The Union Army

Civil War History

Colonel Erastus B. Tyier knew his troops were in trouble. He had ordered his Federal brigade into combat against General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's Confederates at the Battle of Kernstown, near Winchester, Virginia, on March 23,1862. Within minutes he was forced to send in his reserves. Even bolstered by the additional troops, Tyier's Brigade continued to take a deadly drubbing from the Southerners. "The fire of the enemy was poured upon us from behind a stone wall with terrible effect," Tyier reported. The Federals stubbornly advanced toward the Confederates who shifted their position, but continued to fire. After an hour, the enemy fire had taken a steady toll of Tyier's men. The colonel feared his battered brigade now faced "an unequal contest." Twilight was approaching. He needed more reinforcements, but he had already committed his reserves.

Determined to Conquer or Die

At a critical moment, Federal reinforcements arrived. One after another, five regiments of fresh troops waded into the fighting alongside Tyier's battle-worn soldiers. Among the first to reach its position was the 13th Indiana Infantry, led by Lieutenant Colonel Robert S. Foster. Confederate artillery fire ripped through the regiment's ranks as they moved to support Tyier's Brigade, but on they came. They poured into the battle line just as Tyier's left flank was weakening. The fierce enemy fire tore into the 13th from the Confederate position behind the stone wall. As if bending forward into a gale-force wind, the Indiana troops advanced steadily toward the enemy.
"Forward! Charge bayonets!" shouted Lieutenant Colonel Foster. With a cheer, the men of 13th Indiana charged across the field toward the enemy position. "They fought with a coolness and desperation that proved them not inferior to the brave sons of Indiana," Foster later recalled. Behind the stone wall, the Confederates too had taken a battering. Faced with the assault by the Hoosier troops, the Southerners broke and retreated. Afterwards, a grateful Colonel Tyier praised the 13th Indiana and the other reinforcements for their "timely" arrival.

he 13th Indiana Infantry entered Federal service in Indianapolis in May of 1861 as a one-year regiment. A few weeks later, however, the regiment was reorganized, and on June 10,1861 became a three-year regiment. On Independence Day in 1861, the 13th Indiana left the Hoosier State for western Virginia, where the regiment joined General George B. McClellan's campaign in the mountains of what would become the state of West Virginia. There the regiment distinguished itself at the Battle of Rich Mountain on July 11,1861. Ordered with other troops to assault Confederate forces at Rich Mountain, the troops of the 13th Indiana were forced to advance over rugged mountain terrain in a furious thunderstorm. After enduring "a heavy and continuous fire of rifles and musketry," the regiment, fighting under Colonel C. Sullivan, drove back the opposing Confederate force.

In March of 1862, the regiment moved into Virginia's Shenandoah Valley as part of the U.S. V Army Corps under General Nathaniel Banks, which was then detached from the Army of the Potomac. Again the regiment distinguished itself in action — this time at the Battle of Kernstown on March 23,1862 where Banks turned back General Stonewall Jackson's Confederates. Three months later, the regiment was engaged against Jackson at the Battle of Port Republic where Northern forces were defeated.
In June of 1862, the regiment joined Federal forces dispatched to Virginia's Peninsula region to reinforce General McClellan and the Army of the Potomac. The 13th Indiana remained at Harrison's Landing until mid-August, was posted at Fortress Monroe, then moved to Suffolk, Virginia. During April and May of 1863, the 13th Indiana was engaged in the Siege of Suffolk.
In July of 1863, the regiment was shipped to the South Carolina coast as part of U.S. VII Army Corps. In December, a majority of the men of the 13th Indiana re-enlisted for the remainder of the war. They were posted to Jacksonville, Florida, ordered to Hilton Head, South Carolina, then shipped back to Virginia. There, serving in the U.S. X Army Corps of the Army of the James, the regiment was engaged at Port Walthall Junction and at the Battle of Drewry's Bluff. In June of 1864, the Hoosiers fought at the Battle of Cold Harbor and then were engaged at the Siege of Petersburg.
In 1864, the regiment rejoined the Army of the James for the Fort Fisher Expedition. On January 15,1865, General Alfred H. Terry's Federal infantry assaulted Fort Fisher, the largest coastal fortification in the Confederacy. Leading the rush up the fort's towering earthen walls was the color-bearer of the 13th Indiana. After fierce hand-to-hand fighting, Fort Fisher fell to Terry's forces. Later, the regiment was among the Federal forces that joined General William T. Sherman's army in the Carolinas Campaign and was present at Durham Station, North Carolina, when General Joseph E. Johnston surrendered his Confederate army to Sherman. The veteran soldiers of the 13th Indiana, who had survived some of the war's most bitter fighting, remained on duty in North Carolina until September 5,1865, when they were mustered out of service and returned home.