Booknotes: Lincoln's Banner Regiment

New Arrival:
• Lincoln's Banner Regiment: The 107th New York Volunteer Infantry by George R. Farr (McFarland, 2023).

Organized in Elmira, New York and mustered into Union service in August 1862, the 107th New York participated in a multitude of eastern and western theater campaigns with the Army of the Potomac and Army of the Cumberland from Antietam to Bentonville. That 1862-65 Civil War fighting career is documented in the new unit study titled Lincoln's Banner Regiment: The 107th New York Volunteer Infantry from author George Farr.

The regiment's common nickname was the "Campbell Guards," but the title refers to a special recognition conferred upon the regiment by the president for being the first regiment to arrive in the capital in response to the administration's July 1862 call for 300,000 more volunteers. In commemoration of the event, Lincoln "personally honored them with a regimental banner" that was in turn "kept by Secretary of State William Seward and never saw a battlefield." The restored banner is currently housed with the Chemung County Historical Society in Elmira.

The book documents the regiment's organization, its initial Washington encampment, and field service with the Army of the Potomac from Antietam through Gettysburg. The 107th was one of many eastern regiments transferred out west in response to the shocking Confederate victory at Chickamauga in September 1863. The regiment first guarded railroads in Tennessee before embarking on the 1864 Atlanta Campaign. It was hard service, and the 107th fought their "deadliest fight" of the war at New Hope Church. After Atlanta's fall, the Empire State veterans embarked on the March to the Sea and continued on to final victory with the Army of the Cumberland during the climactic Carolinas Campaign. In addition to the campaign narrative, the text covers the Grand Review, the return home, and the veteran reunions at which the banner was displayed.

Map support consists of point-to-point line drawings that are very schematic in nature. There is a regimental roster included as an appendix, its principal source being the 1903 New York State Adjutant-General Report. The bibliography includes a number of soldier journals and letter collections.