The 149th Pennsylvania Infantry, also known as the 2nd Bucktail Regiment, volunteered during the American Civil War and served a 3-year term from August 1862 to June 1865. Like their forerunners in the 1st Bucktail Regiment, each soldier wore a bucktail on his headwear as a trophy of marksmanship. During the first year of the Civil War, the 1st Bucktails distinguished themselves as skirmishers and sharpshooters, and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton desired to raise an entire brigade of similar characteristics. Stanton enlisted Major Roy Stone of the 1st Bucktails to this task, and Stone raised 20 companies of recruits by the end of August 1862. These 20 companies became the 149th and 150th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiments. The Regiment is most noted for its service and sacrifice on July 1, 1863, at the Battle of Gettysburg. One source reports 53 soldiers killed, 172 wounded, and 111 missing or captured out of 450 soldiers engaged for a total casualty rate of 74.7% at the epic Battle.
Organization Company Primary Location of Recruitment Earliest Captain A Lycoming & Tioga Counties Alfred J. Sofield B Clearfield County John Irvin C Lebanon County John H. Bassler D Allegheny County James Glenn E Clearfield County Z.C. McCullough F Luzerne County Edwin S. Osborne G Perry, Potter & Tioga Counties Thomas B. Bryden H Clarion & Mifflin Counties Charles B. Stratton I Huntingdon County Brice X. Blair K Potter County John C. Johnson
Gettysburg Prelude
After a long march, the I Corps was in the vicinity of Gettysburg on July 1. Fighting would begin that day before the Union infantry, including the Bucktails, were in position. By 9:30 am, the Bucktails were coming up fast from their overnight quarters at the Samuel White farm. Daugherty summarized research on the route:
Evidence suggests that the brigade moved from the Samuel White farm, where they had spent the night, to the Bull Frog Road, and then east on the Millerstown Road (now Pumping Station Road), crossed Sachs covered bridge, and arrived at the Millerstown Road intersection with the Emmitsburg Road at the Peach Orchard.(59)
As they neared Gettysburg, they were given instructions to leave the road and march, double-quick, 2 miles across fields to the Lutheran Theological Seminary.(60) Stone's brigade arrived in the seminary area soaked in sweat and panting with exhaustion. Many men had fallen out of the ranks but soon rejoined the brigade.(61)
General Reynolds had been killed that morning, struck at about 10:15 while directing movements on McPherson's Ridge. General Doubleday was, therefore, in command of the I Corps, when he came upon the men near the seminary. Chamberlin recalled Doubleday's comments after he learned they were from Pennsylvania:
[He] addressed a few words of encouragement to the several regiments, reminding them that they were upon their own soil, that the eye of the commonwealth was upon them, and that there was every reason to believe they would do their duty to the uttermost in defense of their State.(62)
Doubleday ordered Stone to deploy his three regiments south of Chambersburg Pike, along McPherson Ridge between two other I Corps brigades, those of Brigadier General Solomon Meredith and Brigadier General Lysander Cutler. As Doubleday turned to leave, he told them, "Hold them boys when you get there." One of the men shouted back, "If we can't hold them, where can you get men that can?"(63) Then, shouting "We have come to stay," the line of Pennsylvanians went forward.(64)
The ridge was on a farm owned by Edward McPherson, whose political career had taken him to Washington as a two-term Congressman. He had lost his reelection bid in 1862 and was. At the time of the battle, in Washington serving as Chief Clerk of the House of Representatives.(65) The primary goal at McPherson Ridge was delay—to give the Union forces time to reach Gettysburg for the battle—and to inflict as many casualties as possible. The location assigned Stone made their delaying mission even more difficult than it would have been under any circumstance. Historian Hartwig D. Scott explained the difficulties:
The McPherson's Ridge position was also fraught with difficulties in successfully defending it. As long as the Confederates approached from the west, it was a strong position, although there was no strong terrain feature for the left flank to rest upon. However, the position was dreadfully exposed to Oak Hill, one mile north of the Chambersburg Pike, from which the Confederates could enfilade Doubleday's entire line [sweeping fire from a line of troops] and make it untenable.(66)
Engagement Amidst bursting shells fired by Confederate artillerymen on Herr Ridge, Stone's brigade took its position between McPherson's house and the Chambersburg Road. Sending out skirmishers to cover the brigade's front, Stone ordered the remaining men to lie down behind the reverse slope of McPherson's Ridge and endure the pounding.(67) It was about 11:00 a.m.. Stone's official report of the battle set the scene:
As we came upon the field, the enemy opened fire upon us from two batteries on the opposite ridge, and continued it with some intermissions, during the action. Our low ridge afforded slight shelter from this fire, but no better was attainable, and our first disposition was unchanged until between 12 and 1 o'clock.(68)
At about 1 p.m., a Confederate battery under Major General Robert E. Rodes on Oak Hill, to the brigade's extreme right, opened fire on Cutler's and Stone's brigades. With permission, Cutler's brigade pulled back to prevent a possible attack from the northwest, leaving Stone's brigade exposed. Hartwig explained the importance of Stone's men at this point to the gradually emerging battle:
"I relied greatly upon Stone's Brigade to hold the post assigned them . . ." reported Doubleday, for after the corps was forced to respond to Rodes' threat, Stone held the angle in the line and Doubleday considered it, "in truth the key-point of the first day's battle."(69)
Stone's own report put the situation as follows:
[A] new battery upon a hill on the extreme right opened a most destructive enfilade of our line, and at the same time all the troops upon my right fell back nearly a half mile to the Seminary Ridge. This made my position hazardous and difficult in the extreme, but rendered its maintenance all the more important.(70)
He moved the troops under his command into a right-angle deployment, with some men still on the ridge but with others facing to the north along Chambersburg Pike. However, the movement attracted Confederate notice. Shelling from Herr's Ridge became intense.
Color Episode The situation threatened to grow intolerable. Stone improvised. Colonel [Walton] Dwight [of the 149th] was instructed to detach his color guard to a point north of the Chambersburg Pike, about fifty yards to the left front of the regiment. [Dwight's men] found a small breastwork of rails . . . and hunkered down with only their colors exposed to weather the storm.
The ruse worked [as the Confederates] spied the colors and assumed the 149th had changed their position again and shifted their fire at them, sparing Dwight's main body further punishment.(71)
The color guard was under the direction of Sergeant Henry G. Brehm. His men were Corporals John Friddell, Frederick Hoffman, and Franklin W. Lehman, and Color Guards Henry H. Spayd and John H. Hammel.
The Confederates, part of General A. P. Hill's forces, were massing for an attack on the Union line north of the Chambersburg Pike, as Stone could see from his position. Stone's official report described the attack, which began about 1:30. He had been able to watch their formation for at least 2 miles:
It appeared to be a nearly continuous line of deployed battalions, with other battalions in mass or reserve. Their line being formed not parallel but obliquely to ours, their left first became engaged with the troops on the northern prolongation of Seminary Ridge. The battalions engaged soon took a direction parallel to those opposed to them, thus causing a break in their line and exposing the flank of those engaged to the first of my two regiments in the Chambersburg road.(72)
The Railroad Cut The Confederate troops began to scale a fence along a steep railroad cut that had been built some years earlier for an intended extension of the Pennsylvania Railroad parallel to the pike.(73) The 149th opened fire, nearly destroying one North Carolina brigade. Stone stated, "Though at the longest range of our pieces, we poured a most destructive fire upon their flanks, and, together with the fire in their front, scattered them over the fields."
Anticipating a second attack under General Junius Daniel, Stone ordered Colonel Dwight and the 149th to occupy the railroad cut. While Daniel's men directed their fire to the repositioned colors, the 149th held its fire until the North Carolinians had reached the fence 22 paces beyond the cut. Stone explained that, "when they came to a fence within pistol-shot of his line [Dwight] gave them a staggering volley; reloading as they climbed the fence, and waiting till they came within 30 yards, gave them another volley, and charged, driving them back over the fence in utter confusion."(74)
The 143rd had remained in its original position along Chambersburg Pike in support of the 149th. The volleys from the 143rd helped repulse Daniel's men. According to Colonel Dwight, "the enemy's dead and wounded [were] completely covering the ground in our front."(75)
Although many observers and historians considered these actions as heroic, Private Harris of the 143rd viewed them from the perspective of his grudge against Stone and the 149th. Years later, when he recalled watching Dwight's men of the 149th moving toward the railroad cut, he summarized his thoughts at the time:
There go the men of the 149th with their tails just a bobbing. What does that mean? Have they got this job by contract? Stone is after a big chunk of glory for his tails and does not intend that the 143rd shall have any of it.(76)
At about this point, between 1:30 and 2 p.m., as Colonel Wister faced attack from the railroad cut to the west, Colonel Stone was struck in the hip and arm. Chamberlin described the circumstances:
Colonel Stone, who had ably directed the operations of his brigade, exposing himself fearlessly at all times, went forward a short distance to reconnoitre [sic], when he received severe wounds in the hip and arm, which entirely disabled him.(77)
Stone turned over his command to Colonel Wister and was carried off the field to a makeshift hospital in the McPherson barn, where he was placed on straw in a horse stall.
With Stone out of action, his brigade held McPherson's Ridge until nearly 3:30. Soon, the barn was behind the Confederate line and Stone was among the prisoners of war.
Annihilation of the Color Guard In the confusion, no one had ordered the 149th color guard to retreat from its successful ruse. Colonel Stone was incapacitated. Colonel Dwight was reportedly drunk.(78) Captain John H. Basler, whose Company C of the 149th, included the color guard, was also injured and out of action. Still, the failure to recall the guard would be one of the points of controversy for historians describing the events of July 1, 1863.