Eastern Iron Brigade - Origin of The Iron Brigade

Origin of The Iron Brigade

The Eastern Iron Brigade consisted of the 22nd New York, 24th New York, 30th New York, 14th Regiment (New York State Militia), and 2nd U.S. Sharpshooters. During the Fredericksburg Expeditions, the brigade had two cavalry regiments attached to it, including the 2nd New York Cavalry Regiment "Harris Light" under the command of Lt. Col. Judson Kilpatrick (originally of 5th New York Zouaves) and the Sixth New York Cavalry. The pair of cavalry regiments were later sent back to their normal divisions.

The veteran brigade, under Col. Walter Phelps, received its nickname when Brig. Gen. Christopher C. Augur began a campaign near and around Fredericksburg, Virginia, from April 16 to July 23, 1862. After the Fredericksburg Expeditions, Brig. Gen. Marsena R. Patrick commented to Augur: "Your men must be made of iron to make such marches." The men of the 1st Brigade adopted this well received nickname. From then on they were known as the "Iron Brigade," and then later on as the "Eastern Iron Brigade."

During the famous march from Catlett’s Station to Falmouth Va., April 15th 1862, the First Brigade, First Division, First Army Corps, won the title of the “Iron Brigade.” The “Iron Brigade” was composed of the Second United States Sharpshooters, Twenty Second, Twenty Fourth, Thiriteth and Eighty-Fourth New York Volunteers the Eighty Fourth as everyone knows, Being the fighting Fourteenth. The same name was afterward applied to the Second Brigade of the same division.

Colonel Fox in his “Losses of the Rebellion” says “It seems strange that two brigades in the same division should adopt like synonyms, but in justice to Hatch’s Brigade, it should be stated that it was the original Iron Brigade.”

The first Iron Brigade to which the Fourteenth belonged, lost more in proportion in killed and wounded, in one battle, the Second Manassas, than the Light Brigade at Balaklava, which has been made famous in Tennyson’s poem.

The men of the Iron Brigade loved their moniker so much that some of the regiments had iron brigade placed on their flags that they carried into battle with them. As stated below in this news article describing an exhibition showing off the battle standard carried by the 24th during the war and in 1865 the flag was displayed proudly after the regiment had been mustered out of service.

The veterans of the old Twenty-Fourth (first Oswego county) regiment will be pleased to learn that the Flag which they so gallantly followed and so nobly sustained on so many bloody fields, is on exhibition, at the New York Sanitary Fair, in the department of "Flags, Trophies and Relics"—a mute but eloquent witness of their bravery and patriotism. It was deposited by Col. S. R. BEARDSLEY, and bears upon one side the inscription: "24th Regiment, Iron Brigade, 1st Division, 1st Army Corps.