The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes | Page 9

Infantry, June 7, 1861. With this appointment was coupled
the appointments of W. S. Rosecrans as colonel, and Stanley Matthews

as lieutenant-colonel of the same regiment. Colonel Rosecrans, with the
other field-officers, had just set to work organizing the new regiment,
when Rosecrans was appointed brigadier-general, and ordered to take
command of the Ohio troops moving in the direction of Western
Virginia. Upon the promotion of Rosecrans, Colonel E. P. Scammon,
an officer of military education, was placed in command of the
Twenty-third.
After a brief period of discipline at Camp Chase the regiment was
ordered, on the 25th of July, to Clarksburgh, West Virginia, and on the
29th went into camp at Weston. We shall not follow it in this or in
subsequent campaigns, in its marching, scouting, skirmishing, or
counter-marching. It is enough to say, that in this first campaign it
assisted in clearing the whole mountainous region of Western Virginia
of a formidable enemy.
Major Hayes was appointed by General Rosecrans, on the 19th of
September, 1861, judge advocate of the department of Ohio, the duties
of which service he discharged about two months. He received his first
promotion, to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, October 24, 1861. Passing
over less important events, we come to the first serious battle in which
he was engaged.
THE BATTLE OF SOUTH MOUNTAIN
Was fought on Sunday, September 14, 1862, a beautiful, bright
September day. The enemy were in possession of the crest of the
mountain, where the old National road crossed it. The army of
McClellan, with Burnside in advance, were pressing up that mountain
by the National road as its center. General Cox's division of Burnside's
corps was in advance. The brigade to which Lieutenant-colonel Hayes
was attached was in advance of the division. His regiment was in
advance of the brigade. He was ordered to pass up a mountain path on
the left of the National road and feel for the enemy, advancing until he
struck him; to push him up the mountain if he could; in short, to open
the engagement. Lieutenant-colonel Hayes pushed into the woods,
came upon the enemy's pickets, received their fire, and drove them in.
He soon saw a strong force of the enemy coming toward the line of his

advance from a neighboring hill, and went to meet them. Hayes
charged into that force with a regimental yell, and, after a fierce fight,
drove them out of the woods in which he found them, into an open field
near the summit. He then drove them across the field, losing many men
and capturing and killing many of the enemy.
Hayes, having just given the command for a third charge, felt a
stunning blow, and found that a large musket ball had struck his left
arm above the elbow, carrying away and badly fracturing the entire
bone. Fearing an artery might be severed, he asked a soldier to bandage
his arm above the elbow, and a few minutes after, through exhaustion,
he fell. Recovering from a state of unconsciousness while down, in a
few moments, and observing that his men had fallen back to the woods
for shelter, he sprang to his feet, and, with unusual vehemence, ordered
them to come forward, which they did. He continued fighting some
time at the head of his men; but falling a second time, from exhausted
strength, he kept on giving orders, while down, to fight it out.
Major Comly, the second in command, then came to him to learn the
orders under which the regiment was fighting, and deeming it best to
assume command, owing to the critical condition of Lieutenant-colonel
Hayes, gave orders that the wounded hero should be carried from the
field. In an almost illegible narrative, written with the left hand just
after the battle, we find this modest record, by the intrepid sufferer in
this event: "While I was down I had considerable talk with a wounded
Confederate lying near me. I gave him messages for my wife and
friends in case I should not get up. We were right jolly and friendly. It
was by no means an unpleasant experience."
The enemy in this action continued to pour a most destructive fire of
musketry, grape, and canister into the Union ranks. Lieutenant-colonel
Hayes again made his appearance on the field with his wound half
dressed, and fought until carried off. Soon after, the rest of the brigade
coming up, a brilliant bayonet charge up the hill dislodged the enemy
and drove him into the woods beyond. The Twenty-third regiment in
this engagement lost within eight men of half the entire force engaged.
South Mountain is inscribed on all the standards of this gallant

regiment, and surrounds with a sad halo of glory the names of the
living and the graves of the dead.