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The Rebel attack was repulsed, and the College lads were joyful. But McClellan, fearful of being outnumbered, at 3 a.m. on the 27th ordered his men to retreat to Gaines Mill. Caught in heavy artillery fire on the brow of a wooded ravine as Federal troops formed for a charge, Company I suffered multiple casualties. It was almost a relief to be ordered into the ravine in front of the Union positions, as the shells now passed over their heads. They took the hill on the far side and held the advanced position until nightfall. Little Bo Strickland was at the extreme front of the company advance; surrounded by rebels and unable to recharge his muzzle loader fast enough, he fought with stones, surviving himself and inspiring his mates. After dark, with its ammunition exhausted and its flank threatened, the company joined the Federal retreat across the Chicahominy River. But not all did so: six students had crossed another river and lay dead, including young Trace. Another three were missing and presumed killed. Seventeen other members of Company I were wounded.16 Wrote Chadwick, " I cannot attempt to give you an account of the AWFUL, AWFUL sights I have seen during the past week....God grant I may never see the like again."17
Company I’s losses were the highest of any company in the tenth regiment. In reporting the death of Corporal Edwin Pier, who died as the result of the shattering of his right arm, Captain Ayer wrote eloquently of Pier as
one of the most promising students of Allegheny College. Of fine mind and devout and refined feelings, he was a devoted Christian and an earnest patriot. He was an excellent Greek and Hebrew scholar, and spent much of his time while off duty in the reading of Greek Testament. Of modest deportment, he was as courageous as he was humble.18
The
defeated Union troops attempted to rally at Charles City Crossroads. A fierce
sun smote the weary men, their uniforms stiff with blood. Despite an arm
so mangled that it would later require amputation, a sergeant shot a sheep
that provided much needed stew.19 The
encampments the next nights were no longer cheerful gatherings, but ominously
silent conclaves; fires and any form of noise were forbidden. In the afternoon
of 30 June, the Tenth demonstrated its long training and the hardening of
battle by completing a difficult left half-wheel under fire and administered
a thrashing to the foe. One member of Company I, Private Edward E. Douglass
who had enlisted 25 July 1861 and would transfer to the cavalry in November
1862, even recaptured from the Rebels the colors of another Union corps.
Some accounts suggest these belonged to the Fifth Pennsylvania Reserves,
yet this is uncertain. Captain Ayer received a gunshot in his right side
but stayed on the field though several more of his fellow students there
reached eternity. The company’s casualties in killed and wounded for
the seven days of battle between Beaver Dam Creek and Charles City Cross
Roads exceeded those of any other in the division.20 Though
victorious in this battle, the Federals retreated to Malvern Hill. Because
of the College Company's losses and exhaustion, it was held in reserve during
the early July battle there, though it was posted to the battlefield.
The Chicahominy engagement took its toll with more than bullets. Sion Smith, popular with the troops and promoted to major in May, contracted typhoid fever in the camps there. Ill, he resigned his commission and retired not to his family home in Tennessee, but to Andover, Ohio, 25 miles west of Meadville, where he died 5 August 1862.21 In following weeks disease continued to weaken the troops. Chadwick noted in mid-July that "I have not seen a single man who is perfectly well, all are complaining of disentary [sic]. I think it must be occasioned by the excessive heat, bad water and poisonous miasm which is constantly coming off the swamps which surround the camps."22 As for other pestilence, he noted "an almost infinite number of flies, beetles, bugs, wood-ticks, lizards, etc....the most annoying, however, of all these vermin are lice,--the real genuine body lice."
Continuing Union retreats took Company I to the Second Battle of Bull Run at the end of August. The regiment first performed diversionary feints, then stood picket duty, and finally defended the extreme left of the Union line, where it was overwhelmed by an unexpected and fierce Confederate attack. Panic ensued. The road choked with fleeing men. By the time order was restored, the day was lost. Captain Ayer was again injured; a ball broke his left forearm though, to his good fortune, a second ball that punctured his hat did not touch his flesh. Not until November would he be able to return to active duty. Milton M. Phelps, class of 1861, who had become a “bold and dashing” lieutenant for Company I, was shot through the right lung; M’Clure Tryon died of his wounds. In the 1 September clash at Chantilly, young Washington Cook was taken prisoner by Georgia troops but successfully escaped through a hazel thicket to rejoin his comrades.23
The
Union forces pulled back into Maryland. At the battle of South Mountain on
14 September, the Tenth Regiment was at first held in reserve but soon entered
the fray. The College Company participated in the charge up the mountain
and the sound defeat of the Confederates. At the steepest slope near the
top of the great hill, little Bo Strickland was as usual at the front of
the company when he received a minié ball through his forehead. Company
fifer and stretcher bearer John Stuntz ’65 came upon his body shortly
thereafter. With hatchet and skillet he scooped a shallow grave and employed
a piece of a cracker box for a headboard. The fighting had been fierce; one
student counted 52 holes in his new pants. In all, the company suffered severely
for the number of men engaged.24 The
Union forces pursued the retreating rebels, and the College boys became involved
in a skirmish late on 16 September that proved the prologue to the war’s
bloodiest single day, the Battle of Antietam.
The next day, while on reconnaissance on the Federal right, the Tenth discovered an unexpected Confederate troop movement. Acting decisively, it attacked the Southerners' flank and disrupted the Confederate maneuver. It lost, however, its own colonel, who suffered a shattered pelvis. Company I was briefly left without a single officer, as all had been badly wounded. Lieutenant H. J. Howe, the replacement for Phelps who had been sent home with his punctured lung, was himself seriously wounded in the breast. Chadwick, who in his brigade clerk post was in a position to know, wrote home that
My company which has borne on its rolls nearly a hundred names cannot muster more than fifteen men for duty. It seems to have suffered worse than any other company in the Regiment. Many have been killed in action, some have died of wounds, some of disease, a number are now in the hospitals sick or wounded, while several have been discharged on disability.25
