USA > Massachusetts > Record of the service of the Forty-fourth Massachusetts volunteer militia in North Carolina, August 1862 to May 1863 > Part 22
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The individuality of character was even more marked than the variety of callings, and could be fully appreciated only by those
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whose good fortune it was to spend month after month in such bright, amusing, and stimulating companionship. The quality of these common soldiers and their officers (for there was little difference, in this respect, between officers and men) can best be judged from the character of those whom we lost; and it is to these, in our reminiscences of the past, that our thoughts first turn. In the statistical tables which follow will be found the exact record of our losses ; let me give here such brief allusions to the individuals themselves as I have been able to gather. If of the living we cannot say all that we could wish, of the dead we are privileged to speak unreservedly.
Of those who died during the campaign no loss was more keenly felt by both officers and men than that of Surgeon Robert Ware. Of all the memories that come back to us from those troubled months, none is more beautiful than that of this pure- souled, refined, high-minded officer, going his rounds of labor with tireless devotion and winning the respect and admira- tion of all for his noble conception of a soldier's duty. Dr. Ware had graduated at Harvard College in 1853, and from the Harvard Medical School in 1856, and was in rapidly rising practice in Boston at the outbreak of the war. His first ser- vice was in connection with the Sanitary Commission, which he joined as inspector in 1861, acting in that capacity during the disastrous and soul-trying scenes of the Peninsular Campaign. No officer in the army was more keenly alive than he to official shortcomings and abuses, or more outspoken, at proper times and places, in denouncing them; yet none showed readier resources or quicker wit in improvising means for meeting the terrible exigencies of that campaign, or in making the hospital provision for half a dozen patients serve the needs of a hundred. His unsleeping attention to the wounded, as they came pouring in from the field to the transports, and his cheerful, indefatigable toil in the hospital, by the ambulance, and at the boat, profoundly impressed his co-laborers in the Sanitary Commission, and called out the most touching testimonials of gratitude and appreciation.1
1 See the sketch entitled " The United States Sanitary Commission," prepared for the Boston Fair, December, 1863, page S9; also the little book called "Hospital Transports."
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As a regimental surgeon, Dr. Ware possessed qualities rarely united in one man: having tender sympathies and the finest delicacy of feeling, yet exacting of the men the strictest observ- ance of sanitary regulations, and pitilessly exposing all their shams. Though resenting his severity at first, the soldiers found at once that it was only the impostors who had anything to dread, and soon learned to trust his skill, to appreciate his fidel- ity, and to recognize the dignity and unselfish purity of his char- acter. His last illness was brought on, during the siege of " Little" Washington, by the unusual labors required of him among the negroes, as well as in his own regiment, to which, as usual, he gave himself unsparingly. He died, April 10, 1863, in his thir- tieth year.
Major Charles W. Dabney, who came of the family so long and so honorably known in connection with the American con- sulship at Fayal, graduated at Harvard College in 1844, and was engaged in active business in Boston when the call for nine months' troops was made. No one was more active or eager than he in organizing the regiment, and no officer served more efficiently than he through all our campaigns. He retired to civil life at the close of our service, carrying with him the deep affection of his army comrades, to add to the esteem and confidence he had already won and was still to win from his business associates and friends. Indeed, he was a man from whom entire trust and affec- tion could not be withheld. The rare combination of the finer and manlier qualities in his nature was irresistibly engaging. Im- pressing every one at first by the exquisite and almost feminine gentleness of his bearing, he soon disclosed himself as one to look to in emergencies where only courage and endurance tell. He seemed as noteworthy for toughness of moral fibre as for delicacy. The stories told of his coolness and pluck in critical hours were innumerable. His was the great privilege through life of surrounding himself with appreciative friends. The sad news of his death in England, seven years after he left the army, called out charming tributes, full of genuine feeling, from every hand. From a very striking notice in the " Boston Advertiser" of Jan. 17, 1871, written by one who knew him well, I take these brief extracts : -
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" While ail the parts of his character fitted well together, his scale was large, and he was full of strength and hearty vigor, . . . the most trustworthy of men, in whose hands you would place all that you possess, from fortune to reputation. The most sympathetic in joy or sorrow, the most faithful in the performance of duties ; a very rare man, and yet so natural as to be a compliment to his race. . . . His life was, for the most part, a fortunate and happy one. He amassed a large fortune of respect and affection, which he invested securely in the memories of many friends."
Major Dabney's physical constitution was very vigorous, and he resisted the influences of climate and exposure to which so many of his comrades succumbed; but he was never quite well after the war, and the great excitement and exhaustion caused by the burning of his house and his efforts to save it, in 1867, made him soon afterwards an easy victim to the disease which attacked him. He died of pneumonia, in Malvern, England, Dec. 22, 1870, in his forty-eighth year. Funeral services were held in the Church of the Disciples, Boston, Jan. 17, 1871.
Adjutant Wallace Hinckley, the youngest and gayest of our military household at headquarters, whom we remember for the buoyancy and evident enjoyment with which he threw himself into the soldier's work, received his education and training in the Highland Military Academy of Worcester, Mass. After serv- ing the Forty-fourth Regiment with admirable efficiency dur- ing its earlier experiences, and endearing himself to his com- panions by his amiable and happy traits, he left us to become adjutant of the Second Massachusetts Heavy Artillery, in which capacity he made for himself an honorable record through- out the war. He died of malarial fever, in Beaufort, N. C., Sept. 4, 1865.1
Quartermaster Francis Bush, Jr., was a most faithful and dili- gent officer in a very harassing branch of military service, and secured the hearty good-will of his comrades by his frank and obliging ways. He returned to civil life after the disbanding of our regiment, and became eventually the sole member of the old and well-known firm of Bent & Bush, in Boston. A few years after resuming his business cares his health began to fail him, and in the summer of 1874 his friends were startled by his sudden
1 For fuller notice of Adjutant Hinckley, see chap. xv.
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death. The notices of his death bore testimony to the regard in which he was held by the community both as a merchant and as a friend. "Both in social and in business circles," says one of these tributes, " he was respected and loved as only the noblest men and most honorable merchants can hope to be; and the memory which he leaves behind is of that precious kind which requires no effort to keep green." He died of heart-disease, at the Isles of Shoals, Aug. 16, 1874.
Of those who were killed in battle or died of their wounds, during our service, I have been able to gather only the follow- ing facts : -
Charles Morse of Company E, who was killed in our first skirmish at Rawle's Mill, enlisted from Framingham at the age of nineteen, and had been a driver in the employ of the Adams Express Company. He was killed instantly, Sunday evening, Nov. 2, 1872, and was buried, with Charles E. Rollins of Company C, in a grave close by the little building used that evening as a hospital.1
Sergeant Ambrose Stacy Courtis of Company C, a graduate of the Cambridge High School, was in a counting-room in Boston at the time of his enlistment. His period of service, short though it was, seems to have been long enough to inspire his com- rades with admiration of his cheerfulness under hardships, his consideration for others, and his gentlemanly traits of charac- ter. His appointment as sergeant gave the greatest satisfaction to the company, and his death was a sad event among compan- ions who had learned in a few weeks' campaign to love and trust him. He was killed instantly in the battle of Whitehall, Dec. 16, 1862, in his twenty-first year.
Albert L. Butler of Company A was clerk of the Cambridge Police Court at the time of enlistment, and went into the war, like so many others, to insure the freedom of the slave. His motives seem to have been of the highest and purest, and his conduct as a soldier won the hearty approval of his officers.
1 A letter from the superintendent of the soldiers' cemetery at New Berne, dated May 25, 1885, reports that the bodies of Rollins and Morse were disinterred last year, and found in such state of preservation that it was easy to identify them. They are now buried in the cemetery and their graves numbered.
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" Your son was brave," wrote Captain Richardson to the be- reaved mother, " and did his duty nobly fighting for his coun- try." His comrades. too, bore witness to his calmness under fire and the fortitude with which he endured his sufferings. He was wounded at Whitehall, and died in the ambulance which was carrying him from the field. He died in his thirty-first year.1
David Kimball Hobart of Company G was born in Boston in 1835, and graduated from the Boston High School at sixteen, to enter on a business career. At the age of twenty-two he estab- lished himself as a merchant in McGregor, Iowa, where he be- came mayor of the city, but had returned to Boston just before the war. Preferring the position of private with his companions in the Forty-fourth to a commission elsewhere, he had become orderly sergeant of his company at the time of his last engage- ment. He was wounded in a skirmish at "Little " Washington, March 30, 1863, and with two other wounded men fell into the hands of the enemy, and was taken first to the Confederate hos- pital at Greenville, then to that at Wilson, N. C. Whatever may have been the experiences of the Union prisoners elsewhere, nothing could have exceeded the kindness or skilful medical attention received by Hobart at both these hospitals. He had the gentlest of nursing, the best of care from the surgeons, fre- quent visits from ministers, and daily gifts of flowers from the women of the neighborhood. He had been shot through the lungs; but the native vigor of his constitution, aided by such devoted ministrations, prolonged his life for many days. He died April 14, 1863, in his twenty-eighth year, and was honorably buried in the hospital cemetery at Wilson.2
The Surgeon's Report, in another chapter, gives the sad list of the brave, uncomplaining men who were not permitted to fall in battle, but died in the regimental or general hospital at New Berne. No words that we can write to-day can do justice to the patient and heroic suffering witnessed by those who visited our soldiers in those trying hours. A soldier's death in the hospital
1 An interesting incident connected with the death of George E. Noyes of Com- pany K, who was also wounded at Whitehall, will be found in the chapter contributed by the surgeon.
2 See " Conditions of Peace :" a discourse delivered in the West Church (Boston), in memory of David K. Hobart, June 14, 1863, by C. A. Bartol.
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is always sadder than death upon the field; and although in our case the trials of sickness were reduced to a minimum by the excellence of the medical arrangements and the skill and devo- tion of the surgeons, many touching memories come back to us as we recall this portion of our experiences. I can only allude to the two or three cases about which I have been able to get special information.
Ezra N. Fuller, of Needham, Company A, left Tufts College to enter the Forty-fourth Regiment, served faithfully through all our marches and engagements, and died at the age of nineteen, in Stanley Hospital, Feb. 21, 1863, - the year in which he would otherwise have graduated from college. His remains were sent home to Needham, where the burial took place March 12, 1863. His classmates, together with the president and faculty of the college, were present at the funeral. Of this same company, Matthew Howard will be remembered as a tall Irishman of six feet four inches, and of great strength. He was left behind in Stanley Hospital, with seven or eight others, and died at about twenty-two years of age, within a week after his comrades were mustered out of service.
Few deaths in the regiment caused more sorrow than that of Francis C. Hopkinson of Company F. Hopkinson graduated from Harvard College in 1859, after a brilliant course of study both in college and at the Boston Latin School, took prominent part as a young orator in the political campaign which resulted in Lincoln's election, and had just finished his course in the Har- vard Law School when the call for nine months' troops was made. Entering the Forty-fourth Regiment with many of his college companions, he brought the same qualities which had signalized him among his fellows in school and college into the new experiences of camp life. Among many tributes to his memory from his army comrades, these words show the marked esteem in which he was held, under circumstances where only manly qualities can win esteem : "We shall remember him as a leader among us, always recognized as such for his acknowledged talents, even though he was only a private. We shall delight to remember him as a true, fearless, resolute, patient soldier, setting an example of fidelity, bravery, and unyielding pluck. None will
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forget his generosity, and the many ways he devised to keep up the morale as well as amuse the company." He died of typhoid fever, in Stanley Hospital, Feb. 13, 1863, in his twenty-fifth year.1
Turning to those who died in the service after having re- enlisted in other regiments, we think first of all, naturally, of the brave officers of the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth, as the first raising of negro regiments concerned our regiment so closely. While in camp at New Berne an official communication from Governor Andrew, dated Feb. 18, 1863, was received by Colonel Lee, saying, "We are raising a black regiment, the Fifty-fourth, under Colonel Robert G. Shaw, and want the very best officers. If you can recommend the following officers, I shall be obliged by your finding some means to send them up promptly, on leave or otherwise." A lieutenant and two sergeants of the Forty-fourth are mentioned for this service, and the letter adds: "We consider it a great compliment to offer a commission in this regiment, and do not wish you to make the offer unless it is likely to be accepted. We mean to make it a model regi- ment." Colonel Lee responded promptly to this appeal, sending the officers asked for, and recommending several others for the same service. In a postscript to his letter to Governor Andrew, under date of Feb. 27, 1863, he says: "I believe the regiment is a mine of military wealth to the State; and if my belief is correct, the object which its officers have always had in view and labored to accomplish is attained, and they may well thank you for the privilege they have enjoyed in being instrumental in such a result."
The first instalment of officers was soon followed by others, at the special request of Colonel Shaw. In one of several letters written on this subject, Colonel Shaw says (April 8, 1863) : "If you send me such officers in future as those who have already come from your regiment, there is no doubt of my having a well- drilled and well-disciplined regiment. They are all excellent offi- cers, and - is one of the most efficient of men."
The result of this then novel and doubtful experiment more than realized, as is well known, Governor Andrew's enthusiastic expectation ; and it is a great pleasure to remember the important
1 See Harvard Memorial Biographies, vol. ii. p. 21.
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contributions made by the Forty-fourth to the equipment of these first colored regiments recruited under State authority. In the Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Massachusetts, as the tabular state- ments will show, were eventually one colonel, one lieutenant- colonel, twelve captains, and seven lieutenants from the Forty- fourth.1 One of these was brevetted brigadier-general for gallant service at the battle of Honey Hill, S. C., where he was severely wounded and supposed at the time to have been killed. A cor- respondent of a Southern paper (" Savannah Republican," Dec. 3, 1864), in an account of this disastrous engagement, says: "We made a visit to the field the day following, and found the swamp and road literally strewn with the dead. Some eight or ten bodies were floating in the water where the road crosses, and in a ditch on the roadside just beyond we saw six negroes piled one on top of the other. A colonel " of one of the negro regiments, with his horse, was killed while fearlessly leading his men across the creek in a charge."
In the assault upon Fort Wagner of July 18, 1863, the Fifty- fourth Massachusetts led the column. and lost, besides its heroic colonel, two of the young men, Russel and Simpkins, who had so recently been sent them from the ranks of the Forty-fourth. Cabot J. Russel entered Harvard College with the class which graduated in 1865, and was accompanying a scientific party in a trip over the Western prairies, when the seven days' battle before Richmond inspired him with a desire to enter the army, where some of his friends had already fallen. He enlisted as a private in the Forty-fourth Regiment, and had become sergeant of Com- pany F, when the request for officers came from Governor Andrew. Sergeant Russel was one of the first three recom- mended by Colonel Lee for this service, and received his com- mission as first lieutenant of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts, March 23, 1863. May 11 he became captain. In both regiments he showed himself an admirable soldier, and drew his comrades and officers to him by his frank and engaging personal qualities. In the Fifty-fourth he rendered excellent service in drilling the
1 The ranks here given are those finally reached.
? This colonel was Captain William D. Crane, aid to Colonel Hartwell, and formerly a private in Company D of the Forty-fourth.
FORTY-FOURTH MASSACHUSETTS INFANTRY.
new recruits, and his company became noted for its thorough discipline. He gave himself with the utmost fidelity to his work, being anxious only that his black soldiers should do themselves credit and justify by their behavior the experiment which the Government was making. He was with them just long enough to see them tried in one severe engagement where, out of seventy men, forty-five were lost, and where he was fully satisfied by their sokilerly conduct. He wrote to his father in the last letter re- ceived from him, " My men did nobly." Their young com- mander also did nobly, according to the testimony of his brother officers, one of whom wrote afterwards that "Captain Russel took part in the sharp skirmish on James Island, July 16, where his company bore the brunt of the battle, and he showed dis- tinguished ability and courage." Two days after this, in the fatal assault on Fort Wagner, when again his company held the most dangerous post, he displayed the same coolness and gallantry, and fell at the head of the assaulting column and was left upon the field. It was learned afterwards that the officers and sol- diers of the negro regiments were buried together by the Con- federates in a common trench.1 " No stone need mark the place where his bones moulder," says his biographer, "for future generations will reverently point to the holy ground where the colonel and two captains of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts were buried with their soldiers." 2
The other captain was W. H. Simpkins, an intimate friend of Russel's in both regiments, who was killed while in the act of ministering to his comrade in his dying moments. Simpkins, Russel, and Sergeant G. W. James formed a little group of kin- dred spirits in Company F of the Forty-fourth Regiment, who had talked over together the question of employing colored troops long before the experiment was first tried, and all of whom were ready to engage in the work as soon as officers were called for. They all won for themselves an enviable record during their brief service; two of them were killed together at Fort Wagner, while James, the adjutant of the regiment, was severely wounded in the same battle, and has since died.
I Sce Harvard Memorial Biographies, vol. ii. p. 211.
2 See Ibid, p. 491.
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In regard to those killed in other regiments than the Fifty- fourth, the following facts have been obtained : -
A. W. Bussell, Company K, re-enlisted in the Massachusetts Fifty-eighth, and was killed at Petersburg, Va. W. D. Crane, Company D, a member of the class of 1863, Harvard College, re-enlisted June 7, 1863, in the newly recruited colored regiment (Massachusetts Fifty-fifth), was commissioned first lieutenant and immediately afterwards captain, served with conspicuous gal- lantry in the South Carolina campaign, and was killed at Honey Hill, S. C., while acting as aid and chief of staff to Colonel A. S. Hartwell. He died Nov. 30, 1864, when just entering his twenty- fifth year.1 Edward L. Stevens, Company E, member also of the class of 1863, Harvard College, was commissioned second lieu- tenant of the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth, Jan. 31, 1864, and first lieutenant, Dec. 16, 1864, and was killed in the front of battle at Boykin's Mills, S. C., April 18, 1865, in his twenty-third year. He is supposed to have been the last Union officer killed in the war.2 Corporal Samuel Storrow, Company H, member of the class of 1864, Harvard College, was commissioned first lieutenant in the Massachusetts Second, Sept. 22, 1864, and died March 16, 1865, in his twenty-second year, of wounds received near Fayette- ville, N. C., while acting as aid to Brigadier-General Cogswell. In a letter to Lieutenant Storrow's father, General Cogswell says :
" My brigade had been engaged with the enemy nearly all day, and at about four o'clock P. M. Mr. Storrow was wounded while carrying an order to the left of the brigade, and died in about fifteen or twenty minutes afterwards. He was not insensible when first wounded, and he had the coolness and self-possession to send word to me that he was wounded, that he had carried out my instructions, and also sent me the information that I had wished for. . . . Allow me to claim in part this loss as my own, for neither in my old regiment nor in my present command can I replace him." 3
Stephen H. Parker, Company I, became sergeant of the Massa- chusetts Fifty-ninth, and died of wounds received in battle in 1864. Benjamin P. Chandler, Company I, died of disease in Florida. James M. Foss, Company I, also became sergeant of
1 See Harvard Memorial Biographies, vol. ii. p. 393.
See Ibid., p. 410. 3 See Ibid., p. 473.
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the Massachusetts Fifty-ninth, and died of disease. Charles Wood, Company G, became sergeant-major of the Massachusetts Fifty-sixth, and died of disease. Clifton H. Vose, Company D, became sergeant of the Massachusetts Fifty-eighth, and died in prison in South Carolina, Oct. 28, 1864. Lowell E. Hartshorn, Company K, re-enlisted in the Massachusetts Fifty-eighth, and died in Andersonville Prison Dec. 17, 1864. Walter L. Ray- mond, Company G, re-enlisted in the First Massachusetts Cav- alry, and died in prison in Salisbury, N. C., Dec. 25, 1864. Albert W. Townsend, Company G, re-enlisted in a New York regiment, and died in prison in Florence, S. C.
The full list of officers and men, so far as known, who re- enlisted in other regiments, will be found in the " Roster."
It is hard to part from these pleasant companions. To go over this list of the departed, and recall the still fuller list of their comrades who have survived them, is to live over again the delightful nine months' intercourse which for so many of us con- stitutes one of the happiest memories of our lives. No pastor could ask for a more interesting, intelligent, or wide-awake parish than the ranks of the Forty-fourth Regiment afforded for quite too brief a pastorate. The vicissitudes of campaigning were apt to make short work, it is true, of the usual ministerial functions ; but only to substitute other and more personal relations of quite as engrossing a kind. I am not alone in counting that close com- panionship with such a buoyant, eager, high-minded, and high- hearted body of youths one of the kindest strokes of good fortune that could have befallen me. Even nine months of army life, in barracks, on provost-guard, and in the field, test the real quality of officers and soldiers; and it was gratifying to all connected with the Forty-fourth to see how well they bore the trial both of action and of idleness. I cannot aver that there was no complaining in camp or on the march, or no criticism of military plans or military management. With such acute ob- servers in the ranks, no official blundering or incompetence was likely to pass unnoticed; and the tedium of inaction or weari- ness of the tramp was not unlikely to be relieved by frank and pungent comments which showed an alarming amount of thinking. This is not the ideal composition of an army, perhaps ;
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