“I do not think much can be expected of them": John Reynolds and the Pennsylvania Militia in the Maryland Campaign

On the morning of September 17, 1862, two brigades of the Pennsylvania Reserve division anxiously gripped their muskets and rifles behind the northern fence of D. R. Miller’s cornfield. Hordes of panicked Union soldiers passed through their ranks. Confederate flags bobbed above the battle smoke, heading their way. The Rebel yell amplified. Suddenly, these Pennsylvanians, with their backs to their home state, found themselves in the middle of America’s bloodiest single day. 

“I tell you the old cannon balls flew around my head worse than the devil and the musket balls went zip zip around my ears,” wrote Private Sylvester Hower. “I thought they would take me, but they all missed me.”(1) Many Confederate shots found their marks in the Pennsylvanians. By the campaign’s end, the division lost 965 between South Mountain and Antietam.

Even before those battles, the division suffered one of its greatest losses during the campaign: its commander, Brigadier General John Reynolds. The Confederate movement into Pennsylvania in early September 1862 sparked widespread fear among Pennsylvanians that their state would be the next to “welcome” the heels of Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. “Our homes were threatened—the horrors of desolating war seemed likely to be brought to our very doors,” said Lewis Richards.(2) To protect his state and its people, Governor Andrew Curtin called for the state’s men to enroll in local militia outfits and to rendezvous at Harrisburg before being sent to the Maryland-Pennsylvania border to repel the invader.

Curtin continually alerted the authorities in Washington about the information his ring of spies and scouts gathered. He hoped to get something in exchange for his state’s dedication to the Federal war effort: veteran soldiers from the Army of the Potomac to come to the state’s aid. President Abraham Lincoln refused. Curtin and other prominent Pennsylvanians settled for a consolation prize: a competent officer–a Pennsylvanian–to lead the Keystone State’s defense. On September 12, 1862, Curtin got his wish. General-in-Chief Henry Halleck ordered Reynolds to report to Harrisburg. Despite objections from army commander George B. McClellan and Reynolds’ corps commander Joseph Hooker, they did not defy Halleck’s decision and Curtin’s panic. Reynolds would go.

John F. Reynolds

History Lessons from Live Artillery Firing

The more I study the Civil War, the more apparent it becomes that no matter how many contemporary accounts I read, I will never truly know—nor come close to knowing—what a battle was actually like. The noise, the smell, the death and destruction—none of it is fully comprehensible.

Every so often, though, we get brief, vivid moments that offer the faintest glimpse into that world: a powerful first-hand account, a walk across a battlefield where the terrain still matches what soldiers saw, or a living-history experience. I recently had one of the latter.

I won’t pretend that wearing a wool uniform for a few days a year mirrors what Union and Confederate soldiers endured from 1861 to 1865. But I have worn enough Civil War clothing and fired enough reproduction firearms to have caught a handful of these fleeting impressions. At the briefest instant, you can sense a single aspect of what a Civil War battle may have been like. Years ago at a Gettysburg reenactment, for example, so many muskets fired on a damp evening that thick smoke hugged the ground, hiding the opposing line except for the occasional flash revealing their position.

More recently, I attended artillery safety training in North Carolina. Learning each position on the gun was informative, but the multiday session culminated in a morning of live firing reproduction Civil War artillery at Camp Lejeune. It was there that I witnessed several battlefield phenomena I had only ever read about—and, fortunately, was able to capture some of them on video.

"In Order that Their Friends May Find Their Bodies": The Original Burial Location of the 16th Connecticut's Dead, Part Two

Based on Lieutenant John Burnham’s letter describing in great detail the burial location of the 16th Connecticut’s dead on the Otto farm (see Part One), he buried the remains of 40 members of the regiment killed in action at Antietam. Burnham’s purpose in recording such a minute description of the locations of these graves was “in order that their friends may find their bodies if they wish.”

16th Connecticut Monument in the 40-Acre Cornfield, dedicated in 1894.
(National Park Service)

In the aftermath of the battle, scores of civilians descended upon Antietam—some drawn by curiosity to witness the devastation or collect souvenirs, others in search of the remains of loved ones to bring them home. Thanks to Burnham’s work, most of the 16th Connecticut’s dead were returned to their home state. The details provided in Burnham’s letter home and his minute recording of the grave locations of 40 of his comrades also provides us with a case study of the removal of remains from the Antietam battlefield to the hometowns of the fallen.

There are 4,776 United States soldiers from the Civil War buried in Antietam National Cemetery. Over 3,200 of those soldiers buried there died as a result of the Battle of Antietam. From the 16th Connecticut, 26 identified sets of remains rest in marked graves in the national cemetery. Incredibly, 26 of the remains buried and identified by John Burnham were removed from the battlefield at some point and reinterred to New England (25 to Connecticut cemeteries and one to a cemetery in Massachusetts).

While further studies of other regiments are needed to draw broader conclusions, this single case suggests that Burnham’s hope—that his diligence would enable friends and families to recover their loved ones—was realized. Through his effort, roughly half of the 16th Connecticut’s fallen were indeed brought home.

Below are two tables showing the 16th Connecticut’s dead as recorded by Burnham who were later reinterred. The first follows the same order as Burnham’s list; the second was copied from the online Antietam National Cemetery Directory. The entries in bold in the second table were also listed by Burnham in his September 19, 1862, letter.

Soldier	Company	Burial Location
Jesse Barnes	E	Canton Memorial Monument, CT
Charles W. Pease	A	Grove Hill Cemetery, CT
Cornelius Wildman	A	Unknown, not in marked grave in Antietam National Cemetery
Albert M. Hill	A	Old North Cemetery, CT
Theodore E. Demars	A	Kelsey Cemetery, CT
William Nichols	F	Zion Hill Cemetery, CT
Horace Warner	D	Old Center Cemetery, CT
Michael Grace	D	Old St. Patrick’s Cemetery, CT
Nelson E. Snow	D	West Suffield Cemetery, CT
Henry Barnett	D	Old Center Cemetery, CT (reinterred there in December 1863)
George Allen	D	Old Center Cemetery, CT
Orville Campbell	I	Fairview Cemetery, CT
Thomas McCarty	I	Oak Grove Cemetery
Augustus Truesdell	I	Westfield Cemetery, CT
John F. Bingham	H	First Church Cemetery, CT
William N. Cullumns	H	Unknown, not in marked grave in Antietam National Cemetery
Wadsworth A. Washburn	G	Bridge Cemetery, CT
Edward A. Parmele	G	Cedar Hill Cemetery, CT
Solomon H. Allen	G	Melrose Cemetery, CT
Elijah Munsell	G	Old Wapping Cemetery, CT
Elliott Fleming	G	Melrose Cemetery, CT
William A. North	G	Wilcox Cemetery, CT
Seth F. Prior	B	Town Street Cemetery, CT
Samuel Brown III	D	Monumental Cemetery, MA
John L. Drake	I	Spring Grove Cemetery, CT
William Horton	I	Stafford Street Cemetery, CT

Grave	Name	Rank	Co	Unit/Branch	D.O.D.	Removed	Location
1085	Aldrich, Henry	Pvt	K	16th CT Infantry	09/17/1862	Antietam	CT Row 1
1140	Bout, Dan'l	Pvt	D	16th CT Infantry	12/12/1862	Antietam	CT Row 1
1116	Burr, F.W.	Pvt	G	16th CT Infantry	10/11/1862	Antietam	CT Row 1
1118	Case, O.J.	Pvt	A	16th CT Infantry	10/22/1862	Antietam	CT Row 1
1105	Cowan, Wm.	Pvt	E	16th CT Infantry	10/22/1862	Antietam	CT Row 1
1084	Evans, H.D.	Cpl	I	16th CT Infantry	09/17/1862	Antietam	CT Row 1
1101	Foster, P.H.	Pvt	B	16th CT Infantry	09/17/1862	Antietam	CT Row 1
1088	Gladding, Timothy	Pvt	G	16th CT Infantry	09/17/1862	Antietam	CT Row 1
1082	Greegin, James	Pvt	I	16th CT Infantry	09/17/1862	Antietam	CT Row 1
1093	Grosvenor, J.A.	Pvt	B	16th CT Infantry	09/17/1862	Antietam	CT Row 1
1092	Hamilton, Hancey	Pvt	B	16th CT Infantry	09/17/1862	Antietam	CT Row 1
1091	Himes, James	Pvt	I	16th CT Infantry	09/25/1862	Antietam	CT Row 1
1081	Himes, Stephen	Pvt	I	16th CT Infantry	09/17/1862	Antietam	CT Row 1
1104	Hollister, B.J.	Pvt	H	16th CT Infantry	09/25/1862	Antietam	CT Row 1
1113	Hunn, Horace	Pvt	B	16th CT Infantry	10/12/1862	Frederick	CT Row 1
1087	Kent, J.S.	Pvt	G	16th CT Infantry	09/17/1862	Antietam	CT Row 1
1100	Lay, Horace	Pvt	I	16th CT Infantry	09/17/1862	Antietam	CT Row 1
1099	Loveland, Jno.	Pvt	C	16th CT Infantry	11/18/1862	Antietam	CT Row 1
1080	McGrath, James	Pvt	E	16th CT Infantry	09/17/1862	Antietam	CT Row 1
1102	Morgan, R.P.	Pvt	E	16th CT Infantry	09/24/1862	Antietam	CT Row 1
1086	Smith, Mich'l	Pvt	G	16th CT Infantry	09/17/1862	Antietam	CT Row 1
1083	Twiss, J.E.	Pvt	I	16th CT Infantry	09/17/1862	Antietam	CT Row 1
1136	Wardwell, Emerson	Pvt	G	16th CT Infantry	10/17/1862	Frederick	CT Row 1
1124	White, J.J.	Pvt	A	16th CT Infantry	02/13/1863		CT Row 1
1089	Wilsey, J.C.	Pvt	H	16th CT Infantry	09/17/1862	Antietam	CT Row 1
1108	Wilson, O.M.	Pvt	G	16th CT Infantry	11/02/1862	Weverton	CT Row 1