James K. Hyde: Two Zouave Regiments and the Army's Commissary

James Hyde served in two Civil War regiments known for their striking uniforms, and also helped feed the Union army. Back in civilian life he worked on some of New York City's first highways, and he died in 1923, in his eighties, and was buried at St. Paul's cemetery.

Enlisting with the Zouaves

In the summer of 1862, Confederate victories in Virginia from May to August set off an urgent recruiting drive that drew many volunteers from around St. Paul's. One was Hyde, 22, who lived with his parents and many brothers and sisters. Most of the young men joined newly formed units, but on August 19 Hyde enlisted for three years in the 5th New York Volunteer Infantry, which had suffered heavy losses in the Seven Days battles.

He was probably drawn by the regiment's Zouave look, modelled on the famous Algerian fighters, and its maverick reputation — even before mass media, newspapers and magazines spread word of the dashing unit. He was the only one of five Hyde brothers — three older, one younger — to volunteer, which suggests the family was divided over the war.

The grey-eyed Westchester County native, 5 feet 5 inches tall, joined at a critical point in the war, marching through fields and down dirt roads in the Zouaves' baggy red trousers and open blue shirt, a fez pulled down over his brown hair. Because the regiment had lost so many men, he got little training: issued a rifled musket, he was quickly put in the ranks and taught at the front by the veterans of Company A.

In battle

Hyde arrived just after the regiment's heavy losses at Second Bull Run on August 30. The Zouaves were held in reserve at Antietam, the war's costliest day, but Hyde fought in the Union defeat at Fredericksburg in mid-December and, after winter camp, at Chancellorsville in early May 1863, where the regiment ran into the leading troops of Stonewall Jackson's command.

That major Confederate victory also ended the 5th's planned two-year life. Hyde was one of 230 recruits transferred to the 146th New York Volunteers to finish their three-year terms; with so many men from the 5th, the 146th adopted a version of the Zouave uniform. Within two months it fought at Gettysburg, helping to hold the strategically vital Little Round Top for the Union on July 2.

Feeding the army

Hyde stayed with the 146th to the end and may have fought in the 1864 Overland Campaign, but he was also sent on several details — temporary assignments — to the commissary department, the part of the Army of the Potomac that supplied its thousands of soldiers. A large bureaucracy, the commissary bought, stored and issued food and reviewed private contractors' bids. It was often staffed by wounded men on light duty, but Hyde's pre-war work as a store clerk may have given him the skills to log and track huge stocks of coffee, salt pork, hardtack and the rest of a soldier's rations.

Short furloughs in February 1864 and February 1865 took him home to New York — perhaps for strained visits, since his brothers had stayed civilians. He was mustered out near Alexandria, Virginia, on June 3, 1865, after the Confederate surrender.

After the war

At 25 he went back to the St. Paul's area for a post-war life of nearly 60 years, with veterans' activities, two marriages and several children. His first wife, Anna Bertine, died in 1888; two years later he married Mary Elizabeth Barker, 17 years younger, and they had a daughter and a son.

He earned a steady if modest living as a day laborer. He lived just south of St. Paul's, in an area that became part of the Bronx when greater New York City was created in 1898. The new five-borough city, and new ways of getting around, needed more roads, and Hyde found regular work with the city's Highways Department, helping build some of its early roadways. In his mid-70s, when he developed rheumatism — a word then used for many back and joint problems — a Civil War pension gave him a monthly income.

Like many Union veterans he shared his memories through the Grand Army of the Republic, joining the Farnsworth Post 170, based at St. Paul's Church, and the Flandreau Post in New Rochelle, where he and Mary eventually lived with their daughter and her family. He died on September 28, 1923.

James K. Hyde's gravestone at St. Paul's. It names the 5th New York, the better known of his two regiments, and gives his year of death as 1924 — the article says this is wrong. National Park Service.

Sources

• National Park Service, Saint Paul's Church National Historic Site, Civil War Soldier Buried at St. Paul's fought with two Zouave regiments and served with the Commissary.