Faces of the 12th Virginia Infantry ("Petersburg Regiment"): Wyatt Mosely Elliott, Involved in Booth Conspiracy

Caption:  Wyatt Moseley Elliott

Credit:  Virginia Military Institute

John Wilkes Booth stood in the ranks of the Richmond Grays at John Brown's hanging in 1859 while the Grays belonged to the 1st Virginia Infantry.  Detached from the 1st Virginia and dispatched to Norfolk under Capt. Wyatt Moseley Elliott, a Virginia Military Institute graduate and the Richmond Whig’s publisher, the Grays became Company G of the 12th Virginia in April 1861.  Elliott declined to stand for reelection in May 1862 and subsequently led the Richmond Battalion, the 25th Battalion Infantry, a local defense unit, as its lieutenant colonel.  Commanding the 25th Battalion, Elliott played a minor role in the conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln that led to his assassination by Booth.  Elliott returned to civilian life as a Richmond newspaper editor.  He also served as a state legislator.

Faces of the 12th Virginia Infantry ("Petersburg Regiment"): James Edward Tyler, Conducted 12th's Only Execution

Caption:  James Edward Tyler

Credit:  American Civil War Museum

Private James Edward Tyler may have stood in the ranks of the Richmond Grays with John Wilkes Booth at John Brown's hanging at Charles Town, Virginia in 1859.  At that time, the Grays belonged to the 1st Virginia Infantry.  Tyler was a building contractor in civilian life.  In 1861 the Grays were transferred to the 12th Virginia Infantry and sent to Norfolk, becoming the 12th's Company G.  Tyler rose through the ranks and reached the rank of captain by January 1863.  He commanded the bridge detail at Germanna Ford attacked on April 29, 1863 by the vanguard of the Federal army heading for Chancellorsville.  By November 1863, he had been exchanged and was charged with the execution of the only one of the 12th's soldiers ever shot for cowardice.  Tyler assumed command of the sharpshooter battalion of Mahone's Brigade on May 6, 1864, after the battalion's previous commander took charge of the 12th.  (At the same time the 12th's previous commander became its brigadier, the former brigadier William Mahone rose to division command and Fighting Dick Anderson, the former division commander, assumed command of Longstreet's Corps after Old Pete's wounding that day.)  Though wounded on May 24, 1864 when the division sharpshooters helped rout Ledlie's brigade of Burnside's Corps at the North Anna, Tyler returned to the ranks and surrendered at Appomattox. 

Faces of the 12th Virginia Infantry("Petersburg Regiment") : Fielding Lewis Taylor, Mortally Wounded at Crampton's Gap

Caption:  Fielding Lewis Taylor

Credit:  Creative Commons, “Fielding Lewis Taylor,” findagrave.com, May 25, 2017

Norfolk-born Fielding Lewis Taylor, who resided in Gloucester County and had attended Washington College, became the 12th Virginia's first Lieutenant Colonel on July 1, 1861.  He was reelected to his position May 1, 1862.  At the battle of Seven Pines/Fair Oaks June 1, 1862, he took the colors away from a color bearer he thought had hesitated under fire.  Moments later, he defended the regiment against Maj. Gen. D. H. Hill's charge that the 12th had run.  Despite illness, he fought at Second Manassas/Second Bull Run on August 30, 1862.  Still too ill to take charge of the regiment at Crampton's Gap on September 14, 1862, Taylor accompanied the regiment bearing a gold-headed cane.  Taylor fell mortally wounded.  Private John E. Crow of the regiment's Company E, the Petersburg Riflemen, saved Taylor's cane by sticking it into the barrel of his fouled rifle. 

Faces of the 12th Virginia Infantry ("Petersburg Regiment"): Robert Randolph Henry, Courier at Gettysburg

Caption:  Robert Randolph Henry

Credit:  Judy Llamas, “Robert Randolph Henry,” findagrave.com, May 25, 2017

Born in South Carolina, Robert Randolph Henry was a student when he enlisted in the Petersburg Riflemen, the 12th Virginia's Company E, in 1861.  The 12th was known as the Petersburg Regiment because most its ten companies came from Petersburg.  According to Pvt. Westwood A. Todd, a Norfolk lawyer who had transferred from the Petersburg City Guard, the 12th's Company A, the Riflemen were the flower of Petersburg.  Many of the company's highly educated members, including Henry and Todd, went on to become officers.

During the winter of 1862-1863, Henry was Todd's "chum."  That meant the two slept together for warmth.

By the battle of Gettysburg, Henry was serving as a courier for the division commander, Maj. Gen. Richard Heron "Fighting Dick" Anderson.  On July 3, 1863, during the artillery duel preliminary to Pickett's Charge, Henry was carrying a dispatch to the division from General Anderson.  Fragments from a Federal shell killed Henry's horse and Henry had to deliver his dispatch to a different part of Anderson's division than the part intended.  We do not know what the dispatch said, but in all likelihood it dictated the subsequent advance of the division; but when the time came for the division to go forward, it was too late to do any good and another courier arrived with orders calling off Wright's, Posey's and Mahone's brigades.  Wilcox's and Lang's were not called off and advanced only to add to the number of casualties.

At the battle of Globe Tavern about six miles south of Petersburg (Globe Tavern was also known as Six Mile House, among other things) on August 19, 1864, Henry was dispatched by Brig. Gen. William Mahone, then in command of Anderson's division, to seek reinforcements from Lt. Gen. A. P. Hill, the corps commander.  Henry got lost in the woods and went southeast instead of northwest.  Encountering a column of Union soldiers, he turned back into an area teeming with men of both sides knocked loose from their commands.  There he encountered a Federal brigadier riding accompanied only by an aide.  Henry pulled an inoperative pistol captured at the Crater on July 30, 1864, took the two Unionists prisoner, and handed them over to Mahone.

As of the battle of Burgess Mill, October 27, 1864, Henry was an officer on Mahone's staff.  Henry suffered a serious wound that sidelined him for the rest of the war.

After the war, Henry moved to Tazewell County in western Virginia and served there as Commonwealth Attorney.

Faces of the 12th Virginia Infantry ("Petersburg Regiment"): Donald McKenzie "Doncey" Dunlop

Caption:  Donald McKenzie “Doncey” Dunlop

Credit:  Petersburg Siege Museum

Private (eventually Sgt.) Donald McKenzie "Doncey" Dunlop joined the 12th's Company C, the Petersburg New or "B" Grays, on April 19, 1861.  He was a relative of the prominent Petersburg tobacco Dunlops.  A practical joker who deflated his cousin and fellow New Gray Pvt. "English John" Dunlop's air mattress in Norfolk and a scrounger who left his family without meat on one occasion during the Siege of Petersburg, he suffered wounds at Heth's Salient at Spotsylvania (May 12, 1864) and at Hatcher's Run (February 7, 1865) and was taken prisoner on the retreat to Appomattox.  After the war, Doncey moved to Baltimore.  First Lieutenant James Eldred Phillips of the 12th's Company G, the Richmond Grays, shared with Dunlop a corner of the star Phillips took when dividing up the Petersburg Regiment's last battle flag at Appomattox.

Longstreet Had Many More than 15,000 Men Available for Pickett's Charge

Longstreet had available for Pickett's Charge nearly the 30,000 men Old Pete thought necessary to ensure success.  See Richard Rollins, “The Second Wave of Pickett’s Charge,” Gettysburg Magazine, No. 18, July 1998, 104-110.

These troops included those of Mahone's Brigade of Anderson's Division, which included the 12th Virginia Infantry, the Petersburg Regiment.  George S. Bernard, “The Gettysburg Campaign;” in Hampton Newsome, John Horn and John G. Selby, eds., Civil War Talks: Further Reminiscences of George S. Bernard and His Fellow Veterans (The University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 2012), 133-134; George Morley Vickers, ed., Under Both Flags:  A Panorama of the Great Civil War, As represented in Story, Anecdote, Adventure, and the Romance of Reality, Written by Both Sides; the Men and Women Who Created the Greatest Epoch in our Nation’s History (DesMoines:  Mutual Books Concern, 1896), ed., 70; John Horn, The Petersburg Regiment in the Civil War, 1859-1865, A History of the 12th Virginia Infantry from John Brown's Hanging to Appomattox (El Dorado, CA:  Savas Beatie, 2019), 185 n. 79.  

Had the additional men been committed, Pickett's Charge ought to have succeeded--at least to some degree.  Ibid., 188, n. 93.

After "The Petersburg Regiment" Is Published, All the Books on Gettysburg Will Have to Be Rewritten

            

            The Petersburg Regiment in the Civil War: AHistory of the 12th Virginia Infantry from John Brown’s Hanging to Appomattox,1859-1865 is nearing the last stages of production at Savas Beatie.  This book will shed new light on what went wrong with Longstreet's attack on July 2, 1863, and Pickett's Charge on July 3, 1863.  At Gettysburg, the 12th belonged to Mahone's Brigade, often falsely charged with doing nothing.

           John Wilkes Booth stood in the ranks of one of this remarkable regiment's future companies at John Brown's hanging.  Known as the Petersburg Regiment because most of its companies came from the Cockade City, the 12th Virginia declined to have Stonewall Jackson appointed its first colonel because of his asceticism and eccentricity.  Its men first saw combat in naval battles, including Hampton Roads and First Drewry's Bluff.  At Seven Pines, their first fight on land, they embarrassed themselves.  They excelled during the Seven Days and at Second Manassas/Bull Run.  Almost annihilated at Crampton’s Gap, the regiment fielded only twenty-five soldiers at Sharpsburg/Antietam.  The 12th distinguished itself again at Chancellorsville, but its role at Gettysburg remains controversial.  In the Wilderness, it played a prominent role in Longstreet’s flank attack as well as in his near-fatal wounding.  Spotsylvania saw its men giving the bayonet to Burnside’s Corps and capturing their first enemy flag.  At Jerusalem Plank Road, they helped put to flight Hancock’s Corps, the pride of the Federal army.  They fought in defense of Petersburg at the battle of the Crater.  At Globe Tavern they narrowly escaped destruction.  At Second Reams Station they contributed to a miraculous Confederate victory.  They captured three enemy flags at Burgess Mill, which thwarted Grant’s last thrust toward Richmond before Lincoln’s re-election.  They helped stop the Federals at Hatcher’s Run in February 1865.  Two days before the surrender at Appomattox, they participated in Lee’s last victory—the rearguard action at Cumberland Church.  By this time, they numbered among the Army of Northern Virginia’s most renowned shock troops.

            This history follows the Petersburg Regiment from the hanging of John Brown to Appomattox.  These pages set forth the reasons the men of the 12th Virginia gave for fighting, leaving the ranks, and returning from “bomb-proof” (safe from combat) detached duty.  The book’s tables compare the prowess of these soldiers with that of friend and foe.  The book resolves the controversy over the fate of the regiment’s last battle flag—was it captured on April 6, 1865, or torn up at Appomattox?

            With thirty-two original maps, eight original diagrams, three illustrative tables, many photos, and numerous explanatory footnotes, this book will put readers in the shoes of the Petersburg Regiment’s soldiers from the Civil War’s beginning to its end.

Advance Praise for The Petersburg Regiment

One of a score or so of outstanding unit histories.

-- Edwin C. Bearss, former Chief Historian, National Park Service, author, The Petersburg Campaign

Regimental histories are, for the most part, necessary resources for campaign histories but rarely worth reading beyond that. John Horn’s The Petersburg Regiment in the Civil War is a decided exception to this rule. Charting the course of a single regiment from 1861 to the war’s end is a daunting challenge but Horn is up to the task. His handling of the numerous campaigns is solid, and he deftly fits his regiment into the mix, almost always adding vivid anecdotes to the overall narrative (many appearing for the first time) by skillfully employing an extensive selection of first-hand accounts drawn from published and unpublished sources. As an added plus, the maps are numerous and well-drawn. John Horn’s book is a model of its kind.

-- Noah Andre Trudeau, author, The Last Citadel: Petersburg, Virginia, June 1864-April 1865 and Lincoln’s Greatest Journey

     John Horn’s splendid history of the 12th Virginia will stand among the classics of the discipline.

     Long years of research and patient crafting allowed the author to deliver an account as detailed and precise, as honest and clear, as any regimental accounting we’ll ever see.  Following the men of Petersburg and its environs from the naïve enthusiasm of the war’s initial months through near-disaster amid the gore at Crampton’s Gap, and on through a series of tough stands in the Chancellorsville campaign to the blunt savagery of the war’s last year, this chronicle of one hard-used, heroic regiment is a true soldier’s book—and that is a great compliment.  John Horn takes us as close as words on a page can bring us to the soldier’s experience.  From merry snowball fights between entire brigades, to the final, bitter defense of their home city, the men of the 12^th Virginia leap to life.

     Horn’s reliance on first-hand accounts reminds us of how casual death became—as well as how hungry those men in gray became as early as the winter of 1863, when at least a few acquaintances of the regiment found rat meat a tasty supplement to their rations.

    Simple pleasures and harsh punishments, battlefield confusion and clashes of character…informal truces on the picket line and the shock of finding your powder wet as the enemy approaches…so often, it’s the telling detail, the tidbit ignored by the proponents of grand history, that really bring those Civil War soldiers to life again.  And Horn is the master of such details.

--Ralph Peters, author, Cain at Gettysburg and The Damned of Petersburg

The culmination of years of study and research, John Horn’s definitive history of the Petersburg Regiment narrates the wartime adventures of the 12th Virginia Regiment with the skill of a master story-teller.  We meet the regiment’s members and experience with them the horrors of battle, the exhaustion of the march, and the tedium of camp life.  Grounded in primary source materials, told with engaging verve, and accompanied by an ample array of maps, this is Civil War history at its best. The Petersburg Regiment sets a new standard for regimental histories.

--Gordon C. Rhea, author, On to Petersburg:  Grant and Lee, June 4-15, 1864

John Horn has written important books on the entire Siege of Petersburg and on some of its most crucial battles.  His latest book focuses on the “Petersburg Regiment,” the 12^th Virginia Infantry.  This hard-fighting unit of Robert E. Lee’s army was heavily engaged from early 1862 to the Civil War’s final days.  Its significant service is compellingly narrated throughout these pages.  Complementing this narration are keen analyses of the 12^th’s strengths – and shortcomings.  This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the humanity of the military experience.

--Dr. Richard J. Sommers, author, Challenges of Command in the Civil War and Richmond Redeemed

The 12th Virginia had not consistently distinguished itself early in the war, John Horn writes, but in his stirring regimental history, the Petersburg Regiment finally gets its (over)due.  Horn writes with humanity of a band of brothers who push through the hard work of war across Virginia only to spend the last unhappy months fighting on their own doorsteps to protect their home town.  Horn’s book is a model for the way regimental histories should be written: compelling, empathetic, and highly readable.

--Chris Mackowski, editor, The Emerging Civil War Series, author, Hell Itself:  The Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-7, 1864

A comprehensive biography of a fighting regiment in the Army of Northern Virginia, especially useful in delineating the hometown support system that sustained the regiment throughout the war.

--Dr. William Glenn Roberson, author, The First Battle of Petersburg

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