20th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment

File:20 Mass. Infantry - Revere, Feirson, Bryant, Lee, Palfrey, Folsom, Hayward - DPLA - 3487dad96be24d326c43e0648d7ff9ef (page 1).jpg

20 Mass. Infantry - Revere, Feirson, Bryant, Lee, Palfrey, Folsom, Hayward, ca. 1859–1870

File:Roxbury Puddingstone 20th Mass monument.jpg

Monument to the 20th Massachusetts Infantry on the Gettysburg battlefield; Roxbury Conglomerate.

The 20th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, also known as the "Harvard Regiment", was a regiment of infantry in the American Civil War. The regiment was so nicknamed because the officers of the 20th were young Harvard graduates.Template:Sfnmp In addition, some, but not all, of the private soldiers had attended Harvard. The 20th was organized at Camp Meigs in Readville, August 29 to September 4, 1861. After training they left Massachusetts for Washington, D. C., September 4. They would fight until the war's conclusion being mustered out on July 16 and discharged July 28, 1865.Template:Sfnp Fogel et al's Union Army Data urban sample suggests perhaps as many as two-thirds of the regiment's enlisted were immigrants with Irish immigrants making up half of the regiment's total.Template:Sfnp

Brigade, divisional and corps attachments

Attached to Lander's Brigade, Division of the Potomac, to October, 1861.Template:Sfnp Lander's Brigade, Stone's (Sedgwick's) Division, Army of the Potomac, to March, 1862. 3rd Brigade, 2nd Division, 2nd Army Corps, Army of the Potomac, to March, 1864.Template:Sfnmp 1st Brigade, 2nd Division, 2nd Army Corps, to July, 1865.Template:Sfnp

Battles

With the exception of First Bull Run, the 20th participated in all of the major battles and many of the smaller battles fought by the Army of the Potomac. Their baptism of fire occurred at Ball's Bluff on October 21, 1861.Template:Sfnp Other battles included the Seven Days, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, the Siege of Petersburg, and the Appomattox Campaign.Template:Sfnp

Casualties

The 20th regiment lost 17 officers and 243 enlisted men killed and mortally wounded, and one officer and 148 enlisted men from disease. The total casualties were 409. The regiment ranks first among Massachusetts regiments and fifth among Union regiments in total casualties.

Notable members

• Henry L. AbbottTemplate:Sfnp
• William BartlettTemplate:Sfnp
• Joseph Hayes
• Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
• Norwood "Pen" Hallowell
• Edward Needles Hallowell
• William Raymond Lee
• Francis Winthrop Palfrey
• Paul Joseph Revere
• Henry Martyn Tremlett

See also

• List of Massachusetts Civil War units
• Massachusetts in the Civil War

External links

• Template:Trim The Twentieth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 1861-1865 (1906) at the Internet Archive