Appointed Major—Judge Advocate—Lieutenant-Colonel—South Mountain—Wounded—Fighting while Down—After Morgan—Battle of Cloyd Mountain—Charge up the Mountain—Enemy's Works Carried by Storm—First Battle of Winchester—Berryville.
That a loyal citizen of the antecedents, ardent patriotism, and impulsive nature of Rutherford B. Hayes would enter the army in the war for the Union, was to be looked for as a thing of course. He had been in the habit of obeying every call of duty, and could not therefore disobey when duty called loudest. He regarded the war waged for the supremacy of the constitution and the laws as a just and necessary war, and preferred to go into it if he knew he "was to die or be killed in the course of it." He had been a most earnest advocate of the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency, and had been an anti-slavery man of established convictions long before the candidacy of Fremont for the Presidency. He did not think the Union should be destroyed to make slavery perpetual. He desired to mitigate and finally eradicate that evil. He had prayed for the election of General Harrison for the sake of the country; he had cast his first vote for Henry Clay, his second for General Taylor, and his third for General Scott. But the old Whig party having ceased to be a living organization, he gave his whole heart to the Republican party and its cause, and by political speeches, and in other ways, helped forward the movement in favor of equality of rights and laws. The insult to the flag at Fort Sumter aroused to the intensest pitch the patriotic indignation of a united North. At a great mass-meeting held in Cincinnati, R. B. Hayes was selected to give expression to the loyal voice, by being made chairman of the public committee on resolutions. It is not needful to add that these resolutions had all the fire and intensity of the popular feeling. The knowledge that it was his purpose to enter the Union army having reached Governor Dennison, that officer appointed Hayes major of the Twenty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry, June 7, 1861. With this appointment was coupled the appointments of W. S. Rosecrans as colonel, and Stanley Matthews as lieutenant-colonel of the same regiment. Colonel Rosecrans, with the other field-officers, had just set to work organizing the new regiment, when Rosecrans was appointed brigadier-general, and ordered to take command of the Ohio troops moving in the direction of Western Virginia. Upon the promotion of Rosecrans, Colonel E. P. Scammon, an officer of military education, was placed in command of the Twenty-third.
After a brief period of discipline at Camp Chase the regiment was ordered, on the 25th of July, to Clarksburgh, West Virginia, and on the 29th went into camp at Weston. We shall not follow it in this or in subsequent campaigns, in its marching, scouting, skirmishing, or counter-marching. It is enough to say, that in this first campaign it assisted in clearing the whole mountainous region of Western Virginia of a formidable enemy.
Major Hayes was appointed by General Rosecrans, on the 19th of September, 1861, judge advocate of the department of Ohio, the duties of which service he discharged about two months. He received his first promotion, to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, October 24, 1861. Passing over less important events, we come to the first serious battle in which he was engaged.
THE BATTLE OF SOUTH MOUNTAIN
Was fought on Sunday, September 14, 1862, a beautiful, bright September day. The enemy were in possession of the crest of the mountain, where the old National road crossed it. The army of McClellan, with Burnside in advance, were pressing up that mountain by the National road as its center. General Cox's division of Burnside's corps was in advance. The brigade to which Lieutenant-colonel Hayes was attached was in advance of the division. His regiment was in advance of the brigade. He was ordered to pass up a mountain path on the left of the National road and feel for the enemy, advancing until he struck him; to push him up the mountain if he could; in short, to open the engagement. Lieutenant-colonel Hayes pushed into the woods, came upon the enemy's pickets, received their fire, and drove them in. He soon saw a strong force of the enemy coming toward the line of his advance from a neighboring hill, and went to meet them. Hayes charged into that force with a regimental yell, and, after a fierce fight, drove them out of the woods in which he found them, into an open field near the summit. He then drove them across the field, losing many men and capturing and killing many of the enemy.
Hayes, having just given the command for a third charge, felt a stunning blow, and found that a large musket ball had struck his left arm above the elbow, carrying away and badly fracturing the entire bone. Fearing an artery might be severed, he asked a soldier to bandage his arm above the elbow, and a few minutes after, through exhaustion, he fell. Recovering from a state of unconsciousness while down, in a few moments, and observing that his men had fallen back to the woods for shelter, he sprang to his feet, and, with unusual vehemence, ordered them to come forward, which they did. He continued fighting some time at the head of his men; but falling a second time, from exhausted strength, he kept on giving orders, while down, to fight it out.
Major Comly, the second in command, then came to him to learn the orders under which the regiment was fighting, and deeming it best to assume command, owing to the critical condition of Lieutenant-colonel Hayes, gave orders that the wounded hero should be carried from the field. In an almost illegible narrative, written with the left hand just after the battle, we find this modest record, by the intrepid sufferer in this event: "While I was down I had considerable talk with a wounded Confederate lying near me. I gave him messages for my wife and friends in case I should not get up. We were right jolly and friendly. It was by no means an unpleasant experience."
The enemy in this action continued to pour a most destructive fire of musketry, grape, and canister into the Union ranks. Lieutenant-colonel Hayes again made his appearance on the field with his wound half dressed, and fought until carried off. Soon after, the rest of the brigade coming up, a brilliant bayonet charge up the hill dislodged the enemy and drove him into the woods beyond. The Twenty-third regiment in this engagement lost within eight men of half the entire force engaged.
South Mountain is inscribed on all the standards of this gallant regiment, and surrounds with a sad halo of glory the names of the living and the graves of the dead.