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734 Series I Volume XXVII-I Serial 43 - Gettysburg Campaign Part I

Page 734 N. C., VA., W. VA., MD., PA., ETC. Chapter XXXIX.

dleburg and White Plains, to New Baltimore. Encamped until July 25, when we marched, passing near Warrenton, to Warrenton Junction.

Very respectfully, your most obedient servant,

F. HECKER,

Colonel, Commanding Eighty-second Illinois Volunteers.

Colonel G. VON AMSBERG, Commanding First Brigade.


Numbers 256. Report of Lieutenant Colonel Adolphus Dobke, Forty-fifth New York Infantry.

WEAVERSVILLE, VA., August 21, 1863.

SIR: I have the honor to make the following report of the operations of the Forty-fifth Regiment New York Volunteers, from June 28 until its arrival at Warrenton Junction, including the battle at Gettysburg: June 28. - Having rested one day at Middletown, the Forty-fifth Regiment resumed the march to Frederick City early in the morning; at 3 o'clock to Emmitsburg, 22 miles, where it rested on June 30. Early in the morning of July 1, the regiment marched from Emmitsburg, without any rest, to Gettysburg, Pa., where it arrived at 11 a. m. The First Corps at this time being hotly engaged with and pressed by the enemy, the First Brigade, Third Division, Eleventh Corps, of which the Forty-fifth Regiment New York Volunteers is a part, was hurried to the battle-field in double-quick, to the right of the First Army Corps. Colonel George von Amsberg, at this moment was ordered to the command of the First Brigade, devolving the command of the Forty-fifth Regiment on Lieutenant Colonel Adolphus Dobke. The Forty-fifth Regiment New York Volunteers, on the immediate right of the First Corps, threw out four companies as skirmishers at 11. 30 a. m., but owing to the wide, open space which was left to be covered by this regiment, the whole regiment was deployed as skirmishers in the open field in the immediate line of battle; Dilger's battery, in the rear, and the Sixty-first Ohio, on the right, also deployed as skirmishers. The enemy opened at once on this line from his batteries on the summit and base of a hill on the road to York, and an incessant fire was pouring grape, canister, solid shot, and shell on our position. At about 1. 30 p. m. a long line of the enemy moved on the extreme right of the First Corps, passing the left of the Forty-fifth, ; and offering the flank to the Forty-fifth Regiment New York Volunteers. The left wing of our regiment at once gave fire at very short distance (50 or 100 yards) with such terrible effect that, in result with the combination of the fire from the extreme right of the First Corps, the whole of the enemy's line halted, gradually disappeared on the same spot where they stood, and the remainder, finding they could not retrace their steps, surrendered, partly to the First Corps and a great number to the Forty-fifth Regiment, which prisoners were at once sent to the rear, but in the heat of the battle no account could be taken. In the most raging fire and the most horrible scenes, when 8 comrades, one


Page 734 N. C., VA., W. VA., MD., PA., ETC. Chapter XXXIX.