The 3rd New Jersey Volunteer Infantry was an American Civil War Union Army regiment of infantry from New Jersey that served in the Army of the Potomac.
It was recruited and mustered into Federal service in May 1861, and was brigaded with the 1st New Jersey Volunteer Infantry, the 2nd New Jersey Volunteer Infantry, and the 4th New Jersey Volunteer Infantry to make up what became famed as the "First New Jersey Brigade". The regiment and brigade served as the 1st Brigade of the 1st Division of the VI Corps, and participated in numerous battles from the June 27, 1862, Battle of Gaines Mill, Virginia, to the final Union assaults on Confederate positions at Petersburg, Virginia, in April 1865.
The remnents of the 3rd New Jersey Volunteer Infantry were mustered out in June 1865.
Notable members of the 3rd New Jersey were:
- Colonel George W. Taylor (later a Brigadier General and commander of the brigade until mortally wounded)
- Colonel Henry Brown - succeeded George Taylor as regiment commander, and later commanded the brigade)
- 1st Lieutenant Edward Burd Grubb, Jr. - brevetted Brigadier General at the end of the war
- Lieutenant Colonel Mark Wilkes Collet - later Colonel of the 1st New Jersey Volunteer Infantry
- Lieutenant Colonel James N. Duffy - aide to Major General George G. Meade, and post-war commissioner of the New Jersey Gettysburg Battlefield Commission, which was responsible for the creation and placement of New Jersey monuments at the Gettysburg National Military Park.
Famous quotes containing the words jersey and/or volunteer:
“To motorists bound to or from the Jersey shore, Perth Amboy consists of five traffic lights that sometimes tie up week-end traffic for miles. While cars creep along or come to a prolonged halt, drivers lean out to discuss with each other this red menace to freedom of the road.”
—For the State of New Jersey, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“We should have an army so organized and so officered as to be capable in time of emergency, in cooperation with the National Militia, and under the provision of a proper national volunteer law, rapidly to expand into a force sufficient to resist all probable invasion from abroad and to furnish a respectable expeditionary force if necessary in the maintenance of our traditional American policy which bears the name of President Monroe.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)