The 62nd New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment, nicknamed "Anderson Zouaves", (taken in honor of Major Robert Anderson, the hero of Fort Sumter) was a New York volunteer regiment that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. It was raised under special authority of the War Department in New York City by Colonel John Lafayette Riker in 1861, in response to President Abraham Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers to suppress the insurrection in the rebellious Southern states of the United States of America. The regiment was later numerically designated the Sixty-second New York State Volunteers. They was zouaves units were characterized by exotic and colorful uniforms modeled after Franco-Algerian soldiers, who had dazzled the country with their precision infantry drills.
The regiment was attached to the IV Corps for its first months of service in Washington, DC. Brigadier General John J. Peck is reported to have complained that it was "mortifying to find so much neglect of duty, so much inefficiency, and so low a conception of the soldier's position..." as in the 62nd New York Regiment. It isn't clear as to what warranted such a remark, but the regiment more than redeemed themselves by the war's end. The 62nd fought in the many of the most famous and brutal campaigns and actions of the war. At the end of their 3-year terms they had almost 100% re-enlistment. Three members of the regiment, Edward Browne, James Evans, and Charles E. Morse, were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. A monument honoring the 62nd NY stands north of the Wheat Field Road near Plum Run at the Battlefield of Gettyburg.
The 62nd NY was transferred to the VI Corps of the Army of the Potomac, where it remained for the remainder of the war, except for brief service with the Army of the Shenandoah. The VI Corps had earned distinction for heroism on numerous fronts and earned a reputation as one of the best and toughest units in the Union Army. When General Philip Sheridan was assigned the mission of destroying the breadbasket of the Confederacy, he asked for, and received, the use of the VI Corps for his campaign in the Shenandoah Valley.