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Volume CXXXIII, Number 15 |
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Fessenden & Hyde
KID WONGSRCHANALAI
CONTRIBUTOR
In September of 1862, Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern
Virginia began an invasion of Maryland. The last battle had not gone well
for the Union. Elements of two armies had been beat at the Second Battle
of Bull Run. In Maine, if Bowdoin College honored its fallen sons as it
currently does by lowering the US flag to half mast, then surely the flag
must have hung low those sad days after the Union defeat. Sam Fessenden
of the class of 1861, son of Senator William Pitt Fessenden, himself a
Bowdoin graduate, had fallen with thousands of other Union and Confederate
soldiers. Gloom swept the nation but there was little time for mourning.
The armies were on the move again.
Sam Fessenden's classmate Thomas Worchester Hyde was among
those troops who were headed into a new campaign that would climax on
the banks of a creek named Antietam. The armies would clash here on September
17. Hyde was a major at the time but he retained command of the Seventh
Maine Volunteers, which numbered 225 men. To increase the fighting capacity
of the regiment, Hyde put his drummers and musicians in the ranks but
still he was far below half strength. Despite these numbers Hyde knew
that his men were veterans to a man.
The Seventh Maine arrived on the scene around noon. The
regiment was thrown into the East Woods (towards the northern part of
the battlefield) where they advanced on a place called Mumma's Farm. The
major ordered a charge, which drove off a number of Confederates, and
later wrote:
"I remember in this charge passing over what had been a Confederate
regiment of perhaps four hundred men. There they were, both ranks, file
closers and officers, as they fell, for so few had been the survivors
it seemed to me the whole regiment were lying there in death."
Enemy fire from the West Woods checked the Union advance
and Hyde settled down with his troops to wait for the next order behind
some boulders.
That order came late in the afternoon, after both sides
had assumed that the fighting was over. But for Thomas Hyde, it had just
begun. As the sun began its descent Hyde's brigade commander, Colonel
William Irwin, rode up and ordered the major to take his regiment forward
against the enemy position near Piper's barns. This was behind the bitterly
contested trench infamously known as "the Sunken Road." Hyde,
who had noticed some rebel reinforcements entering the area, protested
the order. "Are you afraid to go, sir?" was the reply from the
colonel. In response to his superior officer's question Hyde ordered the
regiment into line and advanced in what he knew was a suicidal charge.
Hyde remembered, "We crossed the sunken road, which
was so filled with the dead and wounded of the enemy that my horse had
to step on them to get over." As the Seventh Maine neared the targeted
barns the rebel defenders broke and ran. As Hyde rushed forward to capture
some fallen Confederate battle flags he saw that the regiment was in peril.
From the front and right of the regiment more rebel defenders rose to
let lose a hail of bullets while on the left flank other rebel troops
were rushing up. Within a few minutes two thirds of the Seventh Maine
men had been hit. Ordering a left oblique, Hyde shifted his regiment to
avoid the exposed position. This new move, however, brought him closer
to even more rebels. Hyde acted quickly, ordering his troops to move away.
But soon he found himself in the midst of a Confederate attack. "My
horse was twice wounded," Hyde noted, "and as he was rearing
and plunging I slipped off over his tail, and can remember, in the instant
I was on the ground, how the twigs and branches of the apple-trees were
being cut off by musket balls, and were dropping in a shower."
The regiment, bloodied and bruised, began its retreat toward
the Union lines. Hyde was among those moving towards safety when he saw
his color bearer go down. Attempting to recover the regimental flag, Hyde
was suddenly cut off from his men. As the rebels closed in, Hyde suddenly
heard, "Rally, boys, to save the major!" A number of his troops
turned back and extricated him from his tight position. It was a close
call for Hyde. For his regiment, however, the suicidal charge had left
the regiment with a mere sixty-five men and three officers. That night,
Thomas Hyde cried himself to sleep.
In all the total losses had been staggering: 24,000 men,
North and South. Despite horrible losses, Lee was able to escape back
into Virginia.
In October, the Seventh Maine returned home to rest and retrain. Hyde
was overjoyed at the prospect of seeing home again. "A leave of absence
for the winter! Visions of home, of sleigh rides, skating parties, and
the prettiest girls in America, in our opinion, rose before us."
As Hyde and the remaining Seventh Mainers returned to a
hero's welcome, William Pitt Fessenden was travelling south to Washington
D.C. The Union "victory" at Antietam had given President Lincoln
grounds for issuing a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. It would
take full effect on January 1, 1863. Fessenden was not a happy man for
he did not believe the President had the Constitutional power to free
any slaves. But that was not the reason that Fessenden was returning to
Washington. Congress was meeting yet again and the course of the War had
to be planned for the coming year.
Next Time: 1863 in Blood and Cents
Some editing (by the Orient staff) may have occurred before
this piece was published. To view a full version of the entire series
(including source citations) please visit my website. (This site includes
the Chamberlain and Howard Series and is updated weekly during the school
year) at: http://www.bowdoin.edu/~kwongsri
Also, please send comments and ideas to: kwongsri@bowdoin.edu