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After the Peninsula campaign the Regiment arrived on August 29th upon the second Bull Run battlefield. The Regiment was engaged in the battle and suffered many casualties, Colonel Hays was severely wounded. One third of the Regiment was either killed or wounded. The next day, while engaged near Chantilly, Virginia General Kearney, the Division Commander, was killed.

Upon the death of its commander the division with the 63rd Regiment was ordered to the defenses of Washington, DC. While there Colonel Hays was promoted to Brigadier General.

Isaac McKeag was promoted from private to corporal on December 1, 1862 (11)

On December 12 the Regiment was moved to Fredericksburg, Virginia where it was engaged in battle on the right flank of the enemy. Both sides suffered many killed and wounded.

While engaged in the Battle of Fredersicksburg, for three days the regiment endured unparalleled sufferings from inclement weather, at the end of which the campaign was abandoned and the Regiment returned to camp across the Rappahannock River.

Chancellorsville and A Fallen Hero

On April 30, 1863 the regiment crossed U. S. Ford. On May 2nd they were in position near the plank road and later moved to a position in some small pines. Later the regiment was moved to a position about two miles in advance of their earlier position near the plank road. When the Stonewall Brigade overran the Eleventh Corps, the 63rd supported the retreat of Eleventh Corps. (12)

"Joe Hooker, it seems, never came to appreciate it (Hazel Grove). Before first light that Sunday he called Sickles to the Chancellor house and ordered him to collect his two divisions and his batteries and march rapidly 'by the most practicable route' back to Fairview." . . . "Sickles", he went on, "knew not at what moment the forces of Lee would strike him in rear, when he would have been between two fires and liable for capture. . . General Hooker plainly saw the great danger. . . ."
(13)

There was danger, to be sure, just as there was danger inherent in any position in the shape of protruding salient. Losing here would leave Sickles with a particularly tortuous route for retreat. Yet there were seven brigades of veteran Yankee infantry here, and 38 guns. And whatever Dan Sickles might have lacked in military judgment he could make up for with military pugnaciousness. Furthermore, on Sickles's immediate left, facing Lee, were three more brigades under John Geary of the Twelfth Corps."

"Sunday, morning, May 3rd, firing from the picket in our front commenced at an early hour, and at six o'clock, A.M., our skirmisher had been driven in, and the enemy was seen approaching in line of battle from what had been the previous morning, our rear. As the brigade was formed, the 63rd was the extreme left of the line, and the first regiment engaged. Our left flank being unprotected, the enemy gained it and poured in a most destructive fire, without our being able to reply effectively. The position was held until a large number had been struck, when, with the rest of the brigade, it fell back." (14)

"Before he could evacuate Hazel Grove, Dan Sickles had to clear a passage for his troops, especially for his artillery. The 105th Pennsylvania was detailed to corduroy a boggy section along a branch of Lewis's Run, and soon the troops were on the march back to Fairview. Wipple's division led, followed by Birney's. Staying to the last as rear guard at Hazel Grove were the six Pennsylvania regiments of Charles Graham (57th, 63rd, 68th, 114th, and 141st regiments). With Graham was James Huntington's Battery B 1st Ohio Light." (15)

"James J. Archer's brigade 1st, 7th, 14th Tennessee, 13th Alabama, 5th Alabama Battalionwas on the extreme right of the advance, and it was Archers's men Dority was shooting at. H. T. Childs of the 1st Tennessee reported that his regiment went 50 yards, and then halted to dress its lines. "Then General Archers's shrill, clear voice was heard along the line: 'Fix bayonets,! Forward, guide center! Charge 'em boys!'" With the Rebel yell they charged. At the edge of the Hazel Grove clearing they clambered over an undefended breastwork and opened fire on Huntington's Ohio battery and it infantry supports. (16)

"In his midnight reconnaissance Porter Alexander had found an artillery position in what was little more than a wide spot in the woods road north of Hazel Grove and deployed two batteries there, and now they too opened on the Federals. The Rebel riflemen and artillerists made a short fight of it. Archer's line outflanked Graham's, and with that the Federal began to give away and join the withdrawal. His regiment fell back, wrote Captain James Ryan of the 63rd Pennsylvania, "which is, perhaps, excusable, considering the terrible flank fire it was under all the time." (17)

"Archer's men pushed to within 70 yards of the barricade and then the fire became more than they could stand. . . . . However that may be, it was 6:45 A. M. and the Confederate had Hazel Grove for their guns." (18)

In his diary Rice C. Bull, 123rd New York Volunteer Infantry, which was in the support position of the Graham's regiments, relates that "I had just fired my gun and was lowering it from shoulder when I felt a sharp sting in my face as though I had been struck with something that caused no pain. Further: "I passed in the rear of several Companies, all were firing rapidly, and when back of Company K felt another stinging pain, this time in my left side just above the hip." "I told him who I was and asked if he could get someone to help me go to the Surgeon. He had two stretcher-bearers come; they did not take me to the Surgeon but carried me back about fifty yards to a small stream that ran parallel to our battle line." (Stream was Lewis Run. Editor's note.) . . ."When our Regiment fell back it had not passed over the place where the wounded lay but had gone to the right in the direction of the highway." . . . "They (the Confederates) had to cross around or over the wounded and were cautioned by their officers to be careful not to disturb them (the wounded and dying) more than was necessary". . . ."From that time on, while we were in the Confederate lines, all the Johnnies treated us with kindness and with consideration for our feelings; then did all they could to make us comfortable." . . . ."About noon, a Confederate officer rode along the line of the wounded and said that a detail had been organized to move all the wounded to a central point where we would be together." . . . Near the center of the cleared around, in front of where the Chancellor House stood, was a log cabin that had been unoccupied." (Area is Fairview. Editor's note.) . . . "Early Tuesday morning, May 12th, we were told that a Federal ambulance train was on its way to Chancellorsville to take us back to our Army and friends." That afternoon Confederate officers came and took a list of all prisoners, having each one sign a parole not to enter active service again until properly exchanged." (19)

11. Editor's notes from Official Military Record, Certificate of Disability for Discharge.

12. Ibid.

13. Sears, Stephen W., Chancellorsville, New York, Houghton Mifflin Company 1996, pp. 312-313.

14. Official Record, Sixty-Third Regiment, p. 494. Record located in The Soldiers and Sailors Memorial, Pittsburgh, PA

15. Sears, p. 316

16. Sears, p. 317

17. Sears, p. 317

18. Sears, p. 318

19. Bull, Rice C. Bull Soldering: The Civil War Diary of Rice C. Bull, 123rd New York Volunteer

Infantry. Edited by K. Jack Bauer. San Rafael, Calif:.: Presidio Press, 1977, pp. 57-83

Home



After the Peninsula campaign the Regiment arrived on August 29th upon the second Bull Run battlefield. The Regiment was engaged in the battle and suffered many casualties, Colonel Hays was severely wounded. One third of the Regiment was either killed or wounded. The next day, while engaged near Chantilly, Virginia General Kearney, the Division Commander, was killed. Upon the death of its commander the division with the 63rd Regiment was ordered to the defenses of Washington, DC. While there Colonel Hays was promoted to Brigadier General. Isaac McKeag was promoted from private to corporal on December 1, 1862 (11) On December 12 the Regiment was moved to Fredericksburg, Virginia where it was engaged in battle on the right flank of the enemy. Both sides suffered many killed and wounded. While engaged in the Battle of Fredersicksburg, for three days the regiment endured unparalleled sufferings from inclement weather, at the end of which the campaign was abandoned and the Regiment returned to camp across the Rappahannock River. Chancellorsville and A Fallen Hero On April 30, 1863 the regiment crossed U. S. Ford. On May 2nd they were in position near the plank road and later moved to a position in some small pines. Later the regiment was moved to a position about two miles in advance of their earlier position near the plank road. When the Stonewall Brigade overran the Eleventh Corps, the 63rd supported the retreat of Eleventh Corps. (12) "Joe Hooker, it seems, never came to appreciate it (Hazel Grove). Before first light that Sunday he called Sickles to the Chancellor house and ordered him to collect his two divisions and his batteries and march rapidly 'by the most practicable route' back to Fairview." . . . "Sickles", he went on, "knew not at what moment the forces of Lee would strike him in rear, when he would have been between two fires and liable for capture. . . General Hooker plainly saw the great danger. . . ." (13) There was danger, to be sure, just as there was danger inherent in any position in the shape of protruding salient. Losing here would leave Sickles with a particularly tortuous route for retreat. Yet there were seven brigades of veteran Yankee infantry here, and 38 guns. And whatever Dan Sickles might have lacked in military judgment he could make up for with military pugnaciousness. Furthermore, on Sickles's immediate left, facing Lee, were three more brigades under John Geary of the Twelfth Corps." "Sunday, morning, May 3rd, firing from the picket in our front commenced at an early hour, and at six o'clock, A.M., our skirmisher had been driven in, and the enemy was seen approaching in line of battle from what had been the previous morning, our rear. As the brigade was formed, the 63rd was the extreme left of the line, and the first regiment engaged. Our left flank being unprotected, the enemy gained it and poured in a most destructive fire, without our being able to reply effectively. The position was held until a large number had been struck, when, with the rest of the brigade, it fell back." (14) "Before he could evacuate Hazel Grove, Dan Sickles had to clear a passage for his troops, especially for his artillery. The 105th Pennsylvania was detailed to corduroy a boggy section along a branch of Lewis's Run, and soon the troops were on the march back to Fairview. Wipple's division led, followed by Birney's. Staying to the last as rear guard at Hazel Grove were the six Pennsylvania regiments of Charles Graham (57th, 63rd, 68th, 114th, and 141st regiments). With Graham was James Huntington's Battery B 1st Ohio Light." (15) "James J. Archer's brigade 1st, 7th, 14th Tennessee, 13th Alabama, 5th Alabama Battalionwas on the extreme right of the advance, and it was Archers's men Dority was shooting at. H. T. Childs of the 1st Tennessee reported that his regiment went 50 yards, and then halted to dress its lines. "Then General Archers's shrill, clear voice was heard along the line: 'Fix bayonets,! Forward, guide center! Charge 'em boys!'" With the Rebel yell they charged. At the edge of the Hazel Grove clearing they clambered over an undefended breastwork and opened fire on Huntington's Ohio battery and it infantry supports. (16) "In his midnight reconnaissance Porter Alexander had found an artillery position in what was little more than a wide spot in the woods road north of Hazel Grove and deployed two batteries there, and now they too opened on the Federals. The Rebel riflemen and artillerists made a short fight of it. Archer's line outflanked Graham's, and with that the Federal began to give away and join the withdrawal. His regiment fell back, wrote Captain James Ryan of the 63rd Pennsylvania, "which is, perhaps, excusable, considering the terrible flank fire it was under all the time." (17) "Archer's men pushed to within 70 yards of the barricade and then the fire became more than they could stand. . . . . However that may be, it was 6:45 A. M. and the Confederate had Hazel Grove for their guns." (18) In his diary Rice C. Bull, 123rd New York Volunteer Infantry, which was in the support position of the Graham's regiments, relates that "I had just fired my gun and was lowering it from shoulder when I felt a sharp sting in my face as though I had been struck with something that caused no pain. Further: "I passed in the rear of several Companies, all were firing rapidly, and when back of Company K felt another stinging pain, this time in my left side just above the hip." "I told him who I was and asked if he could get someone to help me go to the Surgeon. He had two stretcher-bearers come; they did not take me to the Surgeon but carried me back about fifty yards to a small stream that ran parallel to our battle line." (Stream was Lewis Run. Editor's note.) . . ."When our Regiment fell back it had not passed over the place where the wounded lay but had gone to the right in the direction of the highway." . . . "They (the Confederates) had to cross around or over the wounded and were cautioned by their officers to be careful not to disturb them (the wounded and dying) more than was necessary". . . ."From that time on, while we were in the Confederate lines, all the Johnnies treated us with kindness and with consideration for our feelings; then did all they could to make us comfortable." . . . ."About noon, a Confederate officer rode along the line of the wounded and said that a detail had been organized to move all the wounded to a central point where we would be together." . . . Near the center of the cleared around, in front of where the Chancellor House stood, was a log cabin that had been unoccupied." (Area is Fairview. Editor's note.) . . . "Early Tuesday morning, May 12th, we were told that a Federal ambulance train was on its way to Chancellorsville to take us back to our Army and friends." That afternoon Confederate officers came and took a list of all prisoners, having each one sign a parole not to enter active service again until properly exchanged." (19)

	11. Editor's notes from Official Military Record, Certificate of Disability for Discharge. 12. Ibid. 13. Sears, Stephen W., Chancellorsville, New York, Houghton Mifflin Company 1996, pp. 312-313. 14. Official Record, Sixty-Third Regiment, p. 494. Record located in The Soldiers and Sailors Memorial, Pittsburgh, PA 15. Sears, p. 316 16. Sears, p. 317 17. Sears, p. 317 18. Sears, p. 318 19. Bull, Rice C. Bull Soldering: The Civil War Diary of Rice C. Bull, 123rd New York Volunteer Infantry. Edited by K. Jack Bauer. San Rafael, Calif:.: Presidio Press, 1977, pp. 57-83

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