The History of Edward Baker's California Regiment, 71st PA Inf. by Gary G. Lash. hc, dj, 8.5 x 11, 588pp., index, illus. maps.

"Duty Well Done," The History of Edward Bakerís California Regiment (71st Pennsylvania Infantry)

By Gary G. Lash

In the middle of May 1861, hundreds of men, most from Philadelphia and New York City, found themselves training along the crowded streets of New York City. These boys were members of the California Regiment, a unit that had been organized in the first weeks following the surrender of Fort Sumter by Senator Edward Dickinson Baker of Oregon, close friend and political ally of Abraham Lincoln. Baker's men, among the troubled nationís first three-years troops, were in all respects average soldiers. Initially, neither New York nor Pennsylvania, but rather the national government, recognized the regiment. Indeed, its rolls were to be applied to the number of men to be called from the State of California. But in November 1861, after part of the regiment had been badly handled in the debacle at Ballís Bluff and Edward Baker had been killed, the Keystone State adopted the California Regiment, which was redesignated the 71st Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. Still, many of the men continued to refer to the regiment by its original name rather than its numerical appellation.

The Californians went on from Ball's Bluff to see heavy duty on the Virginia peninsula. At Antietam, the regiment would suffer its greatest loss of the war in the West Woods, making it part of Foxís Fighting 300. On December 13, elements of the regiment participated in the senseless assault of Rebel infantry deployed at the base of Maryeís Heights at Fredericksburg. At the battle of Gettysburg, on the afternoon of July 3, they found themselves in the vortex of Robert Leeís attempt to storm the Federal line on Cemetery Ridge. Following this, the Californians saw action in all of the campaigns of the Army of the Potomac until they mustered out in July 1864.

This, then, is the story of the California Regiment told, where possible, by the officers and men. We learn that the regiment comprised men from diverse backgrounds and dissimilar lifestyles. There were drunkards, thieves, shirkers, deserters and even a murderer. But most of the boys were good and stalwart soldiers, some of whom believed that they were fighting for something more than the intangible goal of Union, but rather to end what one fellow had described as the ìungodly Institutionî of slavery. All in all, the great majority of Californians proved to be average men who understood that they had a job to do and they did it. Indeed, these fellows had demonstrated that they could do much more than "handle a knapsack and dig an entrenchment, and defend it when it is dug," Colonel Edward Baker's expressed hope for his Boys of `61.