Friday, August 26, 2005
Bucktails
The topic of The Bucktails came up in in the discusssion thread about Captain Dougherty. Here's a little bit more about this famed Pennsylvania Regiment:
The Pennsylvania Reserves, thirteen regiments that fought as the only army division from a single state, ranks among the notable Pennsylvania infantry organizations. Although originally created by Governor Curtin as a reserve force to defend the Commonwealth, the Pennsylvania Reserves struggled on such hard-fought battlefields as the Seven Days, Second Manassas, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, and Spotsylvania. Pennsylvania's most famed regiment of the war, the "Bucktails," formed the thirteenth regiment of the Reserves. Organized in the timbering counties of northwestern Pennsylvania, the Bucktails sported white-tailed deer tails on their caps as a symbol of their skilled markmanship.
The painting above is by Dale Gallon and is available here.
