On April 18, 1861, an article appeared in the New York Tribune announcing the formation of a “Zouave Regiment,” modeled after the colorfully uniformed North African troops known for their gymnastic aptitude, fearless swagger, and elite fighting abilities.Footnote ¹ Less than a week prior, Fort Sumter had fallen to the Confederacy, President Lincoln called for 75,000 militia volunteers to quell the rebellious South, and Virginia seceded from the Union. Regiments north and south formed quickly, and war seemed imminent, with most Americans convinced that any sort of armed conflict would be quick and relatively bloodless. For this new unit of Zouaves, however, only a certain class of men qualified: New York City volunteer firemen.Footnote ² The Tribune attested that firemen possessed the perfect combination of physical and mental prowess: “As men of steady nerves, unflinching courage, of the cool temper which the habit of facing danger alone can give, built up with muscles of steel, and of an indomitable power of endurance, they are just the men for that service.” They were, the Tribune described, “soldiers, and yet not soldiers; men who had just drill enough for the habit of it, but without any that would interfere with the acquisition of new tactics.”Footnote ³ Leaders of the city’s fire department quickly joined the call, urging their members to “turn out” and “join a regiment of firemen who can sustain the name of the New York Fire Department under any and all circumstances.”Footnote ⁴ Nearly every fire station became a recruiting office, and hundreds of men excitedly signed up to serve.Footnote ⁵ In just over a week, thousands of dollars were raised, uniforms procured, and the Fire Zouaves, as they were quickly known, had more than 1,000 volunteers in their ranks.Footnote ⁶ In a letter pledging funds from individual members of the New York Stock Exchange, William Irving Graham expressed his and his fellow brokers’ appreciation for “our red shirt” and “gallant friends,” confident that the firemen would “never prove unworthy of the generosity extended to them.”Footnote ⁷ The regiment of “brave firemen” was, the press declared, “ready for instant service.”Footnote ⁸

Elmer E. Ellsworth, the Fire Zouaves’ twenty-four-year-old commander, already had a national reputation as the “finest drill officer of his age.”Footnote ⁹ During the summer of 1860, he toured the country exhibiting his Chicago Zouaves, an elite company of militia volunteers who perfected gymnastic-like drills and carefully coordinated maneuvers. Clad in flamboyant uniforms, Ellsworth and his cadets impressed audiences and received mostly rave reviews from the press. Their performances, which lasted hours, attracted tens of thousands of spectators. When they visited Washington, DC, in August 1860, The Baltimore Sun described the Zouaves executing “the finest display of manual exercise ever witnessed here.” President James Buchanan praised them as models of citizen soldiery. “I wish you prosperity and happiness in peace,” Buchanan told the cadets; “should war come I know where you will be.”Footnote ¹⁰

Now Civil War had come, and Ellsworth rushed to participate. He had been dreaming of being a soldier since he was a boy in upstate New York. His family had struggled to make ends meet, and as a teen he had ventured off to New York City and later Chicago to support himself and his parents.Footnote ¹¹ Still, the military beckoned. Ellsworth initially sought an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point, but lacking political connections or adequate education to pass the qualifying exams, he turned toward the volunteer militia. By the age of twenty, he served as a drill instructor to various militia companies in Illinois and Wisconsin. In 1858, he sought to raise a unit of volunteers to fight in what looked like a war with Mormons in Utah territory, and in September 1859, he gained appointment as Assistant Adjutant General and Paymaster for the State of Illinois. In the meantime, he was accumulating political connections, too, including, most notably, the soon-to-be president Abraham Lincoln. The outbreak of war seemed to position Ellsworth in an ideal situation, with the right contacts and experience to secure a commission and make his dream of military command a reality.Footnote ¹²

Ellsworth had also developed an elaborate plan that was as much about reforming young white working-class men like himself as it was about revitalizing the volunteer militia. The Chicago Zouaves had to follow his own strict “Golden Resolutions,” which banned alcohol, profanity, and other perceived sinful behaviors. In essence, he wanted to mold men as much as transform the militia system and reconfigure the volunteer American soldier as respectable as any other professional class. In his proposed legislation, which he first tried at the state level, and then nationally, the militia would be not only more efficient in times of crisis, but more valued and admired. In doing so, Ellsworth was revisiting a perennial question of US military policy: Could the citizen soldier be relied upon for national defense?Footnote ¹³

Ellsworth fervently believed that he could single-handedly transform Americans’ attitudes toward citizen soldiers. With the outbreak of the Civil War, it seemed that his moment had come.

“Affect Recklessness”

Ellsworth did not return to Chicago to command his original company. Instead, he did something entirely new: he raised his regiment of New York City Firemen, intending to train them to be Zouaves.Footnote ¹⁴ There are conflicting accounts about whether Ellsworth went to New York with “orders, without assistance or authority” or had Lincoln’s approval.Footnote ¹⁵ Nonetheless, he had apparently been thinking about this idea for some time, assuming that firemen would make excellent soldiers.Footnote ¹⁶ Ellsworth “had this fire brigade on the brain,” his friend and fellow Chicago Zouave Edward B. Knox explained, “and nothing would stop him.” To Ellsworth, “the New York firemen were his beau ideals of soldiers in embryo.”Footnote ¹⁷

This “class of men,” Ellsworth presumed, would be, in the words of a postwar account, “best adapted from their accustomed exposure to privations, for the Zouave discipline.”Footnote ¹⁸ “I want the New York Firemen,” he explained, “for there are no more effective men in the country, and none with whom I can do so much. They are sleeping on a volcano at Washington and I want men who can go into a fight now.”Footnote ¹⁹ Others agreed. The New York Daily Tribune, for example, proclaimed: “No better material for soldiers than our firemen can be found in the world.”Footnote ²⁰ Thus, despite Ellsworth’s years of experience as a drill master, and his repeated insistence that intensive training and strict discipline made effective soldiers, he now claimed he could transform these volunteers into “efficient Zouaves” in a matter of days.Footnote ²¹

In his impatience to form the regiment, though, Ellsworth failed to make allowance for how challenging it would be to train them quickly.Footnote ²² To assist him, Ellsworth recruited several of his original Chicago Zouaves to serve as first lieutenants; however, the men in the ranks selected their company captains, and “seemed to consider the only qualifications necessary for the office were their ability to do considerable ‘heavy swearing’ and put out fires.”Footnote ²³ Company E initially did not have one of the original Chicago Zouaves assigned to it. The company’s first lieutenant was William R. W. Chambers, a popular fellow fireman, but tardy in joining the regiment due to the death of his young daughter. Pvt. Harrison H. Comings insisted though that this was an advantage for the company, motivating them to work all the more earnestly “to perfect themselves” in its complexities without an officer familiar with the drill to instruct them.Footnote ²⁴

Firemen frequently had to rush headlong into danger, refusing to show or admit any trepidation. In many ways, they seemed to epitomize widely held idealized conceptions of nineteenth-century white male courage.Footnote ²⁵ Firemen also had a reputation for rabblerousing, bravado, and willfulness. Critics likened them to ruthless street gangs, fiercely competing against one another to put out fires that plagued the city.Footnote ²⁶ The fact that a sizable contingency was Irish Catholic and working class only added to their perceived unfettered virility.Footnote ²⁷ The English novelist Charles Dickens, who observed them during a visit to the city, reasoned that “fireman’s service” as compared to that of the militia was more popular because it was “not so restrained and monotonous as that of the militiaman’s.” Noting their red flannel shirts, “leather helmet bound with brass,” black handkerchiefs tied in “jaunty tailor knots,” Dickens wrote: “It is evidently the manner with them to affect recklessness, so as not to appear to be drilled or drummed about to the detriment of their brave democratic freedom uniform.”Footnote ²⁸

Dickens sensed the very real challenges in trying to make soldiers out of firemen. They were fearless; no one doubted that, and their bravery seemed to be part of their moral constitution. But that recklessness, so central to their self-identity, would prove to be a detriment to their wartime service. In his famous exposition of the golden mean in the Nicomachean Ethics, the Classical Greek philosopher Aristotle noted that an excess of fearlessness was actually rashness, and thus not properly modulated and genuine courage at all. In effect, just as a lack of courage could result in cowardice, too much boldness could get one into trouble, recklessly exacerbating a dangerous situation rather than effectively resolving it. In this regard, while these men were initially lauded for their fearless behavior as firemen, later concerns would emerge about their moral disposition and judgment – particularly their unruliness, their disobedience, and their impatience.Footnote ²⁹ For instance, a later account of the unit explained that they would have been fine in the fight; it was the tediousness of camp life and drilling that was problematic for them: “To select such a regiment composed of elements so peculiar and so thoroughly permeated with the spirit of intrepid bravery – a spirit that regards the most heroic deeds in the light of everyday achievements – for the dull routine of permanent garrison duty, was a blunder.”Footnote ³⁰

In truth, bold and brash men did not, and do not, always make effectual soldiers. This was a lesson yet to be learned in the early months of the Civil War. In April 1861, before any real fighting had commenced, it appeared uncontested that men already proven to be fearless in peacetime would easily translate that same valor to the battlefield.Footnote ³¹

“Restless Spirits”

Soldiers, even the most seemingly courageous, require basic necessities: guns, uniforms, and rations for starters. Ellsworth had promised brand new Sharps rifles, bowie knives, and bright ostentatious uniforms, like that of “the famous Imperial Zouaves.”Footnote ³² Yet, obtaining these items quickly, and in adequate numbers and good quality, proved a serious challenge for local and state officials. The country was hastening to war at breakneck speed, but few Americans really had any experience at all dealing with the basic logistics of arming and preparing tens of thousands of volunteers for the battlefront.Footnote ³³ One private likened their original uniform to a “butterfly costume,” cheaply made with inadequate insulation for cool nights or dewy mornings.Footnote ³⁴ When crates of used, rusty muskets were delivered to the regiment, the men balked at unpacking them. Colonel Ellsworth had to request assistance from Chester A. Arthur, New York’s assistant quartermaster, who called in the local police and allegedly “put the ringleaders under arrest.” The muskets were unpacked but never used.Footnote ³⁵

As they waited for their promised Sharps rifles, there were reports that “great dissatisfaction exists among our gallant volunteer firemen, that no arms have been furnished them.” The New York Times, though, insisted: “They will never desert – no fireman would do that – but they declare they will not go on till they have something better than their bare fists to fight with.”Footnote ³⁶

Figure 1.1 “Colonel Ellsworth’s New York Fire Zouaves.”

Image courtesy of Harper’s Weekly, May 18, 1861.

Public pressure was mounting to leave quickly for Washington. The New York Sunday Mercury demanded that the regiment be placed “in the position they ask for. That is – the nearest to the enemies of their country and face to foe with the bragging, yellow-faced Southern traitors, if they dare to face honest men! We fear not the result.”Footnote ³⁷ Ellsworth himself pleaded with local officials to allow his regiment to head south immediately. Brig. Gen. Charles Gates, who had warned New York Governor Edwin D. Morgan to hold off dispatching volunteers too hastily, made an exception for the Fire Zouaves, reasoning that “it is composed of many enthusiastic, restless spirits who will be governed much better out of the city of New York than in it.”Footnote ³⁸

It was also starting to prove a mixed blessing that the regiment had a close relationship with the city’s major newspapers on all sides of the political spectrum. Ellsworth had shown himself quite adept at manipulating his own public persona when he led the Chicago Zouaves, although he sometimes withstood vicious attacks by the press, too.Footnote ³⁹ The Fire Zouaves counted five “Fire Editors” and two special artists in their ranks, including one who was a correspondent for Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper.Footnote ⁴⁰ Pvt. Arthur O. Alcock served as Fire Editor for two separate Democratic newspapers, the New York Leader and the New York Atlas, both influential Democratic broadsides. Using two different pseudonyms, Alcock drafted lengthy letters to the papers from the regiment’s early beginnings.Footnote ⁴¹ Two more reporters, Henry J. Wisner, with the conservative Republican New York Times, who was also Ellsworth’s acting aide-de-camp, and Edward House, with the Democratic New York Herald, were essentially embedded within the unit.Footnote ⁴²

With so many papers tracking them, the Fire Zouaves became avid consumers of news themselves. One member demanded copies of the New York Sunday Mercury: “The boys can’t do without it. If you forget it, and I am shot; I will haunt you.”Footnote ⁴³ Another soldier, Pvt. John A. Smith (Co. H), “an ex-knight of the quill,” agreed, stating that the Mercury in particular was “in great demand here.” He explained: “It is meat and drink to the boys.”Footnote ⁴⁴ With the added media attention came a new nickname: Ellsworth’s “Pet Lambs.” Its origin is unclear, but the moniker circulated widely among the men themselves and beyond New York City.Footnote ⁴⁵ Contrasted with the Fire Zouaves’ repute for impudence, “pet lambs” implied innocence and coddling; but the term also conveyed a chilling foreboding: lambs, even pet ones, can be sacrificed and slaughtered.

The media attention, both positive and negative, heightened the regiment’s eagerness to rush to war. It had only been a matter of weeks, but Ellsworth and his Zouaves were convinced they were ready for war.

“Playing Soldier Long Enough”

On the morning of Sunday, April 28, a large and boisterous crowd gathered in front of the regiment’s temporary headquarters on Canal Street. The “entire Fire Department” turned out to escort their comrades through the city to board a steamer heading south. But there was bureaucratic “red tapeism,” and the men still lacked guns and other accouterments.Footnote ⁴⁶ Chafing at the delay, Ellsworth pronounced that his regiment had “been playing soldier long enough” and he deemed them ready to begin “the actual duties of a soldier’s life.”Footnote ⁴⁷

The next day, they were off, their departure creating a memorable spectacle.Footnote ⁴⁸ The Republican New York Daily Tribune proclaimed it: “a proud day for the New-York Firemen.” More than 1,000 Fire Zouaves, “the bone and sinew of the city,” marched smartly through the city streets, escorted by police and some 5,000 fellow firemen.Footnote ⁴⁹ Clad in loose-fitting gray uniforms, with bright red shirts and red kepis, they stepped in cadence past cheering crowds. In their rear followed fourteen “colored servants” “attached to the regiment,” assisting with menial tasks and chores.Footnote ⁵⁰ The sense of exhilaration and expectation was palatable. The New York Times described the firemen “in their highest animal spirits, and all seemed happy at the prospect of soon having a set-to with the Secessionists.”Footnote ⁵¹ “You can scarcely conceive,” one private later recalled, “the excitement that occurred in New York at this time.”Footnote ⁵² George Templeton Strong, who watched the parade from atop an omnibus, was unimpressed with their marching, yet judged the regiment “a rugged set” who “will fight hard if judiciously handled.”Footnote ⁵³

At various locations, the Fire Zouaves halted to ceremoniously receive stands of colors, including a white silk banner from the Fire Department, displaying “all the implements pertaining to the fireman’s calling – hooks, ladders, trumpets, hats, lanterns, torches &c.”Footnote ⁵⁴ There were also specially designed banners from Augusta Astor, the wife of wealthy financier and real estate magnate John Jacob Astor III, and one from the actress Laura Keene.Footnote ⁵⁵ There seemed enough flags, the New York Daily Tribune observed, for the men to “wrap themselves up in American flags if they choose.”Footnote ⁵⁶ The martial pageantry fit the pattern Ellsworth had mastered with his Chicago Zouaves on their national tour the year prior: it was a public celebration of citizen soldiery.

Military officials, local politicians, and leaders of the fire department addressed the men with rousing speeches.Footnote ⁵⁷ W. H. Wickham, the Fire Department President, professed: “You have established a character for noble daring which has received the admiration and the tribute of the people.” He urged them to “go forth to exhibit your gallantry and your energies in another field,” and enter “where the fight is the thickest and the bullets fly the fastest.”Footnote ⁵⁸ Kentuckian Cassius M. Clay recounted a visit to Russia where he was asked: “how was it that a government as extensive as ours could be conducted without the aid of a standing army?” Clay responded that the United States had in fact the “largest standing army in the world,” in its citizenry. “We are all soldiers here,” he proclaimed, “ever ready to defend the honor for the flag under which we live.”Footnote ⁵⁹

A noticeably tired Ellsworth spoke too, declaring his pride in commanding “such a gallant body of men” despite the short association he had had with them. “He knew,” he told the crowd, “that brave hearts beat within their breasts and felt confident that if the opportunity offered, they would do credit not only to the firemen but to the city of New York.” Accepting one of the banners, he vowed: “So long as any of us live – so long as one single arm responds to the promptings of the heart – this flag will not be disgraced by any act of the New York Fire Zouaves.” He admitted that his men would “go into [the] field without discipline, it is true, without drill.” Nevertheless, he assured the crowd that they would more than compensate for these deficiencies and make the city and fire department proud. He promised to return from war with their “colors as pure and unsullied as they are now.”Footnote ⁶⁰

Most press accounts were glowing. “No class of men,” the New York Herald declared, “could be better calculated to go through the fatigue of campaign than Colonel Ellsworth’s Zouaves. Thick set, rugged and tough fellows they are; capable of bearing any amount of hardship.” As brave and hardy men, they would, the Herald predicted, excel in battle; and if they failed, it would not be for lack of valor.Footnote ⁶¹ Novelist and journalist Henry Morford later affirmed that the intention was for the Fire Zouaves, “to be picked men, ready for any service and capable of reflecting honor on the city that sent them forth.” Other regiments, “composed of miscellaneous material and of men whose courage and endurance had never been proved, might cover themselves with glory or fall into comparative disgrace”; but firemen were a proven commodity and there was no questioning their bravery; at least that was what nearly everyone assumed at the time.Footnote ⁶²

Still, alongside these effusive public testimonies affirming the Fire Zouaves’ gallantry were disquieting accounts of illicit behavior and challenges to their loyalty. Their insubordination over unpacking the crates of muskets was just one example. Fire Editor A. O. Alcock recognized that there were some in the city hoping to see the firemen disgrace “themselves in some way.” But, he attested, except for a handful of “black sheep,” the unit as a whole was strong and ready for the fight.Footnote ⁶³ The New York Leader, in response to the doubters, noted the large number of enlistments in the unit as a counter to anyone that questioned the firemen’s patriotism. “They know,” the paper affirmed, “the hardship they are expected to endure. They offer their lives, and look to the citizens of New York for the means to get them into active service.”Footnote ⁶⁴

It was becoming clear that Ellsworth’s Zouaves represented more than the city’s volunteer fire department: in those early, heady days of war, they seemed to embody the city’s patriotism and devotion to the Union cause. The New York Herald had predicted that the regiment would “reflect the infinite credit on the great commercial metropolis of the United States, whether in a bold and daunted front against the enemy, or as good citizens and respectable members of society.”Footnote ⁶⁵ This was both a boon and burden, and something, at least on the surface, the men of the unit welcomed and celebrated. Private Alcock encapsulated this sentiment when he described “the whole country” watching them, expecting “great things.”Footnote ⁶⁶

Near the end of their joyous parade, the regiment came to a sudden stop. Ellsworth had received stern orders from the Governor’s office disallowing his regiment from formal mustering into service due to “an excess of men,” and thus, requiring another delay in their departure.Footnote ⁶⁷ The colonel quickly consulted with military officials and made a special plea to Maj. Gen. John Wool, who was reviewing the regiment as it passed from the balcony of a hotel. Wool agreed to make an exception, issuing an order “directing the mustering of the companies in Washington, notwithstanding the excess of their numbers.”Footnote ⁶⁸ Wool later recalled that he was loathe to be “the first to check the noble and patriotic enthusiasm of the citizens of New York.”Footnote ⁶⁹ The crowd cheered, and the Fire Zouaves excitedly resumed their march forward. “But for Gen. Wool,” the New York Daily Tribune speculated, “the firemen would have been thus turned back in Broadway the other day.” The paper speculated: “Who can calculate the moral effect of such a disastrous procedure?”Footnote ⁷⁰

While the Tribune’s remark pertained specifically to the mustering of the regiment at this early stage in their own city, it ominously foreshadowed what was to come on the battlefield; and as the question implies, calculating the moral effect of a disastrous action is not always an easy or simple matter.

“Be as Good Soldiers as Brave Men”

Escorted to the pier, the regiment “had to run the gauntlet of firemen, every one of whom felt it to be his bounden duty to shake the hand of every soldier and remark ‘Go in Lemons’” – contemporary slang for attacking “with full force or earnestly.”Footnote ⁷¹ After this frenzied and final farewell, the Zouaves boarded the steamship Baltic and began sailing southward toward Annapolis, Maryland. This vessel, originally designed as a luxury liner for transatlantic travel, was meant to accommodate 600 passengers, not 1,000 soldiers.Footnote ⁷² Private Alcock described his comrades having “to camp as best they could” in any space they could find.Footnote ⁷³ Finding the air below deck “sickening in the extreme,” twenty-one-year-old Pvt. Alfred Vaughn opted to sleep in the open air, with his thin government-issued blanket for cover.Footnote ⁷⁴ There also were no rations; when the order came halting the regiment’s departure from the city, Quartermaster Arthur had canceled stocking the ship with food. Now with hungry men swarming the ship’s decks, Arthur frantically arranged to deliver the necessary supplies.Footnote ⁷⁵

Even in transport, Ellsworth sought to get better control of his raw troops. He ordered company drills on the upper deck and posted guards throughout the ship, but the men were more interested in amusing themselves. They smoked, played cards, told raucous jokes, and sang, well into the early morning hours. At one point, it appeared that an enemy boat came close to attack, but this proved a false alarm. Then a rumor spread that several Fire Zouaves had been arrested and were in irons. This, too, was untrue. By the time they debarked in Annapolis on May 2, an officer from the 13th New York Infantry observed that Ellsworth’s men “seemed highly pleased to get off the vessel. Some say they have fared well on their passage, and some tell a different story.” He remarked: “I have no doubt that there are many among them who would fare well if there was any fare to be had.”Footnote ⁷⁶ The Baltic’s purser told a reporter that the New Yorkers had had a “lively time on board.”Footnote ⁷⁷ Ellsworth’s attempts at transforming the firemen into obedient soldiers would only continue.

The regiment marched off the boat and onto the Naval Academy’s parade ground for lunch. There they listened to another speaker trying to advise them on what lay ahead. The officer, identified as “Lt. Hamilton,” was probably Lt. Col. Schuyler Hamilton, the grandson of Alexander Hamilton and Military Secretary to Winfield Scott. Lieutenant Hamilton told them that no one “doubted their bravery, but many feared about their order and discipline, and they must show now that they could be as good soldiers as brave men.” They cheered in reply.Footnote ⁷⁸

The Zouaves packed up and resumed their journey, this time on train cars to Washington, DC. Lieutenant Hamilton’s warnings proved fruitless. Just a few hours later, Private Vaughn recalled a “scene” that “makes me blush with shame to write it.” As the train passed a depot manned by members of the 69th New York Infantry Regiment, a few Fire Zouaves jumped off the cars to raid the “poor men” selling various items to the passing soldiers. They returned gleefully weighed down with “boxes of cigars, loaves of bread, and anything they could lay their hands on. Not even the poor people’s coffee was spared.” Colonel Ellsworth quickly “paid for it all and the men were allowed to go unpunished.” Vaughn, however, insisted that the culprits were not members of the Fire Department, “nor ever did; and I think it very hard that good men united in a good cause, should have their reputation and that of their Colonel and regiments ruined by evil geniuses, who go about raving pillaging, destroying and blasting the fair fruits of peace and industry, mercy to satisfy and [sic] insatiable thirst for that which is wrong.” Vaughn, whose letter appeared in the New York Atlas, wanted people at home to “know that these men do not belong to the fire department, and that they may still be proud of their firemen, who are all eager to see these blackguards drummed out of the regiment.”Footnote ⁷⁹

Colonel Ellsworth was finding that transforming firemen into obedient soldiers was far more difficult than he had anticipated. During the brief time he commanded the unit, he quickly gained their trust and respect. On the surface at least, he was “an excellent fit for the firemen.” Private Alcock explained that his “intrepid, dashing character” suited them well: “They are used to such, and nothing else would content them.” But as Ellsworth kept trying to instill “perfect discipline,” he kept clashing with the firemen’s distaste for conformity.Footnote ⁸⁰

“Discreditable Manner”

The Zouaves’ antics only continued during their brief stay in Washington, DC. They arrived after dark on Thursday, May 2, and marched by the White House “with a long, springing step, giving their ‘Hi! Hi! Hi!’ when cheered as they passed.”Footnote ⁸¹ One member of the unit spotted President Abraham Lincoln watching them from a window but was unable to “distinguish his features.”Footnote ⁸² A few days later, Ellsworth drilled his men near the Capitol building. When President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of War William Seward came to observe them, the Zouaves crowded eagerly around the president as he shook hands and answered their inquiries. Private Vaughn wrote: “He looked very well, but at the same time rather feeble.”Footnote ⁸³ The president’s obvious interest in the regiment only increased public curiosity and added to already high expectations. “I doubt,” one Zouave later recalled, “if any body of men ever felt the responsibility resting upon them.”Footnote ⁸⁴

Within the crucible of that public pressure, the Zouaves’ bad behavior worsened. Temporarily quartered in the Capitol Building, they were soon “having a good time.”Footnote ⁸⁵ Members held raucous mock sessions and swung from ropes from the unfinished rotunda. There were also accounts of them stealing, carousing in the city streets, and deliberately setting fires so they could put them out. The Philadelphia Press reported: “They have had two days of extensive, expensive and extreme fight, fun and frolic.”Footnote ⁸⁶ This devil-may-care attitude fueled their critics and exacerbated their officers’ frustration. Gen. Winfield Scott relayed his displeasure through then Maj. Irvin McDowell, temporarily halting their shenanigans with some sort of “treaty.”Footnote ⁸⁷ Colonel Ellsworth tried to assure the Zouave Fire Regiment Fund Committee that “the boys have generally behaved well,” admitting that there were “twenty exceptional characters” who were a problem. He predicted that, “when rid of these [we] will have a regiment creditable to your City, and I trust to myself.”Footnote ⁸⁸

Less than a week later, however, Gen. Joseph K. Mansfield, commander of the Department of Washington, had to remind Colonel Ellsworth that he was “entitled to fuel,” but that he would have to be “careful not to burn fences, as some have already been burnt.”Footnote ⁸⁹ A Pennsylvania newspaper recounted that the “quiet Massachusetts” troops quartered nearby “don’t fancy them, especially as they go, eat, or sleep, where they please, ‘an’ mind yer don’t say nuffing about it, hay!”Footnote ⁹⁰ An unnamed soldier from the 71st New York Volunteer Infantry depicted more sordid behavior: “Some unworthy members of the New York Fire Zouaves are creating a great disturbance here. They break into houses, and in some instances have outraged defenseless women. So great was the disorder among them that Colonel Ellsworth was compelled to threaten some of them with death.”Footnote ⁹¹ Pvt. Alfred Vaughn admitted: “Some of the men have committed outrages in the city and some are to be punished.”Footnote ⁹²

Stories of their bad behavior made it into the Confederate press, too, only adding to their growing reputation as lowly criminals. The Alexandria Gazette and Virginia Advertiser noted the Fire Zouaves’ arrival in Washington, DC, recognizing their ability as “efficient agents in extinguishing material combustion,” but wondered if they could “subdue the concealed fires which are burning in the minds of our innocent, lawful and peaceable citizens.” The paper added: “Several members of this regiment were arrested today by the police for disorderly and riotous conduct.”Footnote ⁹³ A negative story from the Richmond Examiner, reprinted in a Brooklyn newspaper, alleged that the Fire Zouaves were “the lowest refuse of New York city.” Scoffing at their uniforms, the Confederate paper was decidedly unimpressed, dismissing them as looking dirty and “worn six months in some pork packing establishment.” The Examiner stated: “If you were to meet one of them in a lonesome place, you would instinctively produce your wallet and hand it over. Such are the kind of men that Gen. Scott proposes to let loose upon the soil of his native South.”Footnote ⁹⁴ In another example, one of the “secession dailies” ridiculed the Fire Zouaves as illiterate. The New York Leader responded: “As our firemen went to fight for their country’s honor, and not to be sneered at by a cowardly press it is rather contemptible in any man to cast slurs upon them because they cannot handle a pen as readily as a bayonet.”Footnote ⁹⁵ The firemen’s celebrated reputation for brash fearlessness, which initially seemed to affirm their potential as soldiers, was quickly turning them into symbols of immorality.

On Tuesday evening, May 7, 1861, Ellsworth’s Fire Zouaves were officially mustered into service in the US Army with formal designation as the 11th New York Volunteer Infantry. Ellsworth marched the men to the parade ground near the uncompleted Washington Monument and addressed his regiment candidly in a “lengthy speech.” He praised them for their “fine appearance and proficiency of drill,” assuring them that promises to supply tents, new rifles, and new uniforms would be met.Footnote ⁹⁶ But he also reminded the Zouaves that he had specially selected firemen because of their reputation for “bravery, intrepidity and brawn, and how much was expected of them by their country.”Footnote ⁹⁷ Now he sought a greater commitment from them, stipulating that they must agree to serve for the duration of the war. “Some of the men blinked,” the Tribune recorded, “but a vast majority seemed ecstatic with delight.” Ellsworth warned them: “any who didn’t want to fight who would like to go home in irons and be sneered at as cowards, to stand out and he would accommodate them instanter [sic].”Footnote ⁹⁸ “There were some complaints and objections,” Private Alcock reported, but in the end “all but a dozen responded cheerfully to the obligation.”Footnote ⁹⁹ Those who refused, The New York Times pronounced, were men whose “reasons for leaving were not of a character to reflect upon their courage.” “The remainder,” the paper stated, “cheerfully took the oath of service for the war.”Footnote ¹⁰⁰

Ellsworth additionally promised to discipline any members who continued to tarnish the unit’s reputation. Apparently, just as he sent a squad of men to round up the guilty parties, Generals Lorenzo Thomas and Irvin McDowell arrived to formally swear in the regiment. President Lincoln, with his son Tad and Senators Henry Wilson and Edward Baker, also appeared to witness the mustering in and review of the troops. “The expulsion of the men” the Tribune reported, “was postponed.”Footnote ¹⁰¹

Publicly, Colonel Ellsworth and his supporters refused to concede that recruiting firemen had been a mistake. It was inevitable, he and others argued, that in a unit of more than a thousand men there would be some bad actors. He admitted that he had had no chance to properly screen volunteers and, thus, a small minority were “conducting themselves in a discreditable manner.” “It is the intention of the regiment,” he vowed publicly, “and my own determination, to free ourselves by the most summary process of all such characters, the moment we can identify them.”Footnote ¹⁰² Ellsworth paid for damaged property out of his own pocket and issued new orders posting more guards and prohibiting members from roaming the streets without authorization. He further appealed to victims to come forward and identify the perpetrators.Footnote ¹⁰³ When news stories circulated that more than 150 Fire Zouaves were sent home “in disgrace,” Ellsworth assured his fiancée Carrie Spafford that these reports were “false.” “We have sent back 6 and the men do well,” adding proudly: “The President and Sec. of War say my regiment is without exception the best [in] the service of the U.S.”Footnote ¹⁰⁴

Just who these culprits were, and what if anything happened to them, is unclear. Colonel Ellsworth claimed more than once that he had arrested the guilty parties and punished them.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ Pvt. John Smith castigated them as “scamps, who crept into our ranks before leaving New York” who had “committed outrages here.” But he also insisted, as did others, that: “they have been taken, and will be sent home in irons. Five of the vagabonds will be turned over to the civil authorities.”Footnote ¹⁰⁶ Another Fire Zouave assured readers of the Sunday Mercury: “We had six bad-minded men in the regiment and they came very near disgracing us all.” At least three of them disguised themselves as firemen, somehow gaining possession of the prized firemen badges. But when they were discovered, “they were drummed out of the regiment, and will be sent to New York to-morrow in irons.”Footnote ¹⁰⁷ Rosters and other surviving military documents fail to corroborate these assertions. There were a handful of men discharged or dismissed in May from the unit, some deemed unfit for active service due to physical disabilities, but nothing points to formal arrests (civil or military), court-martials, or other punitive proceedings.Footnote ¹⁰⁸

Ellsworth continued to do his utmost to ensure that his regiment was free of any miscreants. He still clung to the notion that firemen made the best soldiers and that all they needed was the chance to show it.

“Not Dandy Soldiers”

Soon an opportunity arose to prove the Fire Zouaves’ worthiness, albeit not on the field of battle. A few days after their arrival in the capital, a fire broke out in the middle of the night in a building adjacent to the famed Willard’s Hotel. General Mansfield, who happened to be staying there, hurriedly sent a plea for help to Ellsworth. Some 300 firemen sprang into action, with “deliberation and bravery,” breaking open the doors of the district’s fire stations and rushing to extinguish the flames.Footnote ¹⁰⁹ Their quick action prevented the blaze from spreading and causing more damage. Ellsworth used a brass trumpet to direct the firemen and, as The New York Times correspondent Henry J. Wisner reported, “marched them back to quarters, none looking in any manner fatigued after two hours of as hard labor as ever, probably, fell to their lot.”Footnote ¹¹⁰

Their uniforms were torn and soiled, but the men were heartened by the episode. Pvt. John A. Smith described being “cheered heartily” as they marched back to their camp at the Capitol building. “Some of our detractors here,” he attested, “have found out that we are fit for any kind of duty, and ask nothing but a ‘clear field and no favors.’”Footnote ¹¹¹ General Mansfield addressed the regiment from the balcony of Willard’s with “an enthusiastic speech,” predicting that if they performed as “well in actual warfare as they had in battling with that fire[,] they would render an excellent account of themselves.”Footnote ¹¹²

Indeed, the Fire Zouaves and their supporters hoped saving Willard’s Hotel would silence their critics. Their “gallant behavior” was, according to one member, “the talk of the town” and managed to cover up “a multitude of sins.”Footnote ¹¹³ Accounts of their handiwork appeared in major newspapers, including Harper’s Weekly, which featured a front-page illustration of the Zouaves forming a human ladder to reach the heights of the buildings, with one member held upside down so he could spray water through an open window.Footnote ¹¹⁴ This “exhibition,” Wisner with The New York Times contended, should “retrieve the character of the regiment from the disgrace cast upon [them] by the excesses of the few rogues who have been turned out of its ranks.” It was a “disgrace,” Wisner lamented, “which was very unjustly cast upon it in consequences of the habit of some newspapers have of exaggerating and magnifying small offences into grave outrages.”Footnote ¹¹⁵

Figure 1.2 “Willard’s Hotel Saved by the New York Fire Zouaves.”

Image courtesy of Harper’s Weekly, May 25, 1861.

A change of location also seemed a possible solution to the regiment’s ongoing problems. The day after the fire, Ellsworth moved his regiment to “Camp Lincoln,” along the heights southwest of town as part of the capital’s defenses. On their first night in their new camp, there was a heavy rain, and the men “slept on muddy ground.”Footnote ¹¹⁶ Despite the bad weather, Wisner insisted, “The post to which the regiment has been assigned is a very important one, and the honor is fully appreciated.”Footnote ¹¹⁷

Here, Colonel Ellsworth once again sought to instill at least some semblance of order. He housed the men in Sibley tents and instigated five to six hours of daily drill and dress parades, even on Sundays, disallowing the regimental chaplain, George W. Dodge, from giving sermons.Footnote ¹¹⁸ Ellsworth was starting to realize, though, that he could not rely solely on his former Chicago Zouaves or his own skills as drillmaster; he needed more help. Assistance soon came in the form of Lt. Col. Noah L. Farnham and Adj. Charles McKnight Leoser. Farnham, thirty-one years old and nicknamed “Pony” for his small stature, was well familiar with the firemen, having served as an assistant engineer, and he was a member of the 7th New York State Militia. Like Ellsworth, Farnham had studied military tactics as a teen and excelled at fencing. “Pony Farnham is every inch a soldier,” a Fire Zouave maintained, “and after the boys earn his worth and military abilities, will not stop at liking him – they will love him.”Footnote ¹¹⁹ A. O. Alcock was also initially impressed, writing that Farnham “already made a good impression on the members of the regiment who are personally unacquainted with him; and as a disciplinarian he will prove inestimable to us.”Footnote ¹²⁰ Leoser, only twenty-one years old, graduated West Point that May, and brought his professional education to the regiment.Footnote ¹²¹

Ellsworth further sought to resolve the unit’s continued supply problems: there still were not enough guns, and uniforms were wearing thin.Footnote ¹²² Chief Decker visited them from New York, impressing upon them yet again “the necessity of obedience and discipline.”Footnote ¹²³ There was some noticeable improvement – at least General Mansfield thought so when he reviewed the regiment at Camp Lincoln, complimenting them on their “progress” in drilling.Footnote ¹²⁴

Despite these improvements, with stricter rules and new officers, the men had, according to one Fire Zouave, “plenty of amusements here, more than a person would think.” There were daily visitors from Washington and New York, including “many ladies,” and Wallace’s Band performed regularly, cheering the men with “its enlivening strains.”Footnote ¹²⁵ “Just imagine to yourself,” one member recounted, “a thousand men playing leap frog; dancing, groups of singers, card-players, smoking, cooking, washing, growling, [and] talking fire.”Footnote ¹²⁶ The regiment, though, was restless for real action. “Here,” a member bemoaned, “we remain, in dull inactivity, rusting for want of excitement.”Footnote ¹²⁷ Some soldiers were intent on finding their own excitement, easily slipping past guards, and venturing into the city.Footnote ¹²⁸

The Zouaves’ antics were still making national news. For example, The Weekly Sun from Vincennes, Indiana, reported that thirty women were discovered in their camp soon after they arrived in DC. The women were sent home, but the paper observed: “The Zouaves, we fear, are not at all of the highest moral character.”Footnote ¹²⁹ An article in the Philadelphia Press targeted seventy-five members of the unit as part of a “class whose irrepressible propensities for mischief cause themselves and their friends no little trouble.” The paper described members scattering through the capital’s streets, looking for “amusements, novel, exciting, and dangerous and otherwise.” Several Fire Zouaves “amused themselves in feats of jumping” “over a six foot iron rail around the grounds of the Smithsonian.” Colonel Ellsworth, the paper alleged, planned to return 100 men back to New York City to be rid of the bad influence. This would leave the regiment “orderly, noble and brave men as ever were called together for military duty.”Footnote ¹³⁰

This was a pattern that had developed from the initial founding of the regiment. Lurid stories of the Fire Zouaves’ bad behavior circulated in the press and then there was a rush to defend them, with claims that the stories were exaggerated or that only a handful of men were culprits and would be duly punished. Their “unenviable notoriety,” one New Yorker insisted, was simply due to “the pranks of a few unruly members.”Footnote ¹³¹ Ellsworth dismissed the bad press out of hand, writing his fiancée Carrie: “Stories you hear about [the] Regt [are] all false.”Footnote ¹³²

Fire Editor and Pvt. A. O. Alcock wrote a lengthy defense of his regiment to the New York Leader on May 10: “You have probably heard,” he told his readers, “of the alleged disgraceful conduct of a few of our members and in common with our friends in New York have felt aggrieved.” Alcock echoed Ellsworth when he reasoned that the hurried nature of the regiment’s formation meant that there were men in the ranks “whom had never met before they were mustered into service.” Thus, to expect “them to be all saints would have been too much, and we all knew that if there were any bad or vicious natures in the ranks, they would soon make themselves known through their activities.” Like others, Alcock insisted that the “few derelictions committed were traced to less than a dozen men, six of whom have been publicly disgraced and dismissed from the regiment.” Except for these few men, Alcock declared, the regiment consisted of “good material” who behaved “as orderly as any members of any company now in Washington.” He characterized most of the accusations as “rumors and exaggerated stories,” some of them “manufactured out of whole cloth” by reporters who failed to understand the ways and manners of firemen. It was true, Alcock admitted, that the men were still lacking in mastering the manual of arms. But their “evolutions and marching are not excelled.” “All the members of the Regiment are anxious and willing to do their duty, and discipline among volunteers is not learned in a day.” He avowed: “The Fire Zouaves are not dandy soldiers, full of smirking politeness, but rugged and vigorous warriors, who do not deserve the severe criticism that has been showered upon them.”Footnote ¹³³

That severe criticism would not abate; it only seemed to increase the longer the Fire Zouaves remained idle.

“We Want the Credit for It”

On May 17, the 11th New York moved again, two more miles further down on the banks of the Potomac. They were now quartered on the sprawling property of George Washington Young, a large slave and landowner, and according to Alcock “not the most reliable friend that Union men have in these times.” The men christened their new location “Camp Decker” to honor their popular Fire Chief.Footnote ¹³⁴ The firemen’s rocky transformation from civilian to soldier continued. They had to give up their band due to its expense. But Alcock maintained it was an unnecessary luxury. “We are not,” he proclaimed, “holiday soldiers, and care nothing for show, or for thirty days but ‘FOR THE WAR,’ we willingly leave the ‘lascivious pleading of the lute,’ for the ‘stern alarms,’ until we can return to those we love, crowned with victory.”Footnote ¹³⁵ While at Camp Decker the men also received new guns: “splendid Minie Rifles.” Alcock reported confidently that “if our boys ever get into action with the beautiful weapons they now possess, they will make [a] mark that will distinguish the Firemen’s Zouaves forever.”Footnote ¹³⁶ A fellow Zouave affirmed: “We will be immediately initiated in the grand mystery of using them.”Footnote ¹³⁷

The close ties between the city and the regiment persisted. Alcock candidly declared that the Fire Zouaves had to “depend on our men at home” to ensure they had the necessary supplies and armaments. The regiment’s “friends in New York” have, Alcock stated, “pledged themselves to us, and we have plighted our honors to them, that we will faithfully represent the Fire Department in any and everything we may be called upon to do. We know them – they know us, – and neither will be disappointed.”Footnote ¹³⁸ In addition, the firemen expected the city to take care of their loved ones left at home. On May 19, three representatives of the Fire Department “deputized by the Committee of the Board of Trustees of the Fire Department,” Alcock explained, “to attend to the wants of the firemen in our regiment, and those of the families left behind.”Footnote ¹³⁹

Published letters from the regiment sought to counter the relentless negative publicity about them. One soldier insisted: “We are all in the best of health and spirits, with the best of provisions to eat and plenty of good water to drink. The common reports to the contrary in the newspapers are entirely without foundation.”Footnote ¹⁴⁰ Capt. John B. Leverich (Co. E) wrote directly to the New York Herald to defend his men: “We were hurriedly organized, and instead of being, as stated, unfortunate in the selection of men, we have been remarkably fortunate. Out of one thousand and fifty men, we can find but five who have acted disgracefully, and even these cases are not as bad as represented.” “No regiment,” Leverich stated, “that has left the city has had less disorderly men than ours. The reports against the regiment are injurious, and as we are on our good behavior, we want the credit of it; we value a good name at home, and will strive to deserve it, and ask your assistance.”Footnote ¹⁴¹

As with Ellsworth’s earlier letter to his fiancée, such an assessment is perhaps understandable as a defensive reaction against public condemnation. Yet it clearly requires an element of denial as an attempt to gloss over and cover up transgressions. It would prove an ironic foreshadowing of what was to come in the aftermath of the regiment’s first battle: the public magnification and censoring of their actions that will serve to incriminate them to the public.

It had been just over a month since those exhilarating days in New York when the Fire Zouaves first formed. Serious problems continued in the ranks, with desertions and a growing number of soldiers on the sick rolls. A few days before the regiment received orders to abandon Camp Decker, twenty-five men were listed as sick, twelve of them in the “Washington Infirmary.” In addition, the regimental surgeon determined that eighteen Zouaves were “unfit for service” due to a variety of ailments including pneumonia, “shortness of vision,” and “Neuralgia” – defined as someone who “wants to come back.”Footnote ¹⁴²

“Men as Well as Soldiers”

One afternoon, when the 11th New York was still stationed in Washington, DC, Pvt. Alfred Vaughn had climbed to the top of the Capitol building, ascending “a spiral staircase, which winds round and round a pillar to the dome.” “It makes you dizzy,” he wrote, “before you reach the top.” Vaughn observed the “glorious site” of the panoramic view of Washington, but also the city of Alexandria, which was some seven miles distant. “I can,” he wrote, “discern two secession flags waving, which please God, we will tear down soon.”Footnote ¹⁴³

Once the regiment moved to Camp Lincoln, about three miles from the capital and closer to Alexandria, the sights and sounds of that town continued to both bemuse and annoy the men. One soldier wrote: “Our boys are opposite the city every hour of the day, and can see the movements of the people there almost with the naked eye.”Footnote ¹⁴⁴ They still took notice of one of the rebel flags, which was enormous and could clearly be viewed through field-glasses. “Is it not tantalizing to see the secession flag flying there,” a Zouave asked, “and we unable, though anxious to pull it down?” Some began to plot to steal across the river and “bear it down in triumph.” But Colonel Ellsworth unearthed the scheme and “positively refused to countenance it.”Footnote ¹⁴⁵

Less than a week later, Ellsworth learned of federal plans to move into Alexandria, Virginia. The young colonel made a special plea to General Mansfield and, allegedly, President Lincoln himself, insisting that his Fire Zouaves “must go into the field,” and that they “must go first.”Footnote ¹⁴⁶ His regiment would be ready to “march at 1 minutes notice,” to travel by water, or if necessary by land, “twenty miles at a rapid pace.”Footnote ¹⁴⁷ “I would consider it as a personal affront,” he told Gen. Mansfield, “if he would not allow us to have the right of the line, which is our due, as the first volunteer Regiment sworn in for the war.” Mansfield acquiesced, and around midnight on May 24, Ellsworth summoned his regiment to announce preparations for departure.

The night was clear with a full moon “shining over the long array of glittering bayonets, lighting up the surrounding landscape,” remembered Lieutenant Coates.Footnote ¹⁴⁸ Ellsworth excitedly addressed the soldiers: “Go to your tents, lie down, and take your rest till 2 o’clock, when the boat will arrive, and we go forward to victory or death.” The Zouaves were about to embark on their first mission, and, their young colonel warned them, the world was watching: “When we reach the place of destination, act as men; do nothing to shame the regiment, show the enemy that you are men as well as soldiers, and that you will treat them with kindness until they force you to use violence. I want to kill them with kindness. Go to your tents and do as I tell you.”Footnote ¹⁴⁹ He stressed, too, that this was a special honor even though there were “many regiments in a better state of drill than ourselves.”Footnote ¹⁵⁰ Lieutenant Knox well remembered Ellsworth’s words that night, emphasizing “the great necessity of obedience” and assuring them that he would “never order one of you to go where I fear to lead.”Footnote ¹⁵¹ It was nearly impossible to sleep. Private Alcock described: “little knots of men might be seen here and there, talking of our prospects in the approaching struggle – strong in their determination to do or die as became good soldiers in a just cause.”Footnote ¹⁵²

Ellsworth penned a short note to his parents, predicting “it may be my lot to be injured in some manner. Whatever may happen I shall have the consolation of knowing I was engaged in the performance of a sacred duty.”Footnote ¹⁵³ To his fiancée Carrie, he similarly and ominously admitted in a letter to her that his unit may “meet with a warm reception” and with “so many careless fellows one is somewhat likely to be hit.”Footnote ¹⁵⁴ His words would prove chillingly prophetic but not in the way anyone could have anticipated.