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106 Editors’ Postscript on March 1863 through War’s End The 81st Pennsylvania did not move until April 26, 1863, when it was ordered to serve as an advance guard along with the 5th New Hampshire. The brigade advanced toward Chancellorsville, where it relieved a portion of the V Corps. The81st was engaged throughout the battle of Chancellorsville (May 2–3, 1863), suffering sixty-two casualties.1 The Union forces sustained an astonishingly high number of casualties on the second day of battle (8,623), just a little less than the Confederates.2 In all, Hooker’s army suffered some five thousand more casualties than Lee’s. The loss of Stonewall Jackson on May 10 due to friendly fire while on reconnaissance, however, made the battle of Chancellorsville something of a pyrrhic victory for Lee. The81st was also engaged at Gettysburg. On July 1 the regiment moved toward Taneytown, arriving on the field that evening, where it rested two miles behind the town. The following morning it moved to the front and took up a position with its left positioned alongside the III Corps and its right alongside the cemetery. The 81st was engaged in fighting in the Wheat Field, some of the bloodiest of the entire battle, suffering sixty-two more casualties. On July 4 the regiment advanced on Confederate pickets who quickly yielded, and then marched toward the Potomac. In a massive victory over the seemingly unstoppable Lee, the81st had played its part in a contest generally acknowledged by historians as one of the most crucial of the war.3 The regiment was not engaged in any significant action again until early May 1864, when it participated in the battle of Spotsylvania march 1863 through war’s end 107 Courthouse. This protracted conflict lasted from May 8 until May 19. On May 12 the II Corps, of which the 81st was a part, attacked Confederate positions along the Po River. In fighting described as “at close quarters and desperate,”4 the regiment suffered seventyseven casualties. The81st was then engaged in a number of actions leading up to the end of the war. It spent the winter of 1864–1865 in trenches outside Petersburg, Virginia. In early April the81st took part in the pursuit of Lee that ended in his surrender at Appomattox. The role of the81st in defense of the Union was a proud one. Its total enrollment was 1,608, 208 of whom were killed in battle. Its total casualties throughout the war were 908, or 56.46 percent! While it saw twenty-two engagements, none was as costly as its assault on Fredericksburg.5 The battles of Frayser’s Farm (Glendale) and Spotsylvania Courthouse were the next most costly for the regiment. Spencer Bonsall had seen much of this regiment’s early action. But his journal abruptly breaks off after March 1863. What happened to this opinionated and at times humorous hospital steward? The epilogue presents the rather surprising answer. ...

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