by Anne Motto, F.M. Kirby Curator of Collections
November 11, 2025
Following President Lincoln’s call for an additional 300,000 volunteers, the 15th Regiment NJ Volunteers was formed in the summer of 1862, drawing several companies from Morris County. Thrust into action later that year at the Battle of Fredericksburg, the unit served through the close of the war, ultimately being present at 25 engagements and battles. Among the 947 men who mustered with the regiment at Flemington on August 25, 1862 were two noted local residents who recorded their time in the service and left their stories for perpetuity.
Ira J. Lindsley of Morristown, a local builder who constructed the Crane addition to Acorn Hall in 1860, was granted permission to form a company for the 15th NJ Vols. in July 1862 under the condition that he could raise the minimum number of men (83). Successfully recruiting nearly 100, he led the regiment’s Company C as captain at Fredericksburg and in the opening days of the Chancellorsville Campaign. During his service he maintained a diary that still survives. His account sadly fell silent after he was killed in action at the Battle of Salem Church, a part of the Chancellorsville Campaign, on May 3, 1863.
Over his first year of service, Edmund D. Halsey of Rockaway rose to the rank of lieutenant and was appointed adjutant of the regiment in 1863. A prolific writer, he served until January 1865, recording extensive details of his and his comrades’ service in his diaries and letters. Today, many of his wartime writings are preserved in various local institutions, including a letter he wrote to his sister in the aftermath of Chancellorsville, now in MCHS archives. In the letter he described the action of May 3rd in which Capt. Lindsley fell, “On Sunday morning… the 1st [Division] was engaged against heavy odds on the left and lost quite as many as either of the others without the glory. On Sunday afternoon the 1st Division ‘being fresh’(!) were in the advance and our Brigade lost more men in the short fight of the pine woods than were lost altogether in the morning.”
The 15th NJ Vols. went on to serve at the Battles of Gettysburg, Spotsylvania Court House, the Wilderness, Cold Harbor, and Appomattox Court House. In the years following the war, Lt. Halsey, other veterans, and surviving family members such as Capt. Lindsley’s son, J. Frank, organized reunions that continued until at least 1929 when four surviving members met at Morristown. Over 160 years later, the story of their service and sacrifice still lives on as told in firsthand accounts.
