men of the 1st Connecticut pounded onto the battlefield with their regimental flag held aloft by the color-bearer. Two months earlier, Julius Catlin, Connecticut’s lieutenant governor, had presented the national flag to the regiment with these words: “Take the flag, and, when it presses closest on the foe in some hard-set contest, will some brave boy among you strike one true blow for freedom for an old man at home, whose heart and prayers go with these colors to the field?” (W. A. Croffut and John M. Morris, The Military and Civil History of Connecticut during the War of 1861–65, p. 67).
“We followed Gen Sherman … through the woods and half way down the valley that separated us from Beauregard’s command,” went on Gus Dana. “Orders to fire were given and afterwards we learned that we drove off a force of rebel Inf and Cav but I could only see the white gate posts I was ordered to aim at. I fired 22 rounds, kneeling down, while the rear rank fired over us … One of my comrades from East Hartford, the next to me in the front rank kneeling to fire … said ‘Ain’t this glorious Gus, I’m going to re-enlist.’”18
The 2nd and 3rd Connecticut regiments, along with the 2nd Maine, had diverted into the woods to avoid artillery fire before reaching the stream. A soldier from the 3rd recalled: “We found General Tyler there awaiting us … As we came up in good order and on the double quick, the General greeted us with ‘Ha! Ha! Here comes my Connecticut boys!’ and then he ordered one of the bands … to stop there and strike up ‘Yankee Doodle’ while we pressed forward and crossed the Run.”19
“At 11 or 12 the contest was at its height & the spectacle was grand & awful,” wrote Chaplain Eddy.
The cannonade—The musketry—The working of the great Parrot gun planted in the corner of the woods. The discharge & the bursting a mile & a half away. It seemed like a tuft of cloud bursting out … then the runing of the soldiers away from beneath it to avoid the contents of the shell. And finally, about two o’clock we co’d distinctly see the rebels leave the place on double quick. From the commencement there was not a doubt but that the day wo’d be ours. Among the large number of spectators there was not the least appearance of fear … And at this time there was no doubt the enemy was in our hands. They had been driven from all the positions which they occupied in the morning.20
Gen. Daniel Tyler, commanding the 1st Division (approximately 5,000 troops) opened the Battle of Bull Run on July 21, 1861. Born in the village of Brooklyn, Connecticut, Tyler was nearly sixty-two years old. He was a graduate of West Point but had left the military nearly thirty years earlier to become a manufacturer.
From the crest of a hill, a Confederate battery was shelling Union forces. About two in the afternoon, General Tyler ordered Colonel Keyes to capture the battery.
A twenty-two-year-old tinworker in the 3rd Connecticut recounted: “Keyes took the Second Maine and our regiment and pressed forward up the hill at double quick. We went up that hill shouting and yelling as if two thousand demons had suddenly been let loose from Pandemonium … We pressed forward towards the top of the hill. Here we found ourselves under the fire of infantry as well as artillery.”21
Colonel Keyes reported, “Colonel Jameson of the Second Maine, and Colonel Chatfield of the Third Connecticut Volunteers, pressed forward their regiments up the base of the slope about one hundred yards, when I ordered them to lie down, at a point offering a small protection, and load. I then ordered them to advance again … As we moved forward we came under the fire of other large bodies of the enemy posted behind breastworks, and on reaching the summit of the hill the firing became so hot that an exposure to it of five minutes would have annihilated my whole line.”22
“We fell back a few rods and lay down on the Warrenton road, where by lying close to the ground we were somewhat protected from the enemy’s guns,” wrote one of the men. “General Tyler, who had followed us up the hill, was now seen talking anxiously with Keyes and some of the other officers, as well as taking a general survey of the situation himself. The old General evidently wanted us to try the bayonet. But the other officers tried to discourage him.” Tyler now appealed to the men, asking if they could take the battery at the point of the bayonet; “but you see we wasn’t that kind of heroes, so we just said, ‘No sir! We can’t take it, and there ain’t no use of trying.’”23
For hours, the Union forced the Confederates back. But between three and four in the afternoon, the Rebels launched a strong counterattack and the tide began to turn. “[The Confederates] had their choice of the ground and had a strong position but notwithstanding this we whipped them and the Battle was ours up to 3 oclock when they were reinforced by Gen Johnston and we were obliged to retreat,” wrote Horace Purdy of the 1st Connecticut.24
“At 4 P.M. I heard [Colonel] Keyes tell another officer, with the tears running down his cheeks, ‘My God, the whole day is lost; we have been ordered to fall back!’ We supposed till then we were victorious for every move to the front we had made, the rebels had fallen back.”25
Chaplain Eddy had been bringing water to the field hospital when he saw Union troops moving away from the battlefield “so quietly as to suggest nothing special … while there I heard the cry ‘They come. They come.’ Then followed the discharge of arms & the flying of the multitude into the woods back of the hospital. All was consternation, each one runing for his life & I with the multitude.”26
In the 2nd Connecticut, Captain Eli Walter Osborn led a company formed of the New Haven Grays militia. His boys, he wrote, “stood fire like bricks it was a hard matter to keep them back, we were ordered to charge one of their batteries, and then the order was countermanded by Col Keyes if we had gone there would not have been a dozen of us left to tell the tale, but the boys wanted to try it, and could not see why they could not.” (Letter from E. Walter Osborn to his brother, July 27, 1861, typescript in private collection.)
As the Connecticut regiments began to retreat, the Confederate cavalry formed for a charge.
General Tyler, seeing the rebel cavalry meant mischief, ordered us to halt and face to the rear. A few, but at first a very few, obeyed the order promptly. The old general’s ire was up in a moment; galloping his horse through the retreating mass, at the imminent risk of riding over the men, his form erect, his eyes flashing, and with an energy we little dreamed was in the old man, he fairly yelled, “Halt! Come back here! Come back, you cowards, and face this cavalry!”
… Cowards we might be, but we wasn’t going to have it thrown in our faces in that way; so while some still pressed on, many more halted and resolutely turned our faces to the foe again … Several times we were obliged to turn and face them … but a few shots from us seemed to cool their ardor.27
As regiment after regiment joined the retreat, the withdrawal devolved into pandemonium. A Connecticut soldier wrote:
the road before us was the greatest scene of excitement that I ever witnessed. The lots were full of men, the roads crowded with artillery wagons, their horses on a dead run, colliding with freight wagons, and smashing hacks containing gentlemen spectators. I cannot begin to describe the confusion … Everything that we had on, which had the least tendency to stop our progress, was thrown away …
… I took to the woods, threw off my haversack, which contained a number of eatables, writing materials, and many other things I would liked to have saved, next my belt, cartridge box, etc.; then went my blankets. It was hard to do it; but we were scattered, and running for dear life.28
While
