The 44th New York Volunteer Infantry was a regiment of the Union Army during the American Civil War which was formed up in mid-1861, and mustered in on August 30, 1861.
The regiment was first mustered by Stephen W. Stryker, a former lieutenant in the 11th NY Volunteer Infantry Regiment, in part to remember his former commander, Colonel Elmer Ellsworth in Alexandria, Virginia, the first Union officer to die in the war. The regiment became known as "Ellsworth's Avengers."
Colonel E. Elmer Ellsworth was a well-known militia commander before the Civil War and a friend of Abraham Lincoln. Following the attack on Fort Sumter, Ellsworth quickly organized a regiment of New York City firemen as the First New York Zouaves (later the 11th New York Volunteers).
After arriving in Washington, D.C., the regiment was dispatched to Alexandria, Virginia and, noticing a Confederate flag flying above the Marshall House hotel, Ellsworth and a few of his men climbed to the roof and removed the offending flag. As they descended the hotel staircase, Ellsworth was confronted and shot by the hotel keeper, who was immediately killed by Ellsworth's men. His death triggered an outpouring of grief in the North.
Ellsworth had been born in 1837 near Albany, New York, and a call went out from a number of the prominent citizens of that city to avenge his death by raising a regiment made up of one man from each town and ward in the Empire State. Each soldier was to be unmarried, not less than 5' 8" in height and not more than thirty years old. The men selected for the regiment arrived in Albany from the four corners of New York State on August 8, 1861, and the regiment was quickly formed. The regiment joined the Army of the Potomac in late October 1861 in Virginia, and settled into camp with the assistance of the 83rd Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry Regiment, beginning a relationship that would keep these two regiments together throughout the war.
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