Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

The South Atlantic Coast, 1863 –1865 67
them was blocked by troops of the next brigade coming into action, and thick
woods impeded movement on either side. Colonel Fribley was killed and his
second in command received two wounds. Taking over the regiment, Capt.
Romanzo C. Bailey ordered what men he could to support an artillery battery
that was under attack, but out-of-control battery horses spoiled the movement
by charging the infantry and the artillery men had to abandon their guns. It
seemed to Norton that “the regiment had no commander . . . , and every officer
was doing the best he could with his squad independent of any one else.”
Learning that his men had run out of ammunition, Bailey withdrew them behind
the 54th Massachusetts, which had hurried forward. The 8th USCI had
suffered more than 50 percent casualties in less than three hours: more than
three hundred killed, wounded, and missing out of fewer than six hundred men.
“From all I can learn . . . the regiment was under fire for more than two hours,”
Lieutenant Norton told his father, “though it did not seem to me so long. I never
know anything of the time in a battle, though.” As the Union Army began its
retreat that evening, the 8th USCI survivors, along with those of the 7th New
Hampshire, guarded the wagon train. 22
While the 8th USCI was losing more than half its strength, Col. William B.
Barton’s brigade, three white regiments from New York, advanced on the right
and engaged the Confederates for four hours. “It was soon apparent that we were
greatly outnumbered,” Barton reported afterward. “For a long time we were sorely
pressed, but the indomitable and unflinching courage of my men and officers at
length prevailed, and . . . the enemy’s left was forced back, and he was content to
permit us to retire. . . . The enemy were . . . too badly punished to feel disposed to
molest us.” 23 Barton’s report was a remarkable piece of writing, an assertion that
he had beaten the Confederates so badly that they had to let him retreat. In fact,
his brigade lost more than eight hundred men, including all three regimental commanders,
before it got away. 24
As the fight continued, word went to the rear of the Union column for the two
black regiments there to hurry forward. The 54th Massachusetts and 1st North Carolina
doubled up the road, shedding knapsacks and blanket rolls as they ran past “hundreds
of wounded and stragglers” who announced a Union defeat and predicted their
imminent deaths. By the time the two regiments arrived at the front, Barton’s brigade
was withdrawing and the 7th Connecticut, one of the first regiments in action that
day, had just received orders to fall back. Expecting a Confederate attack on his left
flank, Seymour sent the 54th Massachusetts into the line on the left of the 7th Con-
Regimental Books, RG 94, Rcds of the Adjutant General’s Office, NA; Norton, Army Letters, pp.
198, 202. On Civil War tactics, see Paddy Griffith, Battle Tactics of the Civil War (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1987), pp. 74, 87–89, 101.
22 OR, ser. 1, vol. 35, pt. 1, pp. 312–14; Norton, Army Letters, p. 198 (“were stunned”), 204 (“the
regiment,” “From all”); New York Times, 1 March 1864. According to Captain Bailey, the 8th USCI
took 565 officers and men into battle and lost a total of 343 killed, wounded, and missing. Col J. R.
Hawley, the brigade commander, gave the regiment’s strength as 575; Seymour put the loss at 310.
OR, ser. 1, vol. 35, pt. 1, pp. 298, 303, 312. These figures indicate casualties somewhere between 53.9
and 60.7 percent. Surgeon Charles P. Heichhold estimated the length of the fight at “2 1/2 hours.”
Anglo-African, 12 Mar 1864.
23 OR, ser. 1, vol. 35, pt. 1, p. 302.
24 Seymour gave the figure as 824, Barton as 811. OR, ser. 1, vol. 35, pt. 1, pp. 298, 303.