Charles Henry Flacke

Lieutenant Charles Henry Flacke's military career began when he volunteered to join the 113th Regiment New York Infantry on October 9, 1862 in Albany, New York. He was 18 years old, had grey eyes, light hair, a light complexion and stood 5' 7.5"; his army record lists his occupation before the War as "paper hanger." On December 3, 1862, he departed Albany by railroad to join his regiment. The regiment had left four months earlier to serve in the defenses of Washington, D.C. at Fort Pennsylvania. On December 10 the 113th New York Infantry was converted into an artillery regiment and renamed the

Washington Defenses

Private Flacke, upon his arrival in Washington, was assigned to Company F, one of eight companies in the regiment comprised principally of men from Albany. The other companies in the regiment were made up of men recruited from West Troy, Westerlo, Bethlehem, Rensselaerville, Knox, and Albany county at large. The remained at Fort Pennsylvania until it was transferred to Fort Reno, D.C. on April 10, 1863. On November 20 Private Flacke was authorized leave to visit Albany and was given $7.64 for transportation. Following his return from leave, he was promoted to Corporal on January 8, 1864.

Grant's Drive into Virginia

At the beginning of May 1864, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant ordered the Army of the Potomac to move south into Virginia. Simultaneously in the West, Major General William T. Sherman launched his Atlanta campaign. These moves were part of a coordinated strategy to finally destroy the Confederacy. The objective of the Army of the Potomac was to engage Army of Northern Virginia in battle and defeat it if possible. At a minimum Grant wanted Lee's army immobilized. Additionally, Grant's eyes were set on the Confederate capital of Richmond that lay behind Lee's lines.

The first encounter between the two armies was in The Wilderness about 12 miles west of Fredericksburg, Virginia. The Federal army of 118,769 men suffered 18,000 causalities, while Lee's army of 62,000 lost 10,800 men. Despite these heavy losses Grant ordered the army to slide past Lee's flank and move south towards the village of Spotsylvania Court House.

On the morning of May 8 elements of the two armies encountered each other again. The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House was under way; the fighting would not end until almost two weeks had passed. During this time artillerymen from the forts surrounding Washington, including the , were ordered south to join the fighting. On May 18, 1864 the joined Tyler's Artillery Division, 2d Corps on the flank of the Union line. The next day, when they saw their first combat, 76 men from the 7th New York Heavy Artillery were either killed, wounded, or lost-in-action. All total 18,000 out of 111,000 men in the Army of the Potomac ended up as causalities; Confederate causalities totaled between 9,000-10,000 out of a total Confederate force of 63,000.

The Battle of Spotsylvania was followed by the Battle of North Anna River on May 23-26 just 15 miles from Richmond. Ending inconclusively, Grant again slipped his army of 114,000 men past the right flank of Lee's army. Such advances assured Grant uninterrupted supplies up Virginia's tidal rivers and allowed him to forge deeper into the state. By May 31 Grant's twice deflected army was directly due east of Richmond at the crossroads of Old Cold Harbor. Lee, now commanding an army of 59,000, again blocked the Army of the Potomac in four days of fighting. Casualties totaled 10,000 Union and 4,000 Confederate.

Capture at Petersburg

Grant, still undaunted, chose to alter his strategy and swung his army south of Richmond towards the strategic rail center of Petersburg. It was through Petersburg that almost all of Richmond's supplies passed. On June 15 Union forces assaulted the defenses of Petersburg. Confederate defenders were forced to twice fall back and ended up just outside the city limits. On the June 18 Grant assaulted the Confederate line with his entire army, but was thrown back. Late that same day Lee arrived with reinforcements and so began the nine and a half month siege of Petersburg. Sometime between June 16-19 Corporal Charles Flacke was captured along with approximately three hundred other men from the .

Corporal Flacke, along with several thousand others captured in front of Petersburg, was transported to a 13-acre Confederate prison camp near Andersonville, Georgia. During July 1864 some 7,128 men arrived at this prison swelling the number within the stockades to 31,678. The same month 1,817 men died within the camp. All total 45,613 prisoners were brought into the camp between its opening in February 1864 and its closing in December 1864. Of this number 12,912 died there; additionally, an uncounted number died shortly after being transferred to other camps or being released. John McElroy, a prisoner in the camp, described the conditions in July and August as thus:

There was hardly room for all to lie down at night, and to walk a few hundred feet in any direction would require an hour's patient threading of the mass of men and tents. The weather became hotter and hotter; at midday the sand would burn the hand. The thin skins of fair and auburned-haired men blistered under the sun's rays and swelled up in great watery puffs, which soon became the breeding grounds of hideous maggots, or the still more deadly gangrene.... One could not look a rod in any direction without seeing at least a dozen men in the last frightful stages of rotting death.

Flacke languished in this prison until sometime in October 1864 when he was transferred to a newly established prison camp near Millen, Georgia. The prison there resembled the one near Andersonville in terms of construction, but was not as crowded. Total prisoners numbered between 6,000-7,000. Additionally, a fresh supply of water ran through the camp and a limited amount of building materials were found from which some shelters were constructed. Corporal Flacke remained at Millen until November 19 when he was paroled at Savannah, Georgia as part of a general parole of ten thousand other Union prisoners. This ten thousand consisted of mainly sick men, but many healthy prisoners bribed their Confederate guards and were included.

Release and Promotion

On November 25 Corporal Flacke arrived in Annapolis, Maryland where he was admitted to Hospital Division, No 1 at the Naval Academy. Two days later Flacke was sent to Baltimore, Maryland from which he traveled home to Albany, New York. While on leave in Albany, Corporal Charles Flacke and Catherine Heaney were married by the Reverend James E. Duffy at St. Mary's Church on January 18, 1865. In March he rejoined his old unit at Fort McHenry, Maryland. Then, on March 30, he was promoted to Sergeant. Two months later on May 25, 1865 at Fort Federal Hill, Maryland, Sergeant Flacke was separated from the service so that he could be sworn in as a 2nd Lieutenant in Company B of the . He was replacing Lieutenant H.M. Dodge who had been cashiered. Lieutenant Flacke's military career ended on July 25, 1865 when he was mustered out of the army in Baltimore, Maryland.

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