Michael Capps
Charles Henry
Flacke's
Union Army Service©
October 9, 1862 to July 25,
1865
Charles Henry Flacke's military
career began when he volunteered to join the 113th Regiment New
York Infantry on October 9, 1862 in Albany, New York. He was 18
years old, had grey eyes, light hair, a light complexion and
stood 5' 7.5"; his army record lists his occupation before
the War as "paper hanger." On December 3, 1862, he
departed Albany by railroad to join his regiment. The regiment
had left four months earlier to serve in the defenses of
Washington, D.C. at Fort Pennsylvania. On December 10 the 113th
New York Infantry was converted into an artillery regiment and
renamed the 7th Regiment New York Heavy Artillery.
Private Flacke, upon his arrival in Washington, was assigned to
Company F, one of eight companies in the regiment comprised
principally of men from Albany. The other companies in the
regiment were made up of men recruited from West Troy, Westerlo,
Bethlehem, Rensselaerville, Knox, and Albany county at large. The
7th New York Heavy Artillery remained at Fort Pennsylvania until
it was transferred to Fort Reno, D.C. on April 10, 1863. On
November 20 Private Flacke was authorized leave to visit Albany
and was given $7.64 for transportation. Following his return from
leave, he was promoted to Corporal on January 8, 1864.
At the beginning of May 1864, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant
ordered the Army of the Potomac to move south into Virginia.
Simultaneously in the West, Major General William T. Sherman
launched his Atlanta campaign. These moves were part of a
coordinated strategy to finally destroy the Confederacy. The
objective of the Army of the Potomac was to engage General Robert
E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia in battle and defeat it if
possible. At a minimum Grant wanted Lee's army immobilized.
Additionally, Grant's eyes were set on the Confederate capital of
Richmond that lay behind Lee's lines.
The first encounter between the two armies was in The Wilderness
about 12 miles west of Fredericksburg, Virginia. The Federal army
of 118,769 men suffered 18,000 causalities, while Lee's army of
62,000 lost 10,800 men. Despite these heavy losses Grant ordered
the army to slide past Lee's flank and move south towards the
village of Spotsylvania Court House.
On the morning of May 8 elements of the two armies encountered
each other again. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House was
under way; the fighting would not end until almost two weeks had
passed. During this time artillerymen from the forts surrounding
Washington, including the 7th New York Heavy Artillery, were
ordered south to join the fighting. On May 18, 1864 the 7th New
York Heavy Artillery joined Tyler's Artillery Division, 2d Corps
on the flank of the Union line. The next day, when they saw their
first combat, 76 men from the 7th New York Heavy Artillery were
either killed, wounded, or lost-in-action. All total 18,000 out
of 111,000 men in the Army of the Potomac ended up as
causalities; Confederate causalities totaled between 9,000-10,000
out of a total Confederate force of 63,000.
The Battle of Spotsylvania was followed by the Battle of North
Anna River on May 23-26 just 15 miles from Richmond. Ending
inconclusively, Grant again slipped his army of 114,000 men past
the right flank of Lee's army. Such advances assured Grant
uninterrupted supplies up Virginia's tidal rivers and allowed him
to forge deeper into the state. By May 31 Grant's twice deflected
army was directly due east of Richmond at the crossroads of Old
Cold Harbor. Lee, now commanding an army of 59,000, again blocked
the Army of the Potomac in four days of fighting. Casualties
totaled 10,000 Union and 4,000 Confederate.
Grant, still undaunted, chose to alter his strategy and swung his
army south of Richmond towards the strategic rail center of
Petersburg. It was through Petersburg that almost all of
Richmond's supplies passed. On June 15 Union forces assaulted the
defenses of Petersburg. Confederate defenders were forced to
twice fall back and ended up just outside the city limits. On the
June 18 Grant assaulted the Confederate line with his entire
army, but was thrown back. Late that same day Lee arrived with
reinforcements and so began the nine and a half month siege of
Petersburg. Sometime between June 16-19 Corporal Charles Flacke
was captured along with approximately three hundred other men
from the 7th New York Heavy Artillery.
Corporal Flacke, along with several thousand others captured in
front of Petersburg, was transported to a 13-acre Confederate
prison camp near Andersonville, Georgia. During July 1864 some
7,128 men arrived at this prison swelling the number within the
stockades to 31,678. The same month 1,817 men died within the
camp. All total 45,613 prisoners were brought into the camp
between its opening in February 1864 and its closing in December
1864. Of this number 12,912 died there; additionally, an
uncounted number died shortly after being transferred to other
camps or being released. John McElroy, a prisoner in the camp,
described the conditions in July and August as thus:
There was hardly room for all to lie down at night, and to walk a
few hundred feet in any direction would require an hour's patient
threading of the mass of men and tents. The weather became hotter
and hotter; at midday the sand would burn the hand. The thin
skins of fair and auburned-haired men blistered under the sun's
rays and swelled up in great watery puffs, which soon became the
breeding grounds of hideous maggots, or the still more deadly
gangrene.... One could not look a rod in any direction without
seeing at least a dozen men in the last frightful stages of
rotting death.
Flacke languished in this prison until sometime in October 1864
when he was transferred to a newly established prison camp near
Millen, Georgia. The prison there resembled the one near
Andersonville in terms of construction, but was not as crowded.
Total prisoners numbered between 6,000-7,000. Additionally, a
fresh supply of water ran through the camp and a limited amount
of building materials were found from which some shelters were
constructed. Corporal Flacke remained at Millen until November 19
when he was paroled at Savannah, Georgia as part of a general
parole of ten thousand other Union prisoners. This ten thousand
consisted of mainly sick men, but many healthy prisoners bribed
their Confederate guards and were included.
On November 25 Corporal Flacke arrived in Annapolis, Maryland
where he was admitted to Hospital Division, No 1 at the Naval
Academy. Two days later Flacke was sent to Baltimore, Maryland
from which he traveled home to Albany, New York. While on leave
in Albany, Corporal Charles Flacke and Catherine Heaney were
married by the Reverend James E. Duffy at St. Mary's Church on
January 18, 1865. In March he rejoined his old unit at Fort
McHenry, Maryland. Then, on March 30, he was promoted to
Sergeant. Two months later on May 25, 1865 at Fort Federal Hill,
Maryland, Sergeant Flacke was separated from the service so that
he could be sworn in as a 2nd Lieutenant in Company B of the 7th
New York Heavy Artillery. He was replacing Lieutenant H.M. Dodge
who had been cashiered. Lieutenant Flacke's military career ended
on July 25, 1865 when he was mustered out of the army in
Baltimore, Maryland.
The above was compiled in November 1993 from the following
sources:
Kennedy, Frances H., ed. The Civil War Battlefield Guide. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990.
McElroy, John. Andersonville: A Story of Rebel Military Prisons.
[A Modern Abridgment, with an introduction by Philip Van Doren.]
Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett Publications, 1962. [Originally
printed 1879]
Phisterer, Frederick, ed. New York in the War of Rebellion: 1861
to 1865. Albany, New York: J.R. Lyon Company, 1912.
Union army pension file for Flacke, Charles Henry, Companies
F&B, 7th New York Heavy Artillery, Invalid Certificate:
732099; Widow Certificate: 734469; Other XC-2684541, National
Archives, Washington, D.C.
Union army service record for Flacke, Charles H., Companies
F&B, 7th Regiment, New York Heavy Artillery, National
Archives, Washington D.C.
Unit record for the 7th Regiment, New York Heavy Artillery,
Compiled Records Showing Service of Military Units in Volunteer
Union Organizations - New York, Series M594, Roll 111, National
Archives, Washington, D.C.
Unit record for Company B, 7th Regiment, New York Heavy
Artillery, Compiled Records Showing Service of Military Units in
Volunteer Union Organizations - New York, Series M594, Roll 111,
National Archives, Washington, D.C.
Unit record for Company F, 7th Regiment, New York Heavy
Artillery, Compiled Records Showing Service of Military Units in
Volunteer Union Organizations - New York, Series M594, Roll 111,
National Archives, Washington, D.C.