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ORGANIZATION & EARLY HISTORY OF THE 2D MASS. REGIMENT OF INFANTRY GORDON
Gc 973.74 M38gos 1755436
M. L.
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
Go
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 00824 8145
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012
http://archive.org/details/organizationearl00gord
قوة
THE ORGANIZATION AND EARLY HISTORY
OF THE
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erond Mass.
jegiment of
AInfantry :
AN ADDRESS
DELIVERED BY
GEORGE HI. GORDON.
BVT. MAJOR-GEN. OF VOLUNTEERS AND COLONEL SECOND MASS. REGIMENT OF INFANTRY IN THE LATE WAR,
T THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE SECOND MASSACHUSETTS INFANTRY ASSOCIATION, ON THE 11TH MAY. 1973.
BOSTON :.
PRESS OF ROCKWELL & CHURCHILL, .
122 WASHINGTON STREET. 1873.
فون
1
349 1191
GORDON, GEORGE HENRY, 1825 ?- 1886.
The organization and early history of the Second Mass. regiment of infantry: an address delivered ... at the annual meeting of the Second Massachusetts infantry association, on the 11th May, 1873. Boston, Rockwell & Churchill, 1873. 35р.
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1755436
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PRIVATELY PRINTED FOR THE ASSOCIATION.
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PREFACE.
In conformity with a vote of the Association at its Anniversary Meeting in 1872, "that the Executive Committee be directed to request a member of this Association to prepare a paper upon matters con- nected with the history of the regiment, to be read at its next annual meeting," this paper was prepared. The subject was selected by the committee, without consultation with the author.
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THE ADDRESS.
Ar this hour of social enjoyment I hope you will not be impatient if I exhibit a paper whose formidable proportions threaten not only to arrest, but destroy, all conviviality for the remainder of the evening.
If my effort to crowd an intelligible review of the early organization of our regiment into a thirty-minute recital shall be successful, it is more than I dare hope. Of course I have not been able to dwell upon personal achievements. I can only touch upon salient points in our organization ; and- even here, after the full account of that early period, given by our chaplain in his history of the regiment, I find it very difficult to follow without treading in his footsteps. I have endeavored, however, to refer as little as possible to topies treated by him', and have therefore made no mention of the past history of the lives of the officers and enlisted
When, on the morning of the fifteenth of April, 1861, a telegram from Washington to Governor Andrew, to send for- ward fifteen hundred men, was followed later in the day by a formal requisition for two full regiments of militia. there Had been no thought or preparation for the service of other
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troops to sustain the General Government. Gov. Andrew had taken steps to prepare the militia as early as the six- teenth of January, 1861, in his order No. 4, in which, you remember, all the members who were willing to respond to the orders of the Commander-in-Chief, when issued, in response to a requisition from the President of the United States to aid in the maintenance of the laws and the peace of the Union, were to signify it; those refusing, to be discharged and "their places filled by men ready for any public exigency which may arise."
On the fourth of February, 1861, the general officers of State militia, with a few citizens of military experience, were invited to confer with the Governor as to the best mode of preparing the militia for the field.
Soon after followed the act of the Legislature of February 6. 1861. authorizing additional companies of volunteer militia to be raised, and, upon the requisition of the President of the United States, to be marched out of the limits of the State.
How well and how promptly Gov. Andrew had executed his task was apparent. when the companies of designated militia. amidst the cheers of the multitude, disembarking at the various railroad stations, marched to their rendezvous on Boston Common, on the morning of the sixteenth of April.
I need not discuss, now and here, how inadequate the militia of any State would have proved for the war of the rebellion ; nor need I enlarge upon their unfitness for the creation of a military organization for an indefinite term, and in distant States ; nor to the absurd usage of the election of officers. Out of your experience came in time your con-
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demnation. Out of my experience in the beginning came mine, when the multitude, with emotions, and heart-swel- lings, and frantic cheers, heard Gov. Andrew, in inspired tones, bid God-speed to the third, fourth, sixth, and eighth militia regiments on the seventeenth and eighteenth of April.
Thus early in the war, at its outset, at that period when for the first time the country as a whole appreciated that war was inevitable; the one thing that men of military experience felt, was that the old militia organizations must give place to new military organizations. To feel thus and to act upon it was as much a matter of course as for any commander to rally in battle a dispersed battalion, and to act upon it in such manner that the part each man could do, when accomplished, would form a perfect whole, was not only the part of wisdom, but of prudent foresight. My course was plain. It was to raise a regiment modelled upon the regular army of the United States; an enlistment of men ; an appointment of officers ; an indefinite term of sel- vice. By what law such a regiment was to be held together, fed, paid, clothed, I knew not -there was no law : but there was something above law; something that makes law --- necessity. So I addressed myself to two essentials that were requisites for the coming law to act upon, -essentials in getting together and organizing in form a regiment of men ; and these were - first, the assent and cordial co-operation of Governor Andrew to raise it; second, the promise of the General Government to accept it.
On the fifteenth day of April, 1861, at the State House, with the single condition that I would wait until these
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troops were off, Governor Andrew promised me his influ- ence and aid in raising a regiment of troops to serve during the war; the men to be enlisted ; the officers to be of my own selection ; their rank to be of my own designation. On the seventeenth day of April, before all the troops were off. Gov. Andrew made good the promise of his in- fnence, by writing a letter to the Secretary of War, asking authority to raise this regiment, afterwards known as the Second Massachusetts Infantry; but then designated as a regiment to be commanded by Major Gordon.
The steps that followed. in their order, make up the his- tory of the organization of our regiment.
What shall I select of all the details that bear upon the design, workmanship, and completion of the fabric? For I cannot, in the time allotted for this bit of history, do more than touch upon a few interesting incidents. I cannot tell even the half I know of the personal sacrifices, the heroic impulses, and the free, impetuous contributions of life and property, poured out with unstinting hand, by both rank and file, to aid me in my effort to organize our regiment. Men, money, sympathy. influence! It seemed as if all the wealth, all the precious life-blood, all that nearly a hun- dred years of social and intellectual development had gar- nered, were offered for the sacrifice.
I much regret that I have no reliable record of the order in which applications for commissions were received, but by the best evidence I have, the first applicant to me was Greely S. Curtis: he was followed by A. B. Underwood. Then came Wilder Dwight, followed within a few days by
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George L. Andrews, who made personal application for the office of Lieut. Colonel.
The following names, with residences, I find among my notes, upon a sheet bearing evidence that they were written in the order in which I received the application. I copy the
notes precisely as they were written in the spring of 1861 : - -
William B. Williams, Q. M. Serg't, Cadets.
Dr. Luther Parks, Surgeon.
Charles E. Parker, Norfolk House.
Dr. John McLean, Roxbury.
Dr. H. B. Bryant, Tremont Club.
Dr. Hall Curtis, 85 Beacon Street.
Dr. L. M. Sargent.
E. C. Saltmarsh (has a company ), 4 Cornhill Square. C. R. Mudge, 45 Summer Street.
E. G. Park, 91 State Street. Dr. Sargent, Rutland Street.
George A. Batchelder, Woburn.
Guy C. Underwood, City Hall. Charles F. Cabot, 128 State Street. -
F. W. Dorr, Boston U. S. C. S.
C. F. Morse, Jamaica Plain. L. S. Jordan, 46 State Street. Edward A. Whiston, Framingham. James M. Ellis, 42 Court Street. J. Parker Whitney, Tremont House. N. W. Osborn, Salem Cadets. Waldo Merriam, Boston. Franklin Gibbs, India Wharf. 2
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G. Q. Hill, 60 State Street, N. E. G. Richard Goodwin, Somerset Club.
J. F. Pope, Harrison Square. Henry M. Tremlett, 289 Shawmut Avenue.
Henry S. Russell (at G. H. Shaw's), 1 Joy St.
F. W. Loring, 73 Mount Vernon Street.
J. M. Rodocanachi, 33 Central Wharf.
R. Morris Copeland, 50 School Street.
N. T. Messer, Fort Independence.
H. S. Everett, 32 Summer Street. Francis Wildes, Newburyport.
James G. C. Dodge, Boston. Geoffrey Paul.
Forsyth Howard,
Charles B. Slack, Newton.
H. W. Sewell, Winthrop House.
Dr. Lincoln R. Stone, Salem.
Henry Bowman, Clinton.
- - Cartwright, State Street.
D. D. Farr, Rockport.
Joseph Hayes. C. J. Higginson, 2 Louisburg Square.
J. Lewis Stackpole.
Robert G. Shaw.
Thomas R. Robeson. .
William D. Sedgwick, Lenox.
These are names with many of which you are familiar ; but that paper does not contain all who received commissions in our regiment ; nor does it name some who undoubtedly
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had been promised a commission at an earlier date than any named in it; such as Captain Abbott, who must have fol- lowed soon after Colonel Andrews.
Other names brought before me in letters of application, with dates, are : -
S. W. Waldron, on the 20th April.
Samuel M. Quincy, letter of May 2d, 1873, from Col. Holmes.
G. N. Maey, through letter of May 6, 1861, from F. A. Osborn.
Frank H. Tucker, applying for Quartermaster or Cap- taincy, May 6th, 1861.
George P. Bangs, letter recommending, May 6th.
William Cogswell, letter, May 8th, 1861, from Gover- nor Andrew.
I find the names of Charles G. Loring, Jr., W. B. Wil- liams, C. F. Morse, Rufus Choate, S. M. Quincy, Richard Goodwin, George P. Bangs, James M. Ellis, C. P. Horton, appended to a paper dated May 9th, 1861, showing the connection of those gentlemen with the regiment at that time.
The names of Savage and Cary, Captains ; of Wheaton, Adjutant ; of Hawes, Motley, Howard and Sawyer; do not appear in any lists or in any letters in my possession.
That Messrs. Wheaton and Motley were very early appli- cants in April, and that all the others were actively engaged in recruiting companies early in May, there is abundant proof.
Among the first to offer aid, his person, his counsel, and
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his energetic assistance, was Wilder Dwight. It was on the eighteenth day of April, 1861, that he first made known, in lines written hastily on a serap of paper, on my desk, his desire to go with me. The following is a copy of the paper : -
"I simply want to say that if you see any chance to get a berth to go with the first volunteers from Massachusetts, keep me in mind, and give me an early opportunity. That's what I want, Capt. Gordon. Yours, " (Signed) W. D."
And it was on the same day, though later, in an interview with Dwight, that I informed him of the Governor's accept- ance of my proposition and co-operation with my effort. It was on the same day, too, that Dwight, suggesting the possibility of procuring money by subscription, carried from my office a paper which pledged Major Gordon to the com- mand of a regiment which the contributors were to equip, organize and support, until this burden should be assumed by the General Government. You know that liberal sub- scriptions were made. - five thousand dollars before the ink which declared the purpose was dry ; and that this money placed our success beyond any fair probability of failure.
Before the twentieth of April, 1861, there was no doubt of our success. The great overpowering necessity had triumphed over all past forms and revered customs. Men of station and culture were willing to take such rank as might be designated, while the bone and sinew of our land will- ingly surrendered all claim of law, to take part in the elec- tion of their officers. Let us go any way that you think best. to fight for the integrity of our country, was their only, their single demand.
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Now, it became necessary to consult with higher powers. The President of the United States, -could I obtain his promise to accept this regiment, as part of the army to be raised, our future was assured. What was the outlook for this? It was under the sanction of law that the President of the United States had called upon the militia, who were now forming at the front. But where was the law for the crea- tion of an army subject to the rules and regulations govern- ing the military service of the United States? There was none. What then? Was the President to wait idly, long- ing for authority to give life to the legions that throughout every hamlet in the Northern States were flocking to drill- halls, forming themselves into companies, and offering to fill regiments ; or was he assuming the responsibility to give his approval, and order the fighting force to the front?
On the morning of the twenty-fifth of April, 1861, I announced my intention of proceeding to Washington, to tender in person a regiment of infantry to the President of the United States. Later in the day I found myself so crowded with work that I designated Lieut. Col. Andrews and Major Dwight to go forward for me, and fulfil my pur- poses. On the afternoon of the twenty-fifth of April, these gentlemen started, taking with them a letter from Governor Andrew to the Secretary of War, repeating the former's request of the seventeenth inst., to which no reply had been made.
The following letter to me from Major Dwight, dated April 25, 1861, is pertinent. It is as follows : -
" DEAR GORDON, - If you think you cannot go to Washington this P. M. Andrews and myself are ready to start under your direction, to bring back an
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قوة
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answer to the fundamental question, on what legal basis are we to rest? Please give us as early an answer to this question as you can, so that we may prepare to go.
" Yours, WILDER DWIGHT. " G. H. GORDON."
On the thirtieth of April, 1861, I received from Phila- delphia the following dispatch : -
"GEO. H. GORDON, 20 Court Street, -
" Have got authority ; see full despatch to Gov. Andrew ; rush right for- ward; home to-morrow evening.
" WILDER DWIGHT."
So the last condition was fulfilled ; and, so far as I know, this offer of a regiment of citizens of Massachusetts, to fight for the country for an indefinite period, organized. armed and equipped, a present from the State, was the first offer of the kind made in this war of the rebellion ; and may - must - have had a potent influence in shaping the policy which the President afterwards adopted. At all events, it must have brought sensibly to his mind that he could call with confidence upon the citizens of the free States to fall in and march to the front.
Accordingly, on the third of May, 1861, the President of the United States proclaimed that he would receive thirty- nine regiments of infantry, and one regiment of cavalry, an aggregate of forty-two thousand and thirty-four men and officers, to serve for three years, or during the war. So the voice of command was heard in the land; the policy was adopted ; and it is to be remembered with pride, that our regiment was tendered to the President of the United States, first in the letter of Gov. Andrew, written on the seventeenth
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of April, and again by messengers sent direct to the Presi- dent, repeating this offer, on the twenty-fifth of April. It is to be remembered with pride that this regiment was not accepted by the President for the war, under his own call, on the third of May, for thirty-nine regiments of infant- ry ; but it was accepted and authorized by the President, before the thirtieth of April, in response to our own appli- cation. It is also worthy of note, that on the nineteenth of April, 1861, Gov. Andrew, in the following letter, became himself, for his friend, an applicant for a commission in our regiment.
The letter is as follows : -
"COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS, "EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, COUNCIL CHAMBER, " BOSTON, April 19, 1861. " MY DEAR COL., - Dr. Luther Parks, Jr., of Boston, an old friend of mine, wishes active service in his profession. He is a zealous and noble man. Can you appoint him? " Yours truly,
"J. A. ANDREW."
At later dates and on four other occasions did Gov. An- drew make personal applications to me in writing, suggest- ing appointments, or applying for places for men ; thus most emphatically endorsing his promise to aid me in raising a regiment, in which all the officers were to be of my own designation and appointment; the rank and file to be enlisted in such manner as I might elect.
The application next in time to the preceding was on the eighth of May, when the Governor applied to me to receive the "Andrew Light Guard," - a company raised in Salem by the then Capt. Cogswell; "as it will add," writes
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the Governor, "to the completion of your command, to aid which I shall always be happy."
On the ninth of May the Governor applied to me for an appointment for Dr. R. H. Salter, as surgeon ; adding, " If I were selecting a regiment, he is the man of all others I should choose as surgeon of a regiment." And again, May 16, in a letter to me introducing Mr. Fisher and Major Ayer, of Medway, the latter of whom had seventy- one men on his rolls. This company, discarding their own elected officers, took those I designated, and became Co. "E" of the Second Regiment. And again, on the same day, May 16, in a letter written for the Governor by an officer of his staff, in which Gov. Andrew applies to me to take into my regiment two German companies enlisted in Boston, now being supported by Mr. Urbino and others of their countrymen, who can ill afford it. "In these com- panies," says the Governor, "there are several officers and nearly thirty men who have served in the German armies, and are therefore trained soldiers." As the acceptance of this material would have been a departure from the policy I had adopted, I declined the offer.
I am sure, if time allowed, it would be interesting to give in detail the letters, correspondence and reports that flowed in upon me from the fifteenth day of April, 1861, to the very morning of the eighth of July following, when we left the State. Offers of services to drill ; offers of services to fight ; individual offers, and offers by groups and companies ; Ger- man soldiers by Mr. Urbino, and French veterans by Col. Fletcher Webster; applications for a first or second lieu- tenancy in an infantry regiment from a man who had
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commanded ships varying in size from six hundred to eighteen hundred tons; applications for a first or second lieutenancy from a man who says, to use his own words, "Anything that money or political influence can do to obtain this will not be wanting ; " and an offer, the last that I will allude to, from a single applicant, who signed himself under the somewhat indefinite name of Volunteer. He addressed me with exhaustive epithets of his gratitude to his country, and as weighed down with a sense of his duty in this hour, which he paints with darker hues than Milton in his conception of the bottomless pit ; ending with touching pathos, by declaring that his "tail" is soon told ; he begs the loan of a trifle of twenty dollars to enable him to leave where he is now boarding, as he was "only one of three or more hundred over the borders, who wished to join my ranks to put the traitor down." You may imagine that I preferred to leave these hundred men in pawn for their board. Who knows but some months later whether they were not more successful in the haleyon days of hundreds of dollars' worth of bounty ?
As interesting, I say, as it might be to give all these de- tails, whether in reports of our own officers at their various recruiting stations, letters of inquirers, letters offering money and aid, and clothing. I cannot pause longer on this branch of our subjeet, but must hasten on with a word of our encampment in West Roxbury.
On the ninth of May, 1861, moved by the conviction that the men and officers selected for our regiment should be brought together in camp, I directed Mr. R. M. Copeland. designated for the office of quartermaster for the regiment,
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to find within a convenient distance of Boston a suitable spot for a camping-ground for a regiment.
In our chaplain's record of the regiment he gives the numbers of enlisted men on the date of their arrival at camp, as follows : -
Capt. Abbott, full, May 11.
Cogswell, 75 men, " 14.
" Savage, 42 “
14.
". Whitney, 78
14.
" Underwood, 82
66 15.
" Quincy, 80
20.
I find among my papers a sheet, on one side of which, in my own handwriting, is a list of all the proposed officers of the regiment from the Colonel to the last Second Lieutenant, and on the other side a statement of the condition of the compa- nies, as follows : Abbott, full ; Quincy, probably full ; Savage, 80 ; Curtis. 80 ; Cary, Lowell men, 80 ; Underwood, 82 ; Tuek- er, 33 ; Goodwin, not noted ; Whitney, full ; Cogswell, full.
The date of this paper, unfortunately it is a matter of sur- mise. must have been later than the 14th of May, for, then. by the history of the Second, Capt. Savage had but 42 men, but the whole record shows such a condition of numbers of enlisted men, on the 9th of May, that an encampment became a necessity.
To my letter of the 9th, Mr. Copeland replied, that he would immediately start out to find an encampment ; and "shall get into Boston some time this afternoon." he added. " with one found." Fortunately for us, the ground on which Mr. Copeland happened was the historic Brook Farm. in
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West Roxbury. Easily accessible, though isolated, its sur- face diversified with hill and vale, the spot was admirably adapted to all the requirements of an encampment. I can bring before me now the commanding eminence for the offi- cers ; the level ground for the companies ; the even and ample parade ground for a thousand men ; the extensive drill- ground ; the appropriate buildings, from the protecting hos- pital to the instructive guard-house. I can recall them in all the poetry of a romance, which the pen of Hawthorne, in the wildest hours of his most exuberant fancy. could never excite in the pages of his Blithedale story. I can see them, too, in a reality which has forever and forever exorcised the fitful play-day of the idle dreamers who preceded us.
Brook Farm is to me, forever, hereafter, holy ground. It is consecrated by our occupancy ; it is redeemed by the solemn tread of our columns upon its green sod; while its story shall live as an organ strain in the grand epic of American liberty.
Fittingly did the saluting gun baptize our new encamp- ment for its new birth, as, on the eleventh of May, 1861. the day we celebrate as our anniversary, when the first company of our regiment, detailed to take possession, came in sight, under command of its Captain, - Abbott of Lowell. - a single piece of artillery, borrowed from the City of Roxbury, manned by volunteer gunners, awoke. the slumbering scene with a national salute.
Then the stars and stripes were given to the breeze, and Brook Farm was baptized. - Camp Andrew. On Sunday, the twelfth of May, Capt. Abbott made to me his first report . of the condition of matters in camp.
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" We reached camp," he says, "about four o'clock Satur- day afternoon (the 11th). The flag-staff was raised, the flag saluted, and a national salute fired at sunset. We did not receive any supper," he says, "until about eight, but when it came it was excellent, and has since so continued. The men," he tells me, "have behaved excellently ; have cheerfully obeyed my orders, and found something to amuse themselves with." The number of men now ( May 12, 1861) in camp. he enumerates as follows : officers commissioned. 5 ; non-commissioned, 8 ; musicians, 2; privates, 72; total, 87. If I will give the order, he adds, since the tent equipage is ready, he will put the men in camp immediately.
Between the twelfth and twentieth of May, the site of the encampment was selected, and the permanent regimental camp established.
I have said that on the third of May, the President of the United States called, by proclamation, for forty-two thou- sand and thirty-four volunteers ; and as our regiment was accepted under that call. and provided for by a subsequent act of Congress, I must beg your indulgence for a moment while I follow the War Department in its relations with the State, when it touches upon our regiment. On the fourth of May, 1861, the War Department issued a general order. No. 15, in which rules were laid down for the organization of the volunteer force of forty-two thousand and-thirty-four volunteers. At the same time it was declared that no more three months' regiments would be accepted.
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