Ok - so I am not in Albany County, but last Friday I visited Petersburg National Battlefield in Virginia and remembered the Bethlehem men who fought, and died there. It was the map below with The Wilderness right at the top that really jogged my memory.
The book Heroes of Albany County by Rufus Clark published in 1866 has write ups about the many people from Albany who died during the Civil War. Here are the four from Bethlehem that died in the battles/campaign on the map.
James Herring, of Bethlehem, enlisted in Company C, Seventh
Regiment, August 1862, and was killed in the battle of the Wilderness.
Stephen Walker, of Bethlehem, was born in Glarken, Scotland,
in 1835. He enlisted in Company C, One Hundred and Twenty-first Regiment, August
1862, and was killed in the battle of the Wilderness.
Peter Taylor, of Bethlehem, was born July 10, 1818. He enlisted
in Company K, Seventh Regiment, August 8, 1862, and was killed at Reams’
Station, August 25, 1864. While not on this map, Reams' Station was just south of Petersburg.
And then there is David Burhans. He has a much longer write up
in the Heroes book, as well as in Bethlehem Revisited. Below are highlights from Heroes.
Capt. David Burhans, of Company H., Forty-third Regiment
N.Y. Volunteers, was born in the town of Bethlehem, Albany county, June 24,
1840.
He participated in the battles of Fredericksburg,
Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Rappahannock Station, The Wilderness, Spotsylvania,
and other engagements previous to the battle of Po River, where he fell, in the
front of that conflict, on the 10th of May, 1864.
He was a young man of unblemished reputation, and highly
respected by all who knew him, for his many virtues.
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| Capt. Burhans |
Read more about Burhans in Bethlehem Revisited:
Read more about Samuel West who served with New York's 7th Regiment Heavy Artillery during the Overland Campaign Movements on the map. As the article says, he was wounded June 3, 1864 at Cold Harbor; captured June 16, 1864 at Petersburg; paroled, February 27, 1865 at North East Ferry, NC; mustered out, May 21, 1865 from hospital at Albany.
In general, read more Bethlehem Civil War stories by just searching my blog.
And finally, at Petersburg I learned the fascinating and tragic story of the Crater. Where Union forces (or the Federals as signage at the park says) managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Basically, Union troops secretly tunneled under the Confederate line, detonated the underground explosives and blew a big hole in the ground. Federal troops advanced and were soon trapped in the hole. The whole thing was a big bloody deadly mess. Which is kind of how I think of the Civil War in general. An absolutely necessary war but wow, so many many people died and the country was so torn apart.
Get thee to Google for more details of the Battle of the Crater. Here's a picture to the entrance to the mine. The actual crater is literally a big hole in the ground, now softened with green grass and pine trees.
