[History] The "Heavies": Federal Heavy Artillery Regiments in the 1864 Wilderness Campaign

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Author: Legio XX Valeria Victrix
Original Thread: The "Heavies": Federal Heavy Artillery Regiments in the 1864 Wilderness Campaign

The "Heavies": Federal Heavy Artillery Regiments in the 1864 Wilderness Campaign

On May 17, 1864, just two weeks after the start of Ulysses S. Grant's Overland or Wilderness Campaign, the Army of the Potomac was in desperate need of manpower to replenish the horrendous losses it has sustained at the Battle of the Wilderness and the early days of the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, which was then entering it's ninth day. The campaign had begun with high hopes: the great victor of Shiloh, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga was in Virginia to lead the grand Army of the Potomac to final victory over Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia. The Army of the Potomac, in early May 1864, was at the zenith of its power; over 110,000 men strong, the vast majority of whom were solid veteran combat troops.

Yet just two short weeks later, almost 30,000 of those men were in shallow graves or hospital beds. The Battle of the Wilderness was tactically a draw, but a hugely costly one for the Army of the Potomac. The same could be said for the early assaults at Spotsylvania, one of which had begun with the promise of a Confederate collapse, but ended disappointingly and viciously in the longest occasion of sustained hand to hand combat in American history: the Bloody Angle in the Mule Shoe Salient, where for over 12 hours the two battle lines were hunkered down in the rain on opposite sides of a dirt embankment.

To fill the vacant ranks, General Grant called upon a vast and as yet untapped resource of Union manpower: the Heavy Artillery regiments that occupied the vast ring of forts that surrounded the capital at Washington. Almost 25 regiments in number, each of these organizations could field just shy of 2,000 men, the average size of a combat brigade in the Army of the Potomac at the outset of the campaign. They had originally been formed as line infantry regiments, most formed in the summer of 1862, but were converted to Heavy Artillery regiments upon their arrival in the capital. None of them had ever seen, heard, or fired a shot in anger. Their tale would be one of the saddest and most poignant of any combat units that served the Federal cause.

The vast majority of the "Heavies," as they were referred to, were assigned to brigades in the Army of the Potomac. A few others were assigned to other outfits, but all would serve in Virginia. When they reached the Army of the Potomac from May 17-27, they met immediate derision from the veteran troops. "What division is that?" was a common question asked of the newcomers, so many were they and so pristine was their equipment and uniforms. Indeed, they were so large that five or more veteran regiments could not add up to the numbers fielded by one Heavy regiment.

Grant decided to show these boys what he had brought them here for, and on May 19, he ordered the Union Army to shift to the right of the Mule Shoe Salient, where ten days of brutal fighting had decided little. Leading the advance was a brigade of Heavies. Lee, desirous to find out what Grant's intentions were, dispatched Richard S. Ewell and 6,000 Confederates to make a reconnaissance in force. When they discovered the Federals, battle erupted. This battle is known as the Battle of Harris Farm. Several Heavies regiments were engaged in this severe fighting. One thing that distinguished the Heavies at this point, aside from their massive numbers, was their inexperience. Veteran troops had long since learned to take cover and to advance sparingly while using artillery support, or conversley, to disdain firing and charge straight to the enemy as fast as possible. The Heavies knew none of this, and their casualty lists bear that terrible truth out. Foremost among the Heavies engaged on the 19th of May were the 1st Maine Heavy Artillery and the 1st Massachusetts Heavy Artillery. Though the battle was ultimately a Federal victory, the Heavies paid dearly in their first engagement: Of 1,617 engaged, the 1st Mass. Heavies lost 50 killed, 312 wounded, and 28 missing, of whom most were dead. A total of 120 men were killed or mortally wounded, making 390 men the total loss. The 1st Maine Heavies fared even worse, losing 82 killed, 394 wounded (147 killed or mortally wounded), for a total of 476. It had been a bloody day, but those who survived earned the respect of their veteran comrades, one of whom claimed "they didn't fight very tactically, but they fought confounded plucky."

More Heavies joined the Army over the next ten days, and fortunately for these newcomers, were able to experience the moderately tame Battle of North Anna River with light casualties. Unfortunately, two holocausts were about to befall the majority of these Heavy regiments, the first of which would occur just a week after the last of the Heavies had arrived. On June 3, 1864, the Army of the Potomac sat across from well constructed Confederate works near the hamlet of Cold Harbor. General Grant had chosen this day as the prime opportunity for a general advance. Any Heavies that had escaped combat duty until this point were about to face perhaps the most futile attack of the entire war. Veterans were so sure that they would be killed assaulting these works that they pinned their names on their uniforms in order to be identified in the event of their death. The Heavies were largely blissfully ignorant of what faced them. Two Heavy regiments stand out as particularly tragic on this day: the 8th New York Heavies and the 2nd Connecticut Heavies. Both had seen only skirmish duty in their brief tenures with the army, and both would suffer horrendous losses this day.

The army went forward early that day, and came back but a short half hour to an hour later, minus 7,000 men who had fallen in the short intervening period. Among those 7,000 men were 505 of the 8th New York Heavies, who had been one of the units to nearly reach the Confederate works until they were blasted away by the Confederate fire. Of these 505, 80 were killed instantly, 339 were wounded, another 86 were missing, presumably dead, and of the wounded 127 would die. The 2nd Connecticut went into the attack with 1,400 men under arms, of whom 129 would be killed or mortally wounded, and 323 total would fall. The 7th New York Heavies also displayed conspicuous and tragic heroism, resulting in 127 killed and mortally wounded.

After Cold Harbor, the Heavies regiments had lost approximately half their men in battle. Despite this, the regiments were still massive by regimental standards, retaining around 1,000 men a piece as the army crossed the James River and approached Petersburg in mid June. The second great holocaust for the Heavies came just two weeks after the first, on June 16-18, in the Army of the Potomac's inagural attacks on Petersburg. Although only lightly defended on the 16th-17th, the Rebels there were determined, and, as always in this campaign, stood behind solid fieldworks. At least six regiments of Heavies would be sent into the meat grinder over these three days, and one of them would earn the bloody title of suffering the most casualties of any Federal regiment in any battle throughout the war.

Men who just days before had seen hundreds of their comrades cut down in bloody heaps in mere minutes were now charged with doing that all over again, and several of these regiments would have to do it not once, but twice in the three days of assaults. One of these regiments was the 1st Massachusetts Heavies, bloodied a month before at Harris Farm, again at Cold Harbor, and arrived at Petersburg with fewer than half the men who had marched from the capital in May. They charged the works on the 16th of June, and were repulsed with another 29 killed instantly, 183 wounded, and 6 missing. Of their wounded, 25 would succumb, leaving 54 dead or mortally wounded. Just six days after this affair, they were roughly handled on the 22nd of June and lost 9 killed, 46 wounded, and 185 missing.

Many Heavies fought on these days, losing heavily in killed and mortally wounded: the 2nd Pennsylvania Heavies lost 64 dead and mortally wounded, the 14th New York lost 57 killed, the 7th New York Heavies, butchered at Cold Harbor, lost another 55 killed. About twice to three times that many killed would have been wounded, meaning losses for all these regiments would stand at 200 minimum.

The bloody honors, however, went to the 1st Maine Heavy Artillery. Bringing 950 men into the fight, they were absolutely butchered in their horrific but amazingly brave charge into near certain death or injury. Of the 950 men who went forward that day, 210 would not live to see its end, a staggering 22% of those engaged. 115 were killed in the charge, the remaining 95 died of their wounds. 489 were wounded, and 28 were missing, most of whom can be presumed dead. Fully two thirds of the regiment lay dead or wounded on the field when the survivors returned. Total losses stood at 632 out of 950.


The Forlorn Hope, by Don Troiani, depicting the heroic but doomed assault of the 1st Maine Heavy Artillery at Petersburg, June 18, 1864

The Petersburg attacks were the bloody climax of the Heavies' war experience. They served admirably to the end of the war, but after the savage losses suffered at Harris Farm, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg, their numbers had dwindled to those of the more veteran regiments who had preceded them. Combined with the sheer numbers of losses these regiments sustained was the short time frame in which so many men died or were horribly maimed. All of the Heavies regiments suffered their combat losses of the war in a ten month period, but the vast majority of those losses occurred in just one month, from May 19 to June 18, 1864. They had sat around for two years waiting for their chance at combat, only to arrive in an army that derided them and even sometimes abused them. They only overcame this derision by the loss of over three quarters of their number. By the end of the war, there was little except their regimental names that differentiated them from the combat troops who had been fighting since 1861.