* Brevet rank in the Union Army, whether in the Regular Army or the United States Volunteers, during and at the conclusion of the American Civil War, may be regarded as an honorary title which conferred none of the authority, precedence, nor pay of real or full rank. The vast majority of the Union Army brevet ranks were awarded posthumously on or as of March 13, 1865, as the war was coming to a close.
DOB/DOD: March 19, 1827 (Haddam, CT) – December 28, 1911 (New York, NY); 84 years old
MARITAL STATUS: Married Mary McMurray (1829-1920) on March 31, 1847, in New York City
CHILDREN: One son, Ira A. (1862-1902). Five daughters, Camilla J. Shaler Jussen (1848-1933), Emma (1850-), Martha W. Shaler Penney (1857-1932), Matilda (1860-), and Mary V. Shaler Shailer (1852-1925).
ENLISTMENT: April 17, 1861, as a Major in New York City.
FAMILY: Born to Captain Ira Shaler (1788-1866) and Jerusha Arnold Shaler (1788-1874). Nine sisters, Louise L. Shaler Brockway (1809-1896), Pamelia (1811-1861), Ariette M. (1814-1868), Jerusha (1816-1842), Martha E. (1819-1851), Tamzin (1821-1844), Henrietta (1825-1847), Mary (1828-?), and Adriana W. (1829-1855).
MEDAL OF HONOR CITATION
AWARDED FOR ACTIONS DURING: Civil War
BRANCH OF SERVICE: Army
UNIT: 65th New York Infantry
DATE OF ISSUE AND PRESENTATION: November 25, 1893 (30 years later)
AGE ON THE DAY OF THE EVENT: 36
CITATION:
The President of the United States of America, in the name of Congress, takes pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor to Colonel Alexander Shaler, United States Army, for extraordinary heroism on 3 May 1863, while serving with the 65th New York Infantry, in action at Marye’s Heights, Fredericksburg, Virginia. At a most critical moment, the head of the charging column being about to be crushed by the severe fire of the enemy’s artillery and infantry, Colonel Shaler pushed forward with a supporting column, pierced the enemy’s works, and turned their flank.
Location of the Medal: 7th Regiment Armory (1904 design), New York City, New York. Photos by Jeff DeWitt.
From Appleton’s Cyclopedia of American Biographies
SHALER, Alexander, soldier, b. in Haddam, Connecticut, 19 March 1827. He was educated in private schools, entered the New York militia as a Private in 1845, and became a Major of the 7th New York Regiment on December 13, 1860. He was appointed Lieutenant Colonel of the 65th New York Volunteers in June 1861, became Colonel, on 17 July 1862, and commanded the military prison at Johnson’s Island, Ohio, during the winter of 1863-64. He served with the Army of the Potomac, participating in all its battles, until 6 May 1864, when he was taken prisoner at the Battle of the Wilderness and was held in Charleston, South Carolina, during the summer of that year. After his exchange, he commanded a division in the 7th Corps and the post of Duval’s Bluffs, Ark., serving in the southwest until he was mustered out on 24 August 1865. He was commissioned Brigadier General of Volunteers on 26 May 1863 and brevetted Major General of Volunteers on 27 July 1865. From 1867 to 1870, he was President of the Board of Commissioners of the Metropolitan Fire Department and Commissioner of the Fire Department of New York City from 1870-1878. He was a consulting engineer to the Chicago Board of Police and fire in 1874, being charged with the reorganization and instruction of the fire department in that city. From 1867 until 1886, he was Major General of the 1st Division of the National Guard of New York and was an organizer and president of the National Rifle Association of the United States. While a member of the board for the purchase of sites for armories, he was accused of bribery; but, although he was tried twice, the jury disagreed. Gen. Shaler published a “Manual of Arms for Light Infantry using the Rifle Musket.” (New York, 1861).
From Beyer, W. F., & Keydel, O. F. (2000). Deeds of valor: How America’s Civil War Heroes won The Congressional Medal of Honor. Smithmark Publishers.
Alexander Shaler was colonel of the Sixty-fifth New York Volunteer Infantry, and in the spring of 1863, commanded the First Brigade Third Division, Sixth Corps, Army of the Potomac. While General Hooker was engaging the enemy at Chancellorsville, the Sixth Corps was on the Rappahannock River below Fredericksburg. On the night of May 2nd, under orders from Hooker to move out on the plank road leading from Fredericksburg to Chancellorsville and attack Lee’s rear, the Sixth Corps entered Fredericksburg but was unable to advance farther in the darkness and fog on account of the formidable, defensive works of the enemy on Marye’s Heights back of Fredericksburg, through which the plank road passed.
At nine o’clock on the morning of May 3rd, the Corps was formed for an assault. On the right were two columns, ordered to charge over the two roads leading up to Marye’s Heights. All the troops to the left of these columns were in deployed lines. The enemy’s batteries completely enfiladed the two roadways which led from the city over an open plain about a quarter of a mile wide up the height. The column on the extreme right was composed of the Sixty-first Pennsylvania Volunteers, Colonel George C. Spear, and the Thirty-first New York, Colonel Baker, supported by the Eighty-second Pennsylvania, Colonel Isaac Bassett, and the Sixty-seventh New York, Colonel Nelson Cross, all formed in the order named. Colonel Shaler was ordered to accompany the two last-named regiments which belonged to his brigade.
Upon a given signal, the troops advanced. As soon as the head of the right column debouched from the city, it received fire from the enemy’s infantry in the rifle pits at the base of the hill and from the batteries, one of which was placed in the middle of the road, delivering a terrific hail of grape and canister. This momentarily checked the column’s advance, but Colonel Spear, with great gallantry, rallied and carried it to a small bridge about halfway across the open ground. Here, Colonel Spear fell at the head of his column, mortally wounded, and his two regiments were practically dissolved. The demoralization which ensued greatly imperiled the success of the movement at that point, as the surging column was threatened with destruction from the severe fire of the infantry and artillery. The Eighty-second Pennsylvania, next in the column, seemed unable to make any headway. Seeing this, Colonel Shaler caught up the standard of the regiment, rushed forward, calling upon the two regiments of his brigade to follow him, forced the passage, advanced up the hill, and captured two guns, one officer, and a few men of the Washington Battery of artillery, of New Orleans, posted in a redoubt on the right of the road. The other regiments of this brigade, soon after, greeted him within the enemy’s works with cheers and congratulations. His men had not expected to see him alive.
Colonel Shaler’s bravery was reported to President Lincoln the night of the same day by Doctor Hosmer, the Herald correspondent with the Sixth Army Corps, who witnessed the assault and started for Washington immediately thereafter to report the success of the Sixth Corps in capturing all the enemy’s works around Fredericksburg. Colonel Shaler was promptly made a Brigadier General of Volunteers and subsequently received the Congressional Medal of Honor for this act of bravery.
From The Brooklyn Daily Eagle on December 29, 1911
The Civil War made many reputations and wrecked some. Perhaps in the history of that war and of the years following it, there is no finer example of opportunities uprightly improved than in the life of Alexander Shaler, who has just died at the age of 84 years.
A young businessman who had come from Haddam, Connecticut, and enlisted in the Washington Greys in 1847, he transferred to the Seventh Regiment a little later and became a Captain in that regiment in January 1850, and accepted it in November 1860. When Sumter was fired on, he was the first militia officer from any state to offer his services to President Lincoln. He went to the front. He devised the regiment rifle tactics, which were later, in 1874, embodied in Upton’s Tactics. In July 1861, he was commissioned as Lieutenant Colonel of the Sixty-fifth New York Volunteers. He fought bravely at Williamsburg, Fair Oaks, and Malvern Hill. Soon after Fredericksburg, where he had commanded a brigade, he was made a Brigadier General. He was taken prisoner at the Battle of the Wilderness in May 1864 and was confined in Charleston until August of that year, when he was exchanged. He was mustered out in July 1865 as Major General of Volunteers. He continued as an officer in the National Guard. He was President of the National Rifle Association for several years and did much to encourage marksmanship. His only part in political life before the war had been as a supervisor of New York County in 1866. After the war, he was made President of the Metropolitan Fire Department, and to him, it is largely due to the credit of making the New York department the best in the world. Later, for three years, he gave his rare abilities as an organizer to the Health Department as President. His old age was quiet and peaceful.
The incidents of such a career are worth recalling. They are an inspiration to American youth and manhood that cannot be too highly appreciated.
From the Brooklyn Daily Eagle January 2, 1912
Editor The Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
I read with much pleasure the editorial on Alexander Shaler in your issue of Friday, December 29, 1911. It was a just tribute to a true man, an upright citizen, a brave soldier, and a loyal comrade. It was particularly gratifying to the members of the New York Association of Union Ex-Prisoners of War, of which General Shaler had been a member for many years. He was a past commander of the association and, at the time of his death, Chairman of its executive committee.
We knew him, not as the ordinary world knows each other, but as a comrade in all which the name implies, one tested under conditions impossible to describe, and in which he was found to be unflinchingly faithful. There was no dross or shoddy in or about Alexander Shaler. He was eminently an American, both as a citizen and a soldier, one of the types of which the nation should be proud and the youth of our land taught to emulate.
On behalf of his surviving comrades of the prison pens of the Confederacy, I thank you most cordially for the editorial. The enclosed letter, of which General Shaler was one of the signers, may be of interest to your readers.
JOSEPH L. KILLGORE,
Commander of the New York Association
of Union ex-Prisoners of War.
Headquarters Borough Hall, Brooklyn,
Brooklyn, January 1, 1912.
This was the letter referred to. It was addressed to Adjutant General Thomas at Washington and was sent North through the Confederate lines with the sanction of Major General J.G. Foster, Commanding the Department of the South:
Charleston, S.C.
July 1, 1864
We desire respectfully to represent, through you, to our authorities our firm belief that a prompt exchange of the prisoners of war in the hands of the Southern Confederacy, if exchanges are to be made, is called for by every consideration of humanity. There are many thousands confined at Southern points of the Confederacy, in a climate to which they are unaccustomed, deprived of much of the food, clothing, and shelter they have habitually received, and it is not surprising, from these and other causes that need not be enumerated here, much suffering, sickness and death should ensue. In this matter, the statements of our own officers are confirmed by those of Southern journals. And while we cheerfully submit to any policy that may be decided by our government, we would urge that the great wills that must result from said delay that is not desired should be obviated by the designation of some point in this vicinity at which exchanges might be made; a course we are induced to believe, that would be accepted to by the Confederate authorities.
H.W. WESSELS, Brig. Gen. U.S. Vols.
H.P. Scammon, Brig. Gen. U.S. Vols
Alexander Shaler, Brig. Gen. U.S. Vols
T. Seymour, Brig. Gen. U.S. Vols
C.A. Heckman, Brig. Gen. U.S. Vols.
Shaler Boulevard in Ridgefield, New Jersey, is named in his honor. It runs 1.2 miles from State Route 9 to East Harriet Avenue.
Honored on a plaque at Stop 7 of the Wilderness Battlefield Historic Site, 35347 Constitution Highway, Orange, Virginia. Photo courtesy of HMdb.org and Craig Swain.
Honored on a plaque about Sixth Corps, Third Division, First Brigade, Gettysburg National Military Park, between the lower and upper Crest of Culp’s Hill, 1195 Baltimore Pike, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Photo courtesy of HMdb.org and Craig Swain.
The plaque reads:
Brig. Gen. Alexander Shaler
65th 67th 122nd New York
23rd 82nd Pennsylvania Infantry
July 2 Arrived about 2 p.m. from Manchester Md and late in the day moved to the northeast slope of Little Round Top and held in reserve bivouacking for the night near the Taneytown Road in rear of Second Brigade.
July 3: Ordered to the left and at 8 a.m. to the right to the support of Second Division Twelfth Corps. Took position in rear of woods on Culp’s Hill, beyond which action was progressing, and was engaged under command of Brig. Gen. J.W. Geary from 9 until 11 a.m. when the original line of Twelfth Corps was regained. At 3 p.m., returned and, under a terrific fire of artillery, was ordered by Major Gen. G.G. Meade to remain in rear of Third Corps and to report to Major Gen. J. Newton. At 7 p.m., moved half a mile to the right in reserve and remained during the night, rejoined the Division the next morning.
Casualties. Killed – 1 officer, 14 men. Wounded – 3 officers, 53 men. Captured or missing – 3 men. Total 74.
Honored on the New York State Auxiliary Monument, Hancock Avenue, Round Top, Pennsylvania – part of Cemetery Ridge in Gettysburg National Military Park. Photo courtesy of HMdb.org and Craig Swain.
Buried in English Neighborhood Reformed Church Cemetery, 1040 Edgewater Avenue, Ridgefield, New Jersey. Photos by Jeff DeWitt.
END