Officers during this expedition were: William J. Brown, colonel; James Low, lieutenant colonel; David Jagger, major; George Weller, quartermaster; William J. Hathaway, adjutant.
In August Colonel Brown twice offered the services of the regiment for nine months, but the offers were refused by Governor Morgan. He offered them again September 17, when they were accepted. Recruiting for it was complicated by the efforts of Colonel Isaac Wood to raise an authorized regiment of three years' men in the county at the same time, but he stopped after enlisting 272 men, who were consolidated with the 176th N. Y. V. and mustered in November 20th.
Colonel Brown continued to enroll volunteers until February 2nd, when his regiment, known as the 168th, left Newburgh with 750 men, and New York City eleven days later with 835 men. It went to Yorktown, and remained there on garrison duty during nearly its whole term of service. Once a detachment of 140 men under Captain Daniel Torbush was sent with detachments from other regiments up York and Mattapony Rivers, and the Torbush detachment was placed to guard the Richmond road. Here it was attacked by a force of Confederate cavalry, and repulsed them, killing fourteen, and losing one killed, five wounded and two captured. September 16th the regiment was sent to Bridgeport, Ala., and remained there on guard duty until October 14th, when it went back to Newburgh, and was mustered out October 31st. During its nine months of service it lost one killed, eighteen died, thirteen captured and 184 deserters. Its commissioned officers were:
Colonel: William R. Brown. Lieutenant-Colonels: James Low, James C. Rennison. Majors: George Waller (dismissed), James C. Rennison, Daniel Torbush. Adjutant: Wm. R. Hathway. Quartermasters: James H. Anderson, George C. Spencer. Surgeon: Jacob M. Leighton. Assistant Surgeon: Edward B. Root. Chaplain: R. Howard Wallace. Captains: Wm. H. Terwilliger, Daniel Torbush, James H. Anderson, Isaac Jenkinson, Bennett Gilbert, George McCleary, Samuel Hunter, John D. Wood, James C. Rennison, Myron A. Tappan, Marshal Van Zile. First Lieutenants: Nathan Hubbard, Oliver Taylor, Jacob K. R. Oakley, Archibald Ferguson, James H. Searles, Lawrence Brennan, James T. Chase, De Witt C. Wilkin, Wm. D. Dickey, Marshal Van Tile, George R. Brainsted. Second Lieutenants: Thomas P. Terwilliger, Isaac N. Morehouse, James H. Anderson, Geo. C. Marvin, Andrew J. Gilbert, Samuel C. Wilson, Paul Terwilliger, Geo. W. Hennion, Daniel Low, Jr., Geo. R. Brainsted, Bartley Brown, Lester Genung.
The 176th regiment, with which Colonel Wood's 272 recruits were consolidated, was sent to the Department of the Gulf as a part of the Nineteenth Corps, and was in the Red River campaign in 1864, in General Sheridan's Shenandoah Valley campaign the same year, and in Georgia and North Carolina in the early months of 1865. In the Red River campaign it did some fighting and lost many men in killed, wounded and prisoners. Of its Orange County officers, T. Henry Edsall was adjutant, Sprague K. Wood rose from sergeant to captain, and Joseph Goodsell from second lieutenant to captain.
The company of cavalry recruited in the fall of 1861 by Morris I. McCormal as a part of Colonel Van Wyck's "Tenth Legion," when it was detached from this regiment was mustered in as Co. C, First Mounted Rifles, and had ninety-five men. The company served three years. Officers were: Morris I. McCormal, captain; Charles F. Allen, first lieutenant; Arthur Hagen, second lieutenant; Ardice Robbins, orderly sergeant; C. R. Smith, quartermaster sergeant. Captain McCormal resigned in 1862, but re-entered the service in the Fifteenth Cavalry in 1863. Quartermaster Smith and Sergeants James Eaton, Frank Mills and Fred Penney were promoted to lieutenants.
Orange County was represented in the Seventh, afterward Second, regiment of Cavalry, its volunteers being mostly in Co. B, under Captain Charles E. Morton of New Windsor. Alanson Randall, U. S. A., a native of Newburgh, was colonel of the regiment from November, 1864, to the muster out, June 5, 1865. The regiment was also known as the Harris Light Cavalry.
Recruits were obtained in Orange County for the Fifteenth Cavalry in the winter of 1863-4 by Captain Morris I. McCormal of Middletown, and Lieutenant Charles H. Lyon of Newburgh.
The Fifteenth Heavy Artillery's Co. M was mostly recruited in Orange County in the winter of 1863-4. The regiment was mustered in at Fort Lyon, Va., February 3, 1864, remained there until March 27th, when it went to Beverly Station and was assigned to duty in the Artillery Reserve of the Army of the Potomac, and did creditable service in several bloody battles. When Co. M was organized its officers were: Wm. D. Dickey of Newburgh, captain; Alfred Newbatt and Julius Niebergall, first lieutenants; John Ritchie and Robert B. Keeler, second lieutenants. August 15th Captain Dickey was placed in command of the Third Battalion and Lieutenant Ritchie took command of the company, leading it through the engagements in the struggle for the Weldon railroad, in one of which it lost in killed and wounded a third of its men. For the regiment's good work here and in a previous fight at Haines' Tavern it was complimented in the general orders of Meade. Co. M was mustered out in July, 1865. It lost during its year of service three officers and ninety-five privates. The promotions were: Captain Dickey to major, Second Lieutenants Keeler and Ritchie to first lieutenants, and Sergeants Joseph M. Dickey and Riemann to second lieutenants.