For the men who remained, the business of war went on uninterrupted. “Then all of us veterans were transferred to the 120th Regt. N.Y. Vol., and put into different companies,” remembered Lucius Jones. “Then we wished we hadn’t re-enlisted, but it was now too late, and the boys were off for home. And we veterans turned our faces to the enemy.”1 For one more day, those who were finished with their obligation lingered near the front. On the afternoon of June 25 they took their first steps towards home, beginning the eight-mile march to City Point and the James River.
Arriving near the wagon camp at 10 p.m. the homeward-bound made camp for the night. Early the next morning they were on the road again and reached the James River early in the day. Additional processing and mustering-out took place on the 27th, and the regiment boarded the steamer Keyport at 10:30 the morning of the 28th. Leaving City Point, the Keyport passed Fortress Monroe at five that afternoon and turned north for Washington. The regiment arrived near eight the next morning and found quarters at the Soldier’s Rest. Being New York men, their journey was not complete; they moved on to New York City, arriving on July 1 and staying at the soldier’s depot on Howard Street. Eventually, the boys were paid off on the 5th and 6th, and as Henri LeFevre-Brown put it, “at once scattered for their homes.”2
New York City men were home within minutes of being paid off. Some, the hard men Dan Sickles had plucked from dire circumstances for a chance to serve, were no doubt back to their old ways, while others may have arrived home somehow cleansed by their three years of trial and looked forward to a better life. For the western boys of Chautauqua County, their reception was in many cases no less exuberant than their departure three years before. One Chautauqua paper captured the poignant scene:
The remnant of old companies D and E, belonging to the 72d, N.Y. (3d Excelsior Regiment.) having received an honorable discharge at the expiration of three years term of service, arrived in Dunkirk on Thursday last. The news of their coming having preceded them, a large throng of friends and citizens from Dunkirk and the towns adjoining assembled at the Depot to greet the war-worn heroes on their arrival. The occasion was painfully suggestive of the scene witnessed at the Depot three years before, on the memorable 30th day of May 1861, when these gallant companies, with full ranks, over 200 strong, left their homes with all their pleasant associations and endearments, to peril their lives in defence of the honor of the National flag. Then, as now, a large throng assembled to witness the event. They were sorrowful, yet hopeful. Could their eyes have then pierced the veil of the future, and followed the career of the devoted band to the finale of its glorious three years of service, keenly as they felt the trial of parting, their anguish would have been yet keener. STEVENS, BARRETT, DOYLE, and a host of gallant spirits then waved their adieus as the long train swept from the Depot to the gay music of “Girl I left behind me.” Of that brave array, the first precious contribution of our County to the cause of the Union, a handful only—some 25 or 30—returned on Thursday last to receive the greetings of their friends, amid old familiar scenes. A few others remain in hospitals, unable to endure the fatigues of the homeward trip, and still another remnant have re-enlisted, animated with a determination to see the struggle through, and are now adding new laurels to the reputations won in the old “Fighting Brigade,” in the trenches fronting Petersburg.3
While the homecoming scene in Chautauqua County was all that could have been expected for returning veterans, apparently the reception was somewhat different for the Delhi boys of Company I. With the presidential election just a few months away, it would seem that the Republican citizens of Delhi may have considered the returning men too loyal to the Democratic nominee George McClellan for their local tastes, prompting a cool welcome home. This motivated one Delhi citizen to write the local paper to complain about the injustice done to its veterans:
Mr. Mirror—The surviving “veterans” of Capt. R.T. Johnson’s Company, who enlisted from this town three years ago in the “3d Excelsior Regt,” Sickles Brigade, arrived home yesterday. They return few in number, still are a band of “brave bold boys.” We would ask why are they permitted to return to their homes without the usual public reception? Can it be that the deeds of valor and bravery of these war worn veterans, on countless bloody battle fields for the past three years are so soon to be forgotten? We hope not. It has been suggested that their bronzed faces are not of that all sufficient dark hue to entitle them to proper regard! And then again, it is hinted that their political sentiments are not muddy enough to suit the major part of our loyal voters, be that as it may, one point no one can doubt! but what they are individually and collectively McClellan veterans, ready to battle at all times for the honor of “Little Mac,” or for the cause he so nobly defended. There is a class of soldiers, or, “shoulder strappers,” who may generally calculate on a warm reception, at the hands of a certain class in Delhi. They are the fine “Blue coated, and brass buttoned warriors,” of recent manufacture, whose principal merit consists not in any fighting they have done “down in Dixie” but in their “chin exercise” at home trying to show up the incapacity of McClellan as a Gen. and the immediate necessity of wiping out northern traitors, and doing other things too numerous to mention, We trust that one of these days honor will be given to those who are entitled to it, and less awarded to the undeserving. Hastily, S.Q.B.4
Men with time still to serve remained at Petersburg with the 120th New York. Some now former 72nd men had only a few days left on their enlistments and were on their way home within weeks. The rest continued to fight alongside the 120th as they participated in the various actions around Petersburg, including the October fight at Boydton Plank Road and Hatcher’s Run, which cost the regiment 8 killed, 30 wounded and 21 missing. In February of ’65 the 120th lost another 6 killed, 32 wounded and 46 missing at Dabney’s Mills and Hatcher’s Run. That spring the 120th pursued Lee’s army to Appomattox Court House and the eventual surrender, participating later in the Grand Review at Washington. When the 120th disbanded in June of ’65, those men with time still to serve were moved to the 73rd New York until it was disbanded a month later.5
Despite whatever welcome home they may have received or whenever they eventually made it home, within a year of the war’s end, Union veterans began to come together locally to share their common experiences. By April of 1866, the first of many chapters of the Grand Army of the Republic had been formed. The GAR was an organization devoted to veterans’ affairs and community service. Local chapter memberships reflected the regiments drawn from each area, but as was the case with the 72nd New York, being drawn as it was from across the state, something more needed to be done should the bond they forged in battle continue into the peace; so up stepped Henri LeFevre-Brown.
Henri Lefevre-Brown of Company B earned a Medal of Honor for his actions in the Wilderness. Thanks to his efforts, much of the history of the 72nd N.Y. was preserved (Brown, History of the Third Regiment).
Whether inspired by the highest ideals of camaraderie or by something less noble, Brown, the former sergeant and Medal of Honor winner, now became the engine driving the 72nd NYSV Veteran’s Association. In 1888 the new association elected its first slate of officers with Brown as president, Henry Yates serving as vice president, Samuel Bailey acting as secretary and Ensign Jones taking on the duties of treasurer. This board of officers would serve in these respective capacities for the next eight years. While subsequent boards would change president and vice president each year, Brown remained a steadying hand at secretary. It was clear that preserving the memory of the 72nd was a high priority, especially for Brown, who wrote an extensive history of Company B which appeared in the May 1891 issue of the Jamestown Journal.6 During the second half of the 1890s, with Brown at the center of the project, the veterans’ association worked to collect firsthand accounts of the regiment’s battles and movements from its membership. The objective was to preserve the most accurate collection of accounts possible so a definitive history of the regiment could eventually be written, a history Brown wrote and published in 1902 and a work frequently cited by subsequent historians. But by 1902 most of the energy of the veterans’ association had long waned. And with its last official document dated 1900, it appears the association stopped operating that same year.7
Whether they participated in the veterans’ group or not, the boys of Third Excelsior went back to their lives as best they could. Some, raked by the lingering effects of disease or wounds, would pass away within just a few years of their discharge, while others lived into their eighties and nineties. Many boys remained close to home and finished out long lives in New York while others went elsewhere.
Among those who would not last long was Colonel John Austin, who spent the last few months of his army service battling illness. He was discharged for disability on June 27, 1864, due to “nephritis and enlarged prostate with general debility,” about the same time the 72nd N.Y. was disbanded because of shrinking numbers and expiring enlistments. Austin died on May 8, 1865, less than a year after his discharge. Austin’s body was available for public viewing at New York’s City Hall before burial at Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn.8
Israel Moses, the doctor who served as the regiment’s lieutenant colonel, died at age 47 in 1870 after spending his last few years in Philadelphia as a member of the U.S. Sanitary Commission and helping to found the American Public Health Association.9
This letterhead of the 72nd New York’s Veteran’s Association is designed around a white diamond representing the Second Division of the III Corps, with two sickles symbolic of its founder and the brigade (Grand Army of the Republic records, 72nd NYV, New York State Library, Preservation Unit).
John S. Mann, who joined the regiment as sergeant in Company F and rose to captain, returned to his home in Newark, New Jersey, after the war. Suffering the lingering effects of his wounding at Gettysburg, Mann, who remained in frail health, finally succumbed to a form of lung tuberculosis on April 2, 1876, leaving a wife and three children behind.10
Hiram Stoddard, who put so much faith in the Lord and in the teachings of his parents, reenlisted when the regiment was phased out and fell in with the 120th. In the lines at Petersburg, Hiram wrote, “the enemy in our front are deserting fast, there is from 7 to 10 come over evry [sic] night, they all say they are tired of this cruel war.”12 Eventually the strain of the trenches began to take its toll on Stoddard as his letters’ tone and handwriting reflected his fatigue. He requested transfer from the front, to hospital duty but soon after the letters home stopped; Hiram Stoddard had been captured. Languishing in Libby Prison, Hiram suffered all the hardships associated with the notorious prison: lack of food, inadequate sanitation, and poor ventilation. When finally released, Stoddard carried a “somewhat crippled condition” the rest of his days. Back in Busti, Hiram married, had a daughter and died in 1915, his home becoming a Baptist parsonage and eventually a home for runaway girls.13
James Dean, who joined the regiment just before Fredericksburg in the fall of 1862, finished out his enlistment with the 120th New York, as did many others once the 72nd disbanded. Upon his discharge Dean took employment in Astoria with “one of the most prominent florists of the time” and by 1877 had opened a business of his own. Four years later he moved his shop to Brooklyn, where his business grew; he became one of the most celebrated florists in New York. Dean received high awards from the various florist guilds and presided as president over numerous floral conventions held in New York, Washington and Toronto. In addition to his professional duties, Dean served for several years as commodore of the South Shore Yacht Club. Dean was an avid collector of firearms and his “collection comprised antique arms from centuries back and was probably the most complete private one in the United States.” This collection was unfortunately scattered at public auction, according to Dean family legend, by an uncaring relative who took control of the collection while James was in failing health.14
Another man who continued on with the 120th New York was Lucius Jones. Jones, the smallish lad who fell in with Company H, was obligated due to his reenlisting to remain in service until July of 1865 and did the last month of his service with the 73rd New York. Upon returning home, Jones found it difficult adjusting to many of the small normalcies of civilian life. “It was a long time before I could sleep in bed. Would sleep on the floor; but by degrees got used to a bed again,” remembered the veteran. In 1881 Jones received a pension, backdated to his discharge, for asthma that resulted in heart disease. Jones participated in the 30th anniversary recognition of the battle of Gettysburg. In February of 1913, Jones finished his memoir of the war while residing at his home in Fredonia, New York.15
The man recruited out of the regiment to help organize the division’s mail service, David Parker, had perhaps one of the most fascinating careers following the war. While placed in charge of mail service for the Army of the Potomac by General Hooker, this assignment continued under both Meade and Grant. After the war Parker was given the task of reestablishing mail service in Virginia, later being appointed by President Grant as U.S. Marshal for the District of Virginia. Parker then returned to the post office, where he served as chief post-office inspector from 1876 to 1883, at which time he left government service and joined the fledgling American Bell Telephone Company. Over the years that followed, Parker served the phone company in a variety of executive positions throughout New England and New York. For the last ten years of his life, Parker was a “confirmed invalid, unable to leave his bed or to assist himself in any way,” but maintained a steady schedule of receiving friends and compiling his collection of reminiscences: A Chautauqua Boy in ’61 and Afterward, which was published after his death in 1910.16
Another who served the regiment with great devotion ironically wasn’t a man at all. Sarah Sinfield was married to Private William Sinfield (also spelled Senfield), who was among the first to join what would become Company E. With both her husband’s and the company commander’s blessing, Sarah joined the company at Staten Island in July 1861 a day before it moved to Washington. From that point on, she accompanied the regiment during its most harrowing engagements and “at each and every one of these battles she aided in caring for sick and wounded soldiers, carrying food and drink to those who could not help themselves, preparing bandages for wounds, and in many and various ways making herself useful, and putting up with such accommodations as were furnished soldiers.”17 With her unwavering service endearing her to many, she was considered the “mother” of the regiment; doing all without pay. After the wounding of William at Gettysburg, Sarah joined her husband as he recovered at Fort Smith Hospital in Rhode Island, where she served with distinction, earning $3 per month. Finances following the war were difficult for the Sinfields as they struggled along on William’s disability pension until 1884, when a special act of Congress granted Sarah a pension for her “incalculable value to the sick and wounded soldiers” with the 72nd N.Y. in the amount of $15 per month.18
With the Federal defeat at Chancellorsville, the task of burying the Union dead, Emerson F. Merrell among them, was left to advancing Confederate troops. Soon after the war’s end, the remains from the Chancellorsville battlefield upon which the 72nd fought were reinterred at the National Cemetery at Fredericksburg, Virginia. Here, over 15,000 Union troops are buried though fewer than 2,500 are identified. It is believed that here, in one of these smaller plots, Merrell is buried along with 34 of his comrades. At the family plot in Coventry Cemetery many years later, a small tombstone was placed alongside his parents’ graves with the simple inscription, “Emerson F. Merrell, killed in action battle of Chancellorsville.” One hundred and thirty-three years after his death, a bronze marker provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs was placed next to the family tombstone; it reads, “In Memory of Emerson Merrell, Pvt. Co. I. 72nd NY Inf. Civil War Feb 27 1842–May 3, 1863.”19
For Captain Isaac L. Chadwick of Company C, the war ended in January of 1863, when he was declared “entirely unfit for duty” due to his inflammatory rheumatism and carditis following his apparent wounding at Malvern Hill. Despite there being little doubt he was wounded at Malvern Hill, Chadwick was allowed to go directly home following the battle and bypass the normal round of inspections by army doctors. After a short recovery and brief return to duty he resigned following the rigors of Fredericksburg. Nearly crippled and racked with pain, Chadwick’s own conflicting recollections of events coupled with imprecise descriptions of his wounds by various doctors, resulted in a maddening bureaucratic odyssey for the former captain to claim his rightful pension. As the fight for his pension raged, Chadwick argued in vain for just benefits, describing his personal sacrifices associated with his raising of Company C. “I took over $2,000 of my own hard earned money and raised and subsisted a company of 108 men” and “never had one dollar back for it. I had a good trade blacksmith and machinist—but from my poor health I have never been able to work one day at my trade from 1863.” Chadwick was now moving from job to job in order to make ends meet. Adding to his heartache, Chadwick’s second wife died in 1880. Two years later he was married again, only to be sued for a separation in 1888 by this third wife, who complained that he abused her for not sharing his spiritualist beliefs. The beleaguered Chadwick died on January 4, 1896, and was buried in Hudson County, New Jersey. Ironically, his estranged third wife reappeared to claim his pension, while continuing to fight for an increase in survivor’s pension benefits until her own death 22 years later.20
In September of 1862, Nelson Taylor had been promoted to brigadier general and eventually given command of brigade in Gibbon’s division of I Corps. Despite a good showing at Fredericksburg, Taylor requested resignation from the service and after initially being rebuffed by superiors was granted his separation from the army in January of 1863. Taylor returned to his New York City law practice. He declined the 72nd’s offer to return to its colonelcy following the death of Stevens in May ’63, but that summer took temporary command of some troops during the Harlem draft riots. In 1864 he was elected to Congress and served only one term, having failed to be reelected. Two years later Taylor returned to his home town of South Norwalk, Connecticut, where he practiced law and served many years as the city attorney. Nelson Taylor died on January 16, 1894, and is buried in his home town at Riverside Cemetery.21
From the Gettysburg fight to the disbanding of the regiment, Lt. Col. John Leonard commanded the 72nd. Two months after the June 1864 dissolution, Leonard was appointed as a captain in the Veteran Reserve Corps. He served in the regular army until 1870, when he was placed on the retirement list on account of wounds. After his army service, Leonard settled back in his home town of Newark, New Jersey. Leonard was active in the 72nd N.Y. veterans’ association, being elected as its president for the 1901 year. It is doubtful Leonard ever served since he died on February 26, 1902, and there is no record of the association’s existence past 1900.22
Daniel Sickles never returned to the field after the fight at Gettysburg; George Meade saw to that. In 1864 and ’65, Dan spent much of his time defending his actions of that July day. By the time the war was over, most men wanted nothing more than to get on with their lives and set the war behind them. After helping with Southern reconstruction, Sickles landed a post as minister to Spain, where he carried on a liaison with the deposed Queen Isabella II. Dan eventually ran afoul of the State Department and was withdrawn from Spain just in time to join in the groundswell of veterans’ remembrances of the war back home in the U.S. With little else to keep him occupied, Sickles supported the various veterans’ groups, especially those associated with the III Corps, with great vigor. The 1880s saw a new wave of books and articles that looked back on the war with a more critical eye, a perspective that placed Sickles’ actions at Gettysburg in an increasingly unfavorable light. Sickles’ path was now clear; restore his reputation (as he saw it at least) as the hero, not the goat, of Gettysburg. Eventually this effort would lead to a friendship with former Confederate general James Longstreet, who wrote that Sickles’ actions saved the battle for the Union. Another important step towards redemption was being appointed chairman of the New York Monuments Commission for the Battlefield of Gettysburg. This position would require countless dedication speeches in front of enthusiastic veterans and their relatives; how better to rehabilitate one’s image? Among many veterans Dan was indeed able to revamp his reputation. But by the early 1900s when his time at the head of commission was over, more than $20,000 came up missing, and the last several years of his life were spent trying to avoid jail over this and other accumulated debts. During one visit to Gettysburg with his good friend Chaplain Joseph Twichell, the reverend mused that of all the monuments, not one was dedicated to Sickles, after which Dan supposedly responded to the contrary that the entire park was a monument to him. This tale, whether true or not, would serve as a fitting exclamation point the old general’s legend. Sickles died on May 3, 1914, after lingering for several days after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage.23
It may never be known when the last 72nd man died. Some veterans of the Civil War lingered well into the middle part of the 20th century and perhaps among them was one of the 1,250 men who served in the regiment. How these men have been remembered through the intervening years from July of ’64 to now cannot fully be known. Certainly there are descendants who hold the memory of their 72nd veteran close with reverence and solemnity, while most others are doubtlessly unaware of the sacrifice an ancestor has made. There are only a few groups of modern-day Civil War reenactors who portray the 72nd New York. And it is among these few that some of the names of these “Boys of ’61” are ever spoken aloud and acknowledged. The deeds of the 72nd New York do not immediately jump off the pages of the history books. These men did not single-handedly win a battle or hold the line against impossible odds, yet they took a measure of pride in the job they performed. For three years the men of Third Excelsior were in the thick of the most important and well known fighting of the Eastern Theater, never flinching, never breaking when the struggle was at its worst, earning them a place among Colonel Fox’s “300 Fighting Regiments.” It is because of this dedication to service that they deserve to be remembered and their deeds told here.