The 14th Brooklyn Chasseurs was a volunteer militia regiment from the city of Brooklyn, New York which was active from April 1861 to 1864, in 1898, and, from 1917 to 1945. The regiment was founded on 13 May 1847 to protect Brooklyn and its surrounding areas, but it initially served as a social club. During the American Civil War, the 14th Brooklyn consisted mostly of abolitionists who dressed in the uniforms of French chasseurs, and it was commanded by Colonel Alfred M. Wood and then by Colonel Edward Brush Fowler. The 14th Brooklyn took part in most of the major engagements of the Eastern Theater, including the First and Second Battles of Bull Run, the Battle of Antietam, the Battle of Fredericksburg, the Battle of Chancellorsville, the Battle of Gettysburg, the Battle of the Wilderness, and the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, and they were nicknamed the "Red Legged Devils" by Stonewall Jackson at Manassas. The regiment camped in New York and Georgia during the Spanish-American War, and it later fought in World War I.