by Jonathan E. Helmreich,
College Historian, Allegheny College
PAGE1
News of the attack on the Federal base at Fort Sumter 12 April 1861 aggravated the tension. Northern students bristled at comments made by some of their Southern colleagues. The Union supporters called an indignation meeting and elected a committee that demanded that those persons favoring the attack "Recant, or leave within 24 hours for your homes." Vainly did the President of the College, the Reverend George Loomis, plea for conciliation. Twelve unrepentant Southerners departed. Shortly thereafter, on Saturday, 20 April, a congregation of students cheered as James Stubbs raised the Stars and Stripes atop the cupola of Bentley Hall. The door to the tower was then barred to prevent the flag from being torn down. This was, it may be estimated, the only occasion in the history of the College when the national banner was flown from Bentley's tower. That afternoon the students assembled again on the steps of the county courthouse, their hearts aflame. A call for volunteers went out, and after a rousing speech or two, the boys signed up. They proclaimed themselves the College Company, electing Ira Ayer, Jr., of Buffalo as captain. A student in the Biblical department of the College, Ayer was a sturdy man nearly six feet tall, fair complexioned with light hair and blue eyes. Twenty-six years of age, Ayer had served for five years with the Sixty-Seventh New York State militia, of which his father was colonel. The young captain, who held a good grasp of military drill and tactics, quickly started training the group. A son of the South, Sion B. Smith of Alexandria, Tennessee, became first lieutenant, German instructor Reverend Oscar Hennig, Ph.D, second lieutenant, and senior George Norris third lieutenant. The volunteers were not alone in their enthusiasm. Companies from every region of the Commonwealth were mustering in Harrisburg. Most men had enlisted for just three months of service, part of Mr. Lincoln's ninety-day army. Soon enough, it was clear in both Washington and the state capitals that the crisis would not be resolved so quickly. Harrisburg legislators passed a bill creating a Reserve Volunteer Corps of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, to be enlisted for three years or for the duration of the war, and to be amalgamated into the U. S. Army as requisitioned. The rubric "reserve" suggested that the men would not serve on the front lines or see the war close up. All too soon, the corps veterans were wryly commenting that the worst battles of the war were "reserved" for them.Until the issue of duration of enlistments was resolved, Governor Andrew Curtin delayed acceptance of the College Company. The lads drilled, parading occasionally on Chestnut Street in Meadville, and chafed at the delay. Some say that special appeals were made to Senator D. A. Finney, class of 1840, to use his influence with the governor. Significant also in the matter was Professor Samuel P. Bates, a Meadville native and Deputy State Superintendent of Education, who personally carried to Harrisburg papers tendering the service of the College Volunteers and who telegraphed home that on 24 May the company was accepted for three years' service. Before it could depart for training, however, time was required to make arrangements and to bring the company to its full size by the addition of volunteers from the county. (A Meadville short-term company that included several college students had already formed and left for training.) It was the determination of the Allegheny lads that no one should be accepted into the company unless he were a student at the time he enlisted. They sent to neighboring academies (post-grammar schools, the fore-runners of today's high schools) for recruits and were especially successful in gaining help from the southwest area of the county, including nine youths from tiny Espyville Academy.
The first Sunday in June, Professor Lorenzo Williams spoke to the group when it gathered for a service at the Methodist Church, telling them that "Patriotism is a noble virtue; Christian patriotism is heavenly virtue." To the citizens of the town, the 'boys' were instant heroes. The village ladies made each a tiny silk flag to sport on his coat, and on 26 April they formally presented the company with a flag. Within its silver stars was printed the slogan "Our Country Forever." Whether this was the flag, somewhat altered, that was presented to the company on 11 June or another is difficult to tell a century and a half later. More likely, it was a smaller, hurried effort that the ladies later expanded and improved upon when it became clear that at least several more weeks would pass before the boys would be off. When the time came, the leave-takings were patriotic, heartfelt, and tinged with bravura. L. Ami Trace told his fellow members of the College Philo-Franklin Literary Society: "I am going to fight for my country: I shall never disgrace you."
On the eleventh of June the community bade farewell to its own. Faculty, townspeople, and President Loomis all spoke as the Allegheny Company stood in formation before the College's great hall. Miss Hattie Bain presented the volunteers with a large flag of fine wool bunting, sewn by the ladies of the town. With seven stripes of red and six of white, it showed 30 gold stars in its blue corner field in an elliptical disposition, with single stars in each of the four corners of the field. Thus the 34 states of the Union before secession were represented, demonstrating the desire of both the women of Meadville and those about to march away that the Union be preserved. On one side of the flag, within the starry ellipse, was inscribed in gold lettering the phrase "Our Country." On the other side appeared the Latin words, "Semper Fidelis" ("Always Faithful" later to become the slogan of the U.S. Marine Corps in 1883). President Loomis's valedictory to the volunteers was brief and emotional, reminiscent of the farewell the Spartans paid to their troops departing for the battle of Thermopylae. With tears streaming down his cheeks, this physically imposing man growled in his deep voice, "Come back with the flag, boys, or come back wrapped in its folds.Flag curators have recently shown interest in the Volunteers' Flag, especially in its shape and dimensions. At the beginning of the 1860s some regulations did exist regarding flag preparation, but these were not highly specific and were revised during 1861. The Allegheny Company flag was of the same proportion as larger garrison and storm flags, but one-quarter the size of the former and half the size of the latter, for a company flag was meant to be carried rather than displayed from a stanchion. Five feet by ten feet, the Allegheny flag nevertheless is unusually large for a company flag of that era. It must have been a challenge for one man to bear, as various stains, especially in its lower fly corner, attest.
The 1861 rules that called for infantry units to use flags approximately six feet square had probably not yet been publicized by the time the Allegheny flag was created. They indicated that the canton, or Union, in the upper quarter next to the staff should have white stars on a blue field and should vertically extend to the lower edge of the fourth red stripe from the top. In length, it was to extend one-third the fly of the flag. On large garrison flags, this regulation resulted in a nearly square canton. On smaller flags, the canton took the shape of a narrow vertical rectangle. The Allegheny flag differs from these standard practices. The canton's height is 30 inches alongside four red and three white stripes. But the canton also extends 50 inches of the banner's ten-foot length, or about 42% or two-fifths rather than one-third of its horizontal dimension. No Federal regulations prescribed the pattern of stars in the canton. The star count was supposed to represent the number of states. White stars were to be embroidered, but as this was a lengthy and expensive task and few embroiderers were available, paint was often used. Silver paint tarnished rapidly, so in 1861 gold paint was substituted. With the demand for regimental flags increasing, the army authorized depots in New York City and Cincinnati as well as in Philadelphia to produce flags. In New York, square cantons with five rows of gold stars were used. Philadelphia used the narrow canton with gold stars arranged in two rings, with one star in each corner of the canton and often one in the center of the rings. Cincinnati used the narrow canton of Philadelphia but with a row arrangement of stars as employed by New York. It is difficult to determine nearly a century and a half later how much the women of Meadville knew of these various flag formats. Whatever the case, the Volunteers' flag was an innovative variation on these common designs, as a horizontal rather than vertical rectangular canton was employed, with but one ring of stars with two different slogans in its center. The flag's shape and size suggest that these were logical reductions from those of standard garrison and storm flags. The Meadville ladies also appear to have known of, or contributed to the establishment of, the practice of selecting red for the color of the banding around the exterior of the flag, indicating that the flag was made in time of war. The color of the binding for flags made in peacetime is white, though presentation flags also make use of gold braid.Having received their flag, the volunteers were served a sumptuous meal on the campus green, then marched to Dock Street, where they boarded a canal boat. An immense crowd cheered them off that Tuesday evening. Each youth's name was announced as he boarded the boat, and each received from the ladies a "Handy Betty" (a sewing kit), a New Testament, and a white muslin Havelock to protect his neck from the southern sun (an item that did not last as far as Pittsburgh). A cornet band played, and girls sang patriotic tunes. Few slept that night as they were towed along the canal on the J. D. Gill, dodging the spikes of the bridges. New friendships were made, for some of the recent recruits hardly knew the core of college lads. Borosus "Bo" Strickland, the smallest and most unassuming of them all, from nearby Andover, Ohio, became the messmate and blanket sharer of Octavius Williams, an arrangement parted only by bullets. The next morning the recruits were treated to a grand breakfast at Sherman's Corners, now Shermansville, and again the following morning at Sharon. Their destination was Camp Wilkins, a filthy fairgrounds east of Pittsburgh, where they joined other regiments already encamped. Several former Allegheny students were enrolled in these. Ironically, as the Allegheny Company arrived, two Meadville lads who had enlisted with the Meadville company for three months and were sent to Camp Wilkins in April were able to return to Meadville for graduation with their Allegheny class. In addition to those two seniors, either six or seven other Allegheny undergraduates served with the town company.6 All of the boys made up, in the later reflection of Octavius Williams '64, an "undrilled, ununiformed and intensely unsophisticated lot" with their camp equipage, consisting principally of bundles of clothes, bed blankets, and patchwork quilts. On 20 June, the College Company was merged into the 39th Regiment, 10th Reserve, Pennsylvania Volunteer Reserve Corps, becoming Company I. The regiment, which throughout the war was commonly referred to as the Tenth Pennsylvania, was commanded by a former Alleghenian, Colonel John S. McCalmont, class of 1840. To preserve morale, higher officials decided not to disperse the men of college companies. Of course, as company members were killed or wounded, their replacements were not from the College. By the end of three years' service, the company had fewer Alleghenians, but its esprit d'corps, comradeship, and even the idealism planted by the original student contingent remained.
Because of the background of its members, most of whom came from a college then strongly connected to the Methodist Episcopal Church, a greater percentage of the company reportedly attended religious services than was customary within the army as a whole. Of the four officers and three sergeants initially appointed, all but one were Methodists, and four were licensed to preach. During the first weeks of training, Company I rose at five each morning and began prayers ten minutes later, the only company in the regiment to hold worship services both morning and night. Captain Ayer himself was abstemious, eschewing any use of liquor or tobacco. His troops soon passed a resolution that they would use no intoxicating liquors of any kind in camp. The company's reputation for orderliness and discipline grew, and around Camp Wilkins Company I was called the best in the regiment. It was at the camp on Penn Street, the same street on which College founder Timothy Alden died 22 years earlier, that the men of Company I had their first taste of the harshness of army life. At night they lay on what they called the soft side of a board, with a blanket and a carpet sack for a pillow; nevertheless, they found they slept the best sleep of their lives. Meals hardly matched those of home or Allegheny. James Chadwick reported that, "Our fare consists of baker's bread with crackers which are so hard that you can not easily break them, salt bacon and occasionally a mess of fresh beef, coffee twice a day, without milk, and sometimes a mess of beans. It is rather hard living.... Little did the students know that in the future their fare would be still more plain, "not much except crackers and coffee; meat sometimes on the 'rusty' order." Tents would be scarce, and shelter from storms had to be found under India rubber blankets. Drill was tiresome. The boys adapted quickly and their greenness ripened into army routine. The first day of July the regiment moved to Camp Wright, 12 miles up the Allegheny River. Shortly thereafter, Norris traveled to Meadville to recruit an additional 25 men to bring Company I to its required strength of 101 soldiers. He had some success, and the addition of a few transfers finally brought the company close to its full quota. On 18 July the regiment entrained to Hopewell and then moved to Harrisburg. There, on Saturday, 20 July, the eve of the Union's severe defeat at Bull Run, the volunteers were mustered into the United States Army, part of the first regiment to be accepted for a term of three years. Shortly thereafter, the regiment was posted to Washington by way of Baltimore. Warned by police of the possibility of an attack by secessionists mobs as had already happened to other Federal troops changing trains in the divided city of Baltimore, Colonel McCalmont did not shrink. He issued ammunition and ordered bayonets fixed. On its march through the streets, the regiment was accompanied by an African-American lad. His service running errands and helping to pitch tents won the soldiers' approval, and young "Baltimore," as he was called, would accompany the regiment as its mascot until he "transferred" himself to a cavalry outfit about the end of 1863. Arriving in Washington, the College boys encountered troops maimed at Bull Run; it was a frightening and sobering sight that encouraged them to accept discipline far more strict that they had experienced in camp.The Alleghenians waited nearly six months for their own first taste of real combat. The monotony of life at Camp Tenally was broken in August by guard duty at the Great Falls of the Potomac, where the Northerners first cast eyes on the enemy. In October the regiment moved into Virginia. That month the young German instructor, who had joined the company along with his Allegheny students, resigned due to "force of circumstances" that may have referred to language difficulties. The company's idealism remained strong. One student member wrote home: "This war, though a dread scourge and affliction, will make us a better people and will most certainly advance the principles of Liberty and Human Rights." On 20 the company had its first experience foraging from Confederate farms before taking part in the Federal attack on the Confederates at Dranesville. Scarcely had the company's colors been freed from their sheath and unrolled when the flag was greeted by a rebel artillery shell. The volunteers frantically ducked, even though it flew far over their heads. In time they would adjust to such misfired volleys with experienced appreciation for their errant path.
Company I helped defend the left flank of an artillery battery successfully and was spared casualties. Ayer, impressed by the dash of General E. O. C. Ord in leading the artillery, described his appearance on a magnificent bay, Ord's eyes flashing fire and "every lineament of his countenance betokening courage" as the "most animated scene" Ayer witnessed throughout the war. Sion Smith, bruised but unbloodied by a spent bullet, received commendation for coolness and courage. About three months earlier he had been promoted to the post of Assistant Adjutant General to the third brigade of the Army of the Potomac commanded by General E. O. C. Ord. With him he took as company clerk or aide-de-camp his classmate James Chadwick, who stayed on when Smith returned to his regiment the next January.
Encouraged by the successful handling of their baptism of fire, the College Volunteers were in high spirits. Captain Ayer wrote to the Crawford Journal that "The Allegheny College Volunteers are prospering very well, and will compare with any company I have seen with regard to drilling, cleanliness, morality and all those qualifications which make the soldier. We still retain the flag presented by the kind hearted ones at Meadville, and it has been the only flag floating in regiment on this side of the river."
It was not until March 1862 that the army again began to move, first to Hunter's Mills, then marching to Alexandria through a raging storm. The Reserves were next shifted by way of Centreville to Manassas Junction as Union General George B. McClellan responded to pressure from Washington for some show of action. The Confederates, however, had withdrawn from the Manassas plain, and Company I's greatest excitement involved helping to take charge of evacuated Confederate fortifications, interesting because of their size and "Quaker guns," large logs shaped and painted to look like artillery.
In June the regiment, now led by Lt. Colonel James Kirk as Colonel McCalmont had resigned for personal reasons, was ordered to the Peninsula. It traveled by boat down the Potomac to Chesapeake Bay and then up the York and Pamunkey to disembark at While House. While marching toward Mechanicsville it successfully fended off a Confederate cavalry charge. The company's first combat in the Seven Days Campaign occurred near that town on 14 June 1862, as it acted as woods skirmishers in holding up the advance of Confederate Ambrose P. Hill's troops across Beaver Dam Creek. The boys fought on the extreme right of the advanced skirmish line, an advantageous position that enabled them to inflict serious casualties on the Confederates while suffering only one wounded. When the artillery ceased its firing, the Allegheny lads listened with awe to the cries of the dying and wounded Rebels being removed from the battlefield. Did they suspect their own group would be the next victims?
The Rebel attack was repulsed, and the College lads were joyful. But McClellan, fearful of being outnumbered, at 3 a.m. on the 27th ordered his men to retreat to Gaines Mill. Caught in heavy artillery fire on the brow of a wooded ravine as Federal troops formed for a charge, Company I suffered multiple casualties. It was almost a relief to be ordered into the ravine in front of the Union positions, as the shells now passed over their heads. They took the hill on the far side and held the advanced position until nightfall. Little Bo Strickland was at the extreme front of the company advance; surrounded by rebels and unable to recharge his muzzle loader fast enough, he fought with stones, surviving himself and inspiring his mates. After dark, with its ammunition exhausted and its flank threatened, the company joined the Federal retreat across the Chicahominy River. But not all did so: six students had crossed another river and lay dead, including young Trace. Another three were missing and presumed killed. Seventeen other members of Company I were wounded. Wrote Chadwick, " I cannot attempt to give you an account of the AWFUL, AWFUL sights I have seen during the past week....God grant I may never see the like again.
Company I's losses were the highest of any company in the tenth regiment. In reporting the death of Corporal Edwin Pier, who died as the result of the shattering of his right arm, Captain Ayer wrote eloquently of Pier as one of the most promising students of Allegheny College. Of fine mind and devout and refined feelings, he was a devoted Christian and an earnest patriot. He was an excellent Greek and Hebrew scholar, and spent much of his time while off duty in the reading of Greek Testament. Of modest deportment, he was as courageous as he was humble.
The defeated Union troops attempted to rally at Charles City Crossroads. A fierce sun smote the weary men, their uniforms stiff with blood. Despite an arm so mangled that it would later require amputation, a sergeant shot a sheep that provided much needed stew. The encampments the next nights were no longer cheerful gatherings, but ominously silent conclaves; fires and any form of noise were forbidden. In the afternoon of 30 June, the Tenth demonstrated its long training and the hardening of battle by completing a difficult left half-wheel under fire and administered a thrashing to the foe. One member of Company I, Private Edward E. Douglass who had enlisted 25 July 1861 and would transfer to the cavalry in November 1862, even recaptured from the Rebels the colors of another Union corps. Some accounts suggest these belonged to the Fifth Pennsylvania Reserves, yet this is uncertain. Captain Ayer received a gunshot in his right side but stayed on the field though several more of his fellow students there reached eternity. The company's casualties in killed and wounded for the seven days of battle between Beaver Dam Creek and Charles City Cross Roads exceeded those of any other in the division. Though victorious in this battle, the Federals retreated to Malvern Hill. Because of the College Company's losses and exhaustion, it was held in reserve during the early July battle there, though it was posted to the battlefield.The Chicahominy engagement took its toll with more than bullets. Sion Smith, popular with the troops and promoted to major in May, contracted typhoid fever in the camps there. Ill, he resigned his commission and retired not to his family home in Tennessee, but to Andover, Ohio, 25 miles west of Meadville, where he died 5 August 1862.21 In following weeks disease continued to weaken the troops. Chadwick noted in mid-July that "I have not seen a single man who is perfectly well, all are complaining of disentary [sic]. I think it must be occasioned by the excessive heat, bad water and poisonous miasm which is constantly coming off the swamps which surround the camps." As for other pestilence, he noted "an almost infinite number of flies, beetles, bugs, wood-ticks, lizards, etc....the most annoying, however, of all these vermin are lice,--the real genuine body lice."
Continuing Union retreats took Company I to the Second Battle of Bull Run at the end of August. The regiment first performed diversionary feints, then stood picket duty, and finally defended the extreme left of the Union line, where it was overwhelmed by an unexpected and fierce Confederate attack. Panic ensued. The road choked with fleeing men. By the time order was restored, the day was lost. Captain Ayer was again injured; a ball broke his left forearm though, to his good fortune, a second ball that punctured his hat did not touch his flesh. Not until November would he be able to return to active duty. Milton M. Phelps, class of 1861, who had become a "bold and dashing" lieutenant for Company I, was shot through the right lung; McClure Tryon died of his wounds. In the 1 September clash at Chantilly, young Washington Cook was taken prisoner by Georgia troops but successfully escaped through a hazel thicket to rejoin his comrades.
The Union forces pulled back into Maryland. At the battle of South Mountain on 14 September, the Tenth Regiment was at first held in reserve but soon entered the fray. The College Company participated in the charge up the mountain and the sound defeat of the Confederates. At the steepest slope near the top of the great hill, little Bo Strickland was as usual at the front of the company when he received a mini ball through his forehead. Company fifer and stretcher bearer John Stuntz '65 came upon his body shortly thereafter. With hatchet and skillet he scooped a shallow grave and employed a piece of a cracker box for a headboard. The fighting had been fierce; one student counted 52 holes in his new pants. In all, the company suffered severely for the number of men engaged. The Union forces pursued the retreating rebels, and the College boys became involved in a skirmish late on 16 September that proved the prologue to the war's bloodiest single day, the Battle of Antietam.
The next day, while on reconnaissance on the Federal right, the Tenth discovered an unexpected Confederate troop movement. Acting decisively, it attacked the Southerners' flank and disrupted the Confederate maneuver. It lost, however, its own colonel, who suffered a shattered pelvis. Company I was briefly left without a single officer, as all had been badly wounded. Lieutenant H. J. Howe, the replacement for Phelps who had been sent home with his punctured lung, was himself seriously wounded in the breast. Chadwick, who in his brigade clerk post was in a position to know, wrote home that My company which has borne on its rolls nearly a hundred names cannot muster more than fifteen men for duty. It seems to have suffered worse than any other company in the Regiment. Many have been killed in action, some have died of wounds, some of disease, a number are now in the hospitals sick or wounded, while several have been discharged on disability.
On the tenth of December, the Tenth Reserves and the College Company established a crossing over the Rappahanock River. Three days later the volunteers, fighting on the Union left at Fredericksburg, participated in an initially successful attack. But Conferate Stonewall Jackson's troops gained reinforcements, whole those of the Union's George Meade did not. In the Federal retreat through brush and swamp three College boys were captured, others wounded, and Lt. Howe feared killed, though actually he had been taken prisoner. For a period following the Fredericksburg debacle, the company drew rations for only nine men.
The Tenth was withdrawn to fortify the defences of Washington and to rest and
recruit. Ayer was now in command of the regiment; the following April he would be promoted to major, though command would revert to the former colonel now partially recovered from his wound. Chadwick sullenly reflected that "If we do as much more fighting as we have done, there will be nobody to muster out at the end of the time [of our enlistment]." He had made a ledger of all the men of Company I and what had become of them, unfortunately an accounting lost to posterity. His comment regarding this melancholy roll call of the missing and the dead was that "It is indeed a sad, sad record...a heartsickening record. Some of the best, most talented and promising young men I ever knew are among the number who sleep in soldiers graves--on the heights of South Mountain, the Plains of Manassas and the banks of Chickahominy. Alas! the horrors of war." He nevertheless noted that "although our ranks have been fearfully decimated, the portion remaining is the true grit." On the second anniversary of the Company's departure from the Allegheny campus, 11 June 1863, he lamented that 23 of their number were now under the sod.The Tenth was not posted to the May 1863 battle of Chancellorsville. News of the subsequent entry into Pennsylvania of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's army brought petitions from the regiment for reassignment to its home state. In June it was sent to Upton Hill and then to Gettysburg, reaching the on-going battle there on 2 July. Late that day the Tenth was sent to relieve Colonel Strong Vincent's exhausted brigade and held the saddle between Little Round Top and Round Top where vicious fighting had earlier occurred. The next day they built a defensive stone wall between the hills and took their toll on scouts and skirmishers from a Texas regiment. Spying a wounded Union soldier but without his own fellow stretcher-bearer, Stuntz put the man on his own back. Under the fire of troops on both sides, Stuntz carried the lad to safety. While exposed to fire, the fifer fell on boulders so heavily that he himself became crippled for life, but the Union soldier was saved. On 14 October, during Meade's half-hearted pursuit of Lee's army in its
withdrawal from Gettysburg, Company I fought a small and modestly successful action at Bristoe Station. At New Hope Church, Company I led the charge of infantry coming in support of the Federal cavalry. The Confederates stood firm at Mine Run, and the Tenth returned to winter quarters at Manassas. Company I served as provost guard at the brigade headquarters. Several of the Company men received a months' furlough at the turn of the year. Ayer took the opportunity to marry. One, William Slater from Toledo, brought back dress goods for a Confederate girl who he had met a few weeks earlier. He and three comrades from the company were invited to dinner. As they sat down, Washington Cook spied four men sneaking from the woods to the house shortly after he spied one of the daughters of the house wave a red handkerchief. He quickly procured his gun and, when the men entered the room, took them prisoners. A few days later, several of the infantry boys swapped duties with friends in the cavalry, riding 110 miles on an essentially fruitless raid on Alda and Middleburg, gaining nothing but aches and pains for their long hours in the saddles. In the spring of 1864, Ira Ayer, Jr., the Bible scholar of 1861, was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel and given command of the Tenth Pennsylvania Reserves. On 5 May, Company I was the first Federal unit to enter the slaughter pen later known as the Battle of the Wilderness, where the men again acted as skirmishers. The next day these by now hardened veterans held the center of the Union line and advanced through thick woods. Company casualties were high. Lt. Colonel Ayer was again wounded, this time quite seriously, by a sharpshooter's bullet that passed through the large bone of his leg. Late that afternoon, the Tenth was hurriedly called to repel a Confederate flank attack on the Union right. The men were exhausted, but for once the Union forces did not retreat after the initial battle; a stubborn general named Ulysses S. Grant was now in command. The troops moved on to Spotsylvania and fought fiercely there on 8 and 9 May. On the tenth, the Company and its regiment were sent to reconnoiter near the Po River. General Lee, however, successfully retreated to the North Anna River, with the Tenth in pursuit.The term of enlistment of Company I was now at its close. On 30 May 1864, orders arrived relieving the troops of further service. Delivered to Captain E. H. Henderson, class of 1863, who was then serving as Assistant Adjutant General of the Third Brigade, the mustering out missive came just as a large Confederate force launched a major attack on the Pennsylvania men as they defended Bethesda Church. The attack came so quickly that Cook and some of his comrades, who had been feasting on spoils seized from a Confederate home, found themselves face to face with the enemy with food still in their fists. Replacement troops were not available. Henderson pocketed the order and the Union troops, including Company I, charged, were in turn checked, then prevailed. More than 300 Confederates were killed and many more taken prisoner.
Captain Henderson himself had a remarkable military career. As a private, he
was wounded at Gaines Mill, then promoted to sergeant following the battle. Along with two other company members he was taken prisoner at Fredericksburg on 18 December 1862 and sent to Libby prison in Richmond. He returned to Union ranks via a prisoner exchange, and on 16 May 1863 he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant and eventually rose to his final rank as captain.As with other educated men, Henderson's skills in reading and writing, joined with battlefield experience, enabled him to be seconded or promoted to positions with other units. Such was also true for Sion Smith, James Chadwick, Milton Phelps, and George Norris (who became quartermaster of the 10th Regiment), all members of the class of 1861. But some of the College enlisted men, however, no doubt shared the view of Chadwick who vehemently advised his younger brother not to sign up as a rank and file soldier. On the other hand, if the lad could enter as a commissioned officer, James allowed he might not object.
But I have seen enough of the treatment of the private soldier to completely disgust me. In my Regiment, from the Commanding Officer down, I esteem myself, (maybe I am an egotist) the superior of every one of them in mental attainments, socially, and perhaps in morals, yet I am a soldier and they are officers. Besides their advantages in privileges, they are paid from $200...per month while I who am a soldier though doing the most work and suffering the most privations, get 13 dollars.
Chadwick could readily sympathize when reading the ten-month journal of Zerah Costen Smullen, a classmate and fellow member of the Philo-Franklin Literary Society at Allegheny. His description of the cruel, heartless treatment received as an enlisted man in Company D, 103rd Pennsylvania Volunteers struck Chadwick as precise.
Though Company I suffered high casualties in its three year tour, it was spared some hardships by maintaining its cohesive unit status, at least for some while, thus prolonging a sense of community and shared values. But such issues as these, as well as the terrors seen and felt, no doubt explain why many of the Alleghenians readily returned to Pittsburgh for their official mustering out ceremony on 11 June 1864. Among them was the wounded and now married Lt. Colonel Ayer. Some re-enlisted, joining Company K, of the 191st Pennsylvania Volunteers. Others did not return. One accounting shows that 26 members of Company I were killed or mortally wounded and eight died of other causes. Thirty-six members of the Company were wounded, and 25 had been discharged for disability. Yet these figures may be too low.
How many Allegheny College undergraduates actually left for war with the original detachment is difficult to discern today. Ernest Ashton Smith in his 1916 history of the College puts forward 78 as the number. But his count is merely the total number of men who mustered into the Company on 20 June 1861 according to the list compiled by Samuel P. Bates in his History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5 originally published in 1869. Bates, Smith, Chadwick, and Cook all, however, state that this contingent included men from the county as well as Allegheny College. A month before the Company's departure, Chadwick wrote that it held about 50 students. Halver Getchell, a Meadville newspaperman who did much research for the Crawford County Historical Society in the post-World War II period, states in his notes that 15 to 20 men from the southwest section of the county responded to a May appeal in the Crawford Journal for an additional 30 men for the Company; another source reports that 16 enlisted. In July another 25 were added to reach (or nearly so) the prescribed complement of 101 men. Thus the number of Allegheny undergraduates in the initial muster of Company I appears to have been between 50 and 65.
An additional problem is that the names of some of the individuals specifically identified by Smith, Chadwick, and Getchell as students and classmates do not appear on the list of undergraduates printed in the College catalogue for the 1860-61 academic year or even in the alumni directory meticulously constructed in 1915. Chadwick, noted for his careful record keeping, mentions classmates in the Company that are nowhere listed by Bates or Smith. For example, Chadwick cites Ephraim Ludwick, clearly entered in the College records as a member of the class of 1862 and as a 2nd sergeant as of 13 May 1861; but he is not mentioned by Bates or W. Scott in his Roster, and Smith lists him as an officer with the New Jersey Volunteers. Apparently, Ludwick did not continue with the Allegheny Company until it was actually amalgamated into the army.
Only 16 of the names listed by Bates as members of Company I can be found in the Allegheny alumni register. Given the flow of students in and out of the institution over its three terms per year, this is not surprising. In those days, the names of enrollees were printed in the College bulletin during the summer months before the ensuing academic year. Thus students who subsequently enrolled in January or March and later enlisted for three years might not have been named in any of the College catalogues and therefore missed inclusion in the alumni directory. Maybe, too, when the group initially formed in April, interested friends and locals were invited in and, because departure was considered imminent and examinations and studies nearly irrelevant, these individuals were informally considered members of the College community. Yet another explanation may be linked with a volunteer's letter, cited by Getchell, which reported that on the initial trip to Pittsburgh word was received that some members would be sent home, as only 77 could be accepted into the rank and file.
As was the case almost a century and a half ago, it is still impossible to tell how many Alleghenians, whether faculty, alumni, undergraduate members of Company I, or student members of other units, died within the hot gates of the Civil War. Bates lists 16 of the 20 June group as killed in battle, and this number does not include Sion Smith, who died of illness, or young Ami Trace, who joined on the 30th of June and fell at Gaines Mill. But Smith indicated the total was significantly higher, and Chadwick noted that 23 had already been buried after two years of fighting. Another source (circa 1907), who served a number of years on the Methodist Board of Control for the College, states that 28 of the initial College Volunteers were buried in the South, a figure that probably included both battle deaths and disease mortalities. If Chadwick's and Getchell's estimates regarding the initial enrollees are accepted, then perhaps over half of the student patriots died. It is an astonishingly high mortality rate. Incidentally, one out of the original 78 deserted at Gettysburg, but there is no indication he was an Allegheny student.
The College Volunteers' battle flag did return to the campus. It is the most
sacred of the institution's early memorabilia. In keeping with the tradition of the times, the names of the 19 infernos in which it flew were stenciled upon its stripes. Company I fought in every major battle of the Army of the Potomac during the Company's three years of existence, save for that of Chancellorsville in May 1863. The banner was displayed on the centennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth in 1909, again the following year when the College's Civil War monument was dedicated, and finally on the College's own centennial in 1915. Since then, it has been in storage, a long-forgotten but precious relic only recently found and identified in 2000 by College Historian Jonathan E. Helmreich. The banner was in fairly good condition, in part because its long storage in remote cabinets protected it from the deteriorating effects of light. Unlike many Civil War flags, especially Confederate battle flags, it has stayed in one piece, never cut into fragmentary souvenirs. The white of the stripes was a dark gray. Among streaks of grease or oil, other stains were evident, including dark spots turning to rust colors at their edges, the tell-tale signs of blood. Several shrapnel and bullet holes gaped, as did the right-angle tears of bayonet or saber cuts. At some point the banner must have been partially ripped from its standard, for along the pole edge can be seen how the canton was torn and then roughly sewn together by over-lapping the material, thus warping the flag's rectangular shape. Both hand and machine stitching may now be found on the flag. Analysis suggests that repair sewing took place primarily on two early occasions, perhaps during the war and immediately thereafter. Some of the larger tears have been sewn in careful stitching, as if mended by a seamstress; others were darned in rough and hurried stitches; still more were left open. The acrid smell of gunpowder and campfire smoke lingered in the fabric to the point that they could still be faintly detected. Since its rediscovery, the flag has been treated by Textile Preservation Associates, Inc. of Keedysville, Maryland. It was unveiled in its new frame at the College alumni luncheon on 1 June 2002; plans have been launched for its permanent display though this must be strictly limited in duration and lighting to protect the material from decay. Who bore the Allegheny Company flag in battle and on the march? No one knows for sure. To carry the colors was a great honor. No doubt several persons performed the task; some of these may well have paid the full price, for the flag was not only the rallying point for the Company but also a prime target of enemy marksmen. Bates connects only one person with the Allegheny flag: George L. Beach, part of the original muster, who was promoted to Sergeant of the Color Guard in November 1862. He had previously been wounded at Gaines Mill and would be wounded again at Fredericksburg. Perhaps the first color bearer was Adam Nutt '61, listed by Getchell as an ensign when the volunteers left for Pittsburgh, but his name is not on Bates's official roster. Those who rallied around this particular flag were not the only Alleghenians who
fought in the War. Many graduate alumni and former students, such as William McKinley, served in a variety of units. Sylvester H. Birdsall of the class of 1860 joined Company K of the 150th regiment of the Pennsylvania volunteers and was part of the guard for President Abraham Lincoln. He then organized and captained the first company of African-American soldiers in the District of Columbia. Not all the undergraduates who enlisted while students at Allegheny served in Company I. John W. Phillips '60, David T. McKay '62, and James W. Smith, '60 led recruitment from the Meadville area in the summer of 1862 of Company B, 18th Pennsylvania Calvary, 163rd Regiment, and were joined by two more of their college mates; local papers referred to this unit as the "College Cavalry." Fourteen or more Allegheny students joined other companies recruited in the Meadville area during the war. Still others joined units from their own regions. Captains Nelson, Armstrong Thomas '62, and Marcus Horton '63 of Ohio regiments died fighting along the Chickamauga River in May 1863, and J. H. Lefever '61 died there on the last day of the great Battle of the Chickamauga of September 1863. The first three were Northerners, but on which side was Lefever? Gordon Batelle'40, the eloquent Methodist Episcopal preacher who defended his church and the cause of the Union in a dividing Virginia, died in October 1962 of typhoid while serving as chaplain to the 1st regiment of Virginia volunteers. Among the highest ranking Allegheny graduates in the war was career officer Brigadier General Alexander Hays, slain in the battle of the Wilderness. F. Alsor Jones '57 in 1864 gained the rank of brigadier general with the 6th Maryland Volunteers, as did A. B. McCalmont '43 and F. A. Bartleson '63, who served with other volunteer contingents. Alfred Pearson '56 of the Pennsylvania Volunteers became a major general in March 1865.Though records are spotty, it appears that at least five Allegheny undergraduates fought for the Confederacy. Patrick Henry Beesley '64 died wearing the gray uniform at Red Lick Church, Mississippi. James Crawford, like Beesley, refused to leave campus until May 1861. After enlistment, he rose to the rank of lieutenant and served on the staffs of both Lee and General Joseph E. Johnston; he was twice captured and exchanged. On one occasion Crawford and Lt. James M. Wells of the 111th Pennsylvania Volunteers, classmates and both members of Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, encountered each other while leading skirmishing squads for the opposing sides. Each desisted from ordering fire and turned their troops from contact.
For many years, a framed Confederate ten-dollar bill adorned the wall in the office of College President William H. Crawford. Shortly after the Confederate surrender, Allegheny Union soldiers noticed a ragged Confederate prisoner of war trudging toward Washington among other released Confederates. The P.O.W. recognized the Alleghenians as well. They had been classmates. They paused to visit, and the Union men, in the name of collegial friendship, gave their Confederate colleague cash for a train ticket home. Grateful, he in turn presented to his College friends all that he had--a worthless Confederate bill. The three saved it, and its last possessor forwarded it to the College before his death. President William H. Crawford framed it, elevating the value of the worthless currency to a symbol of collegiality and the brotherhood of pursuit of liberal knowledge. Sadly, the bill's whereabouts is now unknown.
A number of Allegheny alumni also fought for the Confederacy. College President William P. Tolley related the story of a Captain James Wilson Smith, an Allegheny Union soldier, captured by Confederate troops. The Southerners were commanded by an Alleghenian who had been one of Smith's close friends in College. An exchange of prisoners was arranged by the Southern officer for Captain Smith's release.
The rush to the colors in 1861 depleted Allegheny's enrollment during the war. In the spring of 1862 another group of students rallied classmates to sign up. They persuaded a noted pastor to deliver a sermon on current affairs the next Sunday evening. They also announced a war meeting at the College chapel for the following Monday morning. At the evening gathering, however, sitting beside the speaker was Reverend Loomis. A supporter of Northern views, the President nevertheless did not wish to see all the institution's students disappear into the maw of Mars. The preacher gave a strong sermon, but also exhorted: "It might be the highest patriotism for the students of Allegheny to prepare themselves for highest citizenship by devotion to their studies. When the service was over, the President informed the student who was organizing the morning rally that the College chapel could not be used. The militantly minded students did not give up their efforts, instead marching to the court house to hear a fiery speech. But word was out, and students began receiving telegrams from home forbidding enlistment. Only ten remained committed to their goal; likening themselves to an ancient Persian king's royal bodyguard, the boys christened themselves "the Immortals" and enlisted, as did another ten for a three-month period the following year when Lee invaded Pennsylvania. Included in this last group was R. N. Stubbs who had endeavored to rouse his classmates in 1862. The impact of all these enlistments upon the College was substantial. In 1859 there were 100 undergraduates, 100 preparatory students, and 25 in the Biblical department. In the second year of the war, there were but 70 undergraduates, 84 preps, and 13 Bible students, reflecting a 25% loss in enrollment. Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania in 1863 forced postponement of commencement until August. When F. H. Pierpont, class of 1839 and governor of "restored" Virginia, spoke at the ceremonies, the audience consisted mostly of local citizens. Many students and some of their professors were away at war, and the College opened with only eight registrants that fall; the total for the 1863-64 year was 51 undergraduates, 91 preparatory students, and 13 Bible students. After the war, many of the veterans, such as McKinley, chose not to resume their former studies. The finances of the region were under strain, and it took a colossal effort by President Loomis simply to keep the College going. In 1867-68 only 83 students and 51 preps attended. Enrollment had to be increased. President Loomis, formerly head of a women's seminary, had long believed that Allegheny's education program should be available to women. In 1867 the trustees remained divided on the matter. The Pittsburgh Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church which, along with the Erie Conference, had been patrons of the college since 1833, supported higher education for women. Its leaders persuaded the trustees to the cause so that by September 1870 three women were enrolled. Women initially did not apply in great numbers, and enrollment problems therefore persisted for several years. Nevertheless, it remains true that the arrival of women students on the hill was inextricably linked with gaps in enrollment caused by the departure of the College Volunteers in 1861.
Company I carried its large flag with honor, fighting well in most of its nineteen battles. The College Volunteers paid heavily for their idealism. Yet it was such idealism, coupled with the quickly acquired skills of hardening veterans, that preserved the Union and bequeathed to the College a noble standard by which to live and teach in following decades. In the present troubled times, the words written by Captain Ayer on the eve of the Volunteers' first battle still resonate.
"The College Volunteers" are at their post and endeavoring to know and do their duty. Not now would they exchange the camp for the enjoyments and luxuries of home. But when tyranny and treason are crushed, when our Flag shall once more float triumphantly over that land which has arrived at dignity and renown beneath its fostering folds, then gladly, O so gladly, will we lay aside our arms for the peaceful vocation of civil life. Until then, pray for us. Let us look forward with hope.
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