Originally aired on March 08, 1996 - In part 80 of our Civil War series, Virginia Tech history professor James Robertson says that many of the regiments had a unique characteristic that set them apart from each other.
#80 – Regimental Character (A Soldier’s Army Home)
“Home” for a Civil War soldier was his regiment. A Billy Yank declared: “Every true soldier believes in his own regiment. He holds himself in perpetual readiness to demonstrate that no other (regiment) ever passed in review so handsomely, marched so far, fought so bravely, or suffered so much, as his own.”
A regiment consisted of ten companies, designated A-K with the exception of J. The letter J so resembled the letter I in handwriting that, beginning in 1816, the War Department omitted it as a designation. The ten companies of 100 men each had been raised in the same general area and carefully banded together in order to promote greater unity through a common background.
Company-units in the 28th Virginia, for example, were from the Roanoke area; the 11th Virginia came largely from Lynchburg and Campbell County; men from Caswell County and the northern Piedmont filled the 6th North Carolina.
Few regiments had a full complement of 1,000 men when they entered field service. Sickness, disability discharges, special duty, and the like quickly reduced a regiment to half its strength. By the midway point of the war, a 250-man regiment was almost a luxury.
Many of those Civil War regiments had a unique characteristic that set them apart from the others. Gaudy uniforms in the 3rd New Jersey Cavalry earned that unit the unwanted nickname “The Flying Butterflies”. In the “Temperance Regiment”, as the 24th Iowa was called, all soldiers solemnly pledged at the outset to “touch not, taste not, handle not spirituous or malt liquor, wine or cider”. Later in the war, some of the regiment’s members violated that oath, but they were excused on the grounds that “it had only been at such times as they were under the overruling power of military necessity”.
The 23rd Pennsylvania had a youthful reputation because its members averaged nineteen years of age. In contrast was the 37th Iowa, known as the “Graybeard Regiment”. It was organized only for home guard duty and recruits were limited to old men no younger than forty-five. (Its oldest member was eighty.)
Faculty from the Illinois State Normal College so dominated the officers of the 33rd Illinois that it was known at the “Teacher Regiment”. The regiment was often accused of refusing to obey any order that was not absolutely correct in grammar and syntax.
The 24th Michigan acquired distinctiveness because of 135 sets of brothers inside its ranks. When the 26th Alabama was mustered into service, no doubts existed about the poor-farmer status of its members. None had uniforms; most bore blankets of every color draped over their shoulders. The unit instantly became known as the “Bed Quilt Regiment”. The 21st Indiana Heavy Artillery had the misfortune to leave for war with its guns pulled by mules. Despite a sterling war record, the Hoosiers were never able to squash their designation as the “Jackass Regiment”.
Some regiments had even more negative reputations. A Union sergeant stationed in Missouri noted from camp in the summer of 1861: “Colonel Stevenson with his command, the 7th Missouri… arrived here yesterday…It is said there are 800 men, and the first day they came here there were 900 fights.”
Then there was the 39th New York. Called the “Garibaldi Guard”, the unit was a melting-pot of a half-dozen nationalities. The unit’s notorious misbehavior began with its colonel, who was shortly sentenced to Sing Sing Prison for multiple offenses.
Of course, battle losses brought fame to more than one regiment. The 1st Minnesota led all Civil War units in single-battle casualties. It lost 85% of its strength in one day’s fighting at Gettysburg. The 1st Texas suffered 82% casualties at Antietam. Five western Virginia regiments formed the celebrated Stonewall Brigade. Some 6,000 men served in that unit during the war. At Appomattox, only 210 were left – none above the rank of captain.
