Chaplain William L. Hyde of the 112th New York Infantry Autograph Letter Signed on the Second Battle of Fort Fisher. ...

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"They commenced the most desperate struggle known in this war or any other for the possession of the rest of the fort... Our division took 7 by separate assaults in a contest lasting from 3 till 10 pm, a struggle unequaled in the history of war."

Chaplain William L. Hyde of the 112th New York Infantry Autograph Letter Signed on the Second Battle of Fort Fisher. Four pages of a bifolium, 7.75" x 9.875", Chapin's Farm, Virginia; January 22, 1865. Chaplain William H. Hyde of the 112th New York Infantry mustered into service with the regiment on September 11, 1862. By early 1865, they were located in North Carolina and were preparing for the assault on Fort Fisher. The battle took place on January 13-15, 1865. Hyde initially sailed to North Carolina with the 112th but was sent back to Virginia to minister to the wounded in the camp hospital before the fight. While there, he received word of the battle and wrote this letter to his wife, Elizabeth, recounting the event. It reads, in part:

"Now my dear I must tell you about our Regt. It was in the hottest of the fight at the storming of Fort Fisher. Our Brigade indeed was the first to enter the fort. They captured three hundred men on entering, turned some howitzers they found upon the enemy and by rapid & desperate attempts in half an hour had possession of three of the huge bomb proofs whc. were each of them about as large as Mrs. Carpenter's whole yard. They commenced the most desperate struggle known in this war or any other for the possession of the rest of the fort... Our division took 7 by separate assaults in a contest lasting from 3 till 10 pm, a struggle unequaled in the history of war. Before dark every commanding officer in Genl Ames' Division had fallen. Col. Bell, commanding 2nd Brigade, fell early. Col. Smith, while gallantly leading on our Regt was hit by a minnie bullet in the bowels in nearly the same place Col. Drake was hit at Cold Harbor, and survived the night... I can't learn any minute particulars. The awful sublimity of the terrific struggle could only be appreciated by those witnessing it. The rebel gunboats and Forts Casewell & Buchanan poured their fire into the fort after our troops entered. Admiral Porter's invincible fleet fired over two hundred cannons kept up one continuous fire upon the Rebel Forts...

About dusk, it seemed a question whether the 2nd Division alone could take the fort. Genl. Terry ordered Abbott's Brigade of the first Division forward into the fort. They entered the fort, but before & just as the grand charge was about to be ordered, the white flags appeared, and the 2nd Division had the honor of its capture & Curtis' Brigade of the desperate fighting. It was said when the men charged over the ramparts nearly as high as the eaves of Mrs. Carpenter's house they would rush down after discharging their pieces & such men as had not been killed & did not surrender were immediately knocked down with the butt of the muskets... O why could I not have been there? This is the bitterest trial of my military life..."

This letter was published in Jim Quinlan's Armed Only with Faith, a compilation of Chaplain Hyde's correspondence and journals.

Condition: Smoothed folds.

More Information: William Lyman Hyde (1819-1896) was born in Bath, Sagadahoc County, Maine, to Henry and Maria (Hyde) Hyde (third cousin to Henry). After attending public schools in Bath, Hyde taught for three years at a military and classical school in Ellsworth, Maine, before entering a program of theological study at Bangor Seminary, graduating in 1848. The following year, Hyde began a seven-year tenure as a minister at Gardner, Maine, and later was pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Dunkirk, New York, for a number of years. On May 4, 1852 he wed Elizabeth Rice, daughter of Warren and Mary Webster of Wiscasset, Maine. Hyde resigned his ministry in 1862 to serve as Chaplain of the 112th New York Infantry, a position he held until the end of the Civil War. The regiment was organized at Jamestown, New York, and mustered in for three years-service on September 11, 1862. They participated in sixteen battles, including Cold Harbor, Petersburg, Chaffin's Farm, Fair Oaks and Darbytown Road, Fort Fisher, and the Carolinas Campaign. The 112th New York Infantry mustered out of service June 13, 1865. After the war, Hyde served as a pastor in Ripley and in Sherman, New York, until 1874, when he became principal of the Ovid (New York) Academy and Union School. In 1884, Hyde moved to Jamestown, New York, where he was associated with the Jamestown Journal, of which his son was an editor. In 1866, Hyde published a book, History of the One Hundred and Twelfth Regiment N.Y. Volunteers which remains the only regimental history concerning the 112th Infantry. Jim Quinlan edited and published a collection of his correspondence and journals in 2015 in Armed Only with Faith.