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28th New York Infantry Regiment

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Invitation to vets' reunion was the first of its kind

Part one of a three-part series

By Charles Culbertson • mail@stauntonhistory.com • January 25, 2009 • View Article Image

It was an unexpected gesture of friendship on the part of a former enemy — one with an outcome that had never been seen in the annals of warfare and reconciliation.

When survivors of the old 28th New York Volunteers planned their 1883 reunion at Niagara Falls, they invited the one foe that had handed them their worst defeat in the savage summer of 1862 — "Stonewall" Jackson's 5th Virginia Infantry Regiment, which had been formed in Staunton and Augusta County.

The road to reunion

The reunion of these two groups of middle-aged warriors and the gathering's unique result grew out of the Aug. 9, 1862, battle of Cedar Mountain, near Culpeper. The fight was fierce, with both sides exhibiting extraordinary gallantry, but the day eventually belonged to the Confederates.

The "Bloody" 5th, as it was known, not only overpowered the 28th and took a large number of prisoners, but captured the regimental flag, as well. That night, some Federal prisoners were waiting to be evacuated by rail when a member of the 28th came across the flag. Covertly he cut out a small rectangular section from its center as a memento.

The soldier kept this swatch of cloth with him throughout his detention at Libby Prison. After his parole and return to the 28th, he presented the keepsake to his superior, Col. Edwin Brown, who had lost an arm at Cedar Mountain.

In 1881, Brown was in Washington, D.C., visiting a display of Union colors that had been recaptured with the fall of Richmond, when he caught sight of a flag with a rectangular hole in the center. The piece of cloth he had kept with him since the Civil War fit the hole perfectly. This, he realized, was the 28th's regimental flag, captured by the 5th Virginia at Cedar Mountain in 1862.

Brown immediately contacted Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln and, on behalf of the 28th's survivors, requested that the flag be restored to the regiment. Lincoln granted the request and the flag was returned in an 1882 ceremony in Lockport, N.Y. But for the old soldiers of the 28th it didn't seem to be enough. Brown, conferring with his former soldiers, decided to invite survivors of the 5th Virginia to attend the 1883 reunion and to officially return the flag.

Surprised and pleased, the remaining members of the 5th Virginia accepted the invitation.

Momentous

Newspapers throughout the United States picked up on the story and noted that "never before in the history of the world had one regiment presented another in time of peace the flag captured from it in time of war." Much was also made of the burying of hostilities between old foes, since the joint reunion was the first between a Union and Confederate regiment after the war.

"The Southern soldiers who engaged in the war with all the bitterness of a hand-to-hand encounter are much more ready to forget the old animosities than are the Southern statesmen, who stood safely behind the ranks and urged on the others," wrote the Davenport (Iowa) Gazette.

The Fort Wayne (Ind.) Gazette noted that "time has softening and sweetening influences that cannot be resisted."

On May 19, Staunton was alive with spectators and former Confederates as survivors of the "Bloody" 5th — led by Staunton's Col. James W. Newton — gathered to board a train bound for Niagara Falls. At 2 p.m., some 80 veterans and 40 citizens climbed aboard the train and rode out of town while the cannon of the Staunton Artillery thundered parting salutes.

The train stopped briefly in Winchester, which had furnished two of the original 10 companies in the 5th, then pushed on to Baltimore, where the veterans stayed overnight and attended church the next day. That night the journey began again, and at every station along the way throngs of people waited to cheer them on, including detachments of former Federal soldiers.

"Such cheering and handshaking I never witnessed before, nor more cordial, heartfelt greeting and hospitality," wrote one Confederate veteran in a letter to the Staunton Vindicator.

And nowhere along the way did the former Confederates have to shell out a dime. The members of the 28th New York paid for it all.

Col. Brown and a reunion committee met the men of the 5th Virginia at the train station in Canandaigua, N.Y. The citizens of the town provided dinner at the Canandaigua Hotel for both the Confederate veterans and their civilian escorts.

At Lockport, N.Y., veterans of the 28th were present in large numbers, and as the train passed, the old soldiers in blue gave out three cheers. The old soldiers from Staunton leaned out the windows of the train and responded with the "rebel yell." This, noted The New York Times, "carried the boys back 20 years at once."