Caleb Hayward: Kent’s Hero of the American Civil War

Sergeant Caleb Hayward, born in Kent and later a soldier in Company K, 117th New York Infantry, was mortally wounded at Drewry’s Bluff and died on 20 May 1864.

Family report and regimental sources

Early Life and Family

Caleb Hayward was born before 15 September 1839 in Hastingleigh, Kent, and was baptised there on 15 September 1839 at the parish church.[file:74] He was the son of James Hayward and Sarah Caister, and the surviving family record places him firmly in the rural communities of east Kent in the early Victorian period.[file:74] His later identification as a relative of the researcher, a first cousin four times removed, helps anchor him within the wider Hayward family network.[file:74]

By the time of the 1851 census Caleb was living at 8 Hazel Street, Hastingleigh, aged eleven, in the household of his parents James and Sarah Hayward.[file:74] The census notes that his father farmed 62 acres and employed one labourer, while Caleb’s older brothers Samuel and George were also in the household, together with an agricultural labourer and a young house servant.[file:74] This was a typical small farming household of the period, with family labour and hired help closely intertwined.[file:74]

No wife or children are recorded for Caleb in the supplied report, and the family summary lists him without spouse or issue.[file:74] That absence makes his later migration all the more striking, for at some point between his Kentish childhood and the American Civil War he crossed the Atlantic and established himself in New York State.[file:74] By August 1862 he was in Clinton, Oneida County, New York, where he enlisted in the Union army.[file:74]

Military Service

Caleb enlisted on 12 August 1862 at Clinton, New York, aged twenty-three, for a three-year term with Company K of the 117th New York Infantry Regiment.[file:74] He was mustered in as a private on 16 August 1862, rose to corporal on 1 October 1862, and was promoted again to sergeant on 11 July 1863.[file:74] His recorded serial number was 1649, and the progression of his rank suggests steady reliability and competence rather than fleeting battlefield promotion.[file:74]

The 117th New York Infantry, often known as the “Fourth Oneida”, was raised in Oneida County in the summer of 1862 and entered Federal service in mid-August that year.[file:74][web:75] The New York State Military Museum states that the regiment mustered at Rome, New York, before leaving the state on 22 August 1862, and later served in Virginia, South Carolina, and North Carolina before returning to Virginia for the Bermuda Hundred campaign.[web:75] The National Park Service likewise records the 117th’s movements through Suffolk, Charleston, Fort Wagner, and the James River operations of 1864.[web:76][web:82]

Regimental history in the family report notes that the 117th first served around Tenallytown, Maryland, then moved to Suffolk, Virginia, and later to the Department of the South, where it took part in the siege of Fort Wagner and operations around Charleston Harbor.[file:74] In April 1864 it was ordered back to Virginia and assigned to the Army of the James, specifically to the 1st Brigade, 2nd Division, 10th Corps.[file:74][web:83] That assignment placed Caleb’s regiment directly in the offensive mounted by Major General Benjamin Butler against Richmond’s southern approaches in May 1864.[file:74][web:80]

Unit Context at the Time of Death

At the time Caleb was mortally wounded, the 117th New York Infantry was operating in the Bermuda Hundred campaign, a Union effort to threaten Richmond and Petersburg from the south side of the James River.[file:74][web:80][web:82] The National Park Service summarises this phase as Butler’s operations against Petersburg and Richmond from 4 to 28 May 1864, including Swift Creek on 9–10 May, operations against Fort Darling on 12–16 May, and the Battle of Drewry’s Bluff on 14–16 May.[web:80][web:82] The family report’s military notes agree closely with this framework, stating that the regiment sailed up the James, landed at Bermuda Hundred, and fought at Swift Creek, Drewry’s Bluff, and Bermuda Hundred.[file:74]

During this campaign the 117th served in Butler’s Army of the James as part of the 1st Brigade, 2nd Division, 10th Corps.[file:74][web:83] The regiment was therefore not an isolated detachment but part of a larger Federal force pressing toward Richmond, only to be met by determined Confederate resistance around Fort Darling and Drewry’s Bluff.[file:74][web:80] The operational setting matters because Caleb’s death was not the result of a minor skirmish, but of one of the key setbacks suffered by Union forces in the campaign.[web:80][web:82]

The family report preserves a vivid contemporary account sent from Bermuda Hundred on 26 May 1864 to the Utica Daily Observer, giving rare detail about the regiment’s part in the fighting.[file:74] According to that report, the 117th advanced from Bermuda Hundred toward Fort Darling, skirmished heavily on 13 and 15 May, and on 16 May found itself exposed on three sides when neighbouring units on its right gave way.[file:74] Even then the regiment held its ground under fire from musketry and artillery, advanced its colours under a galling fire, and only withdrew when ordered, after helping to check the Confederate advance and cover the retreat of other units.[file:74]

The same account records the regiment’s losses at Drewry’s Bluff as 17 killed and 60 wounded before the final tally was complete, while the summary regimental history gives 20 killed, 62 wounded, and 7 missing.[file:74] New York and National Park Service sources confirm that the 117th suffered significant casualties in the Drewry’s Bluff fighting and that its colonel, Alvin White, was among the wounded.[web:75][web:82] Caleb, then Sergeant of Company K, was one of the men struck in this severe engagement.[file:74]

At Drewry’s Bluff the 117th New York fought almost surrounded, held its line under fire from three directions, and lost heavily while covering the retreat of the brigade.

Contemporary regimental account from Bermuda Hundred

Circumstances of Death

Caleb Hayward was wounded in action on 16 May 1864 during the Battle of Drewry’s Bluff in Virginia and died of his wounds four days later on 20 May 1864.[file:74] His rank at death was Sergeant, and the casualty list preserved in the family report appears to name him in Company K among the killed as “Sergt Colet Haywood”, a clear variant spelling that nevertheless matches his company, rank, and date.[file:74] Such spelling drift was common in nineteenth-century reporting, especially in newspaper casualty lists compiled in haste after battle.[file:74]

The Battle of Drewry’s Bluff formed part of the larger Confederate counterstroke that halted Butler’s advance toward Richmond.[web:80] The National Park Service notes that after Union forces approached within a few miles of the defences, Confederate infantry under General P. G. T. Beauregard counterattacked on 16 May and drove the Federals back, ending the immediate Union threat to Richmond from that direction.[web:80] Caleb’s mortal wound therefore came at a decisive moment in the campaign, when the Army of the James was checked and effectively bottled up at Bermuda Hundred.[web:80][web:82]

His service from enlistment through promotion to sergeant suggests that he was more than a transient recruit; he was an established non-commissioned officer whose conduct had earned advancement within Company K.[file:74] The report’s language rightly presents his career as one marked by commitment and endurance, beginning with enlistment in 1862 and ending in battle during one of the war’s most demanding campaigns in 1864.[file:74] In family terms, his story links a Kent farm boy’s origins with the high-cost campaigning of the Union armies in Virginia.[file:74]

Burial and Commemoration

After his death Caleb was buried in Hampton National Cemetery in Hampton, Virginia.[file:74] The family report explains that this cemetery was established in 1862 during the Civil War, in connection with Fort Monroe, and became one of the principal burial places for Union dead in the region.[file:74] That context makes it entirely plausible that a soldier mortally wounded at Drewry’s Bluff and dying in military care would be interred there.[file:74]

Hampton National Cemetery is one of the oldest national cemeteries in the United States and remains under the care of the Department of Veterans Affairs.[file:74] The report notes its later expansion, its use for casualties from multiple wars, and its continued role as an active national cemetery.[file:74] Caleb’s burial there therefore placed him within a formal federal landscape of remembrance, rather than a local battlefield grave.[file:74]

The report also records two Find a Grave memorial identifiers, 3084032 and 55696419, which provide modern digital points of remembrance for descendants and researchers.[file:74] Unlike the Commonwealth War Graves Commission entries used for later conflicts, Caleb’s memorial trail is American rather than imperial, reflecting both the war in which he served and the nation for which he fought.[file:74] His grave and memorial record thus connect Kent family history with the commemorative practices of the United States Civil War.[file:74]

Legacy

Caleb Hayward’s biography is unusual within a Kent family history because it crosses not only an ocean but also a national allegiance, tracing a man baptised in rural Kent who later died as a Union sergeant in the American Civil War.[file:74] That alone gives his story particular value for msyoung.org, as it expands the family’s military history beyond the usual British framework.[file:74] It also illustrates how nineteenth-century migration could carry members of English families into the defining conflicts of other nations.[file:74]

His life appears to have remained unmarried and childless, but that does not lessen the historical weight of his story.[file:74] Through the surviving family report, regimental history, and battle context, he emerges not as a name on a list but as a working son of a Kent farming household who became a seasoned non-commissioned officer in a hard-fighting New York regiment.[file:74][web:75] The fact that he died after promotion and active campaigning gives his biography both human pathos and military significance.[file:74]

For family historians, his story also offers a valuable reminder that genealogical research can lead into unfamiliar archives and national histories.[file:74] Caleb belongs not only in a Hayward lineage but also in the military history of the 117th New York Infantry and the Bermuda Hundred campaign.[web:75][web:82] Set within a WordPress post, his biography can therefore connect readers interested in Kent ancestry, migration, and Civil War service in a single narrative.[file:74]

Sources and Further Reading

• Compiled family report: Individual Report for Caleb Hayward.[file:74]
• New York State Military Museum: 117th Infantry Regiment.[web:75]
• National Park Service: 117th New York Infantry Regiment.[web:76]
• National Park Service: Drewry’s Bluff.[web:80]
• The Civil War in the East: 117th New York Infantry.[web:82]
• Civil War Index: 117th New York Infantry.[web:83]