President Rutherford B. Hays Experience in the SOUTH MOUNTAIN BATTLE Thesis Statement

When the American Civil War broke out, Rutherford B. Hayes tendered his willingness to take part in the struggle and joined the Union. He rose through the ranks and had attained a brevet major general rank by the time the war ended. It is important to note, from the onset, that the Civil War was one of our country’s most defining moments. The country owes those who actively participated in the same, such as Hayes, for their role towards the redefinition of the United States of America into one true nation. The challenges these gallant citizens faced in this endeavor were great, and Hayes’ account of his experience during the South Mountain Battle underlines this assertion.

Discussion

Hayes was instrumental in the victory secured by the union at the South Mountain Battle after his regiment, as part of Union forces, was dispatched to dislodge Confederate soldiers at Maryland’s South Mountain. It was during this battle that Hayes suffered serious injuries when his regiment came under enemy fire. He was the regimental commander at the time. On the morning of 14th of September, 1862, as the regiment was ascending South Mountain’s steep slopes Hayes was in high spirits as he directed his men to engage Confederate forces holed in Fox’s Gap. As Mahan points out, the Twenty-third soldiers had not witnessed a campaign of this nature before.[footnoteRef:1] They had not come under heavy fire many times before. However, their numbers had been depleted by what Conwell refers to as “the vicissitudes of army life.”[footnoteRef:2] Although close to a thousand men had departed from Camp Dennison twelve months earlier, in that particular morning, a total of three hundred and ten men answered to the roll-call.[footnoteRef:3] It is important to note that despite the fact that the Twenty-third soldiers had seen their numbers reduced by more than half, their brevity and confidence was not in question. [1: Mahan Russell, Lucy Webb Hayes: A First Lady by Example (New York, NY: Nova Publishers, 2005), 46. ] [2: Conwell Herman, Life and Public Service of Gov. Rutherford B. Hayes (Philadelphia: Quaker City Publishing House, 1876), 87.] [3: Conwell Herman, Life and Public Service of Gov. Rutherford B. Hayes (Philadelphia: Quaker City Publishing House, 1876), 87.]

Hayes regiment was assigned a more risky and dangerous task of attacking Confederate positions in an uphill march that exposed them to enemy fire from higher up. According to Howells, it was at around 9AM in the morning when Hayes “drove in a rebel picket; he pushed forward...

It is important to note that the Union troop commanders had grossly understated the enemy’s ability. This is more so the case given that as Conwell points out, “when the rebel general, Garland, with his brigade of veterans, advanced down the mountains to meet the Union troops, he was not left unsupported, nor was everything staked on his success.”[footnoteRef:6] It was for this reason that Garland’s killing and the steady advancement of the Union troops was did not bear much fruit initially. [4: Howells William, Sketch of the Character of Rutherford B. Hayes (New York, NY: Hurd and Houghton, 1876), 65. ] [5: Mahan, Lucy Webb Hayes: A First Lady by Example, 46.] [6: Conwell, Life and Public Service of Gov. Rutherford B. Hayes, 88]
That morning, as Twenty-third advanced upon the Confederate formations, it was met with heavy enemy fire and as Conwell points out, “as the Twenty-third clambered over a rising stretch of ground toward the enemy, a blinding discharge of grapeshot met them full in the face, and in an instant, more than a hundred of them lay upon the ground, dead or wounded.”[footnoteRef:7] Hayes was amongst those who were wounded. In his diary entries, Hayes describes the feeling that he felt when a musket ball hit him as a “stunning blow.”[footnoteRef:8] [7: Conwell, Life and Public Service of Gov. Rutherford B. Hayes, 87.] [8: “Chapter XX: Wounded at South Mountain – August – November, 1862,” Ohio History Connection, accessed March 27, 2018. http://resources.ohiohistory.org/hayes/browse/chapterxx.html]

As Hayes writes in his diaries, that morning, he was apprehensive of confusion amongst his men due to relative disarray and as a result, he threatened and swore at will[footnoteRef:9]. It was after he gave an advancement order that a musket ball from enemy fire tore into his arm in a moment he clearly describes in his diary. When he was stuck, Hayes recalls experiencing a terrible feeling of faintness and weakness. In this particular entry, he further notes: “I laid down and was pretty comfortable. I was perhaps twenty feet behind the line of my men, and could form a pretty accurate notion of the way the fight was going. The…