25 Second Regiment New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry. (THREE YEARS.) By Hon. MARTIN A. HAYNES, late Private Second Regiment New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry and Historian of Reginnent. LARGE proportion of the original members of the Second Regiment were enlisted for three A months' service under President Lincoln's first call ; many of them among the earliest recruits in April, 1861. But early in May, while the regiment was still in camp at Portsmouth, orders were received from the War Department to send no more three months' troops. Most of the men thereupon enlisted for three years, this second muster by companies dating from Jun^ i to 8. The regiment left Portsmouth June 20, receiving at Boston on the same day, and at New York on the 21st, tremendous ovations from the Sons of New Hampshire and the local authorities. The regiment arrived in Washington on the afternoon of the 23d, and was brigaded with the First and Second Rhode Island and the Seventy-first New York, the brigade commander being Col. Ambrose E. Burnside. This constituted the Second Brigade of Hunter's division, and opened the fight at the first Bull Run battle, July 21. Colonel Marston was severely wounded here, and the regiment's loss was reported as 7 killed, 56 wounded, 46 missing. Early in August the regiment went into camp at Bladens- burg, Md., being brigaded with the Fii-st and Eleventh Massachusetts and Twenty-sixth Pennsylvania, under command of Brig. Gen. Joseph Hooker. During the winter of '61-2 the brigade camped at Budd's Ferry, Md., constituting the First Brigade of Hooker's division, which had been placed there as a corps of observation over the rebel blockading batteries extending several miles along the Virginia side of the Potomac. The division embarked on steamers for Yorktown, April 5, 1862, the First Brigade being then com- manded by Gen. Cuvier Grover, Hooker in command of the division, and Heintzelman of the corps (Third) . The regiment performed the customary siege duty befoi-e Yorktown until the morning of May 4, when the rebel defenses were discovered to have been evacuated. Within an hour Hooker's division was pushing in pursuit, and at daylight the following morning impetuously attacked the rebel rear guard at Williamsburg. After a most obstinate and sanguinary struggle the Excelsior and New Jersey brigades were beaten back, when the entire Second Regiment was deployed as skirmishers to cover the line of two brigades, and maintained a savage bush fight for two hours, until relieved by the arrival of Kearney's division. The Second Regiment lost 18 men killed, 66 wounded, 23 missing. On the last day of May, when Casey was overwhelmed at Fair Oaks, Hooker's division was at Poplar Hill, a few miles distant. The Second and Third Brigades took part in the second day's fight, and June 3 Grover's brigade also advanced to Fair Oaks. June 23 five companies of the Second, with some Massachusetts troops constituting the picket line, advanced as skirmishers, driving the rebel pickets a considerable distance towards Richmond. One man of the Second was killed and several wounded in this little aff'air. Two days later the battle of Oak Grove was fought, when H^ooker advanced over the same ground, crushed all opposition, and was only prevented from essaying the defenses of Richmond by McClellan's timidity. The Second's loss was about 70 men — the heaviest falling upon Company B, which had 22 men killed and wounded out of 42. In the " change of base," Hooker's division abandoned the works and camps at Fair Oaks, June 28. At Savage's Station, the same day, the Second supported, with but slight loss, a battery posted to sweep the railroad towards Fair Oaks Station. It lost several men, wounded, at Glendale on the 29th, but its 26 SECOND REGIMENT NEW HAMPSHIRE VOLUNTEER INFANTRY. part of the line was not assailed at Malvern Hill on the 30th. In Hooker's movement to re-capture Mal- vern Hill, August 4 and 5, the Second had one man killed and several wounded by shell. On the evacuation of the peninsula, Hooker's division marched to Yorktown, took boats to Alexan- dria, and from there by rail to reinforce Pope, arriving at Warrenton Junction on the night of August 25. On the morning of the 27th, Stonewall Jackson's raid on our communications was developed, and the division pushed for Manassas Junction, the Second throwing out skirmishers and leading the column. Ewell's division of Jackson's corps was encountered at Kettle Run, near Bristoe Station, and driven towards Manassas Junction on the jump. On the forenoon of the 29th, Grover's brigade arrived upon the field near Groveton, where Jackson was at bay, and reported to General Sigel. Under peremptory orders to " carry the railroad embank- ment with the bayonet," it went forward into the woods, entirely unsupported, and charged the rebel posi- tion. The Second crashed through two lines in a headlong, hand-to-hand dash, but could not hold its ground. Out of 332 men, the regiment reported 16 killed, 87 wounded, 29 missing. The death-roll was actually 35, as finally established. At Chantilly, September i, the Second covered the road, on Kear- ney's left, but was not brought into action. During the Antietam campaign, the division, now com- manded by Sickles, lay in the Washington defenses, and late in November joined the army at Falmouth. The Third Corps was now under Stoneman, Hooker commanding the centre grand division. The First Brigade, to which the Eleventh New Jersey had been added, was commanded by Gen. Joseph B. Carr. The Second's participation in the battle of Fredericksburg was confined to skirmishing, its position being two miles below the city, and it lost but 5 men wounded. February 26, 1863, the regiment started for New Hampshire. It was given a rapturous reception in Manchester and Concord, and the men were freely furloughed to their homes. The regiment was rein- forced by 94 men recruited for the Seventeenth Regiment, and on the 25th of May set out to rejoin the army. The regiment was temporarily attached to Casey's division. Twenty-second Army Corps, for about two weeks, and then to Third Brigade, Second Division, Third Corps (Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth New Jersey, and One Hundred and Fifteenth Pennsylvania), commanded by Col. George C. Bur- ling, Sixth New Jersey. At Gettysburg, July 2, the Second was, early in the action, detached from the brigade and reported to General Graham, First Brigade, Second Division. The regiment's desperate defense of the angle at Sherfy's peach orchard made that a historic point of the field. It took in 24 com- missioned officers and 330 enlisted men. Three officers were killed and 18 wounded — 4 mortally. Sev- enteen enlisted men were killed, 119 wounded, and 36 missing. The killed and mortally wounded aggregated 56. July 23, when the Third Corps forced a passage through Manassas Gap into the Shenandoah Valley, the Second supported the Excelsior Brigade, and the following day, deployed as skirmishers, it led the corps to Front Royal. July 26, at Warrenton, with the Twelfth New Hampshire, it was detached from the army and sent to Point Lookout, Md., to establish the great prison camp. The Fifth New Hampshire subsequently arrived, and the district (St. Mary's) was placed under command of Gen. Oilman Marston. The regiment was on duty here until April 8, 1864, when it went by boat to Yorktown to join Butler's " Army of the James," then assembling. Desertions by " bounty jumpers " becoming numerous, four were executed shortly after arrival at Yorktown. The regiment was attached to the Second Brigade (Wistar's) Second Division, Eighteenth Corps, the brigade consisting of the Eleventh Connecticut, Second and Twelfth New Hampshire, and Forty-Eighth New York. In the advance from Bermuda Hundred towards Petersburg, on the 8th of May, the regi- ment lost I man killed and 6 wounded. In the "fog fight" of May 16, in front of Fort Darling, ihe regiment repulsed repeated assaults with frightful loss to the enemy, although its own loss was but 4 killed and 14 wounded. May 29 the Eighteenth Corps was dispatched by boat around to White House to reinforce the Army of the Potomac. It joined Grant at Cold Harbor, June i, and the Second had several men wounded by shells on that day. The next day it took part in the bloody and unsuccessful assault of the rebel position, and the regiment lost 2 officers and 6 enlisted men killed, 3 officers and 66 men wounded, and i missing. June 9 the original men, not re-enlisted, marched from the trenches on their way home, and were dis- charged at Concord, N. H., June 21. The original Second New Hampshire fitly crowned three years of glorious service at Cold Harbor. It was also the last great pitched battle in which the regiment actively SECOND REGIMENT NEW HAMPSHIRE VOLUNTEER INFANTRY. 27 participated. Tlie regiment was at once detached from the brigade for temporary duty at Eighteenth Corps headquarters. From August i8 to September i it was in the trenches before Petersburg, losing more or less men almost every day. Then it reported to General Marston, commanding the defenses of the James from City Point to Fortress Monroe. It was efficientl}' employed in various minor raids until the 1st of October, when it rejoined the Eighteenth Corps, being assigned to the Third Brigade of its old division. October 27 it joined in a heavy reconnoissance near the Williamsburg road, and lost several men.