150th would draw far more participants than ended up coming, and the low turnout has several wondering if this anniversary was a "coup de grace" instead.

But still, most believe that at least one of the two major engagements held on Saturday, July 6, was a success. Without the numbers, they aren't as muscular as they perhaps could have been, but they are active and intense, and every unit gets to "burn some powder," as they say.

Belgie, 57, is an 18-year veteran of this hobby, and is reasonably high on the reenactor food chain; as a major, he fleshes out part of the body of a half-dozen men who serve on the staff of General Tony Daniels, commander of the Union Army's 2nd Division.

Tall and skinny with gray curly hair, a gray goatee, and a set of glasses permanently affixed to the bridge of his nose, Belgie is a laid-back sort who makes his living as a photographer but is also an ex-Deadhead, ex-security contractor, ex-everything kind of guy.

Daniels, 66, might be described as his opposite. Shorter and thicker, with a weather-beaten face and a dark beard, he bears an uncanny resemblance to Ulysses S. Grant and was born in Newark on 85th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam. A Verona native, he taught history for years in Jackson Township, and speaks carefully and deliberately. The letters "SPQR" - the initials of a Latin phrase once emblazoned on the standards of the Roman legions - are tattooed across his left shoulder.

The mercury rises quickly Saturday morning, and as it does, there is some doubt among Daniels' staff as to whether they, or many of their men will participate in the afternoon battle, which is slated to start at 1 p.m. As the hour nears and other units assemble, that doubt strengthens as the mercury climbs past 90, and although a few gear up, Daniels, Belgie, and many of their 800 or so reenactors don't leave the shade of their tents.

At this point, it's far hotter for the recreation than it was for the actual engagement.

The battle kicks off 20 minutes late and is something of a mess from the start. Although the artillery cannonade is fearsome, the main infantry battle occurs over a quarter-mile from where the spectators sit and is blocked by a grove of trees.

As the standing-room-only crowd follows the fight, many end up crashing through a camp and breaking through a thin line of woods before coming out far too close to the action for the comfort of either the reenactors or the event staff, and several women on horseback ride the length of the unruly line, screaming at the onlookers to clear the area. Their efforts are met with a mix of begrudging acquiescence and, in some instances, belligerence, and in the end, it's only the threat of police intervention that accomplishes their goal.

Afterward, back at the cluster of five or six tents that makes up the 2nd division headquarters, the few officers who took the field reveal that the scenario strayed so far from the script that it eventually turned into an impromptu "tactical" - an unscripted battle that is more like living chess than a well-rehearsed play.

"It went well," one officer says, grabbing a Yuengling out of the wooden cooler marked "Adams Express."

"Yeah? I heard it was a cluster-[expletive]," Daniels replies quietly.

"Well... We had a small but effective force," the officer says with a grin. "I think it went very well. The men were happy."

Lunch is served shortly afterward, and a lazy afternoon passes as black ants crawl across the table and horseflies abuse everything with a pulse. The staff drinks cold lagers while discussing everything from (of course) reenactor politics to New York Giants football (Daniels had season tickets for years). Nearby, a band plays poor renditions of rarely heard songs like "Battle Cry of Freedom" and "Bonnie Blue Flag" on the violin.

By the time 5:30 p.m. rolls around, though, the staff is ready to get moving - the sun has tumbled lower in the sky, and a slight wind has made the heat more bearable.

As the men - along with the occasional woman - form up, Daniels mounts Gabriel, the massive 2,000-pound black horse that he rides into battle, and takes his place at the head of the line. He is an imposing sight.

Belgie used to ride, he says, but his back no longer can take the abuse, and a couple of close calls with an unbroken steed a few years back means that he now walks into his fights.

This time, the reenactment appears to go off without a hitch. Few of the officers know which particular piece of the battle they're reenacting, but they know the script and stick to it as Union troops take their positions in a dark woodline at the crest of a steep hill. The Southerners meet with success initially as they fight their way up the slope, but the closer they get to the top, the more blue lines step forward out of the thick leaves and ambush them.

By the time they reach the crest, many have fallen, and the Southerners realize that, having marched into the open end of a horseshoe, they're being enveloped by Union troops who send volley after volley into their flanks.

The federal fire intensifies, and cannons boom in the background. Understanding what the man next to you is saying is, at times, impossible, even though reenactors use only partial charges; if they were using real cartridges, every rifle would be several times louder, and the artillery would literally be deafening. The real battle, it's said, was heard 140 miles away in Pittsburgh.

By the time the bugles blow the "cease fire," it's clear that this is a resounding victory for the Union. When the voice of a woman singing "God Bless of America" clamors out of the loudspeakers, all hats come off, and the thousands on the field fall silent.

After the battle, the feeling in camp is markedly lighter, and the officers smile like a boxer who's just finished his bout.

"The boys had fun today," Daniels says to no one in particular. All nod in agreement.

But, while it was a good reenactment, it is clear that it could have been far larger and far more impressive if more men had shown up.

A 'general collapse'

Hours later, Belgie sips from an aged tin beer stein as he speaks about the day's battle and the divide that's driven down participation. What we're seeing, he says, is not an implosion of the reenactor community - it's more of a "general collapse."

The campaigner group, named the "Blue-Gray Alliance," had maybe 8,000 in its reenactment the week before, but regardless, only about 2,000 would have actually participated in this event, Belgie says. The rest have little regard for mainstream events, which tend to stay close to the history books on the battlefield, but are more laid back in camp. The site of women in the "company streets" (the lanes between the tents), enlisted men with tents larger than they should have, and cars and trucks visible in the distance as there are here would be unacceptable.

Cell phones are banned, coolers aren't allowed, and beer is a no-no. Spectators, Belgie says, are more of a bother than a blessing to them.

"They would rather do it for the reenactors, by the reenactors - that's their motto," he says. "They don't want modern intrusions... You actually cross a time line, and when you cross that line, it is 1863. This is Gettysburg."

He's participated in events like this - most reenactors have at one point or another - but the rules get tiresome, and truly living in the field like it's the mid-19th century is less than pleasant if you're strict about it. And one can't help but get the feeling that mainstreamers roll their eyes at the thought of being "authentic."

"Authentic? The last authentic Civil War soldier was (Alfred) Woolson, and he died in 1956," Belgie says. "Everybody since then is just a reenactor. We're just recreating history so the public gets some education that they didn't get in school."

Pennsylvanian Carl Popadick, another long-time member of Daniels' staff who also portrays pirates, Revolutionary War soldiers, and everyone in between, is a bit more blunt about his feelings.

"They just don't give a [expletive]. They don't care if they teach anybody anything. They didn't want spectators, but to pull something off that size, they needed spectators to pay the way," he says. "They're just using the public - they don't care if they have a good sightline. They don't care if they're comfortable in the field or they have water. It's, 'We got your 20 bucks to get in, so we can have an event for ourselves.'"

Daniels agrees, and it's likely the history teacher in him speaking when he calls the campaigners "exceptionally selfish." And for those that sit around his camp table, drinking beer and whiskey and smoking cigars by candlelight late into the midnight hours, this blatant disregard for the public is a cardinal sin.

"We have a different slant in that we try to portray it as historically accurate as possible for the public to see. Those guys are just in it for themselves," he says. "The event last weekend, they had a handful of spectators, and they didn't care. They didn't even want [them]."

And the idea that the campaigners, who seem to have an increasing amount of influence, are trying to wrestle the entire hobby in that direction, is intolerable, even more so because they're meeting with some success - two years ago, no mention of this war between the reenactors was heard around anyone's table.

Now, it's a constant topic of conversation.



'The kids today are air-conditioned'

The other thing that worries the old guard is that the youth don't seem particularly inclined to take up the mantle that is slowly being abdicated by the graybeards. With many of the current crop of Baby Boomer reenactors reaching the age of 60 or 65, coming out into the field for a weekend isn't an option anymore, Belgie says.

"It's just physically impossible, and in fact, it's dangerous to your health," he says.

New members are needed if the hobby hopes to survive, because guys like him are "gettin' kind of tired."

Where that new blood comes from, however, is still unknown, and with kids spending their free time in front of iPhone screens and Xbox games, convincing them to come out for a weekend to learn to shoot a black powder rifle is harder than one might think.

"The kids today are air conditioned... They're not outdoor people," he says. "I could go to any high school in the country and say, 'We're not gonna' fight a battle, but we're going to go out and camp... You're going to have a rubber blanket, two wool blankets, it'll be a 90-degree day, you're going to put on three layers of wool and carry a musket that weighs 18 pounds,' and they're going to look at me like I got three heads."

Southerners tend to have better luck keeping their numbers up, and Belgie attributes this what he considers a mix of a "good propaganda system" that makes them believe that the South will "rise again" and the anti-government tendencies of its people.

Add to that the relative oddity of actually becoming a Civil War reenactor - which Belgie says has always earned him queer looks, no matter the year - and it's a tough sell to the Millennials.

Nearly everyone on Daniels' staff echoes the same sentiment; they wish they could get their kids to join them, but it rarely happens.

Belgie also notes that they've tried to help African-American regiments, such as the United States Colored Troops (USCT) and the 54th Massachusetts, recruit, but there's been a dismal response - even though 180,000 black soldiers served in the real Union ranks.

"We've tried to help [those units], but they just can't get any interest out of their communities," he says. "They're like, 'You're kidding right? I'm not doing that.'"

Daniels admits that the low turnout for Gettysburg is "a bad sign, no two ways about it," and worries that the hobby might someday shrink in popularity to that of, say, Revolutionary War reenacting, which was immensely popular during the 1970s but is now a shell of what it once was. But he seems more optimistic than Belgie, and believes that a TV miniseries like Ken Burns' 1990 PBS special "The Civil War," or a new movie in the fashion of "Glory" or "Gettysburg" could kick start things again.

"We are a culture that is attuned to what we see on television," he says.

The next couple years will be tough, though, as many old-time reenactors who stuck around just to see the Gettysburg sesquicentennial will now likely retire, he says.

"Right after this event, it's going to be like you pulled the plug in the bathtub. You're going to lose probably a quarter of the guys who are here, because they were staying in it for this," he says. "This is going to have a marked effect on reenacting."

There are some connections that will continue regardless, though, and Popadick points out that people are still closer to the Civil War than they ever were to the Revolution because of heirlooms like letters, Bibles, and other artifacts that are still being passed down within families.

"[They say] 'Oh, I still have my great-grandad's Bible, his glasses, the hat he wore.... So that's still getting passed down, and that's going to help keep this alive," he says.

Daniels also notes that over the last two years, he's seen more young kids around the camp than he used to, and there's always the hope that as the economy improves, reenactors who are either out of work or can't take off the necessary days may begin showing up again. Also, better paychecks mean that more beginners might be inclined to spend the initial $1,500 that it costs to outfit oneself with the appropriate gear.

"The economy has a lot to do with it, the price of gas has a lot to do with it, the weather obviously has a lot to do with it, but I'm feeling a little better about the hobby now than [last year]," Daniels says. "Not like super-optimistic, but I'm thinking, 'Hey you know what...'"

Nothing has been formally proposed among the reenacting hierarchy to prop up the faltering numbers.


A thing worth saving

Ask a reenactor why, what with its back to the ropes, "the hobby" is worth saving, and you'll get a variety of answers.

Daniels is of the opinion that it's important to educate the public on its history, and points out that the crushing multitudes of participants and spectators do, in fact, boost the local economy of whatever town an event is held in.

Popadick says it's important because in a nation that's famously ignorant of its own past, knowing what happened before helps us understand what's going on today. People in the British Isles, he says, not only know what happened 300 years ago, but understand that it transcends the centuries and still affects current events.

In America, that's not the case.

"Our average kids don't know anything about our history, or what happened in any time period," he says. "And what happened in the Civil War definitely affected the way we live today - it literally made America."

Plus, he points out, where else could a conversation like this even take place outside of this atmosphere?

Belgie's answer is perhaps the most revealing. It was the family stories about his great-great grandfather, William C. Louderback, a coal miner who served with the 79th Pennsylvania Volunteers, that piqued his initial interest in the war. Louderback, after all, had been a part of General Sherman's infamous "March to the Sea," which burned its way through Georgia in 1864, and saw action at several brutal battles.

But it was something that happened after Belgie's first night in the field nearly 20 years ago that cemented his place in the ranks.

He'd been dropped off that weekend by his "better half" and told, more or less, "See ya Sunday." When he arrived at the site, the reenactors pointed to a low "dog tent," told him that's where he was sleeping, and gave him a wool uniform to wear.

The next morning, he says, he awoke to a scene that was out of place in time.

"I looked out, and there's five guys sitting around a fire, they've got their pipper on [it], they're boiling coffee, they got the little pans out and they're making bacon, and I'm like, "[Expletive], this is what my great-great-grandfather saw,'" he says. "That's it. You know what I mean?"

Suddenly, he chokes up.

"God, that was a long time ago," he says quietly, sending a thousand-yard stare into the distance.

"You can read a book," Belgie says, pausing momentarily. "It ain't the same....We can't lose this. And I don't know how we're gonna save it, but there's got to be a way to do it."

Whatever their plan is, they'd better start soon. Or else, like the souls of the men they portray, they may end up haunting these fields, wondering what went wrong, and wishing they had one last chance to do it differently.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

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Teacher learns harsh lessons at Fredericksburg

Run your hand along the length of the reconstructed fieldstone wall that sits near the crest of Marye’s Heights in Fredericksburg, Va., during a warm summer day in the middle of tourist season, and things will seem far too…perfect.

The angles are flawless, the grounds impeccably manicured, the weather too warm, the grass too green. There are no open fields left — like so many of the small villages near Washington, D.C., suburban sprawl has crawled past the town limits, and it laps around the base of the hills that are now home to condos and administration buildings for the nearby University of Mary Washington.

The casual visitor would be hard pressed to believe that anything of any importance has ever happened here, or that this sleepy little town along the Rappahannock River has ever been anything different than…well, a sleepy little town.

But then there are the cemeteries. Many of them. Willis Hill and Fredericksburg National, Shiloh and Fredericksburg City. It seems that one pops up on every corner, and the natural question is why such an impossibly small town has so many dead people in it.

Here, the focus sharpens on the real story of Fredericksburg, and what took place 150 years ago in front of this short, 3-and-a-half foot wall that now serves to separate the blocks of the buried from the blocks of homes on Littlepage Street and Kenmore Avenue, where regular Virginians go about their regular lives in 2013.

It’s here that so long ago, two great armies met on the ground that’s now home to Jake & Mike’s restaurant and the James Monroe High School football field and Pulliam’s Auto Center, and fought to decide the future of a fledgling nation that, with its back on the ropes, had turned on itself.

And for a 35-year-old schoolteacher from Pequannock, his life would change in front of that wall, which became the scene of one of the unimaginable slaughters in the history of war.

Moses Nelson Wisewell

According to Pequannock Township Historian Ed Engelbart, Moses Nelson Wisewell was born in Brandon, Vt., on May 15, 1827. Records from the town’s Historic District Commission note that he came to the bustling little town along the Pompton just prior to 1850 after having left a position as the schoolmaster of a military academy in Yonkers.

In those days, Pequannock was several times larger in land area but, with just 4,126 residents, had one-third of its present population. Wisewell had come to teach the area’s youth, and as was tradition at the time, boarded with the residents — in this case, Thomas and Hester Mandeville.

However, he found more than just eager students, and in what might have been a charming story, fell in love with Mandeville’s 18-year-old daughter, Elizabeth. The two were married in 1850 at the First Reformed Church of Pompton Plains, which still stands on the Newark-Pompton Turnpike across from Town Hall.

Over the course of the next 10 years, the couple had two daughters as Wisewell pursued what Engelbart said was a "successful career" as the principal of the Pequannock Township School and "the academy," which was a tuition-based private school.

A year-and-a-half after the first guns had fired on Fort Sumter, Wisewell decided to enlist, and it’s likely that his education and apparent military background earned him a commission as the colonel of the 28th New Jersey, which, in the summer and fall of 1862, was being recruited from throughout Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean, Camden, and Gloucester counties. 

The 28th, a nine-month regiment, was officially mustered in on Sept. 22, 1862, with Pequannock’s adopted son in command.

There are not many descriptions of Wisewell’s character to be found in literature on the war — he was just another colonel among the hundreds. But according to John Young Foster’s 1868 book "New Jersey and the Rebellion," the New Jerseyan was a man of "fine intellectual capacity" who soon acquired "a marked hold on the confidence" of his soldiers.

That enthusiasm appears to have waned, however, when during a public address he made "certain offensive avowals" about the war and the ongoing governor’s race in his home state and "became obnoxious to a large portion of the regiment." Regardless, he retained his command, and his conduct in the future would show why.

The 28th was 940 strong when it left Freehold for Washington on the night of Oct. 4, 1862. It was attached to General Nathan Kimball’s brigade in General French’s division of the Second Corps of the northern Army of the Potomac, which by December was camped along the eastern side of the Rappahannock River, waiting for orders from commander General Ambrose Burnside.

It was Burnside’s first campaign at the helm of the hard-luck army, which had met with little but defeat since the war’s start. Abraham Lincoln had appointed him to replace the pompous, ineffectual George B. McClellan after the latter failed to purse Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in the wake of the northern victory at Antietam. How Burnside would perform was unknown, but he met Lincoln’s major qualification of not being McClellan, and for the time being, that was enough.

The Union commander, like several before and after, sought to march directly on the Confederate capital of Richmond, which sits just 134 miles from Washington. Taking the lightly-defended hub of Fredericksburg, which is nearly equidistant from the two, was a necessary part of that plan.

Burnside moved fast, stealing the march on Lee and arriving at the town in mid-November. The Rappahannock, however, was too high to ford, and his army sat for three weeks while pontoon bridges were built and brought to the front.

This gave the southern army plenty of time to respond, and by the time Burnside crossed the river on Dec. 12, the Army of Northern Virginia had occupied a line of ridges southwest of the town — squarely between the Army of the Potomac and the Confederate capital.

The 28th crossed the Rappahannock on Burnside’s pontoon boats at sunrise on Dec. 12, and passed a bitterly cold night camped near the town before being called to arms on the fateful morning of Dec. 13.

History can only assume that Burnside, a poor commander who was a perennial loser in the war, did not understand what he was looking at when he gazed through his binoculars at the sloping heights and wooded ground that housed the rebel army. All his subordinates, however, did, and men on the northern end of the line saw all too well that Marye’s Heights, what with its sunken road framed by a stone wall on the near side, formed a nearly impregnable natural fortification.

This did not deter him. It should have.

At the gates of hell

On the morning of the 13th, southern General James Longstreet later wrote, the armies were veiled from each other by an "impenetrable mist" that hid guns and flags but allowed voices to carry eerily across the field with "almost startling" clarity.

The attack on the southern portion of the Confederate line began shortly after dawn, and met with some success before falling apart a few hours later. As that advance faltered, Kimball’s brigade — and with it, Wisewell’s 28th — received the order to fall in line and act as the tip of the spear for the assault on Marye’s Heights.

The 600 yards they had to cover before reaching the fortified wall was difficult ground, interspersed with houses, fences, and a canal that forced all the troops to funnel themselves onto three small wooden bridges to cross.

The rest was open, and every inch of it was covered by batteries of artillery. Confederate artillery commander Lt. Col. Edward Porter Alexander quipped that "a chicken could not live on that field when we open on it."

Longstreet, who commanded the defending troops, described the advance in his typically dry prose.

"French’s division came on in gallant style, but somewhat hurried. He gathered his ranks behind the swell of ground near the canal, and moved to the assault," he said.

And what an assault it was. According to Francis Augustin O’Reilly’s book "The Fredericksburg Campaign," the 8th Ohio was in front, with the 28th and 24th New Jersey behind them.

One Confederate, watching from a freshly dug artillery pit, noted that he’d "never witnessed such a battle array before," while another recalled "how beautifully" the Federals came on.

"Their bright bayonets glistening in the sunlight made the line look like a huge serpent of blue and steel," he wrote.

As soon as the northerners cleared the town, however, they received a rude welcome as the heavy guns roared to life. Cannonballs tore the ranks apart, and sent "arms, hands, legs, and clothing into the air." O’Reilly wrote that a shell decapitated the 8th Ohio’s flag-bearer, "leaving his blood and brains upon comrades and the flag."

Still the brigade moved forward, but when the quadruple ranks of Confederate infantry behind the wall finally stood and leveled their rifles at the lead regiment, the barrels of their guns became the last thing many a northerner would ever see. Men in the rear loaded for those in the front ranks, and rifles were passed back and forth simulating what would eventually be known as "machine gun fire." The results were ghastly.

"Hell erupted," O’Reilly wrote. "Cobb’s Georgians (behind the wall) stood up from behind their stone wall and unleashed a devastating volley that paralyzed the Yankees."

General Kimball rode down the lines, and stopped on occasion to address the men before reigning up in front of the New Jerseyans.

"Boys, we are the attacking brigade. I shall expect you to go ahead and open the first. Keep steady, aim low, and let every man do his duty….Remember, you are Jerseymen!" Kimball said. Later, O’Reilly wrote, the general would tell them that "they can’t kill all of you, but they may hurt some of you."

"I thought that was pretty poor satisfaction or comfort to us," one soldier wrote.

The closer the 28th got to the heights, the worse the situation got, and the regiment’s Lieutenant Colonel, Edward A.L. Roberts, later said that it suffered "a most galling and deadly fire of shot and shell," all the while bogging down in the mud that slowed their movement to a crawl.

As the bee’s nest of the bullets grew worse, the northern line curled and fell like "dry grass before the fire," one soldier said. Foster, however, wrote that the 28th moved on "in the face of a murderous fire…(and) pressed steadily forward until the plain was crossed and the foot of the first ridge was reached."

By then, their ranks were "terribly thinned," with one fifth of the regiment having been killed or wounded within minutes of starting the advance.

O’Reilly was harder on the Jersey boys, and wrote the "inchoate 24th and 28th New Jersey regiments quailed before the fire" before laying down along an exposed fold in the ground that left them pinned down and unable to retreat or advance.

"Bullets flew among their prostrate ranks, and their effectiveness diminished," he wrote.

It was here, O’Reilly reports, that a single Confederate bullet, made up of one-ounce of soft lead, finally found its mark, and struck Wisewell directly in the jaw. He would have to be carried from the field, his fate uncertain, and the regiment left without a commander.

His soldiers, badly shaken, "did not exactly run, yet they were very nervous all the time," and O’Reilly said that when three straight artillery shells landed amongst them with fearful effect, the virgin regiment finally broke and ran for the rear. Their leadership was also lacking, as Roberts, who assumed the command after Wisewell’s wounding, was later cashiered for evidently tendering his resignation "in the face of the enemy."

Foster paints a more positive picture of the 28th’s conduct, though, and wrote that "the command stood firm, deliberately opening fire upon the enemy from the shelter of a ravine, and holding the position tenaciously until night put an end to the conflict."

"Only the very highest courage could have held the 28th in the perilous position it occupied, exposed to all the fury of the enemy’s attack," he said. "From first to last, the men fought with the same heroism, the same cool determination, as the veteran troops around them.

It is unclear which account is more correct.

Several more Union assaults followed, and the slaughter continued until darkness enveloped the field. Finally the 28th withdrew, leaving 200 of its original 600 dead, but with its "standards lustrous with the halo of brave achievements." Many other northerners passed the night still pinned down, cradled between stacked corpses meant to block the bullets.

Burnside had wished to renew the attack in the morning and physically lead the corps he’d once commanded against the position, but his subordinates convinced him not to. It would be the last time he commanded the Army of the Potomac.

By the end of the day, the Army of the Potomac had lost 12,500 men. Somewhere between 6,000 to 8,000 lay in front of the stone wall on Marye’s Heights. No soldier had gotten closer than 50 yards before being gunned down.

Cheating death

After being carried from the field, Wisewell, by some miracle, survived his wounds even with the lack of antibiotics and general ignorance of medical procedures that abounded in 1860s America. Like any good New Jerseyan, however, he could not keep quiet when it came to his opinion of his commander.

"After Fredericksburg, he excoriated Burnside for his incompetence," said Engelbart, "and Burnside was ready to bring him up on charges. It didn’t happen, but he was more or less told to shut up."

However, he was promoted to brevet Brigadier General for his "gallant and meritorious service" at the battle, and was mustered out in July 1863. In just one fight, the schoolteacher-turned-soldier assured his place in history, small though it may be.

"His courage…was undoubted," Foster wrote. "And at the Battle of Fredericksburg, he led his regiment with great gallantry."

He was later made the military governor of Washington, D.C., and after the war, became a civil engineer and merchant. His obituary in The New York Times noted that he "built many railroads and was involved in many public works," and also obtained the first patent for Oleo margarine.

He became involved with trying to build a military academy in Pequannock that would be New Jersey’s answer to West Point, but due to a lack of funding, it was never built.

After his wife died in 1886, Wisewell spent an increasing amount of time in New York City, where he died two years later. He was brought back to Pequannock, and now lies in the graveyard of the church he was married in.

And even though his old regiment was full of those who only signed up for a nine-month fight, it would distinguish itself at the Federal disaster at Chancellorsville before being mustered out in NJ later that summer.

Foster, once again, wrote a fitting description.

"During the whole time that the 28th was connected with the Army of the Potomac, it held a position on the immediate front…and was, consequently, at all times exposed to attack by ‘raiding’ parties of the enemy. It is simple truth to say of the regiment that wherever placed, it did its duty courageously and efficiently, and that though serving the dark hours of the war, it never lost its faith in the Republic."

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One soldier's last full measure

By Steve Janoski

For those of us born in the shadow of the new millennium, the very idea of knowing anything about the daily life of a man born in the 1830s might seem slightly crazy.

But for some, like 25-year-old Antietam park ranger Dan Vermilya, who routinely walks the fields where his great-great-great-grandfather Elwood Rodebaugh was killed 150 years ago, not only knowing that story, but retelling it, has become a way to show people that, as Faulkner said, "The past isn't dead. It's not even past."

Rodebaugh's figure has always loomed over the native Ohioan's life in one way or another — as a child, his grandfather used to tell him the story about the young man who went off to war back in 1861, and the tale sparked a lifelong passion for learning about the conflict. Eventually, it led him to choose a profession that carried him back to these same acres that once soaked up the blood of that man, whose narrative he has filled out through his own research.

Rodebaugh, he said, was a 30-year-old Pennsylvania shoemaker when the Civil War erupted in 1861. He and his wife Josephine (just 25 at the time) had two young children: a 4-year-old daughter named Heloise and a 3-year-old boy named Charles.

Had this family man chosen to stay home and ignore the bloodletting, he would have hardly been the only one (especially in the North), but whatever convictions compelled him to enlist in the 106th Pennsylvania in the summer of that year must have been deeply-held, because they sustained him through heavy fighting in Virginia during the spring of 1862 and into the fall.

And on Sept. 17, Rodebaugh's unit was at Antietam, charged with the unenviable task of storming a section of rebel line that sat in what's now known as the West Woods. It's here that words frustratingly fail the writer, because there is no way to adequately describe what must have been a scene of chaotic violence; though many of us have undoubtedly felt similar sensations — the tunnel vision, machine-gun heart rate, the shaking hands — at least once in our lives when we've felt threatened, how can we who have never seen true combat understand that kind of terror?

It was a vicious fight, to be sure, one that went on too long and took too many lives. Vermilya has read numerous accounts, and said that it appears that Rodebaugh was last seen along a fence-line, desperately trying to make a stand against the rebels who had fallen with crushing weight on the Union flank. At some point after that — it's not known how or when — he became one of the 23,000 to fall upon that field.

And when Rodebaugh received his fatal wound, be it by bullet or artillery shell, we will never know where his final thoughts wandered as he lay dying on the soft Maryland grass — this again, we can only imagine. Unfortunately, Vermilya said, Rodebaugh had shaved his beard just before the battle, which made him unrecognizable to the burial parties. As such, no grave or monument marks where he fell.

Perhaps the saddest part of all, however, is that this is but one of thousands upon thousands of stories from that war just like it; in the end, that's why Vermilya tells it.

So as the tall, lean ranger approaches the same age his distant relative was when he died, one man's tragedy has become a way to illuminate the fact that history was not fought in the ivory pages of history books, but in the fields, and that every dot of ink in that blue line on the battlefield map was a man (or, more likely, a boy of 18 or 20) who had a mother he loved, a father he respected, a girlfriend or wife he missed uncontrollably, a son or daughter who was everything to him.

Working at Antietam has made the story more important, and more emotional, than ever before.

"In general, working as a park ranger carries the responsibility of knowing how important this battle was, but to know that I had a direct bloodline to it…. it's (become) more than just a professional obligation. It's a personal obligation," said Vermilya. "It reminds us that these battles are fought not by lines on a map, not by numbers in a book, but real people with real families making sacrifices for the things that they believe in. 150 years ago, tremendous sacrifices were made (at Antietam), and they were selfless sacrifices."

The ranger has a blog entitled "Our Country's Fiery Ordeal," where he goes into great detail about his thoughts on that most brutal of wars. In one passage, he quotes historian Dr. Joseph Harsh, who wrote that we should honor the soldiers' legacy, "For we are the future for whom they fought."

For Vermilya, that is quite literally true, and he must never let us forget that.

Dan Vermilya's blog on the Civil War and Antietam can be found at fieryordeal.blogspot.com.

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New Jersey's role at Antietam, past and present

By Steve Janoski

As the suns descends over one of the many cornfields that divide the rolling hills of western Maryland, a scene not witnessed in over a century-and-a-half is taking place as thousands of men – some wearing blue, some wearing gray – file into a field, their steel rifle barrels glinting in the light as they march.

Minutes later, a thunderous roll of drum beats calls the infantry to battle, and a battery of cannons roars to life, its bellows shattering the quiet country evening as its crew swarms around it. One officer yells to his men, "Alright boys…get ready for hell!"

In one cornfield, a swirling firefight has broken out, and all that can be heard over the din of artillery muzzles and rifle cracks is men yelling in a mad chorus, shouting orders, and firing at each other while horses careen about and the sulfur smoke settles just over the tops of the 7-foot stalks… and for a brief moment, it becomes all too easy to lose one's place in time.

The confusion is endless. Northern sharpshooters thread between the plants in guerilla-fashion more suited for the jungles of Vietnam, but a line of rebels soon overwhelms them, charging forward with their high-pitched "rebel yell." Minutes after, however, a thick line of blue follows and drives those same southerners before it.

An hour later, a bugle blows in the distance to signify that the scenario is being brought to a close, and the firing slows. It appears that the North has won the exercise, called a "tactical" in the reenactment world. 

Unscripted and unmapped, it is a real competition where the Northern and Southern commanders use tactics from the mid-19th century to match soldiers and wits.

Or, as 56-year-old West Milford resident and 17-year Civil War reenacting veteran Mike Belgie said, it's "two generals looking for each other, and they know they're out there, and they're going for it."

Sometimes, at formally-scored events, referees are even present, but many (such as this one) are done on the honor system.

The tactical stands in stark contrast to the reenactment that the public will see the following day in a massive but scripted performance meant to commemorate the sesquicentennial of the Battle of Antietam, he said, precisely because it is not intended to follow history — the generals have "taken the script and thrown it away."

"When we do a tactical, we're writing our own history," he said.

In this case, the rewritten history mirrors the actual battle as the Union troops continually outmaneuver and outwit the rebels, but the chaotic atmosphere gives Belgie a thorough appreciation for what the soldiers of the mid-1860s went through when the bullets began flying.

"Once the guys got into the corn, the only way we knew where they were was the smoke…that's a great way to run a battle: Which way is the smoke?" he said with a laugh.

Belgie isn't the only one who looks forward to the private battles, said Tony Daniels, a retired history teacher from Jackson Township whose thick brown beard and propensity for smoking cigar after cigar gives him an uncanny resemblance to Ulysses S. Grant. In his 30 years, he said, he has been in nearly 100 of the running fights, and can recite story after story about one match after another.

But for Daniels, who as a general often commands a wing of the army (or sometimes the entire army), going head-to-head with an opposing leader brings out his competitive streak, and he can recall only twice where he lost convincingly.

"Although you're not using real bullets, it's like, 'I don't want this guy to trick me, I want to kick his ass,'" he said. "It's almost like chess, and I love it."

One of the officers on Daniels' staff, Pennsylvanian Carl Popadick, has been reenacting for 17 years and said that when there's no choreography, everything changes, and all the sensations are heightened.

"You get out there in that field, and you're fighting because you don't know what's going to happen. Your awareness changes, it really does," he said.

But even the reenactors are keenly aware that they can get only so close to history, and that even the most hectic tactical is tame compared to the real thing — especially when "the real thing" is Antietam.

During the historical battle, which took place on Sept. 17, 1862, the artillery did a good amount of the work of clearing out the real cornfield, Belgie said, by firing canister — a metal cylinder packed with hundreds of little metal balls and shards of metal — into it.

By the time dusk gathered around the 3,000 or so acres east of the little farming town of Sharpsburg, 23,000 Americans would lie in various states of death or agony, with 3,600 killed outright. That's eight times as many casualties as Omaha Beach, and eight times as many as in 9/11. Even with the horrific wars fought in the 20th century, Antietam today remains the single bloodiest day in American history.

And, nearly 150 years ago to the day, just a few miles away from the reenactors' frenzied fight, the young soldiers of the 13th New Jersey volunteers crouched near another cornfield, waiting for the orders that they knew would send them to their deaths.

Jersey boys' baptism by fire

The 937 men of the regiment had been recruited from Passaic, Essex, and Hudson counties during the summer of 1862, and by mid-September, it was attached to the XII Corps of the General George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac as it traveled north from Virginia in pursuit of an invading southern army.

The stakes could not possibly have been higher. A series of Confederate victories in front of Richmond during May and June, coupled with Robert E. Lee's crushing defeat of another Union army at Second Bull Run in late August, had shattered the Northerners' spirit, and it appeared that one more big win for the rebels might have ended the conflict.

Even if it did not, a victory somewhere in Pennsylvania or Maryland might convince the major European powers — namely, England and France — to intervene on behalf of the South in the same manner that the French had during the Revolutionary War 81 years earlier.

When the two armies finally met, it was along a tiny tributary of the Potomac River called Antietam Creek, and when the 13th New Jersey moved into position on the west side of its banks on the night of Sept. 16, it was impossible for them to know what the next day would hold.

Samuel Toombs, a sergeant who became the de facto regimental historian after the publishing of his 1878 book "Reminisces of the War: Comprising a Detailed Account of the Experiences of the Thirteenth Regiment New Jersey Volunteers in Camp, on the March and in Battle," wrote that the 13th, situated on the extreme right of the federal line, would be a part of the assault force charged with turning the rebel flank and driving it back toward Sharpsburg.

The sounds of skirmishing in the distance made the green regiment skittish; they'd barely heard a shot fired in training, much less in battle.

"It was a trying situation for us," Toombs wrote. "The certainty of death never before seemed so near. The approach of dawn was dreaded as though it was to witness our last day upon earth, and our thoughts wandered back to home and the loved ones there."

For David and Peter Ryerson, two brothers hailing from Pompton Lakes, thoughts of loved ones might not have been of so much comfort — earlier in the year, their 63-year-old father (born in 1798) had fallen at the Battle of Williamsburg, his body pierced by several bullets, while commanding another New Jersey regiment. 

He was buried in the graveyard of the Pompton Reformed Church on Hamburg Turnpike with full military honors.

Months later, the brothers, who were both officers (27-year-old David was a captain in Company C and Peter was a 1st lieutenant), would face their first real battle. Also in that company was Private J.M. 

Shepperd, whom much less is known about other than he was likely from the Pequannock area and fought in the battle.

The order to attack came so early in the morning on the 17th that there wasn't even time to cook their breakfast rations of fresh meat, Toombs wrote, and he described the scene that greeted them as they arrived on the field at around 7 a.m.

"Shot and shell were doing their dreadful work. The roar of musketry grew louder…we lay under a severe artillery fire for some time, and the hissing, screeching sounds which accompanied the deadly missiles in their flight produced anything but a pleasant sensation," he wrote.

An Irish brigade from Boston marched by and into the West Woods, which would have sat to the 13th's front, and the New Jerseyans were ordered to move in behind them.

An unimaginable scene

Belgie, who has been researching the regiment, said that because they were initially held as a reserve, their advance would have been slowed by the mangled bodies of slaughtered comrades who'd fallen earlier in the fighting.

"They would have been stepping over dead bodies, over the wounded, and be trying to keep to their ranks. As soon as they cleared the cornfield, they would have been in range of the (rebel) artillery, and they would have started dropping shells on them," he said.

Once through the cornfield, which prior currents of lead had destroyed, they jumped over the wooden fences that lined the sides of the Hagerstown Pike and began to draw small arms fire from the southerners positioned in the woods.

They continued forward toward the Dunker Church, a small white building that would become infamous because of the severity of the fighting that took place around it, and ran head-on into the troops of legendary Southern General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson.

Confusion reigned supreme — the Union troops were initially ordered to stop firing because it was thought that the soldiers they were shooting at were actually Northerners, but when the "friendlys" began advancing toward them, the firing resumed.

"The advance of the enemy was persistent and in strong force, and they poured a fierce and destructive fire into us," wrote Toombs, somewhat matter-of-factly.

The fighting scattered the regiment, which later reformed and pushed toward the church once more, this time led by Brigade Commander General George S. Greene himself. Jackson's troops, ever the veterans, attempted to ruse the New Jerseyans into believing they were surrendering, but that illusion was shattered when they leveled their rifles and began pouring a murderous fire onto the federals.

After an hour of fighting, Toombs wrote, the 13th was forced back "before the strong fire of the enemy, who were in superior force."

But in reality, Toombs placid field reporting belies the terror that actually occurred; the National Park Service's battlefield guide states that the area where the men of the 13th New Jersey and its sister regiments met the stalwart defenses of Jackson's Confederates was the site of some of the "most horrific fighting" in U.S. history.

A reenactor from the 3rd New Jersey reenactment group noted that, because the exit wounds for the .58-caliber rifles used during the Civil War were so large, men who were gutshot would often have their insides blown out their backs. In the vicinity of the cornfield, he said, this meant that the stalks behind the rows of dead men were colored brown and red with entrails.

Belgie, for his part, admits that he can't imagine what it must have been like to storm the position, and that he would have quickly made a "strategic advance to the rear" in the real battle.

"My ass woulda' been outta' there…I would have been in the rear with the gear," he said.

After seeing horrors like that, it was hard for him to imagine that the veterans didn't have long bouts with post-traumatic stress disorder, even though there was no such diagnosis back in the 1860s.

Some of the units engaged in that part of the field would lose four out of five men — an 80-percent casualty rate unthinkable for any American unit in this day and age. And though it may be hard to truly figure out how the 13th felt during their baptismal firefight, Daniels reached back to what his father, a World War II veteran of the 101st Airborne who was badly wounded during the Normandy Invasion, told him about how men react during battle.

"He said that when you see someone get shot…when they hit the ground, they start digging at their clothes to see where they're shot, and if they're going to live or die. And you don't want to see the looks on their faces," said Daniels. "There had to be a lot of guys who were just scared to death…a lot of prayers, a lot of fear, a lot of rage, and you can get all that out of the same person in 10 minutes during combat where it's (either) your life or the life of the guy across from you."

But of course, no matter who is quoted, or what source presented, it is not possible to replicate the sheer heart-stopping fear that the average soldier felt that day as Americans butchered each other in record numbers.

And few of us will ever know what it felt like to be Private J.M. Shepperd, who probably grew up in some little town along the Pompton or Pequannock River and went off to war never thinking that there was a bullet or shell fragment with his name on it.

Toombs, however, reports that there was, and Shepperd is listed on his roll of those wounded in the fight. He is buried in Pequannock's First Reformed Church, although it's unknown when he died, or how.

Confederate General John B. Gordon wrote that the Union assault had landed "with the crushing weight of a landslide," and that Lee himself had ridden to rally the troops.

"Again and again….by charges and counter-charges, this portion of the field was lost and recovered, until the green corn that grew upon it looked as if had been struck by a storm of bloody hail," he wrote. "From sheer exhaustion, both sides, like battered and bleeding athletes, seemed willing to rest."

By mid-morning, both North and South on the 13th's part of the field would retire, having fought to a bloody standstill, and it would be up to other troops to decide the battle's fate. The 13th had suffered 90 casualties, 9 of whom were killed.

And although by nightfall the Union army would be victorious, Lee's army, kicked in the teeth and badly wounded, was allowed to escape across the Potomac and into Virginia, leading to the war's continuation for three more increasingly desperate and brutal years.

David and Peter Ryerson would both survive the fight to represent Pompton Lakes in more of the war's gruesome battles… but death was not done with the family.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com