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Sykes's Division.
Another division remarkable for superiority in discipline and efficiency, was
Sykes's Division of Regulars.
The regular troops of the United States Army-serving in the Army of the Potomac were formed into one division of two brigades, under command of
Major-General George Sykes, who was succeeded in 1863 by
General Romeyn B. Ayres.
This division included the Second, Third, Fourth, Sixth, Tenth, Eleventh, Twelfth, Fourteenth, and Seventeenth United States Infantry.
The regiments were small, seldom having over eight companies to a regiment, and often only three.
At
Gaines's Mill, and at
Gettysburg, they sustained a terrible percentage of loss.
The division became so reduced in numbers that it was withdrawn from the field in 1864.
The largest losses in the division occurred in the Fourteenth Infantry; but that might have been due to larger numbers.
The Regular Division was, undoubtedly, the best officered of any division in the Army, the officers being selected solely with reference to their ability.
In addition to those from the
National Military Academy, a large number were promoted from the ranks.
Attached to the division of Regulars was an additional brigade, composed of volunteer regiments, which had demonstrated by their discipline and efficiency their fitness to be associated with the Regulars.
Conspicuous among the volunteer regiments thus attached to the
Regular Division was the Fifth New York, or Duryee Zouaves--
General Warren's old regiment.
But the hardest fighting and greatest loss of life occurred in the First Division of the Second Corps,--
Hancock's old division — in which more men were killed and wounded than in any other division in the
Union Army, east or west.
Its losses aggregated 2,287 killed, 11,724 wounded,
1 and 4,833 missing; total, 18,844.
This division was the one which
Richardson — its first commander — led on the
Peninsula, and at whose head he fell at
Antietam; the one which, made the bloody assault on
Marye's Heights; which, under
Caldwell, fought so well in the
Gettysburg wheat-field; which, under
Barlow, surged over the enemy's works at
Spotsylvania; and which, under Miles, was in at the death in 1865.
Within its ranks were the Irish Brigade, and crack regiments like the Fifth New Hampshire, the One Hundred and Fortieth Pennsylvania, and the Sixty-fourth New York.
Over 14,000 men were killed or wounded in this division during the war; yet it never numbered 8,000 muskets, and often could muster only half of that.
After the charge on
Marye's Heights it numbered only 2,800.
Close to it, however, in point of loss stands
Gibbon's (2d) Division
2 of the Second Corps, and
Griffin's (1st) Division
3 of the Fifth Corps.
The heaviest loss sustained by any division in any one battle, occurred in
Getty's (2d) Division, Sixth Corps, at the
Wilderness, where that divison lost 480 killed, 2,318 wounded, and 196 missing; total, 2,994.
Gibbon's Division, at
Gettysburg, lost 344 killed, 1,197 wounded, and 101 missing; total, 1,642, out of 3,773 engaged — a loss of 43.5 per cent.
