Reply of the Philadelphia Brigade Association to the Foolish and Absurd Narrative of Lieutenant Frank A. Haskell

by Philadelphia Brigade Association

General Roy Stone, of Pennsylvania, commanded the Second Brigade, Third Division, First Corps, at Gettysburg. Upon receiving serious wounds he was carried from the field, and Colonel Langhorne Wister, of Philadelphia, commanding the 150th Pennsylvania Regiment, succeeded to the command of the Brigade, and the Lieutenant-Colonel took command of the Regiment, and soon after was shot in the leg, remaining in command until his right arm was shattered. Carried into an adjacent barn, used temporarily as a hospital, the flow of blood was stopped by a tourniquet, and the arm bandaged—occupying about thirty minutes—after which he returned to his regiment and assumed command, maintaining the line held by it until the excruciating pain and faintness from shock and loss of blood compelled him to retire. The next day his arm was amputated at the shoulder.

For that—perhaps—unprecedented instance of heroism at Gettysburg the Lieutenant-Colonel of the 150th Pennsylvania was awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor; he was promoted for bravery on the field of battle, and this is what he, General Henry S. Huidekoper, of Philadelphia, a member of the Loyal Legion, Commandery of Pennsylvania, says of Haskell’s book:

“In the first print much of what Haskell said was suppressed, and we cannot but regret that any of it was made public, for, from a historical standpoint, the story is inaccurate and misleading, and from an ethical standpoint it is indecent, venomous, scandalous and vainglorious.”

And this is the “narrative” that the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of Massachusetts, and the History Commission of Wisconsin, have recently published in attractive and costly form, giving the same wide circulation, unmindful of the fact that thereby they are inflicting irreparable injury to both the living and the heroic dead.

THE PHILADELPHIA BRIGADE.

Colonel Chas. H. Banes, late President of the Market Street National Bank, was a typical soldier of the Civil War; he was a leading member of the Baptist Church in Philadelphia, and was as devout as a Christian as he was heroic as a Volunteer Soldier. In 1876 Colonel Banes published an interesting volume, entitled, “History of the Philadelphia Brigade.” No man was as competent as he to write such a history, inasmuch as he had long been the Adjutant of the Brigade and in possession of all its records. In his preface to that book Colonel Banes says:

“The four regiments of the Brigade were composed chiefly of Volunteers from the city of Philadelphia, and for that reason might properly be called the Philadelphia Brigade. It consisted of the 69th, 71st, 72d, and 106th Regiments of Pennsylvania Volunteers. The command had from the first enrollment until the muster out 350 field, staff and line officers, and over 6,000 non-commissioned officers and privates. The officers and men of the regiments were equal in courage, endurance and discipline to the best commands of the army, and their soldierly bearing on the march and in battle helped to make the history of the Army of the Potomac.”

As to the charge of cowardice against a Brigade that lost 3,533 in killed, wounded, deaths from other causes, and missing, made under the auspices of Dartmouth College, and the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, Commandery of Massachusetts, is so positive, so indecent, so scandalous, so brutal, and so absolutely false, the Philadelphia Brigade, in formulating a reply to these malicious and infamous violations of facts, has deemed it proper to submit, as briefly as possible, extracts from Colonel Banes’ “History of the Philadelphia Brigade,” about what the Old Brigade did from the time it received the order to move from Falmouth, Va., until it met and turned backward the charge of Pickett’s Division at the “Bloody Angle” of Gettysburg, on the afternoon of July 3, 1863.

BANES VERSUS HASKELL.

That “History of the Philadelphia Brigade,” by Colonel Chas. H. Banes, which records with absolute truthfulness the part taken by the Philadelphia Brigade from Ball’s Bluff to Appomattox, was written with the calm deliberation and adherence to facts characteristic of the man who stood foremost among his fellow citizens of Pennsylvania for business integrity, Christian rectitude, and American manhood and honor, and sensitive in the highest degree of his honor, and herewith is what that manly man, comrade and companion, Colonel Chas. H. Banes, Adjutant of the Philadelphia Brigade, records in his history regarding the battle at the Bloody Angle of Gettysburg, and the march from Falmouth immediately preceding that great battle: