The 12th Georgia
Our History
Mustered June 1861, Virginia
Total mustered: 1,350–1,400
Casualties: 240, combat. 90-100, disease.
Command Surrendered: 5 officers, 60 men in April 1865. Lt. Col. Scruggs (Commanding Laws Brigade)
Officers: Colonels Z. T. Conner, Edward Johnson, and Edward Willis; Lieutenant Colonels Mark H. Blanford, Isaac Hardeman, Willis A. Hawkins, T. B. Scott, and Abner Smead; and Major John T. Carson.
Major Engagements:
Western Virginia Campaign – July–September 1861
Cheat Mountain Campaign – September 1861
Jackson’s Valley Campaign – March–June 1862
• Battle of McDowell – May 8, 1862
Seven Days’ Battles – June 25–July 1, 1862
• Oak Grove – June 25, 1862
• Mechanicsville – June 26, 1862
• Gaines' Mill – June 27, 1862
• Garnett's & Golding's Farm – June 27–28, 1862
• Savage's Station – June 29, 1862
• Glendale – June 30, 1862
• Malvern Hill – July 1, 1862
Second Manassas (Second Bull Run) – August 28–30, 1862
Antietam (Sharpsburg) – September 17, 1862
Chancellorsville – April 30–May 6, 1863
Gettysburg – July 1–3, 1863
Cold Harbor – May 31–June 12, 1864
Early’s Shenandoah Valley Campaign – June–October 1864
Appomattox Campaign – March–April 1865
The 12th Georgia Infantry Regiment completed its organization in June 1861 at Richmond, Virginia. Its companies were drawn from the counties of Sumter, Jones, Macon, Calhoun, Muscogee, Dooly, Putnam, Bibb, Lowndes, and Marion. Ordered first to Western Virginia, the regiment served under H. R. Jackson and took part in Robert E. Lee’s Cheat Mountain operations. It then became part of the commands of Edward Johnson, Elzey, Trimble, Doles, and later Cook, fighting in Jackson’s Valley Campaign. At the Battle of McDowell in May 1862, the regiment suffered heavily, losing 175 men, a sobering introduction to the hard service that would define its record.
From the Seven Days’ Battles through the Maryland Campaign, the 12th Georgia fought with the Army of Northern Virginia in some of the war’s most severe engagements. It lost 45 men at Groveton during Second Manassas and 59 at Sharpsburg. At Chancellorsville, the regiment reported 12 killed and 58 wounded, and at Gettysburg, it sustained losses equal to sixteen percent of the 327 men engaged. In Brett W. Martin's memoir of Company F, a Dooly County soldier, the experience of campaign life emerges in personal detail: long marches, hunger, exposure, and the strain of battle, yet also steady loyalty to comrades and officers. His recollections give a human face to the casualty figures recorded in official reports.
The regiment remained in the Army of Northern Virginia through the Battle of Cold Harbor and later served in Early’s Shenandoah Valley operations in 1864. By the spring of 1865, years of combat and disease had reduced its ranks to a fraction of their original strength. During the Appomattox Campaign, the survivors marched and fought in retreat until surrendering in April 1865. Only five officers and sixty enlisted men remained to stack their arms. From its organization in Richmond to its final days in Virginia’s interior, the 12th Georgia’s history reflects both the broad sweep of Confederate campaigns and the individual endurance recorded in the words of the men who served within its ranks.
Reenacting the 12th Georgia Co F
A Faithful Portrayal of the Soldiers & Families of Georgia during the War Between the States
Company F of the 12th Georgia Infantry was not a garrison unit. It was a marching regiment, one that covered thousands of miles on foot, lived on whatever the countryside and the commissary could provide, and fought on some of the hardest ground the Army of Northern Virginia ever contested. The men of Company F today take that record seriously.
The company distinguishes itself by portraying soldiers on campaign: traveling light, living simply, and presenting the public with an honest picture of what service in the field actually looked like. Rather than the polished impressions of parade-ground soldiering, the focus is on the texture of daily life in a Confederate infantry company, the worn equipment, the improvised shelter, the discipline and fatigue that defined months and years of active service. That commitment to authenticity is the standard the company holds for itself and the experience it offers to visitors at living history events.
Company F participates in living history events and reenactments throughout New England, bringing this history to local communities who may have little direct connection to the campaigns of 1861 to 1865. The company also travels to national events, and in recent years has fielded impressions at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; Sharpsburg, Maryland; Cedar Creek, Virginia; Bentonville, North Carolina; and Olustee, Florida. These are the same grounds where the historical 12th Georgia fought and bled, and marching that terrain as a soldier in the ranks adds a dimension to the history that no book or documentary can fully replicate.
For members seeking the deepest possible connection to the soldier experience, the company supports participation in hardcore immersive and campaigner events. These events operate on a different standard than mainstream reenactments. Uniforms, equipment, and accoutrements must be meticulously researched and period accurate, often hand-stitched from correct materials, with no shortcuts permitted. Modern items have no place in camp: no cell phones, no plastic bottles, no modern food containers. Participants walk long distances, cook over open fires, and sleep on the ground, because that is what the men of the 12th Georgia did.
Where a typical large-scale reenactment may accommodate A-frame tents and conveniences kept just out of public sight, campaigner events strip all of that away. The focus shifts from display, demonstration, and public education to experience. Many of these events are scenario-driven, built around a specific campaign or tactical situation rather than a set-piece public battle, and they are frequently organized by and for the participants themselves, sometimes in remote locations with no public audience at all. The community uses the term "EBUFU," Events By Us, For Us, to describe that ethos.
The goal is something closer to time travel than demonstration. A member who completes a campaigner event does not simply portray a soldier of the 12th Georgia. For a few days, in some meaningful sense, he lives as one.
Whether a prospective member is new to reenacting or a seasoned campaigner, Company F offers a place to do the work seriously and stand on the same ground where history was made.
