18th New York Infantry
History of a Civil War Regiment
Skirmishes, Battles, and Campaigns that the 18th participated in:
July 14, 1861
Reconnaissance on Fairfax Road
July 16-21, 1861
Advance on Manassas, Va.
July 17, 1861
Fairfax Court House
July 21, 1861
Battle of (Bull Run) Manassas, Va.
until March, 1862
Duty of the Defenses of Washington D.C.
October 3, 1862
Skirmish at Springfield Station
March 10-15, 1862
Advance on Manassas, Va.
April 4-12, 1862
McDowell's advance on Fredericksburg, Va.
April 22, 1862
Ordered to the Virginia Peninsula
April 24-May 4, 1862
Siege of Yorktown
May 7, 1862
Battle of (Eltham's Landing) West Point, Va.
June 25-July 1, 1862
Seven Days Battles
June 27, 1862
Battle of Gaines's Mill
June 30, 1862
Battle of (Charles City Crossroads) Glendale
July 1, 1862
Battle of Malvern Hill
until August 16, 1862
At Harrison's Landing, Va.
August 16-28, 1862
Movement to Fortress Monroe, thence to Centreville, Va.
August 29-31, 1862
In works at Centreville, Va.
September 1, 1862
Cover Pope's retreat to Fairfax Court House
September 6-22, 1862
Maryland Campaign
September 14, 1862
Battle of Crampton's Gap
September 16-17, 1862
Battle of Antietam
until October 30, 1862
Duty in Maryland
October 30-November 19, 1862
Movement to Falmouth, Va.
December 12-15, 1862
Battle of Fredericksburg, Va.
January 20-24, 1863
"Mud March"
until April, 1863
At Falmouth, Va.
April 27-May 6, 1863
Chancellorsville Campaign
April 29-May 2, 1863
Operations at Franklin's Crossing
May 3, 1863
Battle of Marye's Heights, Fredericksburg, Va.
May 3, 1863
Battle of Salem Church
May 4, 1863
Banks' Ford
KILLED IN ACTION/MORTALLY WOUNDED: 42
WOUNDED: 119
DIED FROM ACCIDENTS: 4
DIED FROM DISEASE: 44
* New York in the War of the Rebellion, 3rd ed. Compiled by Frederick Phisterer. Albany: J.B. Lyon Company, 1912. Volume III, p 1,947.
Frederick Phisterer's compilation of statistics of regiments decades after the Civil War was based on many wartime records, but even then there were innacuracies as men died or were returned after official reports had already been submitted. Phisterer did the best he could, but his totals should not be taken as gospel.
Luckily, many records still exist that help sort out these numbers more clearly. After a careful cleanse through the National Archives to assess pension records, compiled service records, and hospital records, new numbers get more finite and accurate.
Their first engagement on a march near Fairfax Station, actually had 1 officer and 4 enlisted men were wounded. Two of these injuried (Allen & Waterson) died of their wounds.
As for the Blackburn's Ford mention, the 18th was near enough to hear the battle, but did not particpate nor sustain any casualties.
Gaines's Mill is greatly understated, as 81 men were wounded, five of which were officers. There were 20 men killed outright in battle, with another 2 that succumbed to wounds shortly after the battle. Phisterer combined numbers of Gaines's Mill with the days that followed which make it confusing at first to see the impact each day had. A bulk of the captured were made prisoners during the battle, but on June 29, 25 men from the 18th were captured at the field hospital at Savage's Station. Not mentioned by Phisterer was the one man to be wounded at Glendale (Becking).
At their next large engagement at Crampton's Gap, Phisterer's numbers are once again understated. At the conclusion of that fight, the regiment suffered 10 deaths, and 47 wounded. Of the wounded, 3 were commissioned officers. Also from the 47 wounded, 7 of these men died from their injuries in the days and weeks that followed, which meant a total of 16 were killed by the enemy at Crampton's Gap. Captain Daley (Co. A) died of his wounds in 1866, having never been included in any list of statistics. As for the 2 men listed as missing at Crampton's Gap, they both returned to the regiment the day after the battle, and were never captured.
The last glaring mistake in Phisterer's records is the 34 men listed as missing at Marye's Heights and Salem Church. This number seems to come from nowhere. The 18th held a reserve position during these battles and aside from the unmentioned woundings of 4 men, there was no capture of what he tallies to be a company-sized group. Company D was seperated from the regiment during this battle on a detail to guard a hospital in Fredericksburg, and they came very near to being captured, but they made a safe return to the regiment.
If I can find and explain a more precise list of casualties of this regiment compared to Phisterer, a historian whom is commonly used as a reference to casualties, just think how many other regiments are grossly understated? A sad side of reality that keeps making the memory of this fratricidal war bloodier than we can perceive.
* Numbers calculated from Adjutant General Reports, Compiled Service Records, and Pension Records.