The Seven Days Battles

Judson Cheney
Born: May 11, 1838, Hopkinton, St. Lawrence County, New York
Died: September 29, 1864, Chaffin Farm, Virginia
Relation to Author: 2nd Great Grand Uncle

On this day 150 years ago, Judson Cheney and the rest of the Army of the Potomac were finishing a retreat from outside Richmond, ending the siege, and ready to recover from the Seven Days Battles. The retreat was costly in lives and perception. 

I was a month late posting about the battle of Seven Pines / Fair Oaks. But I wanted to take my time since it was a major battle and Judson's regiment was on the front and saw very heavy action. During the month of June, following that major battle, Judson's regiment was behind the front, camped and resting. There were no major battles during this time.

The end of June brought movement and more major battles. On June 25th, the first day of the Seven Days Battles, the US went on the offensive attempting to take a strategic hill. Then on June 26th, the second day, Lee and the Confederates went on the offensive. Though the Confederates lost the battle that day (Beaver Dam Creek), they scared General McClellan enough to cause him to retreat to the James River (or more charitably described as changing base) and give up the siege of the Confederate capital of Richmond.

Lee's attack on the 26th was risky - the attack left Richmond open for a Union attack against a smaller defending force. But maybe he knew McClellan would do no such thing. And he would have been right. 

While the US moved south over the next five days, General Lee and the Confederates stayed on the offensive, hoping to literally destroy the Army of the Potomac. Lee was unsuccessful and both sides suffered major casualties (16,000 for the US and over 20,000 for the Confederates).

Judson's regiment saw no major action during these battles (Beaver Dam Creek on 6/26, Gaines' Mill on 6/27, Garnett's and Golding's Farms on 6/28, Savage's Station on 6/29, Glendale and White Oak Swamp on 6/30, and Malvern Hill on 7/1) while retreating with the rest of the army. However, on June 30th, they were close enough to hear the fighting of the battles of Glendale and White Oak Swamp:

About 4 o'clock, p.m., of the 30th of June, we were two or three miles beyond and at the left of Glendale, and something more than four miles from the crossing of the swamp which the regiment had left the day before... Every volley was distinct; the reports of the rifles were fearfully near and terribly plain. Two momentous battles [Glendale and White Oak Swamp] were going on at the same time behind us; and, at intervals, the firing made one continuous roar. The earth shook and trembled; consternation seemed printed on every face. In many regiments a few men lost their senses. The noise of the contest ascended to heaven; and, as the night came on, the battle seemed to approach us nearer, clearer, deadlier than before.

Our situation was critical; for, should the enemy succeed in forcing those positions, the Army of the Potomac would cease to exist. At Glendale, Davis and Lee were present. They sought to concentrate there and throw upon the National line eighty thousand men; but [some units] did not appear in time. The battle was a succession of attacks; the attacks failed, and the line was not broken. 

Casualties from those two battles which Judson's regiment heard were 2,700 for the US and 3,600 for the Confederates. The next day as the regiment marched, they continued to worry:

After eleven, Peck's division, the 98th ahead, next to the general and his personal staff... Our road passes in a deep wood of oak and pine; we can see but one way - up; we know not what is behind us or about us. The terrible shock of that evening's battles has depressed our thoughts and dried the fountain of our spirits. Halting, marching, thinking, fearing, guessing, weary, exhausted, heavy, slow, we make but half a mile an hour. The night is full of fear, full or rumors, full or mystery and full of thought. Its apparitions, shadows, or suggestions, sometimes affright the bravest. After watching and marching incessantly for five days, with but little food, our nervous system was all unstrung, and the wildest thoughts gamboled in our minds unbridled and unbound. We look to the stars, we look to the ground; we observe every sound, even the rustle of leaves.

...

After 3am, July 1st, we stopped in a pine thicket below Malvern and a mile from the [James] river. We slept on the ground until and hour after sunrise, when we arose and drank a little coffee and ate a few pieces of hard bread. At 11, Colonel Durkee mustered the regiment for two months' pay, May and June. 

That day, they could see the lineup for the battle of Malvern Hill (casualties - US 3,000, CS 5,355): 

From our point of view, on Haxall's house, with our field glass, we could discern along it sun-seared sides and stretching to the right, along fences, ditches, ravines and hedges, our infantry hurrying into place and line. On the hill, three grim lines of battle visible on its slope, confronted the enemy.

And from July 2nd through July 4th Judson's regiment was the rear guard, waiting in case the Confederates made another attack.

Worn-out with fatigue, wet to the skin, covered with mud, hungry, sleepy, sick, we would draw up in a favorable position, wait until the last wagon, the last soldier, the last straggler had passed, and, then, we ourselves would sprawl along, few and faint, yet fearless still. 

The Confederates did not attack. At this point, both armies were retreating. The Confederates saw that the Union was safe and went back to Richmond. The Union, under McClellan, decided not to take any initiative and regroup at Harrison's Landing.

In fact, the battles over those seven days did much to give the South hope and the North distress. And McPhearson says this string of battles marked the end of the possibility of restoring the union as it was before the rebellion. After this, the North would have to ruin the south and bring it back into a different union. 

If you have been with me from the beginning dear reader, think on all that Judson's regiment went through, and for nothing. The goal was a siege and capture of Richmond. But one battle spooked General McClellan and sent him away. The march up the peninsula, the battles of Yorktown and Williamsburg, the blood at Seven Pines, did nothing but show that the blood would continue and grow.

There are three more years of this to come - lots of marching and lining up and fighting and dying with no resolution in sight.

Seven Pines: The Action

Judson Cheney
Born: May 11, 1838, Hopkinton, St. Lawrence County, New York
Died: September 29, 1864, Chaffin Farm, Virginia
Relation to Author: 2nd Great Grand Uncle

As you know, Judson enlisted in the American Civil War 150 years ago last fall (November). Less than 7 months later - by the end of May - Judson found himself on the front lines in a major and deadly battle.

On May 31st, 1862, Judson Cheney and the 98th New York Regiment were engaged in the battle of Seven Pines (also called Fair Oaks). The Civil War Battlefield Guide says that the US lost (killed and injured) approximately 5,000 men and the Confederate States lost 6,100. Kreutzer says it was the deadliest battle fought on the continent at that time (though I think he overlooks Shiloh). 

This map on the Civil War Trust shows the lineup and the action. Look at the map and you'll see Judson's regiment on the front lines (at the bottom but right on the middle - in blue, 98NY).

The Confederates attacked because they saw that two US divisions were alone south of the Chickahominy River. The battle started at 1pm - on a day after a night of very heavy rain. The Union troops could tell the Confederates were moving in. They heard the movements during the previous days and shots increased between the two sides' pickets that morning.

There is a lot of action, but the summary is that the first push was mostly repelled by the 98th et al. The Battlefield Guide says the Confederate attack was not well coordinated - Longstreet took the wrong road and was late to join. After the first push, the 98th had lost ten men due to their batteries behind them, and lost none to enemy fire.

During the lull, the Union did not take advantage and counterattack. Kreuzter says that made all the difference. Soon, the rest of the Confederate troops came through and the 98th was driven from its position. I'll let Kreuzter tell the story, starting with the second wave of the attack:

Our batteries open; the air becomes full of lead and iron. High over our heads, around us, beside us, the lead is whistling, and the iron is whizzing, hissing, whirling. Every moment has a new terror, every instant a new horror. Our men are falling fast. We leave the dead and the dying, and send the wounded to the rear... The writer [Kreuzter] rallies a part of the regiment around the flag at the half-deserted intrenchments [sic]. There we use, officers and men, the sharp-shooter's practice against the enemy. We can mark the effect of our fire; no rifle was discharged in vain. Many of the men could pick a squirrel from the tallest trees of Wayne and Franklin; and they load and fire with infinite merriment and good-nature.

...

This advance of the enemy compels us to abandon our intrenchments [sic]. We retire with our portion of the regiment to our camp and find it deserted... we form a line of battle on our regimental color line, and wait the enemy there.

...

[After having to retreat further and leave their camp behind] Some fifty of the 98th were still on the ground unwilling to leave. To prevent their being killed or taken prisoners, the writer stayed behind and endeavored to collect them together, and have them go to the rear with him. Ten or fifteen went as far as the rail-fence which ran along the rear of the camp and stopped, unwilling to be driven from their camp; unwilling to be beaten they were determined to see the battle out... The enemy began to straggle in through the woods from the left. Here we witnessed several single-handed combats, hand-to-hand encounters between our men and those of the foe who ventured from their organizations. 

...

A little after 5pm we collected the survivors of the regiment whom we could find behind Couch and marched a half mile father to the rear [then on to Savage's station for the night]. The 98th lost that day 85 enlisted men and three officers, killed and wounded out of 385 taken into action.

...

Our total loss was 5,737 [more recent sources differ on this number]... and Casey's division [remember the NY 98th was in this division], then numbering between four and five thousand, sustained a loss of 1,700, or one-third of the entire casualties of that memorable day. In recognition of its services congress gave it a resolution of thanks.

...

Portions of most of Casey's regiments joined us during the night. But few of the men had their blankets and haversacks. Nearly all were without food or drink during the day. They built fires and sitting on logs, or lying on the leaves, talked the battle over and the night away... Now and then, a squad of men or an officer joined us, and standing or seated among us, told their story of personal observations, their opinions and encounters, and the news they had. 

The battle would continue the next day, but Judson's regiment did not participate. At the end of the day on June 1st, the Union would occupy the same land they had before these two days of battles. I'll let Kreuzter continue:

Monday, June 2nd we visited the battle-field, and rode from place to place on the scene of conflict. We have often wished that we could efface from our memory the observations of that day. Details were burying the dead in trenches or heaping the ground upon them where they lay. The air was sultry, moist and extremely warm... The decomposing bodies of men and horses polluted the air: Oh, their offense was rank, it smelled to heaven! The ground was saturated with gore; the intrenchments [sic], the slashing, the rifle-pits, the thicket, many of the tents, were filled with dead. In the Fair Oak farm-house, the dead, the dying, and the severely wounded lay together.

Seven Pines (Continued)

Judson Cheney
Born: May 11, 1838, Hopkinton, St. Lawrence County, New York
Died: September 29, 1864, Chaffin Farm, Virginia
Relation to Author: 2nd Great Grand Uncle

On the morning of May 22nd, Casey's division, including the 98th Regiment, crossed the Chickahominy River. On the 23rd, General McClellan directed General Keyes to chose a group to move to Seven Pines and hold if "practicable".  Keyes and Nagless selected the 98th NY plus four other regiments. They left on the 24th and for breakfast, lunch and dinner had boiled rice and sugar, corned-beef, and hard bread and coffee. Much of their baggage, rations, and tents were behind on the other side of the river.

They marched on the 24th and approached the position of the enemy at Seven Pines. This was the first time the regiment had been under fire. After being given the order to advance, the enemy opened fire on the 98th and a battery unit.

For more than twenty minutes [the confederates] concentrated his heaviest fire. Shells whistled, whizzed, whirred, and whirled before, behind, and over us. They exploded in the air above us; and the fragments flew about our heads... Many were hit and hurt; many hair-breadth escapes occured; but one man only was killed.

This initial fighting cleared the confederate skirmishers from the woods. Then the Union regiments all lined up and attacked the confederate lines. Union batteries and the infantry attack sent the confederates to retreat. By 3pm they occupied the enemy's ground.

It had rained nearly all day, and the regiment was exhausted. But there was an excellent well of fresh water. They encamped on the edge of the woods they captured and built fires under the pines. Sitting on logs the talked the battle over. They talked about all of the near misses from the artillery and how they exploded nearby or cut down close-by trees.

They were then at the front, and as I said, they had a major battle ahead of them, though they didn't know it. Kreutzer says, "We are at the front all the time, and our duty is severe and constant; still we find leisure to make observations and write up our note-book."

In this skirmish, only 23 union soldiers were killed or wounded.

Sources: 
Notes and Observations Made During Four Years of Service with the 98th NY Volunteers in the War of 1861. Kreutzer, William. Grant, Raires & Rogers, Printers. Philadelphia, 1878.

Seven Pines - A Lot to Catch Up On

Judson Cheney
Born: May 11, 1838, Hopkinton, St. Lawrence County, New York
Died: September 29, 1864, Chaffin Farm, Virginia
Relation to Author: 2nd Great Grand Uncle

On this day 150 years ago, Judson and his regiment were in camp, still recovering from the battle of Seven Pines. I regret that I could not write about this historic battle on the day it happened - May 31st - for Judson's regiment was in the thick of it. The 98th NY regiment had 85 enlisted men and three officers, killed and wounded, out of 385 taken into action. I'll write in detail about this battle soon. There is a lot to write as Kreutzer has a lot of detail and there is good background in the Battlefield Guide. 

But there is a lot to catch up on even before the battle since I last wrote about Judson's whereabouts on May 5th at the battle of Williamsburg. The short story is that since then, his regiment had been marching slowly from Williamsburg to just outside Richmond at Seven Pines. The map below shows very roughly Judson's march during the Penninsula campaign.


View Peninsula to Richmond in a larger map

During this time, Kreutzer talks about a few things as they are in camp and marching. After Williamsburg, his regiment visits the site of the battle.

Two or three hundred of the enemy's dead still lay where they fell. His wounded were collected in a barn and shed near the battle-ground...

Near the middle of the day, with two or three officers, we walked over the battlefield where the burial party was collecting the dead... and there, in the slashing, in the wood, and in the edge of the wood, along the felled timber, the battle was fought. There, the wounded, the dying were thickest. On the brush, among the limbs, against the stumps and trunks, in the mud, in the water, on the wet ground, they lay. In the road, along the road, in the grass, on the leaves, in the slashing, in the ditches, cold and dead they lay, a heart-rending commentary on a nation's quarrel.

In the wood, in an old ditch, which Cornwallis or La Fayette had made [during the Revolutionary War], we counted thirteen dead soldiers from Michigan, lying so close that they touched each other. We saw a North Carolinian sitting with his back against a rail fence; a three inch ball had pierced his breast; his heart hung by a ligament on his waist outside his clothes. He was of the enemy's picket.

This is the first time Judson's regiment really sees dead and wounded. It won't be the last and it isn't even the worst of what they'll see.

Kreutzer also talks about sickness in the camps:

Many of us are neither sick nor actually well. Want of regular food and rest have left their traces upon us all. Our clothes have become worn and soiled; our cheeks, skin and eyes, betray the exposure and irregularity of our lives.

And later he says:

The sick of the regiment were increasing; they walked behind it or rode in the ambulances. While at New Kent... we sent about fifty by boat to Baltimore... From Williamsburg to the Chickahominy, ten days, the regiment lost nearly one hundred men. Those who have neither health nor courage are obtaining the surgeon's excuse.

The last sentence is the beginning of Kreutzer's thoughts on how some soldiers were feigning illness to avoid service. Though it is clear from the previous quote as well as reading about what the troops have been through so far - few nights with real shelter, food, and rest - that many are honestly sick and with good reason. The Disunion blog at the NY Times talks about camp life and includes this description of illness:

Sickness and disease were constant epidemics in Civil War camps. For every soldier killed in combat, two died behind the lines from a veritable avalanche of illnesses: diarrhea, typhoid fever, measles, pneumonia, malaria and yellow fever, among many others. Lack of knowledge about germs and sanitation could cause even a seemingly small scratch to bring death from infection.

One thing to keep in mind is that as I talk about what Judson's regiment was doing we don't know for sure if Judson was actually around for these specific moments. He could have been sick and therefore not participating at any one moment. He might not have been at the battle of Seven Pines. And any one march or any night of bivouacking, he might have been at the "hospital" instead.  Having said that, let's look at Judson's regiments troop movements at they approached and camped at Seven Pines, starting near Williamsburg.

As they set off from Williamsburg, the troops carried, "rifle and equipments, forty rounds of ammunition, three days' cooked rations, a blanket, and a kanpsack, a total burden of not less than sixty pounds." Kreutzer says that when the divisions were marching - with nearly 80,000 men - "they covered all the fields; they fill the woods; in three long, heavy lines they thread the road. The very surface of the ground appears agitated like the surface of the sea; ambulances, artillery, cavalry, infantry, and long, files of army wagons move, rising and falling like the billows."

May 9th: 10 miles
May 10th: 10 miles to Roper's Church
May 13th: 12 miles in 19 hours to New Kent Courthouse
May 17th: 7 miles to Baltimore cross-roads
May 19th: 2 miles to the Chickahominy River

From May 19th through May 31st, the NY 98th will cross the Chickahominy River and move to Seven Pines and await their major battle. More on that in the next post.

References:
The Civil War Battlefield Guide. Kennedy, Francis H., Second Edition, 1998, Mariner Books.

Notes and Observations Made During Four Years of Service with the 98th NY Volunteers in the War of 1861. Kreutzer, William. Grant, Raires & Rogers, Printers. Philadelphia, 1878.

Frederick Paulus: Hazardous Occupation

Frederick Paulus
Born: June 30, 1886, Scranton, PA
Died: March 17, 1934, Dover, NJ
Relation to Author: Great Grandfather

Frederick Paulus died in 1934 at the relatively young age of 47. His death certificate lists the cause of death as "Edema of Lungs" (or pulmonary edema).

However, it seems that silicosis - "respiratory disease caused by breathing in (inhaling) silica dust" - is the more accurate label for his cause of death. I think we can attribute his death to silicosis because we know that Frederick worked as a moulder in a foundry - where iron and steel products are made. Moulders created sand-based (silica) molds of steel or iron products (machine parts, tools, etc) and molten steel or iron was poured into those molds to create the product.

According to Deadly Dust:

To walk into a foundry is to walk through sand. Even today, sand is used in every process in a plant... It is in the air foundry workers breathe. Large plumes of sand dust, created in the myriad of processes necessary to produce a finished product permeate the atmosphere... Sand found its way into every crevice or crease in workers' clothing, on their shoes and in their socks. When workers left after a day's toil, they would spit it from their mouths, blow it from their noses, clear it from their throats--and cough it up from their lungs."

So if Frederick died from lung problems, sand dust is the most likely cause. Symptoms of silicosis include, "shortness of breath, possible fever, fatigue, loss of appetite, chest pain, dry nonproductive cough, and respiratory failure which may eventually lead to death."

Silicosis became an epidemic in the early 1900s in part due to the increase in foundries and in part to changes in the technologies in foundries that increased the amount of sand in the air.

Deadly Dust talks about the expansion of foundries during the late 1800s and early 1900s. In 1880, there were 145,000 employees in 5,000 foundries. In 1900 there were 350,000 employees in 9,300 foundries. And by 1914 there were 660,000 workers in 18,000 foundries. Frederick Paulus's prime working years would have been roughly from 1904 to his death in 1934.

Efficiency improvements increased the total amount of sand used in a day and also caused more of it to be in the air. New processes allowed the mold mixture to be done more quickly, which increased the amount of sand and dust used in a day. And the introduction in the early 1900s of pneumatic tools to break apart the molds and sand blasting to clean the product sent more sand dust into the air.

These changes - more foundry workers and worse conditions - increased the number of people with serious health conditions and increased the severity as well. So the early death of Frederick Paulus was but one of many at that time. 

Frederick died when his youngest daughter, Elizabeth Charlotte Paulus (married name Cheney), was only 14 years old (something I never heard her talk about). We live in a safer world where we less often have to deal with painful losses so early in life. One way to really grasp that is to see the dangers our ancestors were exposed to.

Sources:
Deadly Dust: Silicosis and the On-Going Struggle to Protect Workers' Health By David Rosner, Gerald Markowitz, Gerald E. Markowitz, 2005, 1991 by Princeton University Press

Why Did Judson Enlist?

Judson Cheney
Born: May 11, 1838, Hopkinton, St. Lawrence County, New York
Died: September 29, 1864, Chaffin Farm, Virginia
Relation to Author: 2nd Great Grand Uncle

When discussing the Civil War, the conversation often comes to why the war was fought - why did the South secede and why did the North fight? I have strong opinions about this and I think the evidence is clear, but I won't address that here and now. Instead, I think it more interesting to think on why individual soldiers fought. In this case, why did Judson enlist?

For soldiers in the North, it usually comes down to whether they fought to save the union or to abolish slavery (or both). James McPhearson in Battle Cry of Freedom tells us that most soldiers in the North were fighting to preserve the union:

Scholars who have examined thousands of letters  and diaries written by Union soldiers found them  expressing similar motives; "fighting to maintain the best government on earth" was a common phrase. It was a "grate strugle for the Union, Constitution, and  law," wrote a New Jersey soldier.

So if we had no other evidence, we might say our best guess is that Judson fought to preserve the union. But fortune smiles on us in the internet age; there is evidence that Judson was actually an abolitionist (something I discovered only recently). A Judson Cheney from Hopkinton is listed in the St. Lawrence County Historical Association's Abolitionist Database. Assuming this is the same Judson Cheney, than his strong anti-slavery feelings were at least part of the reason he enlisted.

I had also wondered whether pay had any impact, considering Judson was a laborer and might need more money. But the information I have right now is limited. This entry is thorough but from a local Civil War historical association (which means I would trust it a little less than a scholarly or published article). The article explains that the federal incentives for voluntarily enlisting were not great (a federal bounty of $100, paid at discharge) but states often provided extra financial incentives in order to get enlistments.

Other than that, the pay was $13 per month. Judson was a farm laborer, and the sense I get is that this was competitive (though not always paid on time) but probably wasn't high enough to make it the only reason someone would enlist.

So Many Ancestors, So Little Time

A while ago I published about my wife's 12th Great Grandfather, who is my son's 13th great grandfather (16 generations back). I hadn't thought about it until recently, but we have a lot of 13th great grandparents. Think about it - we have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents, 16 2nd great grandparents, and so on. When we get to 13th great grandparents, there are 32,768 ancestors in that generation (assuming no overlap).

That's right, you have well over 32,000 13th great grandparents. So around the time of Elizabethan England (give or take), there were 32,768 people who all contributed to one person - our son. Though to be sure, only some were in England.

In fact, my best guess is that 12,288 of my son's 13th great grandparents were in England. There were 8,192 of his 13th great grandparents in Ireland, 4,096 in Italy, another 4,096 in Ukraine*, 2,048 in Germany and 2,048 in Wales.


*I am still trying to figure out for sure where in Eastern Europe that part of my wife's family is from. Look for more in a future post.