Second Bull Run: the fighting Forty-First New York and Brig.-Gen. Rufus King.
“C” Company of the Forty-first New York after the
Second Battle of Bull Run, August 30, 1862.
When the troops of
Generals Milroy and
Schurz were hard pressed by overpowering numbers and exhausted by fatigue, this New York regiment, being ordered forward, quickly advanced with a cheer along the
Warrenton Turnpike and deployed about a mile west of the field of the conflict of July 21, 1861.
The fighting men replied with answering shouts, for with the regiment that came up at the double quick galloped a battery of artillery.
The charging Confederates were held and this position was assailed time and again.
It became the center of the sanguinary combat of the day, and it was here that the “
Bull-Dogs” earned their name.
Among the first to respond to
Lincoln's call, they enlisted in June, 1861, and when their first service was over they stepped forward to a man, specifying no term of service but putting their names on the
Honor Roll of “For the
War.”
Brigadier-General King, a division commander in this battle, was a soldier by profession, and a diplomatist and journalist by inheritance — for he was a graduate of
West Point, a son of
Charles King, editor of the New York
American in 1897, and a grandson of the elder
Rufus, an officer of the Revolution and Minister to the Court of St. James.
He had left the army in 1836 to become
Assistant Engineer of the New York & Erie Railroad, a post he gave up to become editor of the
Daily Advertiser, and subsequently of the Milwaukee
Sentinel.
At the outbreak of the war
Lincoln had appointed him Minister to
Rome, but he asked permission to delay his departure, and was made a
Brigadier-General of Volunteers.
Later he resigned as Minister, and was assigned to
McDowell's corps.
At the
battle of Manassas, in which the Forty--first New York earned honor, he proved an able leader.
In 1867 he was again appointed as
Minister of the
United States to
Italy.
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C Company the fighting forty-first New York, August 30, 1862. |
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