[3] As a part of the Army of the Potomac, it was initially assigned to the defenses of Washington, D.C.[4] Later, the 68th was transferred to the Shenandoah Valley and fought at the Battle of Cross Keys.

The regiment marched to relieve the siege of Knoxville, and then spent the last year of the war on occupation duty in Tennessee and Georgia, before being disbanded in November 1865.

[3] On July 22, 1861, the United States War Department authorized Robert J. Betge to raise a volunteer infantry regiment in New York.

[8] Accepted into service on August 19, the 68th left New York the next day, traveling by train from Perth Amboy, New Jersey, to Washington, D.C., to join the brigade of Brigadier General Louis Blenker in the Army of the Potomac.

[10] Encamped at Roach's Mills, Virginia, the 68th participated in the defense of Washington,[7] losing three men in their first combat, a minor skirmish with a Confederate patrol.

[7] In November, the Army was reorganized; the 68th was shifted to Colonel Adolph von Steinwehr's brigade and Blenker moved up to command the division.

[7] There, Betge was brought before a court-martial, accused of "conduct unbecoming an officer and gentleman":[11] confiscating two horses and other property from "loyal" Virginia citizens, and taking a bribe to hire the 68th's regimental sutler.

[14] The initial action in Jackson's Valley Campaign took place to their east, but in June Frémont's force of 15,000 joined the 10,000-man division of Brig.

[20] After a series of minor actions along the Rappahannock, Pope's forces met Jackson's half of Lee's army near Manassas Station.

[21] Pope believed he had a chance to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia one half at a time, and made the decision to attack.

[27] Sigel's forces, which did not take part in the initial Union assault, held firm against the Confederate counterattack, but after heavy casualties the army retreated.

[31] With Kleefish dead and Betge having resigned, command of the regiment fell temporarily to Major Carl von Wedell.

[32] Von Bourry, a veteran of the Austrian army,[i] had served on Blenker's staff as a captain and had impressed the officers of the 68th with his tales of heroism in the Second Italian War of Independence.

[34] The 68th, however, remained in reserve with the rest of the XI Corps, and so was spared any part in the defeat that befell the Union Army at the Battle of Fredericksburg.

[36] In a corps of mostly German regiments, Howard was immediately unpopular and his distribution of religious tracts to the troops did not improve the relationship.

[40] This time, the 68th and the other regiments of the XI Corps were part of the action, crossing the river with Hooker's main force on May 1, 1863, to attack Lee's left.

[43] Although he was warned of the impending attack, Howard did not order the units under his command to entrench, and when Jackson's men arrived the XI Corps was caught unprepared.

[45] Schurz ordered his brigade to shift to meet the assault, and the 68th jumped to action, but they were still overwhelmed by the force of numbers and began a disorganized retreat an hour into the attack.

[53] The landscape was mostly devoid of features that would aid in defense, but Gilsa's men were able to entrench on one low rise, Blocher's Knoll.

[56] The army retreated south of the town, but Howard, after arguing with Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock over who was in command in Meade's absence, rallied the troops there and ordered them to entrench.

[58] In the evening, however, Early's forces attacked again; the charging Confederates quickly reached the top of the hill and some hand-to-hand combat broke out, but losses were light because the growing darkness made it difficult for soldiers on both sides to shoot accurately.

They paid the price with much higher casualties, 8 killed and 63 wounded; 67 were made prisoners of war, many on the first day during the retreat to Cemetery Hill.

[63] The XI and XII Corps, under Hooker's command, made up an independent force added to the Armies of the Tennessee, the Cumberland, and the Ohio, which were all operating in that theater.

[68] By this time, losses from Gettysburg and illness had reduced the regiment to 127 men present for duty, just over a tenth of their numbers from the start of the war.

[70] Getting into place required the XI and XII Corps to cross the Tennessee River at Bridgeport, Alabama, and march rapidly for Lookout Valley, opening the supply line to Chattanooga.

[69] The battle continued the next day and a part of Howard's XI Corps, including the 68th, was shifted to the far left of the Union lines to reinforce Sherman's attack on Missionary Ridge.

[6] The 68th was assigned to Maj. Gen. James B. Steedman's 4th Brigade of the new corps and spent the next few months patrolling the Nashville and Chattanooga Railway in Tennessee.

[86] Salm-Salm led the regiment in the minor engagements following in January and February 1865 at Elrod's Tan Yard, Hog Jaw Valley, and Johnson's Crook.

[88] They continued to serve in northern Georgia through the spring and summer of 1865, and were stationed there when news came that the major Confederate armies had surrendered to Grant and Sherman.

[78] While there, they were ordered to facilitate the transition from a slave-based economy to a sharecropper system by encouraging plantation owners and their former slaves to sign farming contracts.