Page 4 of 9
The Alleghenians waited nearly six months for their own first taste of real combat. The monotony of life at Camp Tenally was broken in August by guard duty at the Great Falls of the Potomac, where the Northerners first cast eyes on the enemy. In October the regiment moved into Virginia. That month the young German instructor, who had joined the company along with his Allegheny students, resigned due to “force of circumstances” that may have referred to language difficulties.10 The company’s idealism remained strong. One student member wrote home: "This war, though a dread scourge and affliction, will make us a better people and will most certainly advance the principles of Liberty and Human Rights."11 On 20 the company had its first experience foraging from Confederate farms before taking part in the Federal attack on the Confederates at Dranesville. Scarcely had the company's colors been freed from their sheath and unrolled when the flag was greeted by a rebel artillery shell. The volunteers frantically ducked, even though it flew far over their heads. In time they would adjust to such misfired volleys with experienced appreciation for their errant path.
Company I helped defend the left flank of an artillery battery successfully and was spared casualties. Ayer, impressed by the dash of General E. O. C. Ord in leading the artillery, described his appearance on a magnificent bay, Ord’s eyes flashing fire and “every lineament of his countenance betokening courage” as the “most animated scene” Ayer witnessed throughout the war.12 Sion Smith, bruised but unbloodied by a spent bullet, received commendation for coolness and courage. About three months earlier he had been promoted to the post of Assistant Adjutant General to the third brigade of the Army of the Potomac commanded by General E. O. C. Ord. With him he took as company clerk or aide-de-camp his classmate James Chadwick, who stayed on when Smith returned to his regiment the next January.
Encouraged
by the successful handling of their baptism of fire, the College Volunteers
were in high spirits. Captain Ayer wrote to the Crawford Journal that “The
Allegheny College Volunteers are prospering very well, and will compare with
any company I have seen with regard to drilling, cleanliness, morality and
all those qualifications which make the soldier. We still retain the flag
presented by the kind hearted ones at Meadville, and it has been the only
flag floating in regiment on this side of the river.”13
It was not until March 1862 that the army again began to move, first to Hunter’s Mills, then marching to Alexandria through a raging storm. The Reserves were next shifted by way of Centreville to Manassas Junction as Union General George B. McClellan responded to pressure from Washington for some show of action. The Confederates, however, had withdrawn from the Manassas plain, and Company I’s greatest excitement involved helping to take charge of evacuated Confederate fortifications, interesting because of their size and “Quaker guns,” large logs shaped and painted to look like artillery.14
In June the regiment, now led by Lt. Colonel James Kirk as Colonel McCalmont had resigned for personal reasons, was ordered to the Peninsula. It traveled by boat down the Potomac to Chesapeake Bay and then up the York and Pamunkey to disembark at While House. While marching toward Mechanicsville it successfully fended off a Confederate cavalry charge. The company's first combat in the Seven Days Campaign occurred near that town on 14 June 1862, as it acted as woods skirmishers in holding up the advance of Confederate Ambrose P. Hill's troops across Beaver Dam Creek. The boys fought on the extreme right of the advanced skirmish line, an advantageous position that enabled them to inflict serious casualties on the Confederates while suffering only one wounded. When the artillery ceased its firing, the Allegheny lads listened with awe to the cries of the dying and wounded Rebels being removed from the battlefield.15 Did they suspect their own group would be the next victims?
