Fulfilling a Dream: Last Francis Harris Post (May-Sept. 1864)

Undated photo of Francis Harris (courtesy of Jessica Harris)

When I ended the last installment about the Civil War experience of Union Private Francis Harris of the 12th New Jersey Infantry, he and his comrades had just come through their first combat experience under their new supreme commander, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. Grant, as the most successful Union general of the war, had just been brought east in Mar. 1864, almost 3 years into the war, by Pres. Lincoln to command all of the Union armies. He immediately made an important choice- to go straight into battle, leading the main Union force in the East (the Army of the Potomac) against renowned Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia- while leaving the Potomac’s existing commander, Gen. George Meade (the victor of Gettysburg) in his job. He also set other large Union armies into motion- most importantly Gen. Sherman’s, moving from Tennessee towards Atlanta. Speed was of the essence politically, as this was an election year, and Lincoln’s reelection in November was in grave doubt unless Grant could produce major victories.

Cropped version of photo by Edgar Gay Foxx of Gen. Ulysses Grant at Cold Harbor (June 1864)- Library of Congress

For Harris and the 12th, Grant’s decision meant that their army (which was feeling very optimistic, what with outnumbering the enemy and being much better supplied) had by now pushed across the wide Rappahannock River in central Virginia, driving south in May 1864 toward the Confederate capital of Richmond. Unfortunately, as I covered in the last installment, Grant and Meade failed to account for the speed with which Lee and his veterans were able to react to such an invasion. The Confederates caught the Union army in the dense thickets known as “the Wilderness”, where the Army of the Potomac had been defeated almost exactly a year earlier. This time Grant had reacted much more aggressively than his predecessor Gen. Hooker had in 1863, and indeed was on the point of winning the Battle of the Wilderness when the last large Confederate force, under Lee’s most trusted general (Longstreet) had arrived and had caught their opponents completely by surprise, inflicting heavy losses (including on the 12th, which was broken in two and forced into retreat).

Yet Grant, and his resourceful soldiers, were able to put together a strong enough defense to avoid outright defeat, and then Grant, unlike any Union leader in Virginia before him, had disengaged his army and continued south, on what would be known to historians as the Overland Campaign. At this point, the Army of the Potomac is racing for an important crossroads known as Spotsylvania Courthouse. Reaching it first could mean getting between Lee’s army and Richmond. Doing so, in turn, could mean the destruction of the former and the capture of the latter. Accomplishing both of those objectives would, without doubt, mean that the North would win the Civil War.

That’s the “big picture,” reader! Now time for the personal “ground-level” situation. Francis Harris is by now 33. A farmer, he enlisted when the 12th New Jersey was formed in the rural southwest of the state, signing up for 3 years’ service back in Aug. 1862 when the Union Army was still all-volunteer. His extensive diary and many letters (to his wife Maggie), used in published form here for the first time, reveal him to have been deeply religious and fervently patriotic about the Union cause. He was also a firm opponent of slavery throughout the war, making time for conversation with ex-slaves and always writing sympathetically about his encounters with them. That abolitionist stand was notable in that New Jersey had been the last Northern state to free its slaves (Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, in force since Jan. 1863, only covered slaves in Confederate territory), and the state’s Democratic governor (and Francis’s parents) were not supporters of abolition.

Harris had been hit in the shoulder in his unit’s first major battle (Chancellorsville, where Hooker was defeated by Lee as noted above). After recuperating fully in a Washington hospital, he was able to go home to his wife and small children on furlough in the summer of 1863, before rejoining his unit in the fall. By early 1864, his overwhelmed wife had had to turn over the farm to a brother of Francis, and had to send her oldest son to be raised by another family, while she and the remaining two children now lived with Francis’s parents.

By the time Francis returned, inevitably, much had also changed for the 12th. It had been right in the midst of the war’s most bloody battle, Gettysburg, while Harris was gone, and had played a significant role in the Union victory. But sickness, disabling wounds and combat deaths had already drastically reduced the regiment from its original 900 to a little over 200; it was now on its 3rd commander (Col. Davis). Although Francis had already lost good friends, he still had the company of his brother Robert, a musician. The 12th had sent a couple officers home to recruit, and the Lincoln government had also begun the first draft in U.S. history in the summer of 1863; by now some replacements, volunteers and draftees both, were beginning to arrive, only to be thrown (with minimal training) into the bloodbath of Grant’s 1864 offensive.

The features of that offensive seem very paradoxical to a modern reader. On the one hand, the veteran soldiers on both sides by now knew all too well about the enormously increased range that the new rifle-muskets in this war possessed. That big technological jump meant that those weapons had mostly replaced the smoothbore muskets that had dominated since before the Revolution (some Union units now even had “repeaters,” which could fire 7 times before reloading- though the poor 12th had out of date “buck-and- ball” muskets throughout the war- essentially shotguns that were only effective at short range). The greater range of the new guns hugely favored defenders- especially if they were behind any sort of protection (since just about all weapons were still muzzle-loading, meaning that a soldier had to be standing up and vulnerable while reloading). To sum up all this, both armies were by now obsessed with building elaborate “works” of earth, planks, tree trunks (anything at all) on very short notice. And they were becoming very, very good at designing them (not surprisingly- as a matter of life or death!), and building them quickly. At times units would build more than one set in a single day! Assaulting such “works” head-on now usually meant near-suicidal odds. Even artillery, so devastating to an enemy out in an open field, could do little in firing against such well-built “works.” Many of these earthworks can still be traced on Civil War battlefields.

Yet, on the other hand, both sides were well aware that attacks had to be made (especially by the Union armies), if the war was not to go on indefinitely! Another part of the paradox is that now both of these armies were commanded by by generals who rarely thought of anything but attacking. The best path to success was “flanking”, a fancy way of saying that the attacker looked constantly for where the defense works ended and moved its soldiers to one end or both- thus eliminating the defenders’ protection (and hopefully causing a disastrous retreat). That’s what Lee and Grant were mainly up to at this point in the war: first, finding out where the other’s army was; second, where a left or right “flank” of the enemy was; and third, maneuvering to get troops to that flank in force (before the other army moved!), and (finally and ideally) attacking! Result- mostly lots of marching, interspersed with short bursts of deadly combat when units of each side did find the other. The sheer endurance of Civil War soldiers for these long-distance marches alone (not to mention the drain and danger of combat), week in and week out, commonly with little food and water, is awe-inspiring.

I’ve just mentioned how speed was crucial in performing such “flank” attacks. Yet moving an army at any real speed in Virginia in 1864 was VERY difficult to achieve. Americans had by now constructed a world-class network of railways, which could move mountains of supplies and thousands of men, and which did play a very important role in the Civil War. Lee’s army in particular simply HAD to keep access to the rail lines (to Richmond, North Carolina, and the lush farms of the Shenandoah Valley to the west), or they would starve (both armies had been fighting over this part of Virginia for years, so there was hardly any local food). But the huge armies (over 100,000 Union, versus 50-60,000 Confederates) rarely could stick to those rail lines. Instead they mostly found themselves squeezing (men, horses, guns, and wagons!) through narrow dirt farm lanes (not even true “roads” in most places), crisscrossing with no apparent logic (other than meeting fords or bridges across rivers). Clouds of clay dust if it was dry weather, or deep sticky mud if it was wet. And of course the armies didn’t yet have the planes or drones that could have shown so much better where to march. Instead both the overall and local commanders commonly had only a hazy idea of locations (if they did not outright get lost!). It’s very clear in reading Harris’s diary that he only has a rough idea at any given time of where he is!

I’ve explained all of this to spare the reader long descriptions of who moved down what road to what church or tavern, and fought there, before doing more of the same. For this part of the war, if you want that level of detail, I refer you to the series of books about the Overland Campaign by modern historian Gordon Rhea (see Resources below), who brilliantly summarizes all of the marching about, and fighting (and has lots of maps!). I will be sticking to Harris and his 12th NJ, of course, and, in this last part of his tale, to covering his two remaining major battles (Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor).

Map of Grant's Overland Campaign (May-June 1864) by Hal Jespersen (as published in Encyclopedia of Virginia); blue for Union units (12th in Hancock's Corps), red for Confederate

Almost by accident, a strong Confederate force made it to the vital Spotsylvania crossroads first, on the morning of May 8. Lee had ordered it there from the Wilderness battlefield to the north), and its commander, Anderson, had started out even sooner than Lee had expected; he and his men wanted to escape the stench of burned and unburied bodies on that battlefield as soon as possible! Confederate cavalry had also slowed the march of the main Union force. As for the Union cavalry, its new commander, Gen. Phil Sheridan, had quarreled with Gen. Meade, and Grant had given him permission to leave the infantry (with his entire 10,000, including one of my great-great-grandfathers!) to ride toward Richmond with the goal of engaging Lee’s dashing young cavalry commander, Gen. “Jeb” Stuart (he of the ostrich plume on his hat!). Sheridan would succeed, smashing through Stuart’s weaker force at Yellow Tavern on May 11th, and mortally wounding Stuart in the process. But this meant that Grant would not have cavalry present to do its main function in this war- to scout enemy positions (which would cost many Union lives).

Meantime, the main body of Lee’s army arrived at Spotsylvania and rapidly built just the kind of heavy-duty earth-and-log fortifications that I’ve mentioned (in this case running for over 4 miles!). Crucially, in the center the terrain forced the soldiers to push out a big vulnerable bulge in the works (a “salient” in military terms), for over a mile in front of the rest (to be known for its oval shape as the “Mule Shoe”).

Francis Harris was in good spirits on the eve of the momentous battle to come. He wrote to his wife Maggie: “…We have had some faithful marching on this Campaign; go day and night often but not so fast as last Spring; and the manner of conducting this move is entirely different from the last; that the boys stand it better and have more heart; so everything goes on smothly. Dont hear the Complaining or Cursing as formerly: Nor see near the Stragling, though the weather has been very dry warm and sultry. The policy is to push to certain points before the Rebs, fortify and hold it and make them [attack] if they will: thus far they have done most of the attacking… Here we lay on a hill but not in sight of the Court House. It is very warm, and I had my piece of tent stuck up on our guns to shelter me from the rays of the sun while I am writing these words to you. It is now about 5 oclock P. M. and I must close and get supper…” (Letter 5/9/1864)

That evening Grant came to the conclusion that Lee was weakening his center (which was false), and ordered Gen. Hancock’s II Corps (which was regarded as the best large unit in his army, and which included the 12th NJ) to attack the enemy works on the morning of May 10th. However Hancock was unable to move quickly enough (partly because he had to cross two rivers). By the time he got into position in late afternoon, the enemy was reinforced and waiting on a ridge called Laurel Hill, and most of the attacks were costly failures (fortunately for the 12th, it was only used in a supporting role and lost only a few wounded).

The one success was due to a radical innovation in tactics by a junior commander, Col. Emory Upton. His idea was for the attacking troops, that instead of the usual run, stop and fire, reload and run again, they should only run at the enemy, not firing at all until they were face to face. It turned out that this move (by 5,000 Union soldiers) completely surprised the Confederates, who were overwhelmed (many being captured). Upton’s men, briefly, got past the piled logs and into the rear of the enemy. Unfortunately the division that was supposed to reinforce Upton failed to show up, and the Confederates were quickly able to drive Upton’s men out of their gains.

Grant was thrilled, though, and promptly promoted Upton to brigadier general. His inspiration was to build on Upton’s success to the “nth” degree, by throwing the entire II Corps (about 25,000!) straight at the Mule Shoe on May 12th, with another entire corps (Burnside’s IX) in support. It would take an entire day (the 11th) to reshuffle so many men and to arrange them into a set of waves (the 12th NJ, in Gibbon’s division, was assigned to the third wave). To preserve the all-important advantage of surprise, the final positioning was done in the predawn darkness and the soldiers were not told anything more than to be ready to charge!

Getting ready was a thoroughly miserable process for the Union soldiers. Just before it got dark, a drenching cold downpour began that lasted past the dawn of the next day. William Haines, a private in a different company (F) of the 12th, left a vivid description: “we stood & shivered around our green pine-wood fires…The wind was raw & sharp, our clothing wet, & we were just about as disconsolate & miserable a set of men as ever were seen….about 9 in the evening we got orders to pack up & march immediately…Nobody knew where we were going…A cold cheerless rain, falling in torrents, mud a la Virginia, and just as dark as Egypt…” (Haines, 1897)

Map by Hal Jespersen of Grant's "grand assault" on "The Bloody Angle" at Spotsylvania, wikipedia.org (the 12th NJ was in Gibbon's division of Hancock's II Corps at top of map)

At about 4:45am the next morning, aided by a very dense fog, this soggy mass of armed and compressed humanity surged forward in silence toward the enemy behind the logs of the Mule Shoe. The Confederates were completely caught by surprise, and the attack blasted open a big hole right in the center of Lee’s army. An opportunity for total victory now existed; the excited Union soldiers scooped up thousands of prisoners, including two very unhappy generals! The charge of the 12th was led by its charismatic commander, Lt. Col. Davis, who raced ahead of his men into the gap.

This stunning Union success was aided by a mistake by Lee himself; he had gotten reports of big movements through the previous day, and had decided that Grant was moving away, to make another of his big flank movement swings, aimed at circling around Lee’s army and pulling even closer to Richmond. Lee reacted by ordering the withdrawal of a row of cannons and crews that he had placed at the base of the Mule Shoe to protect it from attack.

Sadly, even so the Union opportunity for victory at Spotsylvania proved to be fleeting. The first thing that went wrong was that Burnside’s supporting attack, on the other end of the Mule Shoe, never had the strength, and success, that Hancock’s men achieved. The second was that Lee’s whole army, from Lee down, realized the mortal threat, and counterattacks converged from all directions. The missing guns were pushed back into firing position. Thirdly, there were simply too many men, both attackers and defenders, in a confined space; some soldiers couldn’t even raise their arms to use their weapons! What resulted was the most sustained bloodbath of the entire war (which is saying something!!). Hand to hand, for an unreal 22 hours, the two armies pushed, stabbed, and fired, slipping in the mud and stepping on the dead and wounded.

The 12th lost heavily in the process. To quote Francis: “As soon as arriving to our destination we formed line and went in on a charge upon the Rebel breastworks in the third line. Bounced upon the jonnies before many of them were out of bed, and took near 12 thousand prisoners and 20 pieces of artillery. We lost considerable but the men of Rebellion lay more plenty upon the grounds after the battle than our men. After the charges were made heavy artillery were played on both sides, (but little loss sustained and heavy skirmishing with musketry all day. Our loss not known out side of our regiment. Our Lt. Col. T. H. Davis was killed on the charge. Capt. Williams and Mc. Coombs and Lt. E. P. Phipps and C. D. Lipincott and Robert Harris (brother) wounded [slightly- in the arm]. Corp J. W. Edwards and C. Allenback missing. Our Reg’t reduced to 150 present for duty.” (Diary 5/12/64) In his letter home, he made sure to say: “I was not in front, but not entirely out of danger.”

The slaughter reached a stalemate by mid-afternoon. At last, by 3am on the 13th, Lee’s men were able to finish constructing a new line of works across the base of the Mule Shoe, and the firing died down. During that 22 hours of struggle, over 17,000 men were killed, wounded or captured! The Mule Shoe in future would be called the “Bloody Angle” or the “Slaughter Pen.” Long afterward, visitors came to see a oak tree at its center- to see the way that the bullets had nearly chewed through its entire 22-inch trunk!! Harris emphasized his unit’s losses: “I will say that both armies have lost heavily. Our Reg’t is pretty well reduced. Our Company [A] who commenced these series of battles with over fifty men had to report but 18 present…” (Letter 5/13/64)

While the Battle of Spotsylvania would drag on for another 9 days of sporadic violence, the Mule Shoe fight was its main event. Francis Harris had time to ponder and grieve: “I took the opportunity to walk over the battle field, and saw what my pen would fail to express. The scene I will reserve to tell you when I get home, if hapily the Lord will spare me so to do. I will say however, that more Rebels lay dead than our men. Most of the Rebs lay near their rifle pits. One acre was literally covered; in places they three and four across each other. Lee sent in a flag of truce to bury his dead; but “unconditional Surrender Grant”, refused telling Lee in answer “he would decently burry the dead, and if he had no position, powder and shell to get it as soon as possible”. The next day we went up and saw them burried as decently as our men, which were burried the day before. It made my heart ache to see the manner we treated the place where our men were burried. The next day the Artillery and other wagons were passing over the spot where our brave boys will moulder to their Mother earth. The Rebs were burried in their rifle pitts. Litterally they dug their own graves.” (Letter)

Afterward the 12th, down to 120 from its original 900, was sent with its brigade away from the battlefield; it successfully recaptured the field hospital of the VI Corps from enemy cavalry, while Francis remained behind to “guard the knapsacks” (Diary 5/16/64)! He wrote reassuringly to his wife that his brother Robert’s wound was not serious (no bones broken), and that he was on the way to a DC hospital (in his remaining writings, he does not say more about Robert than that he was still in hospital).

On May 15, Harris recorded encountering Black Union troops for the first time: “While here some colored troops came up. They were quite a novelty to our men, being the first they had seen. They were in Burnsides men. They were gladly received. Our men are willing to have all the help they can get white or black. If they had come two weeks ago they would have been received with hisses: now they were with hurrahs. (Letter 5/15/64) These were some of the segregated USCT (“US Colored Troops”), formed in 1863 and commanded by white officers (memorably commemorated in the 1989 movie “Glory”); about 179,000 would serve in all, or about 10% of all those who served in the Union Army.

Grant used the II Corps (and 12th New Jersey) to test Lee’s earthworks, again unsuccessfully, in one sector. Harris described his own part in it: “I halted and lay back of the works out of the range of the shells which began to come thick and fast. I would raise up my head once in a while to see how things were going, and when a shell would come over would dodge and look back to see how it would drop pine trees and limbs like grass. Once as I put my head up a shell came before I heard it and just escaped my head not farther than two yards and just cleared an officer and struck into the bank without bursting. I tell you he and his men lay flat to the ground quick, and so did I. Soon one of our boys in Co. C. came along wounded in the side with a piece of a shell. I then assisted in getting him on a blanket and got four men to carry him off to the hospital." On May 20, Lt. George Bowen of the 12th recorded that it was the first day since the start of the campaign that someone in his unit had not been killed or wounded!

Grant then gave up on the Spotsylvania area and began to pull his massive army away from the enemy to make another swing southward. Of course such decisions mainly meant a lot of hot dusty marching for the ordinary soldiers in the last days of May. The result of the maneuver, this time, though, would turn out to be Harris’s last battle, Cold Harbor.

One of the Confederate army’s greatest advantages in Virginia throughout the war had been the geographic fact that the state's major rivers run from west to east, thereby providing natural barriers against Union invasion from the north, and natural defensive positions for Lee’s army. By his maneuvers, Grant had been able now to cross river after river. By May 31, his army was across the Pamunkey; only one river, the Chickahominy, was now left before Richmond itself! Harris was in high spirits, joining in the looting of civilians’ food, and joking to his wife (of all things!) about bringing a black child home(!): “…I am very well and am enjoying myself to the best of my ability under my situation and hope you are doing the same; but you may say you don’t see how there is much enjoyment in battle, and well may you think so, but when the enemy is whipped on every occasion it will produce some enjoyment. It is hurr[y]ing up the time when war will cease. We reached this plantation yesterday morning and had a sharp fight again with the enemy all day. Heavy skirmishing this morning again. What the day will bring forth I cannot tell. I hasten to finish as the mail goes out and 7 o’clock. Our Brigade was not in this fight but acted as reserve expecting to go in every moment. Was drawn in line in front of the Old man’s buildings but the boys would reck in and steal so they moved us back into the woods. I only got a little sugar out of his sugar bin, some got flour, honey, milk, eggs, butter, hams and bacon. He has about 100 negros They seem a happy set of beings since we came. Most of them are anxious to go North. May I fetch home with me when my time is out a little gal for you to bring up?” (Letter 5/31/64)

I have quoted that letter at length for a reason- because it was the last letter that we have! There are definitely some letters missing; his diary (which refers in the immediate aftermath to writing his wife) continues on for a little while…

More by circumstance than design, the two armies now converged on another obscure but useful crossroads, just to the northeast of Richmond- this one oddly called “Cold Harbor” (not for being on a coast, and certainly not cold; it was an 18th century term for an inn that served cold meals or none at all). Unfortunately for Grant’s army, it again moved too slowly, and, by the time it was all reunited and in position there, it was facing all of Lee’s army, and all of it, as at Spotsylvania, behind terrifying earthworks. Added to this, Gibbon’s division, including Harris and the 12th, had an especially exhausting all-night march to get there. By now the entire Army of the Potomac, including Hancock’s II Corps, which Grant counted on as his best attacking unit, was completely exhausted, having by now fought and marched continuously for a month while suffering terrible losses.

What followed next was, then and now, one of the most controversial battle decisions for Grant, and indeed of the entire war (matched by the controversy about Lee’s decision to launch the disastrous “Pickett’s Charge” on the last day of the Battle of Gettysburg). In both cases, the top commanders were making big gambles. At Cold Harbor, Grant had acted on the assumption that Lee’s army had been crumbling from the endless fighting (false). If his army could make a breakthrough here, Lee’s army had a major river (the Chickahominy) behind it, and so could then be destroyed. His subordinate, George Meade, though, did not think that frontal attacks like this had any chance. To sum up: the top commander, Grant, was ordering an attack that was a long-shot at best, while leaving the carrying out to Meade, who didn’t believe in making the attack at all!

Map drawn by Hal Jespersen of Battle of Cold Harbor (note Gibbon's division with 12th), wikipedia.org

To that end, after fateful delays, Grant’s entire army was ordered to assault the 7 miles of Lee’s earthworks at dawn on June 3, 1864. In practice the attack was very haphazard: inexperienced units rushed forward in dense formations to be mowed down, while the veterans (like the 12th) moved out just far enough to encounter the hail of bullets they expected. Then most simply lay down until ordered to withdraw. The Union men only captured one small sliver of the earthworks, and even then only briefly. The Confederates, experienced and well protected, easily held off all the attacks. Grant called off the attacks at 12:30pm, with a loss of 7000 compared to 1500 of the enemy.

Here’s Harris’s diary entry for Cold Harbor: “At daylight or really after sunrise our Brigade charged on the Rebs and drove them from the woods into their works in an open field some distance from the wood, and built strong works within 100 yards of theirs. We lost several on this charge, some remaining between our lines and the enemy untill after dark. Anderson Pond of our company mortally wounded. Joseph Powell of our company killed in the afternoon while in the rear by a stray ball from the skirmish line which penetrated his head and killed instantly. Quiet all day untill dark when the Rebs made a charge upon our lines, but could not flinch us. After a heavy loss they fell back satisfied. I was drawing beef for the Reg’t at the time, having been appointed to fill the place of J. R. Powell, killed. The rebel shells drove us from the meat, and had to seek shelter wherever we could.” (Diary 6/3/1864)

Grant’s gamble had failed, though he kept his men within range of Lee’s line for the next 9 days (one of the special horrors of this battle was the presence of a mass of trapped wounded men between the lines, calling for help that never came, as Grant and Lee squabbled over a truce!). Note that Francis recorded that he was not part of the 12th’s charge; the paradox is that his second, and last, wound of the war happened, not in the battle proper, but the next day.

On June 4, he fired his weapon at the enemy just 50 yards away. Then he was hit in his right shoulder, in the same area where he had been wounded at Chancellorsville in May 1863. He was immediately sent from the front to hospital, first to the Columbian in Washington, and then to the Centre Street Hospital in Newark in his home state of New Jersey. The wound, and the jostling he went through on the trip North (“The suffering of that day was as much as I could endure. From it I date the cause of my being so long getting cured. Remained all night in the wagons.”), was so severe that he couldn’t do any writing at all for three weeks, and didn’t record the event until three months later! Meantime his brother Robert was also still hospitalized (in Philadelphia). By Sept. 13th, he was healing, and wrote the following: “Took a walk in the city with a friend (Mr. Freeman) of a Mass. Reg’t, and in our ward. Spent much time in reading and discussing the merits of the two Candidates for the Presidency, (Viz.) Abraham Lincoln (for reelection) and George B. Mc.Clellan. We get the N. York papers every morning at 5 cts. per copy. Several returned yesterday and to day on their furloughs. Another lot of convalescents came to this Hospital the other day: among them Sedgwick R. Lithen and Dan. L. Ayars of my company. Hope to get a furlough soon.”

(Diary 9/13/1864)

With that discussion of the upcoming election, Harris’s surviving writings come to an end!! By then, the war had very much turned in Lincoln’s, and the Union’s, favor, after a disastrous summer. The Union Navy had blocked the South’s last Gulf port (Mobile, Alabama), and Gen. Sherman had just captured Atlanta, vitally important for its factories and rail links. Lincoln would go on to win convincingly in November, helped by soldiers’ votes. After Sherman went on to lay waste to the middle of Georgia in the winter of 1864-65, from Atlanta to Savannah, the collapse of the Confederacy would follow swiftly. Lincoln would be inaugurated again in March, after pushing through the 13th Amendment that definitively ended all slavery, North and South. He would live just long enough to hear about Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, before John Wilkes Booth shot him at Ford’s Theater in Apr. 1865. The other Confederate forces, land and sea, would all surrender by May, ending the war.

So- what happened to the 12th New Jersey? Its dwindling ranks, supplemented by some draftees, continued on past Cold Harbor to the long siege of Petersburg, the town south of Richmond that protected Lee’s last supply lines, losing a few more to disease, wounds, or death. Those who remained got to participate in the joy of the Grand Review, when first the Army of the Potomac and then Sherman’s Western army, in hundreds of thousands, passed in formation through cheering crowds and past the new president (Andrew Johnson) in Washington.

After that, in June 1865, with no fuss or ceremony, they shed their uniforms, turned in their guns, and went home. For those who had joined at the start, their service ended just a few months short of the 3 years they had volunteered for.

And of course you’ll want to know- what about Francis Harris?? The paper trail gets very sparse after 1864. His hospital discharge certificate says that he left there on May 29, 1865- presumably for his farm in Pittsgrove. We know that he and Maggie moved west to the new frontier town of Rolling Fork, Kansas, by 1880, where their son Brenner (“Brennie”) had settled with his family. Francis was still there in 1897, when he transferred to the Topeka chapter of the huge organization of Union veterans, the Grand Army of the Republic. And then, when he and Maggie were very old for their times, they moved in 1901 all the way to the Pacific coast, where they would die and be buried, three thousand miles from their New Jersey origins, in Long Beach, California: Maggie passing away in 1908 at 80, and Francis in 1915 at just past his 84th birthday.

Photo of Francis and Maggie Harris, c. 1901-1908 (courtesy of Jessica Harris)

All of the above leaves me, and likely you, with so many questions! What was his reunion like with his family, having only seen them once in his whole time at war? What was Maggie’s side of this whole story?? Having been in the thick of four major battles and having been wounded twice in the same shoulder, did Francis have any lasting physical effects, and/or any symptoms of what we now call PTSD, in the rest of his days? And how did he feel about the war's aftermath? Francis, who had opposed slavery with every fiber of his moralistic soul, must surely have been delighted in the Union victory and that the African Americans (troops, free, and runaway) that he encountered had been freed at last, by that victory and by their own actions (although the failure of the Reconstruction experiment later on, and the arrival of Jim Crow in the South, would surely have angered him). The technological and social changes he would have seen in his lifetime (1831-1915) must have been staggering for him; when he was born America was building its first short railroads, while by his life’s end there were airplanes, automobiles, experimental radios, phonographs and motion pictures.

Being asked to do this project 16 months ago, by Tom and Jessica Harris, has turned out to be one of the most satisfying experiences of my life! Through Francis’s three years’ worth of diaries and letters (which they so patiently transcribed before I ever came aboard!), I have come to know an “ordinary soldier,” who was in fact anything but ordinary. In his unwavering dedication to his cause and faith, he sacrificed much: almost three years of his young manhood, entailing long lonely winters, traumatic battles, and much physical suffering, which he could have spent with his wife and young children- all with low pay, the loss of dear friends, and (apparently) no postwar recognition. All of it because he cared so much for the restoration of the Union and for the elimination of the evil of slavery. I am far more aware now of how many others like Francis Harris there must have been in the Civil War. Private Francis Harris of the 12th New Jersey Infantry, I salute you!!

This entire series is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Thomas Harris (1933-2022), whose lively curiosity and passion for digging into the story of his great-great-grandfather Francis, assisted by his daughter Jessica, have inspired and informed me throughout this project. His extensive Civil War library was also of great benefit. Tom, I only wish I could have met you in person, as I'm sure we would have bonded through our shared love for American history!

Resources:

Haines, William F. "History of the Men of Company F, with Description of the Marches and Battles of the 12th New Jersey Volunteers." Mickleton, NJ (1897)

Longacre, Edward G. "To Gettysburg and Beyond: The Twelfth New Jersey Volunteer Infantry, II Corps, Army of the Potomac, 1862-1865." (1988)

Rhea, Gordon. "The Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-6, 1864." (2004)

'' "The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern, May 7–12, 1864." (2005)

" "To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13-25, 1864." (2005)

" "Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26- June 3, 1864." (2007)