Three Rousing Cheers; A History of the 15th New Jersey Infantry from Flemington to Appomattox. by Joseph Bilby. 2nd Ed., Revised and Expanded. 453pp. Notes, Biblio., Roster, Indices, 20 Maps, over 140 Illus.
Three Rousing Cheers: A History of the Fifteenth New Jersey from Flemington to Appomattox
By Joseph G. Bilby
The origins of this book lie deep in my own past, as well as New Jerseyís. When I was a child I visited a cemetery in Mount Olive, New Jersey, where my grandparents are buried. Western Morris county was country then, unscarred by housing developments and the suburban sprawl of present day northern New Jersey.
Abraham Sowers, who served in both the Fifteenth and Second New Jersey Infantry Regiments, is buried in that cemetery alone the Mount Olive-Drakestown Road. Sowers, who was drafted on February 25, 1865, was unlucky enough to be wounded in the Union armyís final assault on Petersburg, April 2, 1865. The twenty-nine-year-old soldier died three days later. Although New Jersey records list his fate as "unknown," someone brought Abraham home to Mount Olive. Sower's personal tragedy sparked my youthful interest in the greater drama against which it was played out.
As I grew older my interest in the war was abetted by vacations, taken at my insistence, to Civil War battlefields, as well as deep draughts of history drawn from the shelves of the wonderful old Newark Library. Searching my own family's background I found that my grandfather's cousin, George H. Bilby, who lived on Schooley's Mountain in Morris County, enlisted in the Fifteenth New Jersey's Company B in 1862.
George's regiment was one of the finest in the Union army. In the less than three years the Fifteenth served, the regiment lost so many men killed that its fatal casualties were only exceeded by eleven of the more than 2,000 regiments that fought for the Union. No other New Jersey outfit lost as many men. The Fifteenth's consistently good conduct under fire gained unstinting praise from such demanding officers as Generals Emory Upton and Philip Sheridan, and firmly established the regiment's reputation in the VI Army Corps and the Army of the Potomac. Over the years, the regiment's story has been largely forgotten, by both historians and the people of New Jersey.
It was not always so. The Fifteenth's original regimental history, written by Chaplain Alanson A. Haines and published in 1883, remains one of the best of its kind. Haines relied heavily on a diary kept by Edmund Halsey, who served successively as adjutantís clerk, sergeant major and adjutant of the Fifteenth, in the preparation of his book. Although the chaplain directly transcribed much of Halsey's work (often without attribution, but no doubt with permission) and presented an accurate accounting of the regiment's marches and battles, his book suffers from the failures of most "first generation" unit histories produced or commissioned by veterans. Post-war "regimentals," although often a valuable source of information, are handicapped by the subjective viewpoints of their authors. In addition, the writers were generally careful not to disclose anything that would offend surviving soldiers who were members of a regimentís veterans` association. Even had he desired to portray the Fifteenth "warts and all," Haines simply did not have access to information which has come to light in the 107 years since his book was published.
The modern genre of Civil War regimental histories, fathered by John Pullen with his classic Twentieth Maine, overcomes the limitations of first generation writers. Such works of microhistory are not only intrinsically interesting but contribute to an overall understanding of the war. Of necessity, the regimental history much focus on the lives of its cast of characters and tactical rather than strategic movements. A well done regimental history gives a reader an opportunity to experience the ìface of battleî of the 1860ís.
Not only are many modern jerseyans unaware of the story of the Fifteenth New Jersey Infantry, but they have little awareness of their stateís participation in the Civil War at all, let alone the distinction gained by New Jerseyís soldiers on the warís battlefields. Oriented towards New York and Philadelphia, New Jersey is often characterized as Benjamin Franklinís oft quoted "barrel tapped at both ends." The state has never quite developed a sense of itself and its history, which is rich indeed. It is my hope that this book, as well as others in this series, will provide some redress to this situation and inspire others to do likewise.
Wall Township, N.J. October 1990