Peasley, Alonzo A.

Alonzo Allen Peasley was born in Dorchester, Mass., on March 30, 1839, the eldest of at least four children born to a mechanic, Harrison Peasley, and his wife Eliza. Working as a pianoforte maker when the first shots of the Civil War were fired, and just 21 years old, Peasley became one of the first young men in Boston to join the union cause, enlisting in Co. F of the 1st Massachusetts Infantry, on May 24, 1861.

Organized in Boston and mustered quickly into the federal service, Peasley’s regiment left the state in June for duty in northern Virginia, taking the experience as something of a lark. As they neared the seat of war by train, Peasley wrote:

Attached initially to McDowell’s Army of Northeast Virginia, the regiment was briefly assigned to the defenses of Washington, D.C., but were called out to take part in the advance on Manassas in mid-July and after a slow build-up, saw their first action in a skirmish at Blackburn Ford on July 18. As he formed into the line of battle for the first time, he wrote:

Under command of Israel B. Richardson, the union attempted to cross Bull Run, but were taken unaware by a Confederate brigade lad by James Longstreet and were routed, led by the panicked retreat of the 12th New York: “Sat. 20th. This morn about 1 oclock sharp picket fireing, the Picket came running in and the rest of the 12th NY jumped up took their guns and ran, leaving us standing and curseing them. We s[t]ood up a few minutes then laid down again wuith orders if there was any more fireing to charge and take the Rebel battery. We did not have another alarm.” On the next day, as the Battle of Bull Run played out, Peasley wrote “The story is that we are to open the fight at this point, but I had rather be excused as my patriotism died on the 18th about half past 7 a.m.” While covering the union retreat, Peasley wrote that he took time to break into the house of a Confederate sympathizer, stole and axe, and smashed a pianoforte “and left the Boys at work destroying the furniture.”

In September, the 1st Massachusetts was reassigned to Hooker’s Division, 3rd Army Corps, Army of the Potomac, where they took part in the Peninsular Campaign on 1862. Peasley experienced the thick of the fight at Yorktown and Williamsburg, Fair Oaks, Savage Station, Glendale, and Malvern Hill, and his regiment was engaged at Bristow Station and Second Bull Run in August before being called to duty in the defense of the capitol. Away from the front, Peasley appears to have fallen prey to the low morale affecting the battered union army. As the 3rd Corps prepared for the Battle of Fredericksburg in late November, Peasley appears to have taken off without leave, recording in his diary simply, “started for home, walked to Alexandria from Fairfax.” Held under guard for six weeks after rejoining his regiment on Feb. 20, he returned to the ranks for the Battle of Chancellorsville, “the heaviest battle I ever was in,” where under the command of Daniel Sickles, his already-depleted Corps bore the brunt of Stonewall Jackson’s flanking maneuver.

The 3rd Corps was again at the center of the cauldron when they faced off on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg. Situated on the left of the Union lines, Sickles left a strong position along Cemetery Ridge to move forward into nearly untenable position in the Peach Orchard, where he was attacked by his old nemesis James Longstreet. The 1st Massachusetts were decimated. Deployed in a skirmish line along the Emmitsburg Road, the regiment sustained over 100 casualties from the 384 effectives that day, including Peasley.

The injuries sustained at Gettysburg kept Peasley in hospital for months, after which he was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, Veteran Reserve Corps to serve out his enlistment. After the war, he returned to Boston, married, and raised two children, Mildred (b. 1877) and Frank (b. 1881) while working as a letter carrier and postal clerk. Alonzo Peasley died in Dorchester of myocarditis and hepatitis on April 5, 1910, followed by his wife Mary in 1922.

Exceptionally well-written, observant, and above all active, Peasley’s diaries offer a fine account of a private’s life in the Civil War. The two volumes include detailed descriptions of life in the 1st Massachusetts Infantry covering the entire period from the day the regiment left the state in June 1861 until the time of Peasley’s wounding at Gettysburg in July 1863. Among the highlights are a minutely detailed, thoroughly extended account of Peasley’s first major engagements (Blackburn’s Ford and First Bull Run), excellent account for the Peninsular Campaign, and a stunning account of the Second Battle of Bull Run.

The volumes overlap in coverage and probably represent a later, slightly emended transcription of events of the first year and a half in service (vol. 1) paired with the diary actually carried in the field (vol. 2): Peasley has signed the free front endpaper of volume and dated it Nov. 4, 1867. Taken together, these volumes are filled with details of Civil War life, ranging from combat experience to accounts of covering for escaping slaves as they ran off from their master, taking over secesh homes, to uncovering a buried cache of rebel weapons. Volume 2 contains a noteworthy gap beginning in November 1862 when Peasley appears to have gone a.w.o.l., but on balance, Peasley appears to have been an avid and highly skilled soldier. His entries display a remarkably cool-headed young man and are filled with valuable detail, both on military matters and the emotional impact of the war on individual soldiers. Two examples stand for many. In the trenches before Yorktown, April 27, 1862, he wrote:

Peasley’s description of the Battle of Glendale (Seven Days) gives a sense of the confusion and danger:

Pease’s final entries are brief, but telling:

The few subsequent entries are brief, written in a shaky hand, and record his removal from the battlefield to hospital in New York. In the first volume of his diary, Peasley lists several souvenirs he collected, two of which survive: two small fragments of cloth from “our First Reg. Flag presented to us by the city of Boston, June 15, 1861” and carried by the regiment through the Second Battle of Bull Run; and a fragment of wood that he notes was taken “from the original Tomb of Washington at Mount Vernon, Va.,” on May 1876. Folded up in vol. 2 is a typescript copy of a letter from James Longstreet to Daniel Sickles, Sept. 19, 1902, in which Longstreet concedes “that the advanced position at the Peach Orchard, taken by your corps and under your orders saved that battlefield to the Union cause.”