PETER RAFFERTY
Malvern Hill, VA
07/01/62
SEVEN WOUNDS IN SEVEN DAYS
CAPTAIN RAFFERTY'S story as he tells it, shows, besides an
extraordinary degree of nerve and pluck, that love of fighting
which seems to have been characteristic of the members of the
Irish Brigade. He writes:
"I was seventeen years old when I enlisted as a private in
the Sixty-ninth New York Volunteers. This was not the Sixty-
ninth Militia, which, in the volunteers, had another number.
Both regiments, however, were enlisted in New York City, and
ninety-five per cent of our regiment were Irishmen. We were
in the Irish Brigade, and were called into action at Malvern
Hill, Va., late in the afternoon of the first day of July,
1862, the last day of the fight before Richmond. The Sixty-
ninth, Colonel Robert Nugent, and the Eighty-eighth New York
attempted to check the advance of a powerful column of rebels.
We were in the lead, and as soon as we had exhausted our sixty
rounds of cartridges, the Eighty-eighth took our place until
we could get a fresh supply of ammunition and go into the
fight again.
"We had scarcely gotten well warmed up before Colonel
Nugent saw that a detachment of the enemy had mounted the
foothills and was bearing down upon our flank. Nugent charged
with both regiments, and we had a hand-to-hand encounter with
the famed Louisiana Tigers. The 'Terriers' wiped the 'Tigers'
off the field, but we were pretty well used up ourselves.
"It was in this part of the fight that I felt a stinging
sensation in my right thigh and realized that I was hit. It
made me limp, but I concluded to stay in the ring-in fact
there wouldn't have been anywhere else to go-until there
should have been a lull in the fighting. After we had
repulsed the 'Tigers,' our company (B) took stock of the dead
and wounded. Captain Thomas Leddy told several of us who had
been hit, to go to the rear, but there was nothing at the rear
that could do us any good-no surgeons, no ambulances. We
would be among strangers, and, if our army shifted its
position, it might leave us in the hands of the enemy.
"'I don't want to go to the rear, captain,' said I, 'I'm
all right. I'll stay and fight it out with the boys.' So
after some arguing, the captain let all of us come back to the
company who were able to get around.
"But the 'Tigers' hadn't had enough, and, at about half-
past eight, they came up to the assault again. There were a
thousand men on each side in full view of each other, and for
ten minutes shooting was good. Then Colonel Nugent ordered a
charge, and that was the end of the 'Tigers.' Their colonel
was captured and with him a good many men.
"I didn't come out of this second fight in as good
condition as the first. I got two bullets in the mouth and
the lower part of the jaw, which smashed the bones and carried
away part of my tongue. Besides this another went through my
foot entering at the top and coming out at the sole.
"I was left on the field for a long time, and two days
later was captured and sent to Libby, reaching there on the
Fourth of July. In those last seven days of fighting I had
received just seven wounds but as I was rated a good shot in
my company, and could hit anything I fired at, it is very
likely that I did not have the worst of the bargain.
"I was exchanged later, and was discharged in March, 1863,
on account of my wounds, having served a year and a half. In
1864 I had recovered sufficiently to re-enlist in the Sixth
District of Columbia Volunteers, in which I was lieutenant."
Source: Deeds of Valor
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