SWEDEN’S CAPTAIN MILO STARKS STEPPED UP IN CIVIL WAR

BY BILL ANDREWS, BROCKPORT TOWN HISTORIAN

Milo Starks, a farm boy who lived just south of Brockport, was the great Civil War hero of the area. He recruited Company A of the 140th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment in Brockport.

e 140th, and especially Company A, played a crucial role at Gettysburg, the decisive battle of the war. On the second day at Gettysburg, the 140th marched along the northern base of a hill called Little Round Top en route to its assigned position when the general of another brigade countermanded its orders and ordered it to climb the hill and repel two elite Texas regiments that mounted it from the south.

e men were exhausted, many barefoot, a er a two-week forced march. In the confusion, they failed to load their ri es. But when they reached the summit, they threw the Texans into disarray by their sudden appearance. e New Yorkers loaded their ri es and drove back the Texans.

the second day “was pivotal to the Union victory on the third” because it commanded the battle eld.

A er the battle, Starks was promoted to major as the secondranking o cer of the regiment. He next saw action in the battle of Saunder’s Field in the Wilderness Battlecampaign,aUniondisaster.

e 140th led an assault across an open eld against an entrenched enemy and was almost destroyed. ey were repulsed with a loss of 268 of their 529 men killed, wounded, or captured. CompanyAhada40percentcasualtyrate.Starkshadanarrow escape. As he was helping organize the retreat, a lieutenant at his side was shot in the leg.

InMay1864,inthebattleofLaurelHill,O’Rorke’ssuccessor as commander of the 140th was killed leading a charge against entrenched Rebels and Starks, promoted to major, took his place to lead another charge, and was shot dead. O’Rorke’s grieving father, a deeply religious man, wrote that he had died like “a Christian, beloved not only in his native town, but in the army.”

Bill Andrews details this and other former Brockport area residents’ e orts in battle and on the homefront during the Civil War. at book, Civil War Brockport, is available at the Li Bridge Book Shop.

Colonel Patrick O’Rorke, the regimental commander, was killed at the outset of the ghting and Starks, as captain of the lead company, became its de facto leader. e defenders of Little Round Top had been imperiled by the Texans’ out anking maneuver and were saved by the timely arrival of the 140th. Starks was wounded four times but refused to leave the eld until the battle was won.

As Starks remembered, “In the height of the contest –where our brave men were falling like the leaves of autumn and to us there seemed to be little hope against the odds being thrown against [us]. One of the o cers when men were wavering – cried Boys the Old h Corps never run yet, stand your ground. Twas like an electric shot. To a man they rallied, closed up the broken line and with one Herculean e ort hurled back the foe in confusion.”

Historian Bruce Catton called the charge by the 140th “as strange a counterattack as the army ever saw – they simply ran straight at their foes, and the only weight their charge had was the weight of their running bodies.” Historian Allen Nevins has said that the retention of Little Round Top on

A painting by Rochesterian John William Wagner portrays a charge by the 140th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment thatwascrucialtopreventing the Confederate Army from over-running Little Round Top at the Battle of Gettysburg. In the painting, Captain Milo Starks is shown at the bottom right. e painting was displayed at the dedication of a historical landmark road marker honoring Capt. Milo Starks installed just north of Starks’ former home at 5139 South Lake Road (Route 19) in Sweden.

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