Recruited in Essex County as the Fourteenth Infantry. It left the State August 7, 1861, proceeding to Washington, where it was placed on garrison duty in the forts about there. It was changed to heavy artillery in January, 1862, receiving, consequently, fifty new recruits for each company, and two additional companies of 150 men each; two additional lieutenants were assigned to each company, and two additional majors were commissioned. The First Battalion was ordered on active field service at Maryland Heights and vicinity, but the regiment proper did not go to the front until May, 1864. It then served as an infantry command in Grant's Virginia campaign. It joined the Army of the Potomac May 17, 1864, having been assigned to Tyler's Division of Heavy Artillery--then serving as infantry. Two days later it met the enemy on the Fredericksburg Pike; it took 1,617 officers and men into that action, sustaining a loss of 50 killed, 312 wounded, and 28 missing; a total of 390. In the assault on Petersburg -- June 16-18 -- it lost 29 killed, 183 wounded, and 6 missing; total, 218. Four days later, in the affair of June 22d, it lost 9 killed, 45 wounded, and 185 missing; the latter were mostly captured men, of whom over half died in Confederate prisons. In the campaign of 1865 the regiment was in Pierce's (2d) Brigade, Mott's (3d) Division, with which command it participated in the closing battles of the war.