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The 62nd New York Volunteer Infantry

Anderson Zouaves

The 62nd New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment was mustered into service on June 30, 1861.  Most volunteers were from New York City, where the unit was organized, but soldiers came from Brooklyn, Troy, Albany and New Jersey as well.

The regiment was attached to the IV Corps for its first months of service in Washington, DC.  Brigadier General John J. Peck is reported to have compained that it was 'mortifying to find so much neglect of duty, so much inefficiency, and so low a conception of the soldier's position..." as in the 62nd New York Regiment.  It isn't clear as to what warranted such a remark, but the regiment more than redeemed themselves by the war's end.  The 62nd fought in the many of the most famous and brutal campaigns and actions of the war.  At the end of their 3-year terms they had almost 100% re-enlistment.  Three members of the regiment, Edward Browne, James Evans, and Charles E. Morse, were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.  A monument honoring the 62nd NY stands north of the Wheat Field Road near Plum Run at the Battlefield of Gettysburg.

The 62nd NY was transferred to the VI Corps of the Army of the Potomac, where it remained for the remainder of the war, except for brief service with the Army of the Shenandoah.  The VI Corps had earned distrinction for heroism on numerous fronts and earned a reputation as one of the best and toughest units in the Union Army.  when General Philip Sheridan was assigned the mission of destroying the breadbasket of the Confederacy, he asked for, and received, the use of the VI Corps for his campaign in the Shenandoah Valley.

Their nickname, "Anderson Zouaves" was taken in honor of Major Robert Anderson, the commanding officer at Fort Sumter.  Zouave units were characterized by exotic and colorful uniforms modeled after Franco-Algerian soldiers, who had dazzled the country with their precision infantry drills.

The regiment sustained losses of 3 Officers and 85 Enlisted men killed or mortally wounded.  Disease took 2 Officers and 82 enlisted men, for a total of 172.
 
 

Campaigns and Actions
of the 62nd New York Volunteer Infantry


Pack's Brigade, Buell's Division, Army of the Potomac to Mar 1862 3rd Brigade, 1st Division, 4 Army Corps, Army of the Potomac to Jul 1862 2nd Brigade, 3rd Division, 4th Army Corps, to Sept 1862 3rd Brigade, 3rd Division, 6th Army Corps to Jan 1864 Wheaton's Brigade, Dept. of West Virginia, to Mar 1864 Mustered Out August 30, 1865

(source:  http://www.io.com/)