Nathaniel M. Edwards joined the 1st as an enlisted man. In October 1862 Colonel Serrell reported that, “Lieutenant-Colonel Hall reports Sergt. N.M. Edwards, acting lieutenant, as especially worthy of notice for his efforts in repairing the bridge at Frampton [South Carolina] under heavy fire and for his general efficiency.” Quickly thereafter  commissioned, he became commander of the regiment’s Company G, which while stationed on Morris Island outside Charleston became known as “Edwards’ Engineers.” CDV by G.T. Lape, Photographer, 146 Chatham St., N.Y.

The 1st New York Volunteer Engineers

Part of a series of articles on Union and Confederate Engineers appearing in our March/April 2001 issue

In 1860, civil war looming, a prominent New York civil engineer, Edward W. Serrell, saw a need for a unit to assist the regular U.S. Army’s small corps of engineers with a volunteer unit that would be largely topographical engineers along with a regiment of mechanics and artificers.

At first no volunteer engineer regiments were authorized, but Serrell used his influence to get such a unit authorized, which happened in October 1861. He was named the unit’s colonel that December. Recruits came from all over the state as well as from northern New Jersey and even Kingston, Pennsylvania. By the end of December all but Companies F and H had been recruited and the unit was sent to Annapolis, Maryland.

Regimental Private John H. Westervelt described the regiment’s organization: “You must understand that alterations having been made in the Regt. making it different from any other. In the 1st place we have 12 Cos each having a Capt & two Lieuts. The Regt is divided into two battalions of six cos each. We have two Majors, Major {Richard] Butt 1st Bat, Major [James E.] Place 2nd ditto. Butts Battalion is at the Head, and Places here with the Genl Commanding.”

The regiments was a part of Major General T.W. Sherman’s South Carolina Expeditionary Corps bound for Port Royal Sound, South Carolina, where they saw service in direct support of the capture of Forts Walker and Beauregard. They rebuilt these fortifications, adding new some ones.

While there Companies F and H joined the regiment in early 1862, wile the two last companies, Company L was not formed until April 1864, and Company M was formed in April 1865. The regiment’s original Company L had earlier been converted into the 4th New York Light Artillery.

Remaining in the coastal area, the regiment was assigned to the X Corps. Companies A and D were sent to works before Fort Pulaski in January 1862 and during the siege of that fort a detachment of the regiment manned guns in one of the covered batteries they had earlier built. On that fort’s surrender, the regiment’s national color was the first flag to fly over its walls.

Parts of the regiment were then sent to Fernandina, Flordia, to work on Fort Clinch there. While four companies were sent there at one time or another, only one was needed to finish the curtain wall connecting all the fort’s bastions.

Other elements of the regiment were sent to the Charleston, South Carolina, area to build works there to bombard the city and Fort Sumter into surrender.

In early 1864 the X Corps was assigned to Butler’s Army of the James and all companies of the regiment, save A, C, G, and I, went to Virginia with this force. There they built works at Bermuda Hundred, the abortive Dutch Gap Canal, and roads to City Point where a pontoon bridge would cross the James River. Westervelt thought that the 15th New York Engineers, who built the bridge used “twice our number of men taken twice as long as it would have taken us though they have done five times the pontooning we have.”

After the Union forces united for Petersburg, the 1st was assigned to the Volunteer Engineer Brigade and was mustered out with them July 15, 1865.

Website Redesign and Hosting by: