Style of badge worn by the Brooklyn Fire Department, Western District.
Andrew M. Underhill, Lieutenant of Company G, served as foreman of Hose 2.
At the battle of Bull Run, Underhill took charge of a detail including Sergeant James Ferris, and assisted in dragging the abandoned guns of Ricketts' Battery. Sergeant Ferris' was wounded and his rifle shattered, three men were killed, another wounded, and all had bullets pass through their clothes, but Underhill emerged unscathed. Later in the day, he was captured.
On August 22nd, 1862, Underhill spoke at a meeting of the Brooklyn Fire Department.
"Mr. President and fellow-firemen—I am in a poor condition, after my long captivity, to address you. When I was in Jersey City yesterday I heard that there was to be a meeting of firemen here to-night and I was told to come here. I never made a speech in my life before; I have always been used to work and to run with the machine. In the fight I did not run, but I got took. There is where I showed myself at fault, I ought to have run sooner. The country now wants volunteers, fighters, men that are willing to go and fight—not with our brothers, for the Southerners are not our brothers, and if I were taken prisoner again I would rather be taken prisoner by cannibals than by the wretches who call themselves Confederates. What they want now is war to the teeth.
I am unable to make a speech, but I hope this city will send volunteers enough to fill up the full quota. I am unable to stand any fatigue at present but in a week or so I hope to be able to go in the field again. I hope the Fire Department will send as many men as they did before. The Brooklyn Fire Department badge was the last seen on the field of Bull Run. I have worn that badge on the field of Bull Run and I have worn it since then until now, and I will wear it as long as I live.
I hope you will raise not only a company but a full regiment. There are men enough in the Fire Department to do it. At the battle of Bull Run the Fire Zouaves fought splendidly, and if the day was lost, it was not through them. No men ever fought better—I saw them. They fought long and nobly, but they fought every man on his own hook. For four hours and a half they were fighting with no one to direct them, and they were misrepresented as having broke their ranks. This thing must be altered. That regiment had brave men in it and they are now willing to come and fight to the last. I saw many of them in the prisons of Richmond and Salisbury and elsewhere in the South and every man of them is actuated by a spirit of revenge against the Southerners.
The Southerners have been taught that the Yankee is their natural foe and we must meet them and fight them to the last. They have men now in their prisons who are starving to death, and I hope the Brooklyn Fire Department will raise a regiment and send them forth to fight with spirit, and revenge the atrocities of these incarnate fiends who have heretofore called themselves American citizens."
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