Thomas L. Kane - Civil War Service

Civil War Service

As the Civil War began, Kane raised a mounted rifle regiment, the 42nd Pennsylvania Infantry, also referred to as the 13th Pennsylvania Reserves. He recruited woodsmen and lumbermen from western Pennsylvania, men who were experienced in the woods, could forage for themselves, and could shoot rifles. As the regiment was forming, one of his recruits ornamented his hat with a tail from a deer's carcass that he found in a butcher shop. Other men in the regiment liked this decoration and copied him, causing the regiment to be known as the "Bucktails." The men in the regiment built four large log rafts and floated down the Susquehanna River to Harrisburg, where they were mustered in. On June 21, 1861, veteran Charles J. Biddle was named the Union regiment's colonel with Kane as lieutenant colonel.

Kane has been described as a "visionary" of infantry tactics. He taught his men what would become known as "skirmisher tactics." They learned to scatter under fire and to make use of whatever cover the ground offered, and to fire only when they could see their targets. He stressed individual responsibility in his soldiers, a contradiction to the military thinking of the time. He held target practice, which was also an innovative idea, and drilled them in long-range firing, developing his men into fine sharpshooters.

The Bucktails were assigned to the Pennsylvania Reserves division of the V Corps of the Army of the Potomac. When Colonel Biddle resigned to enter United States Congress, Lt. Col. Kane took command. On December 20, 1861, Kane was wounded while leading a patrol at the Battle of Dranesville. A bullet struck the right side at his face, knocking out some teeth and producing long-term difficulties with his vision.

By the spring of 1862, Kane had partially recovered from his wound and returned to the Bucktails. They served as part of Brig. Gen. George Dashiell Bayard's cavalry in the Shenandoah Valley, fighting against Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign. At Harrisonburg, he and 104 picked riflemen were sent to the rescue of a regiment that had fallen into an ambush. Kane encountered three Confederate regiments on June 6, 1862. He was struck by a bullet that split the bone below his right knee and his men left him on the field. When he tried to rise after the fighting was over, a Confederate soldier broke his breastbone with a blow from the butt of his rifle and Kane, unconscious, was captured. He was exchanged, for Williams C. Wickham, in mid-August. He returned to duty in time for the Northern Virginia Campaign, but was so weakened that another officer led his regiment. He had to be helped onto his horse and was forced to walk using crutches; his Harrisonburg wound would reopen repeatedly for the next two years.

Kane was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers on September 7, 1862, and given command of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Division, XII Corps of the Army of the Potomac. This brigade was mustered out in March 1863 before Kane could lead it in combat. Kane was assigned a new brigade (now in the 2nd Division of the XII Corps) and saw action at Chancellorsville. After his horse stumbled in the Rapidan River and dumped him into the water on April 28, 1863, Kane developed a case of pneumonia. He was sent to a Baltimore, Maryland, hospital, where he remained through June. Upon hearing of General Robert E. Lee's second invasion of the North, the Gettysburg Campaign, Kane volunteered to convey intelligence to the commander of the Army of the Potomac, George Gordon Meade and rose from his sickbed to join his men. On a long and difficult ride by railroad and buggy, he avoided capture by Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry by disguising himself as a civilian. He arrived at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on the morning of July 2, 1863.

Kane resumed command of his brigade, occupying a position on Culp's Hill, the right of the Union line. His men did not participate in the bloody fighting of July 2 because his division, commanded by Maj. Gen. John W. Geary, was pulled out of the line and sent to defend against Confederate attacks on the Union left. (Due to bad navigation by Geary, the column took a wrong turn and never did reach the fighting that day.) However, when his men returned to their hastily constructed breastworks on Culp's Hill that night, they found Confederate soldiers occupying them and Kane's corps commander ordered an assault for early the next morning to regain the position. Before the Union attack could be launched on July 3, the Confederates struck first, and Kane and his men met and repulsed them. During the action Kane fell ill and the brigade's second-in-command, Colonel George A. Cobham, Jr., actively assisted in command. Although his brigade was victorious, Kane was a broken man and never recovered his health. He suffered from his festering facial wound, lingering chest problems, and impaired vision. He formally relinquished command the next day. He was then posted to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he supervised the draft depot. As he failed to recover his health, Kane resigned his commission in November 1863. For his service at Gettysburg, he was named Brevet major general on March 13, 1865.