On July 2, 1863, Confederate forces smashed into Union lines near the Peach Orchard at Gettysburg, and in the chaos of that brutal engagement, Private Richard Baxter Smart of the First Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry vanished. His comrades searched the bodies scattered across the field. His family waited weeks for word. No one could find him.
What they did not know was that Smart had not simply disappeared—he had been captured and was about to endure a journey that only a prisoner of war could truly understand. The story of Smart’s disappearance is inseparable from the story of Major General Dan Sickles, whose controversial decisions on the second day of Gettysburg created the conditions for disaster. Sickles, commanding the Third Corps, spotted the high ground at the Peach Orchard and became convinced he needed to place artillery there. Ignoring orders, he advanced his lines nearly a mile forward, creating a weak, exposed salient that Confederate forces under General James Longstreet were quick to exploit.
Longstreet had not wanted to launch a general engagement at that moment, but Sickles forced the issue. Confederate troops poured across the fields directly into the Union position, where the Massachusetts men and others fought desperately to hold the ground. When the fighting finally subsided, the field was covered with dead and wounded. The First Massachusetts began counting its losses, and Richard Smart was nowhere to be found.
Initially, his absence was recorded as missing in action. In Civil War records, “missing” could mean a soldier was lost somewhere on the battlefield, unable to be accounted for—possibly dead, wounded, or captured. For Smart, the designation meant something far more specific. He had been taken prisoner of war on that very field and was being sent south to Richmond, Virginia.
The journey was not a short one. By July 21, 1863, Smart was documented at the prisoner-of-war camps in Richmond. He did not remain there long. Somehow, he managed to make his way out of the camp and was transferred first to City Point, Virginia, and then eventually to Maryland.
Many prisoners of war never made it out of those camps, dying of disease or surviving only until the war’s end. Smart was luckier than most—he returned to his own unit by October of that same year. Smart had enlisted in the Union Army shortly after the fall of Fort Sumter, leaving his home in Brighton, Massachusetts. For two years, he served in every campaign and battle his regiment took part in, maintaining a spotless record.
He never fouled his weapon, never turned in broken equipment, and was never disciplined for anything. That clean record stood until Gettysburg brought his war to a sudden halt. The First Massachusetts monument, located along the Emmitsburg Road, records the regiment’s role on July 2, 1863. From 11:00 a.
m. until 6:30 p. m. , the regiment occupied its position in support of a skirmish line 800 feet ahead, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Clark B.
Baldwin. The regiment subsequently took its place in the brigade line and fought until the close of the action. The casualties were severe: 18 killed, 9 died of wounds, 80 wounded, and 15 taken prisoner—a total of 122 men lost out of roughly 300 who went into the fight. Richard Smart was one of those 15 prisoners.
Smart survived both the war and his captivity. He chose not to reenlist in 1864, having served his time proudly and deciding he had seen enough of war. He returned home, married, and had three children. He remained an active member of the Grand Army of the Republic, attending meetings regularly and earning a reputation as a well-liked figure in his community.
He died at the age of 75, exactly 52 years and one day after the conclusion of the Battle of Gettysburg—the battle where he was taken prisoner on the fields just adjacent to where Dan Sickles lost his leg. Unlike so many soldiers who never made it home from those battlefields, Smart lived a long life, remembered fondly by his family and respected by those who knew him. At Gettysburg, he had stood the test, and his story remains one of the many remarkable tales of survival from that bloody field.