Bissell and Bisbee in the Civil War -- 1863
In the spring of 1863, the Union's Army of the Potomac broke winter camp at White Oak Church and began its campaign against Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. The first effort in that campaign became known as the Second Battle of Fredericksburg. The photo to the right shows Union troops waiting before the start of that battle. Could be that Bissell and Bisbee are somewhere in that photo. William Shaw's diary picks up the start of the battle:
"May 3d at daylight we marched in Fredericksburg, had been there but a short time when the rebel batteries on the heights opened their canister on us, a brick ash-house near us received a charge scattering the brick all over us, one of the men John Bissell received a slight wound in the face."
William Shaw, May 3, 1863.
The Union Army and the Confederate Army both would suffer substantial casualties at this battle. Gen. Lee took much of the Confederate army to the west of Fredericksburg, to fight against Union Gen. Joseph Hooker who was planning to attack on the town of Chancellorsville. Confederal General Jubal Early was assigned by Lee to defend Fredericksburg, but to retreat if necessary and protect rebel supply lines to the south. Early had about 12,000 men and 45 cannon. The hills overlooking the town, Marye's Heights, is where the Confederate troops dug in.
Bissell and Bisbee's Sixth Corps was commanded by Gen. John Sedgwick. Hooker, hoping that Lee would think the main attack would come at Fredericksburg, ordered Sedgwick to attack Fredericksburg the morning of May 3. Hooker continued to move towards Chancellorsville. Sedgwick's first attack on Marye's Heights failed. The Missississippi Colonel at the top of the hill called a temporary truce while the Union troops removed their dead and wounded from the hillside below their position. The second attack succeeded and the Confederate troops pulled back. Sedgwick then continued with his orders, moving to join Hooker's army in Chancellorsville.
The picture above is the rebel wall and trenches at the top of Marye's Heights. The Union troops had to come up a long, steep hill below the wall, with virtually no cover from the Confederate guns. In this attack, the Union lost 1,100 men to death or injury, the rebels about 700.
The Casualty Sheet to the left reads in part as follows:
Name John H. Bissell
Rank Private Company D Regiment 37
Arm Infty State Mass.
Place of Casualty Salem Heights
Nature of casualty Wounded Eye
Date of casualty May 3, 1863
Battle of Chancellorsville and Salem Church
The Sixth Corps, including the 37th Massachusetts, marched west towards Chancellorsville on the Orange Plank Road. Hooker had ordered Sedgwick to come immediately after Stonewall Jackson had flanked Hooker's army and routed the Union Eleventh Corps.
Some of Early's rebel troops slowed the Union advance. As William Shaw said:
"We then moved to the railroad cut...and drove the rebels some five or six miles where we met the whole of Lee's army, we fought until after dark, neither losing nor gaining any ground, but many were killed."
Learning that Sedgwick was on his way to join Hooker at Chancellorsville, Gen. Lee sent Gen. Lafayette McLaws' division to Salem Church, where they dug in with other rebel troops about noon. When the Sixth Corps arrived, they attacked, believing it was a smaller force. After dark, as skirmishes continued, Lee arranged that the next morning, Jubal Early would attack the Union left and McLaws would attack the Union right.
As planned, early on May 4 Jubal Early's troops came from the east and launched a series of attacks against the Union position. McLaws waited until Lee provided reinforcements in the form of three more brigades led by Gen. Richard Heron Anderson, then launched additional attacks, all of which were defeated. However, Sedgwick was trapped, with the Rappahannock River behind him to his north.
The Salem Church building, used by Union troops as a hospital to treat the wounded.
Shaw's diary continues:
"At ten o'clock A.M. [May 4] the enemy came upon us in three lines of battle, we could not stop them until within ten or fiften rods [50-75 years], then by stubborn fighting with the aid of plenty of artillery whose guns were double shotted with grape and canister we held them and sent them back.
"The artillery at so close a range made fearful havoc in the ranks of the enemy.
We...were then ordered to retreat which we did after dark to the river where our pontoon bridge was laid, we awaiting our turn to cross. There was the whole 6th army corps [23,000 men] to cross one bridge, and while waiting the enemy found our position and gave us a severe shelling. We had nothing to do but stand and take it. Morning [May 5] found us all across at Bank's Ford."
William Shaw, May 3-5, 1863.
Frome the website http://www.civilwar.org, Chancellorsville at the time was the bloodiest battle in American history. By the end of the war, Bisbee and Bissell would be in three of the bloodiest four battles of the war: Gettysburg, Chancellorsville, and Spotsylvania Courthouse.
At its conclusion on May 6, 1863, the Battle of Chancellorsville became the bloodiest battle in American history. The 30,764 combined casualties eclipsed the losses suffered at well-known battles such as Shiloh (23,746), Second Manassas (22,180), Antietam (22,717), and Stones River (23,515).
By far the bloodiest day of the battle was May 3, 1863 when Lee’s Confederates were forced to attack a larger, now-alerted Union foe, largely positioned in prepared defenses. The aggressive fighting at places like Salem Church produced more casualties than the entire Battle of First Manassas (Bull Run).
Chancellorsville’s title of bloodiest battle in American history would be short-lived, however. From Chancellorsville, Lee began his journey towards Gettysburg and the epic fighting to come on July 1-3, 1863. But even at the end of the American Civil War, Chancellorsville was still ranked as the fourth bloodiest battle of the Civil War, after Gettysburg, Chickamauga, and Spotsylvania Courthouse.
The Battle of Gettysburg
On June 24th, 1863 when the Union army realized that Lee was heading north up the Shenandoah Valley, the Sixth Corps started marching north towards Washington, D.C., moving 20 miles or more each day. As told by William Shaw:
"July 1st. ...at 9 o'clock at night had all turned in when the bugle sounded, fall in. We got up, packed up in the rain and started for Gettysburg. After marching six or eight miles we met troops going in the opposite direction, we says boys, what corps? They said the Sixth, we are on the wrong road, turn about, so we did.
"July 2nd. We were to have forty-five minutes for breakfast, the boys had just started their fires to cook their coffee, when a horseman rode into camp with an order from General Meade to General Sedgewick to bring his corps to Gettysburg as soon as possible. We pushed on without breakfast. We rested ten minutes every hour, marching fifty and resting ten, until we reached the field at 4 o'clock P.M. ... we were ordered to the front at Gettysburg, where the battle was raging. We were now about two miles from the front and had marched 46 miles since the night before, we went to the front on the double quick loading our guns on the way..."
This movement of the 37th infantry regiment was part of a larger rushing of reinforcements by Gen. Meade, commander of all Union forces, into the lines of Gen. Sickles' III Corps which were being hammered between the Peach Orchard and the Wheat Field by Confederate troops under Gen. McLaws.
The 37th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment was one of five regiments (along with the 7th Massachusetts, the 10th Massachusetts, the 36th New York and the 2nd Rhode Island) forming the Second Brigade (of three) of the Third Division (of three) of the Sixth Corps under General Sedgwick. At Gettysburg, the Second Brigade was commanded by Col. Eustis, the First Brigade by Gen. Shaler, the Third Brigade by Gen. Wheaton and Col. Nevin.
In the map at the left, the dark rectangles are Union forces, arrayed in the shape of a fish hook from Cemetery Hill on the north...
...and
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the XI Corps (Gen. Howard);
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down Cemetery Ridge through the II Corps (Gen. Hancock);
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the I Corps (after Gen. John Reynolds was killed on the first day of the battle, command went to Major General John Newton, a division commander from the VI Corps), facing the Peach Orchard;
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the III Corps (Gen. Birney);
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the VI Corps (Gen. Sedgwick), below Little Round Top facing the Wheat Field to the west; and
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the V Corps (Gen. Sykes), holding Big Round Top on the south.
The Confederate forces (the light gray rectangles) are lined up on the west side of Seminary Ridge (i.e., the Left Side of the Map), consisting of: the I Corps under Gen. James Longstreet, with his division commanders Gen. McLaws (the same as at Salem Church), Gen. George Pickett, and Gen. Hood; the II Corps including Gen. Jubal Early (also from the Salem Church battle); and the III Corps with Generals Anderson, Heth, Pender and Pettigrew; and J.E.B. Stuart's Cavalry Division.
On the third and final day of the Battle of Gettysburg, massive cannon fire by both sides preceded Pickett's charge, towards the Union troops of Gibbon and Doubleday. William Shaw's diary picks up the story:
"Now two nights had passed and we had not a moment's sleep. On the morning of the 3rd we were put in the front line of battle. At 4 o'clock A.M. heavy fighting on the right...We got out of that place in a hurry, marching double-quick to the left passing through a peach orchard into a piece of woods where we halted.
[The location where the 37th re-grouped is about where "VI Corps" appears on the map above, near the bottom a bit north and west of Little Round Top.]
"We lost 17 men while going the length of the regiment at double-quick. The air was full of bursting shells. No language can describe the scene and the noise and screeching of shells. This heavy cannonading [100 or more cannons on each side] preceded Pickett's great charge."
The monument to the 37th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment depicted above is located on the battlefield at Gettysburg. It is easily accessible along one of the Park Service roads at the site. The north and south ends of the 37th's line at Gettysburg have separate small markers. The Gettysburg Battlefield has a beautiful new visitors center, is easy to get around (including an easy driving tour of the whole battlefield) and is helpful in understanding the scope of the battle.
Union casualties at the Battle of Gettysburg totaled 3,155 killed, 14,531 wounded and 5,369 captured or missing. Confederate losses are harder to calculate with certainty but are considered to be at least 4,708 killed, 12,693 wounded and 5,830 captured or missing. Nearly one-third of Lee's general officers were killed, wounded or captured.
Note that there were probably many, many Bissell Cousins at Gettysburg, some named "Bissell" some with names of other common ancestors. Two Bissell Cousins whom I have identified as also being at Gettysburg are described below.
Bissell Cousin 26-year old Col. Strong Vincent led four regiments of the 3rd brigade, 1st division, 5th Corps in the successful defense of Little Round Top and the south end (left side) of the Union line. When Vincent stopped a messenger who was racing back to Gen. Meade seeking reinforcements for the vulnerable Union lines at Little Round Top, Vincent on his own initiative moved his 3rd brigade to positions on the hill and thereby prevented two Alabama regiments under Gen. John Bell Hood from turning the Union flank. Vincent was wounded (pictured below) and died five days later, but not before learning that he had been promoted by President Lincoln to Brigadier General. He's a 4th Cousin, five times removed.
Bissell Cousin Col. Rufus R. Dawes turned 25 the day after the Battle of Gettysburg, July 4. On the first day of the battle, July 1, rebel troops were moving into Gettysburg from the northwest, including the 2nd Mississippi Regiment. Dawes' 6th Wisconsin Regiment was sent to cut off these troops. The Mississippi regiment had taken cover in a deep railroad cut [still visible today] but it was too deep to be an effective firing position. The 6th Wisconsin charged the cut, losing about 160 out of 450 men in the charge. As hand-to-hand fighting occured at the cut and the Union troops were about to pore down withering fire on the Confederates, Dawes called out to the officer in charge of the Mississippi unit and negotiated their surrender, saving hundreds of lives. The Iron Brigade (of which Dawes' 6th Wisconsin was one of five regiments) lost 1,212 killed or wounded out of 1,883 men on that July 1 day. He's a 7th Cousin, four times removed.
"Dont Give an Inch!" a painting of Strong Vincent encouraging the men of the 16th Michigan Infantry Regiment to hold against the Confederate charge at Little Round Top. He was mortally wounded in this endeavor. This painting is by Don Troiani and this and other of his military history prints are available online
"Men of Iron" is a painting by Dale Gannon whose civil war and other historical military art work is available online at gannon.com. This picture shows one of the regiments of the Iron Brigade -- in this case, the 24 Michigan Infantry led by Col. Henry Morrow -- who were fighting alongside Rufus Dawes and the 6th Wisconsin Regiment.
"Battle of Gettysburg", L. Prang & Co. print of the painting "Hancock at Gettysburg" by Thure de Thulstrup, showing Pickett's Charge. Restoration by Adam Cuerden.
The Fall of 1863 for Bissell, Bisbee and the 37th Massachusetts Infantry
The 37th Regiment spent the next four weeks marching through terrible heat across Pennsylvania to Maryland, chasing Generals Lee, A.P. Hill and Longstreet through Hagerstown, the Catoctin Mountains and across the Potomac River into the Shenandoah Valley and Virginia, down to Warrenton. The Confederates kept a rear guard active to discourage Union troops following. President Lincoln was upset that General Meade didn't pursue the rebels more aggressively with more troops, but the pace of the 37th regiment was hard on its men.
According to Sergeant Shaw's diary:
"We kept picking up prisoners...July 6th, Got up at 3 o'clock A.M., made coffee, then started on, went but a little ways when we halted, feeling out the enemy. Started again at 4 o'clock P.M., marched all night to Emmetsburg [Maryland] one of the hardest marches we ever made. The roads were narrow and rough and very muddy...Many of the boys' shoes had played out and they had to march in stocking feet...Some of us had not had anything to eat for the past 36 hours...We crossed the Potomac into Virginia...a hard march, it being so warm, a number died on the way."
The New York Draft Riots, July 1863
The draft riots occurred primarily from July 13-16. Working class men, mostly Irish Americans, were unhappy with new laws passed by Congress drafting men to fight in the war, resenting that wealthier men could hire a substitute and be spared from the draft. The riots remain the largest civil insurrection in American history, outside of the Civil War itself. The riots evolved into race riots, with mobs beating, torturing and killing black people.
In all, at least 120 civilians were killed, with 11 black men lynched over 5 days. At least 2,000 people were injured and fifty buildings burned to the ground.
The 37th regiment was sent to New York City at the end of July for additional control over the city. Shaw wrote:
"July 31st. Our regiment leaves for New York this morning. We are ordered to New York to quell the great draft riots there. General Meade ordered General Sedgewick commanding the Sixth Corps to send two of his best regiments there, so the 37th Massachusetts and the 5th Wisconsin were the two."
In early November 1863, the regiment returned to service in Virginia, engaging in battle at Rappahannock Station November 7th and 8th. General Sedgwick and the Sixth Corps were directed, "to push the enemy across the [Rappahannock] River before dark, if possible." General Rober E. Lee had decided to try and hold the line at the Rappahannock River, with the brigades of General Jubal Early (troops from Louisiana and North Carolina), dug in on the north bank of the river and rebel artillery on the south side. After Union artillery failed to dislodge them, Sedgwick ordered an infantry assault as dusk approached. As described by Shaw,
"...marched to Rappahannock station, had a sharp fight with the enemy, drove them across the river, captured 1,200 prisoners and 7 pieces of artillery. Many rebels were drowned while retreating across the river."
There were more than 2,000 wounded or killed between the Union and the Confederates. According to National Park Service records, the battle was a "complete and glorious victory" for the Union Army. It was the first instance in the war in which Union troops had carried a strongly entrenched Confederate position in the first assault.
Artist Alfred Waud drew a Union artillery battery during the November 7 battle at Kelly's Ford, part of the two-pronged attack by the Union army at Rappahannock Station. As a sketch artist for the New York Illustrated News, Waud covered the Army of the Potomac and was with them for every battle from 1861 through the Siege of Petersburg in 1865.
The Mine Run Campaign.
In the Battle of Mine Run (a small river feeding into the Rapidan River south of the Rappahannock River in Virginia), it had grown bitterly cold by the end of November, the rain freezing as it fell. The Sixth Corps crossed the Rapidan River at Germania Ford on the 25th, wishing they were home for Thanksgiving.
That day, according to Shaw's diary, they were in the line of battle, heavy firing by artillery and muskets firing grape shot, "have driven the enemy 2 miles, many men on both sides cover the ground." It was so cold that many of the 37th Massachusetts Infantry regiment's wounded men froze to death, as did some picket line soldiers afraid to move lest they be shot by the enemy.
Neither the Union nor the Confederate army could gain a decisive advantage in the Viriginia theater of war as 1863 was drawing to a close. Each side retired into their winter camps.
Winter Quarters, 1863-64 at Brandy Station, Virginia
On December 3rd, the regiment marched 40 miles in 18 hours and got back to their camp at Brandy Station, Virginia, where they built winter quarters and stayed the winter of 1863-64.
"We have worked on our house all day, a genuine house...it is warm and nice, the chimney is built of small logs chinked in with Virginia mud, have a little fire-place and chimney, for a roof we used our shelter tents and tied them on...put a door on our house, now it is all ready for winter if they will let us remain here." William Shaw
Shaw wrote of their camp entertainments:
"We had a large tent where the chaplain held religious services on Sundays... The tent was used for entertainments of different kinds. We had debating clubs with some good speakers and spelling schools. For outdoor sports we had base ball, wrestling matches, Quoits. For games cards, checkers, backgammon, cribbage and some others. There was some gambling with cards, especially after pay-day, but taken as a whole the morals of the army were very high."
Other sources note the festivities also included horse races, greased pigs, greased poles and other diversions. Some of the men who had gone home on furlough in 1862 had returned to their camps with tales of a marvelous new game which was spreading through the northern states. It was played, shown here at the right, at winter camp at White Oak Church in 1862.