Friday, June 27th, 1862, the First New Jersey Brigade was ordered to Woodbury’s Bridge over the Chickahominy, there to meet Gen. Porter’s Division. (Six companies of the Second, under Lieut.-Col. Samuel L. Buck, were at that time on picket duty, and therefore took no part in this action.) Colonel Tucker led out the remaining four companies, including Lieutenant Blewett’s command with the rest of the Brigade. From Woodbury’s Bridge this Brigade, with others, was sent to engage the enemy near Gaines’s Mills and was soon in the thick of the fight. Porter’s Division, in hand-to-hand conflict, held their position against overwhelming odds until reinforcements, long delayed, arrived, but owing to the fact that their position was unfavorable and to the superiority of the enemy in numbers, the Union troops were compelled to retire. (The Confederate forces numbered perhaps 56,000; the Union troops, 33,000. The Union loss was 6,000 killed and wounded, besides nearly 2,000 prisoners. The Confederate loss was placed at 9,000 killed and wounded.) The Second Regiment had the right of line, and though outnumbered and flanked by the enemy, they were the last to leave their station in the field. In this fight the regiment lost its colonel, Isaac M. Tucker, Capt. Charles Danforth, Color Sergeant Thomas Stevens of Belleville, and many others. The flags taken at this time were returned by a North Carolina regiment many years after. On the afternoon of June 27th Lieutenant Blewett was shot in the right breast. The ball took a downward course, and remained lodged in his side. While working his way to the hospital a fragment of a bursting shell cut his belt and accoutrements from his side. Upon arriving at Gaines’s Mills, then used as a hospital, Dr. Oakley dressed his wound and advised him to stop there, but fearing capture he continued on. This was fortunate, as later all the wounded at that hospital were taken prisoners. Aided by his colored servant he reached home in Belleville, July 4th, 1862. Owing to the fact that the ball could not be located the wound was long in healing. This incapacitated him for active service, and while stationed in Washington, September 9th, 1862, he resigned. Later Lieutenant Blewett became active in the National Guard of this state, was commissioned Captain Company H, Second Regiment, New Jersey Rifle Corps, September 19th, 1866; Captain Company H, Second Regiment National Guard, April 14th, ’69; Major and Quartermaster on the staff of Joseph W. Plume, Brigadier-General First Brigade, October 27th, ’69; Lieutenant-Colonel and Brigade Inspector, November 27th, ’71; resigned November 30th, ’74.
MR. THOMAS W. KINSEY.
Mr. Thomas W. Kinsey comes from a long line of warriors, and has lived up to the traditions of the family.
Four brothers of the name came to this country in the Mayflower: two settled in Connecticut and two in New Jersey. An early ancestor, John Kinsey, was speaker of the New Jersey House of Representatives. The grandfather of Thomas W., Joel Kinsey, fought in the Revolution; his son, Joel, Jr., volunteered for the war of 1812, and his grandson, Thomas W., above, when fifteen years of age, enlisted for three years at the beginning of the Civil War and, when his time had expired, re-enlisted on the field for three more, or until the end of the war, putting in four years and seven months of fighting.
During this time he received four wounds and two furloughs, one of ten days for bravery on the field of battle and one of thirty days after serving three years in the ranks. And Mr. Kinsey says he “had no special adventures—just plenty of fighting”.
By the time his mother had given her consent to his enlistment all the New Jersey regiments were full, so this fifteen-year-old boy went to New York and enlisted at Fort Schuyler in the First Long Island Regiment, which was principally raised through the efforts of Henry Ward Beecher, whose brother was chaplain to the regiment and whose son was a lieutenant therein. This regiment was later known as the 67th N. Y., and when its members became decimated by slaughter it was merged in the 65th N. Y.
Mr. Kinsey was in all the principal engagements of the Army of the Potomac except that at Winchester. During the Battle of the Wilderness he received a bullet in his leg which he carries yet. At the Seven Days’ Battle, under Brigadier General Abercrombie, his regiment could see nothing in front because of fields of tall grain, and he alone volunteered to scout, keeping a couple of hundred yards more or less in advance of the line, climbing trees and exposing himself in other ways, and it was for this exhibition of bravery that he received the ten days’ furlough referred to above.
He was promoted to the sergeancy of Company C, 67th N. Y.; was shot in the head while before Petersburg, a “minie” ball, which is about the size of one’s thumb, passing through his cheek and out of the back of his head at the base of the brain. Because of this wound he was in the Fairfax Seminary, which had been turned into a hospital, when Lincoln was shot, but through the efforts of Governor Ward was transferred to Newark, and was here in the hospital some three months, being mustered out while still a patient, on August 8, 1865.
Mr. Kinsey came to Woodside in 1867 and has ever since resided at the northeast corner of Summer place and May street, in the first house erected by Morrison & Briggs.