Battle of First Bull Run Online Exhibit
Gallant Charge of the Sixty-ninth Regiment, New York State Militia
Caption: Gallant Charge of the Sixty-ninth Regiment, New York State Militia, upon a Rebel Battery at the Battle of Bull Run. See page 503 [for related story].
Source: Illustration from Harper's Weekly, August 10, 1861, page 508; text below from page 503.
Charge of the Sixty-Ninth
On page 508 we illustrate one of the Gallant Charges of the Sixty-Ninth Regiment, New York State Militia, at the Battle of Bull Run. This gallant regiment performed prodigies of valor that day. An officer of the Second thus speaks of their performance:
The Sixty-ninth Regiment, New York State Militia, performed prodigies of valor. They stripped themselves, and dashed into the enemy with the utmost fury. The difficulty was to keep them quiet. While the Second was engaging a regiment of rebels they retreated into a thick hay-field to draw the Northerners into a trap. The Second continued firing into them, while the Sixty-ninth, by a flank movement, took them in the rear, and pouring a deadly fire into their ranks, afterward charged them with the bayonet. The slaughter was terrible and the defeat complete, for not a man stirred of the whole five or six hundred. In this attack there were very few of the Sixty-ninth wounded.
Note: An illustration of the Sixty-ninth Regiment also appeared in New York Illustrated News on August 5, 1861.