Leaving Camp Lincoln for the front. At Baltimore, Maryland.
Cantaloupes and Peaches. Annapolis, Maryland. Chesapeake Bay oysters.
Assisting negroes to escape. Doing picket duty on the railroad. A Negro
husking. Chaplain Ball arrives from Massachusetts. Assigned to the 2d
Brigade, 2d Division, 9th Army Corps.
During the winter of 1860 and 1861 there was great uneasiness felt
in the North. The South, through the democratic party, had been the
ruling section of the country most of the time since the establishment
of the Republic, but at the time of the election in the autumn of 1860
a northern political party had won. That party was not only a northern
party, but it was an abolition party. The election of an abolition
president, Mr. Lincoln, by the North, was at once regarded as a menace
to the slave holding interests of the South, which section at once
began to make preparations to withdraw from the Union. As the spring
months passed and Mr. Lincoln, the new president, took his seat,
secession was more and more talked about. Soon the 6th Massachusetts
Regiment was attacked in Baltimore. Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor
was fired upon. Battalion after battalion of the state militia were
being hurried away south for the protection of the Capitol. It thus
became more and more apparent that there was to be war, and the
all-important question from the northern viewpoint was, the
preservation of the Union. One Sunday in the month of June I went home
to visit my family, I being at the time at work away from home, and
while there, quietly asked my mother what she would say if I should
enlist. Well, that question produced a shock, and was not answered as
quietly as it was asked. I was told I could not enlist without her
consent, which she should not give, and I was heartily laughed at by my
brothers and sisters. However, when it became known that a company was
being recruited at Barre, I went quietly over there and enlisted, then
I went home and told the family what I had done. There was a rumpus, of
course, but it passed off, and after a few days, hearing nothing from
the company, I decided to go back to work again and await developments.
On the 22d I learned that the company was going into camp at Worcester
the next day. I was on hand and went along.
A number of stage-coaches were provided to take us to Worcester. It
was an interesting and picturesque ride of a little more than twenty
miles. Arriving in Worcester early in the afternoon, we went to the
Agricultural Fair Grounds, which had been converted into a campground
and named Camp Lincoln from Levi Lincoln, the first mayor of Worcester
and a Governor of Massachusetts, and set to work putting up tents and
forming a company street. Sleeping in tents, drilling and doing guard
duty seemed strange at first, and was a good deal of a change from the
duties of a farmer's boy, but it was interesting to be among a lot of
live young men who were brimful of enthusiasm, patriotism and fun.
When I joined the company at Barre, I was surprised to discover a
number of Dana boys there: Henry Billings, Henry Haskins, German
Lagara, Gil Warner and Harding Witt. Harding Witt and I had been
schoolmates and good friends for a number of years, so I was especially
glad to find Harding there. Reveille was sounded at five o'clock. Most
of the boys did not find it difficult to get up at that time but a few
of those boys made the greatest ado about getting up on the minute.
They were very likely boys who had always been called by loving mothers
and had been called two or three times every morning. A quarter of an
hour after reveille every man had to turn out to roll call. The men
thus had fifteen minutes to dress and put their tents in order. At six
o'clock the breakfast signal was sounded and all fell in line to go to
the cook-house and get their breakfasts. The cup and plate furnished by
the government were of tin, much like those I remember having seen
children use in early boyhood. They were expected to stand the rough
usage of army life. Knives, forks and spoons were of the same rude
character. Pedlers, however, early appeared in camp with a combination,
the three hooking together and making a very light, portable and
convenient thing to carry, and many of the boys bought and carried them
in preference to those furnished by the government. Some of the rations
were served out to the men, as soon as received from the Commissary
Department, such as sugar, salt, bread and salt pork. Other things like
corned beef, beans and coffee were cooked by the company cook and
served at meal times hot. Soft bread, a very good kind of wheat bread,
was furnished at convenient times when we were in camp, at other times
we received the regular army crackers. These were sometimes, during the
first year, very poor; they had doubtless been in the government
storehouses a long time, but later on when we received fresh crackers
they were very palatable.
At eight o'clock every morning the surgeons' call was sounded and
any man who did not feel well could go and see the doctor, perhaps get
excused from duty, get some pills or some quinine to take, or, if sick,
be given a bed in the hospital. Although I spent nearly the entire year
in the hospital (the last year of my service, after being wounded in
July, 1864), previous to that time I only once answered the surgeons'
call and that was when every man in the regiment was ordered up to the
surgeon's tent and given a dose of quinine and whiskey. This was while
we were at Newbern, North Carolina, when chills and fever were
prevalent in the regiment. At nine o'clock in the evening tattoo was
sounded, the signal for all soldiers to repair to their quarters, and
fifteen minutes later taps gave the signal for all lights to be
extinguished. This living in accordance with military regulation,
seemed a little strange and reminded the writer of the time when he
lived in a factory village where a bell sounded the time to get up,
where one is rung into the factory and rung out again, suggesting a
kind of life where a man becomes simply a cog in a wheel.
We had been in camp about two weeks when we learned the Barre
company was to be known as Company K, and that the regiment was to be
the 21st Regiment of volunteer infantry from Massachusetts. We had wall
tents with floors, and very good bunks to sleep on. If nothing else
could be got a chip or a quart bottle made a candlestick, but a bayonet
which could be stuck in the ground was more reliable. A large potato
flattened on one side and a hole dug out for the candle, or a cake of
soap were also pretty serviceable. When I enlisted at Barre I received
a military cap, it was one of the caps of the Barre Militia Company. It
was the only garment of a military character I had until I received my
United States uniform just before leaving Worcester for the front. The
color was navy blue and it was trimmed with a red cord. It was a French
type of cap, but it was afterwards known as the McClellan cap
throughout the army.
Drilling was, of course, the principal work of the day, at first in
marching, company drill, platoon drill, squad drill, all to familiarize
us with the movements of soldiers in two ranks. After a time we
received muskets and then began the exercises in the manual of arms.
Those muskets were of the most horrible kind imaginable, but they
answered to drill with. That, however, was all they were good for
excepting old junk. The name of our first captain was Parker. He was
about six feet, six inches long. I think he was elected captain on
account of his great length. He had been in the militia, I believe, but
he knew as much about drilling or military matters generally as a South
Sea Islander. As time went on, it was probably realized at headquarters
that Captain Parker was not a suitable man to command a company in
actual service, and he was never sworn into the United States service,
and when we left Worcester for the front, the company was commanded by
Thomas Washburn, a Worcester man. The first lieutenant was a Methodist
minister, a schemer and a shark. He expected to be made chaplain of the
regiment and failing in that, soon left us, taking with him about
$90.00 of the company's funds. The second lieutenant was a man by the
name of Williams, a Barre man. I remember him as a man with a very
large beard. A tall, slim man who was something of a drill master used
to come over to camp, from the city and drill us occasionally. He wore
a military uniform, stood very erect and had rather a military bearing.
I think he would have accepted a commission in the company if one had
been offered him, but he was not thus honored by Company K.
While in camp my sister Lizzie came down to Worcester and visited
me, staying with some friends in the city, and the day we broke camp
and started for the front, my brother John came down to see me off.
August 16th, an officer of the United States regular army visited the
regiment and mustered us into the volunteer service of the United
States. The next day we received our uniforms, a woolen and an India
rubber blanket. This last had a slit in the middle through which the
head could be thrust, one end dropping down in front, the other end
covering the back, thus taking the place of a waterproof overcoat. Our
uniforms were of two colors, light or sky blue and dark navy blue. The
trousers and overcoats were of sky blue, the latter having a cape. The
blouse and cap were of a dark or navy blue. The cap was somewhat like
the McClellan cap in form, but the circular stiff part on top tipped
forward farther than on the McClellan cap.
The uniform of the non-commissioned officers, the corporal and
sergeant, were the same as the private, they wearing chevrons on the
sleeves of their coats to indicate their ranks. The commissioned
officers were not expected to associate with the privates at all; they
belonged to another class of men entirely. They dressed in a very smart
way. Their uniforms were all tailor-made, all dark blue in color; the
dress coat quite a little like the Prince Albert coat; the cap they
wore was usually the McClellan cap. Our accoutrements consisted of a
belt, a cartridge box, cap box, bayonet-scabbard, haversack, canteen
and knapsack. We were also furnished with new guns, Springfield
smoothbores. These were a little better than those we had been using to
drill with, but they were none too good. Thus, in a few days, these
hundreds of boys were converted into a regiment of infantry soldiers,
and on August 23d we marched forth from Camp Lincoln, our belts
bristling with large bowie knives and revolvers, and started for the
front. We took a train for Norwich, Conn. There we boarded a boat for
Jersey City. As we passed along through the state, people in large
numbers were gathered at the railroad stations to greet us, and from
nearly every farmhouse a little flag or handkerchief signaled us a
sympathetic goodbye. While we lay on the wharf at Jersey City, who
should appear but George and Fred Lincoln of Brooklyn, N. Y. Their
father was a Hardwick man and the family used to spend their summer
vacations at the old family home in Hardwick at the time I worked for
Mr. Walker. We had thus come to know each other quite well. They were
two fine boys and I was glad to see them. About noon a train of freight
cars were ready and we clambered aboard and started for Philadelphia.
All the way through New Jersey the people were out in the streets
waving their handkerchiefs and bidding us goodbye. So much
goodbye-saying annoyed me after a time, and I withdrew inside the car
out of sight and engaged my mind with other thoughts. About eight
o'clock in the evening we reached Philadelphia. Here we were marched to
the Cooper Shop saloon and were given a fine supper. We were very
hungry and that supper was so good. We were made so welcome and
everything connected with it was so kindly and so genuine that through
all our lives this was one of the incidents we looked back to with a
feeling of grateful appreciation. If that was an example of Quaker
kindness and Quaker charity I raise my hat to the descendants of
William Penn and his colony.
Havre-de-Grace, where we arrived the next morning, August 25th, will
always be remembered as the place where we received our first
ammunition and where for the first time, we loaded our muskets with
real ball cartridges. We were nearing Baltimore and would soon be on
the edge of Rebeldom, but when we arrived in Baltimore, nothing
occurred out of the ordinary. We marched unmolested and unnoticed
through the city to Patterson Park, where we went into camp. I confess
to not having slept much the first night we were there. It seemed as if
it must be a city of dogs and the whole population was on the street
barking all night. Such a barking, such a never-ending uproar—I never
heard anything approaching it until I visited Cairo and Constantinople
in recent years. Those cities are filled with tramp dogs, and as a
result there is a constant breaking out of the barking of the dogs
through the whole night. The second night we were at Patterson Park,
the long roll was beaten at about one o'clock at night. We turned out,
fell into line ready for business in short order but that was all there
was to it; it was part of the exercise we were to become accustomed to,
I imagine. We stayed at Baltimore three days and nothing out of the
ordinary occurred. To be sure, we were not treated very cordially, but
we were not insulted, we were just left severely alone. Personally,
after I got a taste of the peaches and cantaloupes, I thoroughly
enjoyed myself there. Those peaches and cantaloupes were of the finest
kind and so cheap, I ate to my heart's content—rather to my stomach's
content. August 29th we went to Annapolis, where we were quartered in
the Naval School buildings. The cadets and everything that was movable
had been taken to Newport, R. I. The grounds of the academy supplied us
with a fine drill field and we utilized it constantly and became, as we
thought, quite proficient. But one fine day as the troops assembled
there to go on the Sherman expedition to Bufort and Port Royal, S. C.,
there came two German regiments from New York City. Every man was by
birth a German and they had evidently been through the military
training incident to all native German boys. Well, the evolutions of
those regiments as they drilled were a revelation to us. None of us had
at the time seen anything comparable with it and it made us feel as
provincial as you please.
At Baltimore we had a glimpse of negro life,—but it was only a
glimpse. We were there so short a time, and not being allowed to leave
camp, all we saw was the glances we got as we marched through the city
on our way to the camp and as we went away. But at Annapolis and on the
railroad out in the country we had a chance to see something of the
negro and negro life. Those we saw on the street and about the town at
Annapolis were fairly well dressed and looked a little poorer only than
those one would see in a northern city. One day, however, while out
rowing with a crowd of the boys we landed at the wharf of a man in the
oyster business; boat loads of oysters were arriving at the wharf,
brought in by negroes who raked them, and in a small building were a
number of negro men and women opening oysters. These last were a sight
to be remembered. The negroes were hardly dressed at all, and the few
clothes they had on were of the very coarsest material, and they looked
about like the kind one would expect to see in Africa. Our cattle and
horses in the North have the appearance of being better cared for, and
as those negroes worked, there was no intimation of intelligence; they
worked like horses in a treadmill. Later on, while doing picket duty
out on the railroad, I saw a lot of cornfield negroes at a negro
husking. There was a long pile of corn heaped up just as it was cut in
the field and all around it sat the negroes husking. They sang most of
the time a monotonous sing-song tune. There were present negroes from
different parts of the plantation and there was a feud to be avenged.
All at once each man whipped out an axe-handle and at each other they
went with a fury thoroughly brutal, pounding each other on the body,
head or anywhere. The overseers were soon after them and had them
separated and at their husking again. The axe-handles, all that could
be got hold of, were taken away from them. These field negroes, or
cornfield negroes, are about the lowest and worst in the South. Great
care has to be exercised to prevent them from getting hold of knives.
Had half a dozen of these negroes had knives at that time there would
have been a lot of blood spilled. There was quite a little spilled as
it was.
October 22. There has been quite a bit of excitement the last two
days in camp caused by the secreting in the grounds of a negro slave
who was also assisted in his escape by some of the boys. The negro
belonged to Governor Hicks and he was seen making his escape into the
grounds. Colonel Morse did his best to find the negro but no one else
gave himself any trouble about the matter. The negro was carefully
hidden in an old chimney until night, when one of the boys stole a
rowboat in the town, took it around to a little dark place behind some
old sheds, loaded Mr. Negro into the boat, gave him a bag of hardtack
and started him off down the sound in the direction of Baltimore.
It was no uncommon thing for negroes to be assisted in making their
escape by the boys, but this negro, having been seen entering the
grounds by the main gate, and the owner being no less a person than the
Governor of the State, the affair was given exceptional importance.
Those of us boys who were fond of shell fish, had a treat at
Annapolis. The famous Chesapeake Bay oysters were in abundance, cheap
and delicious. Besides these, there was a kind of crab the fishermen
brought to the wharf and sold to us, that was as sweet and as delicious
as they could be.
October 29. Company K and three other companies were sent out on to
the railroad between Annapolis and Annapolis Junction to do picket duty
along the railroad, relieving the companies that had been out there
while we were at Annapolis. When we boarded the train to go out, it was
discovered that the orderly sergeant was drunk. It was his duty to have
the camp equipment for each of the posts along the road all together,
and kept together, that it could be unloaded from the train without
delay at each of the different stations. When we reached the first
station it was found that the camp equipage was in the same muddled
state as the sergeant's brains. It was the usual thing when a
non-commissioned officer sinned to reduce him to the ranks. The orderly
sergeant of Company K fared the regular fate in this instance. The new
orderly sergeant was a man by the name of Charles Plummer, a stranger
to all of us. He had joined the company just before we left Worcester.
From what we had seen of him at that time, he gave us the impression of
being a man of exceptional ability. The last vestige of life in the
barracks ended at that time, after that we slept in tents, and each did
his own cooking, such as it was. To break the monotony of our meals,
different methods of treating hardtack were devised—like toasting,
moistening and frying, etc. The canteen wash, when one was willing to
carry the water from the stream to camp, rather than wash at the stream
which was usual, consisted in one soldier holding the canteen and
pouring the water on to the hands of No. 2, until No. 2 had got a good
wash, then turning about and No. 2 holding the canteen and pouring the
water for No. 1 to have a wash. Our washing of clothes was most of it
done at the stream, but as we had no means of heating water they were
not boiled and were not as clean as they might have been. It was a
common thing for negro women to come around and get soiled clothes to
wash.
Doing picket duty on the railroad we found very uninteresting and
monotonous work, and we were greatly pleased when we heard Governor
Andrew had been at Annapolis, had promised us new guns, and that we had
been assigned to the Ninth Army Corps and were to go on the Burnside
Expedition. Our stay on the railroad was thus cut short, and on
December 18 we were relieved from further duty there, and returned to
Annapolis. We then discovered that in our absence out on the railroad,
a chaplain had arrived from Massachusetts, Rev. George S. Ball of
Upton, a man whom, as time went on, we came to have the highest regard
for.
December 19. Together with the rest of the troops assembled there,
some ten or twelve thousand men, we were reviewed by General Burnside
and on the 20th there was a grand inspection, after which we were told
that the 21st had been assigned to the 2d, General Reno's Brigade, and
that we were the first regiment selected by the General and were to
occupy the right flank of the brigade.
December 21. We received our new rifles and were greatly delighted
with them. They were Enfield rifles, made in England. The 22d and a
number of days following, we were marched out into the country, into a
very large field, and put through regimental drill for four or five
hours every day. It was the first time the regiment had all been
together since we were at Baltimore. The 26th we received a supply of
ball-cartridges and went out into the same great field again, put up a
lot of targets at different distances and practiced firing at them for
a number of days, accustoming ourselves to estimating distances, and
adjusting the sights on our guns to the different distances. We had our
final drill and practice in firing at target the 2d of January. After
we went in town off the railroad we did a lot of drilling and firing at
target and I think the boys were then in fine shape for a campaign. The
stay at Annapolis was an excellent experience for us. We became
accustomed to army life and if we were ever to be in shape for active
service we were then. The last days at Annapolis were very lively; new
regiments were arriving daily. There were inspections; ships were
gathering in the bay; Colonel Morse resigned command of the regiment to
become Commander of the Post; Lieutenant-Colonel Maggi took command of
the regiment, and on January 6th we went on board the ship Northerner,
bound for we knew not where.