Alexander Hays was a soldier, construction engineer and a Union general in the American Civil War.
Early Life
Alexander Hays was born on July 8, 1819 in Franklin, Pennsylvania, the youngest of five children. His father, Samuel Hays, was born in Ireland. He had been a congressman, a judge and a general in the Pennsylvania militia. Alexander attended Allegheny College before transferring to the United States Military Academy in his senior year, starting in July of 1840. Tall and an excellent horseman, he gained the nickname, “Sandy.” Hays graduated with the West Point Class of 1844, ranking 20 out of 25 cadets. Fellow classmates included Simon Bolivar Buckner, Winfield Scott Hancock, and Alfred Pleasonton. Ulysses S. Grant was a year ahead of Hays and became a very good friend.
Hays was promoted to brevet second lieutenant in the 4th United States Infantry Regiment on July 1, 1844. He was stationed at Camp Salubrity at Natchitoches, Louisiana until 1845, and then was involved with the military occupation of Texas.
Mexican War
On June 18, 1846 Hays was transferred to the 8th Infantry Regiment with a promotion to full second lieutenant. He took part in 17 engagements in Mexico, including the Battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, where he was wounded, He was breveted to First Lieutenant for “Gallant and Meritorious Conduct” in those battles.
Minor skirmishes in 1847 and 1848, included Paso de las Ovejas, Huamantla, Atlixco, Matamoras, Galaxara and Sequaltiplan. He won special distinction for a skirmish at Tlaxcala.
Return to Civilian Life
Alexander Hays resigned his commission on April 12, 1848 and returned to Venango County, Pennsylvania, where he became involved in Iron manufacture.
He married Anna Adams MacFadden. The couple would have four sons and three daughters, all of whom survived to adulthood.
In 1850 Hays was swept up in the country’s gold fever and left for California. He did not find his fortune but unlike many 49’ers he returned east as soon as he realised the futility.
Hays returned to Pennsylvania and became an assistant construction engineer, first on the Pittsburg and Steubenville Railroad and then on the Allegheny Valley Railroad. In 1854 he became a civil engineer for the city of Pittsburg working on bridge construction.
Civil War
Alexander Hays rejoined the army on March 14, 1861 with the rank of captain in the 16th United States Infantry. At the same time he began recruiting the 12th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment, a three months service regiment of which he became major. The 12th Pennsylvania guarded the critical Northern Central Railroad line from Pennsylvania to Baltimore until early August, when it mustered out at the end of its term of enlistment.
Hays returned to Pennsylvania and immediately began recruiting for what would become the 63rd Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment. They left the state for Washington in August and September in 1861 and were assigned to Heintzelman’s Division in the Defences of Washington.
In March of 1862 Hays and his regiment accompanied McClellan’s army to Virginia.
Peninsula Campaign, 1862
The 63rd Pennsylvania Infantry took part in the Siege of Yorktown, from April 5 to May 4. When the Confederates pulled out of their fortifications Hays fought in the Battle of Williamsburg on May 5, and later in the month in the Battle of Fair Oaks, from May 31 to June 1. During the Seven Days Battles his regiment fought in the Battle of Peach Orchard on June 29, the Battle of Glendale on June 30, and the
Battle of Malvern Hill on July 1.
Hays was given a promotion to Brevet Major in the regular army for “Gallant and Meritorious Services” at the Battles of Fair Oaks, Peach Orchard, and Glendale, and to Brevet Lieutenant Colonel in the regular army for the Battle of Malvern Hill, when he led his regiment in a bayonet charge in which he was injured. He suffered from partial blindness and paralysis of his left arm from the injury and went on sick leave a month later.
Northern Virginia Campaign, 1862
With the failure of McClellan’s campaign the Army of the Potomac was brought back from the Peninsula. Hays returned to the 63rd Pennsylvania and fought in the action of Bristoe Station on August 27. In the Second Battle of Manassas on August 29 and 30, Hays was badly wounded, having his leg shattered while leading another charge. Hays wrote “a large ball struck the main bone between the ankle and knee, not breaking, but perhaps splintering it, glancing off and breaking the smaller bones. The entrance hole is as large as a half dollar. I assure you, I have a sore shin, but a quarter of an inch variation would have cost me my leg.”
He would be on sick leave recovering from this wound until September 29, which caused him to miss the Battles of South Mountain, Antietam, and Fredericksburg.
Brigade Command
When Hays returned to the army he was promoted to Brigadier General of Volunteers. On January 6, 1863 he was assigned to command a brigade in Major Silas Casey’s Division of the Washington D.C. Defenses. The brigade consisted of four regiments from New York who, through no fault of their own, had been captured during the Union surrender of Harpers Ferry in September of 1862. They had been paroled and had spent the winter in miserable conditions in parole camp at Camp Douglas, Washington. The rest of the army nicknamed them “the Hapers Ferry cowards.” They were understandably resentful.
Hays’ remedy was hard work and discipline. Drills and picket duty went on day and night. The officers were hit as hard as the men. Colonel D’Utassy of the 39th New York had commanded the brigade before Hays arrived and as senior colonel was resposible for two regimental camps. One cold night Hays was inspecting the brigade’s lines and he found no guards out in D’Utassy’s camps, even though Cofederate guerillas under John Mosby were a real and constant threat.
Hays found D’Utassy warm and snug in his headquarters. Hays rousted hime out, dressed only in his red flannel long johns, to ride the picket lines with him. When they were done he sent D’Utassy back to his headquarters under arrest. An investigation found he had been collecting three times his proper pay at the expense of his men. D’Utassy was cashiered from the army and spent a year at Sing Sing prison.
Getttysburg Camapign, 1863
On June 26 Hays’ Brigade was transferred to the 3rd Division of the 2nd Corps of the Army of the Potomac to take the place of a brigade that had mustered out. The previous division commander had been transferred to command the post at Harpers Ferry. Hays was the senior brigade commander and was assigned to command the Division.
Battle of Gettysburg
Hays’ Division reached Gettysburg early in the morning of July 2 and took position along the stone wall at the foot of the north end of Cemetery Ridge. Late in the afternoon he sent his old Third Brigade to support Sickles Third Corps, which was under heavy attack. The men were up against one of their opponents from their humiliating surrender at Harpers Ferry, Barksdale’s Mississippi Brigade. In a violent counterattack they turned back the Confederate charge, mortally wounded Geheral Barksdale, and took many prisoners. The “Harpers Ferry Cowards” had redeemed themselves.
At dusk three regiments from the First Brigade were sent to the support of the Eleventh Corps on East Cemetery Hill. They would remain there for the rest of the battle.
On July 3 Hays’ men got into an extended fire fight with Confederate sharpshooters in the Bliss farm buildings on the other side of Emmitsburg Road. General Hays ordered the buildings burned to deny them to the enemy.
At 1 p.m. a heavy artillery barrage pummeled the Division. Hays walked calmly among his men to give them encouragment during the two hour ordeal. When the artillery ceased, 15,000 Confederates headed for the the Union positions on Cemetery Ridge in what became known as Pickett’s Charge.
The attack was thrown back in hand to hand fighting, capturing 1,500 prisoners and 15 Confederate flags. Hays was untouched, but had two horses shot out from under him. After the charge he rode in front of his lines, dragging captured Cofederate flags behind him while his men wildly cheered. Hays was promoted to Brevet Colonel in the Regular Army as a reward for his defense of Cemetery Ridge
Fall 1863 – Winter 1864
The rest of 1863 saw a great deal of manuevering but limited fighting as Lee and Meade tried to gain an advantage along the railroad from Manassas to Culpeper. Hays’ Division was engaged at Auburn, Bristoe Station and in the Mine Run Campaign.
Hay’s last battle as division commander was at Morton’s Ford of February 6, 1864. It was intended to be a diversion drawing Confederate troops away from Richmond, where General Benjamin Butler planned to make an attack. Hays’ Division crossed the Rapidan, driving back Confederate skirmishers. But Second Corps commander Gouverneur Warren decided the position was too exposed, and ordered them to return back across the river after nightfall. This coincided with a Confederate counterattacks, and Hays’ Division lost 252 men in the confusion while the Confederates lost less than a quarter of that.
Hays was accused of drunkeness duting the battle but vehemently denied it, and was backed up by numerous witnesses. Most of the claims came from the 14th Connecticut Infantry, which had suffered almost half of the Union casualties in the battle.
Reorganization of the Army
In March the Army of the Potomac went through a major reorganization. The First and Third Corps were dissolved and their men were merged into the remaining units. Alexander Hays returned to brigade command. There was some speculation that the reduction was due to the incident at Morton’s Ford, but it was more likely that with the reduction in the command structure there were less positions for higher ranking officers. The loss of division command was somewhat offset for Hays by his old friend U.S. Grant joining the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac.
Death
At the beginning of May Grant broke winter camp and launched the Army of the Potomac across the Rapidan River. Lee threw his Army of Northern Virginia into Grant’s way. They met on May 4, 1864 in an area of scrub second growth forest known as “the Wilderness.” It quickly turned into the bloody two day Battle of the Wilderness, the opening battle of the Overland, or Rapidan Campaign.
On May 5 Confederate General Longstreet’s Corps reached the battlefield and launched a violent attack to break the Union lines at the strategic intersection of Brock Road and Orange Plank Road. The Union Second Corps was desperately fighting to hold on. Hays’ Brigade was moved forward to fix a break in the lines.
“He, accompanied by his staff, rode down along the line of battle and when he came to the Sixty-third, stopped, as he always did, to speak a few words of cheer and encouragement to his old boys, when a bullet struck him in the head and he fell from his horse, dying in about three hours. General Hays was killed just where he had said he wanted to die should he be killed in the war, “at the head of the Sixty-third Regiment.”
(Gilbert Adam Hays, historian of the 63rd Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment)
Responses
Major General Meade’s Adjutant, George Lyman, wrote in a letter to his wife after the battle, “Up came Hays’s brigade, disappeared in the woods, and, in a few minutes, General Hays was carried past me, covered with blood, shot through the head.” Lyman added, “Hays…was a strong-built, rough sort of man, with red hair, and a tawny, full beard; a braver man never went into action, and the wonder only is that he was not killed before, as he always rode at the very head of his men, shouting at them and waving his sword.”
Grant’s aide-de-camp, Horace Porter, described the emotional scene at the Union command center when the Grant was first told. “I returned to headquarters…and carried to him the sad intelligence of Hays’s death. General Grant was by no means a demonstrative man, but upon learning the intelligence I brought, he was visibly affected.”
“He was seated upon the ground with his back against a tree, whittling pine sticks,” Porter continued. “He sat for a time without uttering a word, and then, speaking in a low voice, and pausing between the sentences, said: ‘Hays and I were cadets together for three years. We served for a time in the same regiment in the Mexican war. He was a noble man and a gallant officer. I am not surprised that he met his death at the head of his troops; it was just like him. He was a man who would never follow, but would always lead in battle.’”
Alexander Hays is buried at Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburgh, Section 8, Lot 149. His widow, Anna, would go on alone to raise their seven children, aged 4-17.
While campaigning for the presidency in 1868, Grant visited Hays’ grave in Pittsburgh. “General Grant stepped out of the carriage and walked around the grave, reading on the monument the brilliant war record of the deceased soldier. After spending a few minutes thus he sat down on one of the cannon near the monument, and appeared to be wrapped in deep thought. I turned aside, and when I again looked at Grant he was weeping like a child.”
Monuments and Honors to Alexander Hays
A monument to Hays at his grave in Allegheny Cemetery was funded by the men of his 63rd Pennsylvania Infanttry Regiment. There is a monument with a bronze statue of Alexander Hays on the Gettysburg Battlefield. There is also a monument on the Wilderness battlefield near the location where he was killed.
Post #3 of the Grand Army of the Republic in Pittsburgh was named for General Hays. So were Fort Hays and the city of Hays in Kansas.