POTW: In Honor of Our Veterans

[Survivors of the Fourteenth Regiment], ca. 1890, v1991.12.7; Brooklyn photograph and illustration collection, ARC.202; Brooklyn Historical Society.

In honor of Veterans Day yesterday, this week’s photograph highlights Brooklyn’s veterans.  The above photograph depicts veterans of the 14^th Regiment, New York State Militia (also known as the 84^th New York Infantry), at the dedication of their monument on the battlefield at Gettysburg. The regiment lost a total of 217 men over the course of the three-day battle.

The regiment, also known as Brooklyn's "Fighting Fourteenth," was created on July 4, 1847 through an act of the New York State Legislature. At the time of the Civil War, many of its members were abolitionists.  The Fighting Fourteenth they saw an enormous amount of combat during the war, fighting in the first and second Battles of Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, the Battle of the Wilderness, and of course, Gettysburg.  They were known for their fighting zeal as well as their red “Zouave” style trousers, prompting Confederate General Stonewall Jackson to dub them the “red-legged devils.”

In the decades after the war, pilgrimages to battle sites were common among veterans groups. Often, groups of Union and Confederate soldiers would meet and shake hands on the battlefield, signifying the symbolic reconciliation of the two regions.

Some of the members of the Fighting Fourteenth will be featured in BHS’s upcoming exhibition, Personal Correspondents: Photgoraphy and Letter-Writing in Civil War Brooklyn, which opens on April 9, 2015 – the date of the Confederate surrender at Appomattox.

Interested in seeing more photos from BHS’s collection? Visit our online image gallery, which includes a selection of our images. Interested in seeing even more historic Brooklyn images? Visit our Brooklyn Visual Heritage website here.  To search BHS’s entire collection of images, archives, maps, and special collections visit BHS’s Othmer Library Wed-Sat, 1:00-5:00 p.m. photos@brooklynhistory.org