144th Ohio Short History

The 144th Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry (not Ohio National Guards as commonly referred to) came into being on May 11, 1864 as a consolidation of two Ohio National Guard battalions, the 19th of Wyandot Co. and the 64th of Wood Co. The battalions and regiments of the Ohio National Guard were called into state service by Governor John Brough on May 2, 1864 and rendezvoused in their respective county seats before being sent to the large mustering camps scattered throughout the state. The 19th Battalion gathered in Mansfield, Ohio and the 64th Battalion at Perrysburg, Ohio, where the men received uniforms and basic equipment. Both battalions arrived at Camp Chase, Columbus, Ohio on May 7, 1864, the 19th Battalion with five companies and the 64th with seven. The two were consolidated and lost one company apiece organizationally, the men of the eliminated companies being assigned to other companies that were in the original battalion.

The 144th was mustered into U.S. service on May 11, 1864 by 1st Lt. James P.W. Neill, 18th U.S. Infantry and traded its older smoothbore muskets in for new Enfield rifle muskets before shipping out for Baltimore the night of May 13th. The train went through southeastern Ohio and stopped in Pittsburgh and Harrisburg before arriving in Baltimore on May 16th. Once it arrived in Baltimore, the regiment was quartered in Ft. McHenry located in Baltimore harbor. On May 16th, companies G and K were sent to Ft. Dix near Relay House, Maryland for guard duty while Co. E was sent to Wilmington, Delaware for provost and escort duties. Companies A,C,F, and H moved forward to Relay House on May 18th, Co.F being sent along to Annapolis Junction, Maryland on May 27th and assumed provost and guard duties there for the remainder of its term of service. Companies B, G, and I were sent to Camp Parole near Annapolis, Maryland and guarded parolees there until called up for the Monocacy campaign in early July.

The month of June 1864 was a quiet one for the 144th as the men accustomed themselves to the relatively easy life of rear area soldiers. Men were kept busy with daily drills and parades as well as constant and monotonous guard duty. For men stationed near towns, there were church services to attend and socializing with the fairer sex when opportunity allowed, along with the usual soldier pastimes of sight seeing and eating. Men that were stationed in the countryside spent there time picking berries, playing games, cards, writing letters, etc. While many of the men expressed boredom with the monotony of it all, by the end of their service, most of the men of the 144th would look back on their period of “inactivity” with fondness after the sufferings and privations of life on the battlefield and on the march were fully experienced.

July 1864 brought the rumbling of the approaching thunder of war to soldiers as reports came in from points further west in the Shenandoah of a huge Rebel army of up to 30,000 men moving north through the valley towards Maryland and Pennsylvania. By the beginning of July, Rebel General Jubal A. Early and his army had defeated two small Union armies under Generals Franz Sigel and David Hunter and was poised to strike at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. His goal was Washington and it was up to Middle Department commander Major General Lew Wallace and his small contingent of 100 days men to try and stop them.

Gen. Wallace gleaned what companies and regiments he could from his department and hurried them forward to Monocacy Junction near Frederick, Maryland, a point which commanded the approaches to both Washington and Baltimore. Early’s intentions at this point were still a mystery to Wallace, and he hoped to make Early show his hand at Monocacy Junction. Companies B,G, and I of the 144th Ohio were pulled off guard duty at Camp Parole and, along with five companies of the 149th Ohio under Colonel Allison L. Brown, transported north to the Junction. The companies of the 144th were consolidated with Col. Brown’s force in a temporary regiment of about 660 men.

On July 8th, the green troops of the combined Ohio regiment came under fire for the first time by skirmishing with the lead elements of Early’s force under Brig. Gen. Bradley T. Johnson just west of Frederick. The men were able to hold the small Rebel force at bay throughout the day but Wallace ordered his men to more defensible positions on the east bank of the Monocacy on the night on July 8, 1864. It was now clear that most of Early’s army was up and Wallace would have quite a fight on his hands the morning of the 9th.

The three companies of the 144th spent an anxious night along the Monocacy and were placed in reserve along with the 11th Maryland near Crum’s Ford. In the early morning, Col. Brown’s 149th Ohio became engaged in a hot skirmish with the Georgians of Brig. Gen. Philip Cook’s brigade on Reich’s Ridge, a short distance to the west of the Stone or Jug Bridge over the river. At about 10 a.m., the Georgians began to push back Brown’s left and the 149th started to give way. Brown brought up the three companies of the 144th and ordered them to charge the Rebels, breaking their attack and saving his beleaguered left. Under a furious fire from the Georgian veterans, the 180 men of the 144th swept up in the hill, driving back the Rebels beyond the crest of the ridge, inflicting substantial casualties on the enemy while suffering quite a bit themselves.

The men of the 144th and 149th held Reich’s Ridge for 5 hours against a constant artillery barrage and the accurate aim of Rebel sharpshooters hidden in the Reich House. When news came of the collapse of the Sixth Corps veterans on the Union left to the south and reports of Rebels closing on their rear, the men were pulled back and pushed strongly by Cook’s brigade on the left and the newly arrived North Carolina brigade of William R. Cox on the right. The regiment made a final stand in an orchard just above the Stone Bridge at about 5:30 and then retreated in disorder towards Baltimore. Total losses for the 144th in the battle were 4 killed, 15 wounded, and 28 captured while the 149th lost more than 200 casualties.

The shattered remnants of Wallace’s army fell back to Ellicott’s Mills west of Baltimore where the forces were reorganized and rested. The 144th had many more missing and captured than is shown in the figure above, but many returned to the regiment after escaping through Rebel lines or after being freed by Union cavalry on July 10th. On July 13, Wallace’s forces were sent by rail to Washington, D.C. where they were placed under Sixth Corps commander Gen. Horatio G. Wright. The Sixth and Nineteenth Corps chased Early away from the outskirts of Washington and pursued him until July 18, 1864, when a small portion of the Federal force met defeat at the Battle of Cool Springs, Virginia near Snicker’s Gap. The 144th was not involved in the fight as it was at the tail end of the column about 10 miles back from the fighting.

After the repulse of yet another Federal army in the Shenandoah Valley, President Lincoln decided it was time for a change. On the advice of General U.S. Grant, Lincoln appointed Maj. Gen. Phillip H. Sheridan, a fiery, diminutive cavalry commander in the Army of the Potomac, to command the new Dept. of the Shenandoah. Parts of four separate commands were combined for a total of about 60,000 men of all arms; Sheridan’s orders were simple: clear out the breadbasket of the Confederacy and defeat Early’s army in the field. Sheridan quickly ordered his army to converge at Harper’s Ferry and began preparations to take the valley once and for all.

While these changes in command were occurring, the 144th Ohio sat in Washington until July 27th. The men were impressed by the grandeur of the public buildings in Washington, less so by the rest of the town: wartime Washington was a rowdy den of drinking and prostitution on an enormous scale. The 1st Separate Brigade (144th and 149th O.V.I., 1st and 3rd Maryland Potomac Home Brigades) moved out with the Sixth Corps north towards Pennsylvania in response to reports that a Rebel force under General McCausland was raiding that area. The march north was a terrible experience; the daytime temperature rose to 117 degrees on one day, and men fell out by the hundreds from heat exhaustion and sunstroke, a few even died. Yet the march continued, spurred along by McCausland’s burning of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania on July 31, 1864. The journey ended on August 2nd as the Rebels had disappeared back into the shadows of the Valley.

The weary men marched into Harper’s Ferry on August 4th and were greeted with a sight of martial beauty. Thousands of men were encamped on the heights surrounding the town, mountains of supplies were pouring in, all the preparations for a major military campaign. The thoughts of the men while in Harper’s Ferry centered on the fact that their term of service was to end on August 18th. Anxiously awaiting word that they were being relieved and sent home, the men waited but received no word by the time Sheridan moved out with his army. The war wasn’t done with the 144th quite yet.

General Sheridan’s army marched south on August 9, 1864, driving Early’s much smaller army past Winchester but not yet obtaining a full engagement with the enemy. The army needed supplies, however, and an immense 525-wagon train was assembled at Harper’s Ferry and moved out on August 12th. The 144th Ohio was assigned as the rear guard for the train and a great deal of confusion ensued as it was nearly impossible to determine where exactly the end of the train was. But it eventually presented itself and the regiment started its march to Winchester. The train passed through Charlestown, site of the John Brown hanging in 1859, and continued its fatiguing journey through the night.

Outside of the small valley town of Berryville ran an insignificant creek named after the local Buckmarsh Baptist Church. As the head of the train reached the area around 11 p.m., it was decided to have the men water the animals there as they arrived and continue on. This was intended to be a brief stop, a fact not communicated to the wagoneers further along in the column. The rear of the wagon train moved in around 3:30 a.m. and many of the guards and wagoners took the opportunity to catch some sleep. As the men slept, 250 men under Rebel Col. John Singleton Mosby set up an ambush for the prized wagon train.

Mosby gathered his irregulars at Rectortown on August 12th after hearing rumors of an immense Federal wagon train rumbling into the Valley. The train was discovered near Berryville that night and Mosby attacked it at dawn of the 13th. He had one mountain howitzer which was used to throw the train into confusion, then his troopers charged the front and rear of the train simultaneously. Bedlam ensued as the drivers spurred their wagons out of danger, and many of the guards broke and fled. However, a number of men of the 144th recovered and took up position behind a stone wall behind the old Buckmarsh Church while others took cover inside and began to fire of the Confederate raiders. The men kept up a murderous fire until a strong Rebel charge forced the men to retreat. With Union cavalry galloping up the pike from Berryville, Mosby broke off the action, gathered his loot and prisoners, and disappeared back into the hills. More than 70 wagons had been burned, 100 men were taken prisoner. The 144th Ohio's loss in this disastrous affair was 5 killed, 10 wounded, 76 captured.

After the Berryville attack, the train regrouped and made it to Winchester by the night of the 13th. The 144th stayed in Winchester until August 20th when Gen. Sheridan released it from service. It was mustered out at Camp Chase in two groups: Companies E and F on August 24th and the rest of the regiment on August 31, 1864. Of the men captured at Monocacy and Berryville, many of them never made it home, dying in the Rebel prisons at Salisbury, North Carolina, and Danville and Richmond, Virginia.