Wikipedia:Today's featured article/July 22, 2015

Monument to the 68th at Gettysburg

The 68th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. The men were recruited mostly from Manhattan, but some came from New Jersey, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Most were German immigrants, and many of the officers had served in the armies of Austria, Prussia, and other German states. Organized in July 1861, three months after the outbreak of war, they were initially assigned to the defense of Washington, D.C., with the Army of the Potomac, and later fought at the Battle of Cross Keys in the Shenandoah Valley. They found themselves in the thick of the fighting at Second Bull Run, and were routed by Confederate forces at Chancellorsville. At Gettysburg, they saw battle on two of the three days and took heavy losses. The regiment was then transferred to the west and participated in the Chattanooga campaign. They assisted in the Union victories at Wauhatchie and Missionary Ridge, and marched to relieve the siege of Knoxville. They spent the last year of the war on occupation duty in Tennessee and Georgia, before being disbanded in November 1865. (Full article...)