Officers, 15th New Jersey Vol. Inf.,
1st Division, 6th Corps, Army Of The Potomac

Line of officers, 15th NJ Reg Vol. Inf., 1st Division, 6th Corps, Army of the Potomac. The man sixth from left in back row is William VanVoy who was a son of Isaac VanVoy and Catherine Mayberry. Catherine was a daughter of John Mayberry of Warren Co, NJ.

"Photo taken Saturday afternoon 12 March 1864" "The original print of this photograph is in possession of the Hunterdon County Historical Society. The reverse is marked "Weitflo & Wright, Photographers, 1st Div. 6th Corps". Also, attached to the rear of the photo is a paper having on it a typewritten list of those in the picture and a handwritten inscription, "Presented ' by Mr. Samuel Young, Flemington, N.J., to ‘Charles H. Chapman of Providence, R.I," " Van Voy was killed at Spottsyvania."

In The History of the First New Jersey Brigade in the Civil War by Bradley M. Gottfried it states "Lying dead not far away" (from Sergeant Paul Kuhl) "was Lieutenant William Vanvoy, who had been harshly disciplined by Colonel Penrose and had taken his case to the newspapers." " Several of these men died after their initial wounding because, with no healthy soldiers to fire at, the enraged Confederates took aim at any wounded soldier that moved." In the The Story of the 116th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion by St. Clair A. Mulhalland it states "Chapline Haines, of the Fifteenth New Jersey, notes in his diary:" " We tried to bury our dead comrads, and succeeded in laying Captains Shimer and Walker, Lieutenant Justice and eight others into shallow graves, and then we were summoned to follow the regiment, and we had to leave Lieutenant Vanvoy and some forty others of the Regiment unburied" In the Oakleaves Warren County Historical and Genealogical Society Newsletter Spring 2005 it states that "Catherine continued to wear black for the rest of her life for all the young men she had known and lost in the Civil War."

Don Collins

August 2014