USA > Massachusetts > Hampshire County > Northampton > The Northampton book; chapters from 300 years in the life of a New England town, 1654-1954 > Part 12
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Northampton, in the weeks following the attack on Fort Sum- ter, was in a fever of excitement. Crowds gathered at street cor- ners and in all public places to discuss the news. William R. Marsh, Captain of Company C, immediately set himself to fill up the ranks of the Company and place it on a war footing. A meeting of townspeople was held at the armory of Company C, Thursday evening, April 18, 1861, to take such measures as were necessary to improve the standing of Northampton's militia company. The attendance was so large that an adjournment to the Town Hall was necessary. Patriotic speeches were made by Captain Marsh, Erastus Hopkins, a distinguished orator and leader of the anti- slavery Whigs in Northampton, and Dr. Cyrus Nathaniel Cham- berlain, one of Northampton's leading physicians. A committee was appointed to solicit funds to aid in equipping the soldiers that might go from the town of Northampton. Seventy-five ladies of the town, led by Miss Elizabeth Lyman, gave their services to the making of clothing for the volunteers.
When orders were received early in June for the Company to proceed to Springfield to be mustered in with the rest of the 10th Regiment, a farewell ball was given at the Town Hall, music being provided by the Northampton and Hatfield bands. On Fri- day morning, June 14, the streets of old Northampton were lined with carriages that had brought people from surrounding towns, and Main Street was densely packed with spectators as Company C marched to the depot. Ladies waved their handkerchiefs, cheers were given and flags waved as the favorite Company of old Hampshire marched off to war, reasonably well equipped as a result of the gifts of citizens and a $5000 appropriation of the town. With the men went Dr. Cyrus Chamberlain who had been commissioned surgeon of the 10th Regiment, and, before he left, a group of Northampton's leading citizens presented him with a surgeon's sword and sash, and a brace of Smith and Wesson's re- volvers.
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The 101 men of Company C included about 50 men from Northampton, coming from all walks of life. Among the officers of the Company were such Northampton men as First Lieutenant James H. Weatherill, who had been an active and efficient mem- ber of the fire department, Second Lieutenant Flavel Shurtleff, who had been a hospital attendant at the Insane Retreat in North- ampton. When the 10th Regiment was mustered in, Joseph B. Parsons of Northampton was commissioned as Captain of Com- pany C, and William R. Marsh was promoted to Major of the Regiment. Captain Joseph Parsons, had been First Lieutenant of Company C when the Civil War began. He was a member of one of Northampton's oldest families and was well known in the county for the prizes he had won year after year in the plowing matches at the Three County Fair.
After a month of drill and training at Springfield, the ten west- ern Massachusetts companies of the 10th Regiment were ordered to Boston to embark for Washington. On July 25, 1861, the Regi- ment, with its 2 5 baggage wagons, 5 ambulances, and the baggage of its field staff and line officers filled 2 ocean steamers and sailed out of Boston Harbor amidst the cheers of crowds on the wharves and the firing of gun salutes. Two months of continual parades, public meetings, dinners, and parties were left behind, and the men of Company C began to experience some of the less pleasant aspects of the war.
The trip to Washington by sea was a foretaste of things to come. Seasickness was pretty general among the men and the regi- mental historian recorded with obvious satisfaction that "some of the officers passed one or two meals." The Regiment debarked at Washington on July 28 in a driving rain, and, of course, no orders had arrived, so the men had to find what shelter and sleeping space they could in the Navy Yard. Finally, the Regiment was ordered to make camp on the outskirts of Washington in Brightwood, near the famous estate of Francis P. Blair, father of Lincoln's Post- master General.
There, at Brightwood, the 10th Regiment remained for 8 months-drilling and working on fortifications. In this long pe- riod, soldiers of Company C and the other western Massachusetts companies had to fight two of their greatest enemies in the Civil War-disease and boredom. Sanitary precautions aroung the camp were not what they should have been, food rations were often ill-
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cooked and ill-balanced for a nutritious diet. Sickness cases began to increase rapidly; measles was prevalent, and then typhoid fever cases began to appear in alarming numbers.
In January of 1862, the Regiment was startled to hear that a genuine case of smallpox had been reported in the regimental hospital. Dr. Cyrus Chamberlain and the other regimental doctors ordered a general vaccination of the entire one thousand in the Regiment. "Such a wholesale slashing and cutting of arms," ob- served the regimental historian, "never was witnessed before."
At the same time, the Brigade surgeons ordered a reduction of the number of men in a tent from 16 to 10 and the acquisition of such medical supplies as might "withstand whatever morbific in- fluence is operating in the camp." To counteract the "morbific in- fluence" the doctors were talking about, the quartermaster of the Regiment was persuaded by his friends to draw 6 barrels of whis- key from Washington, which, together with what the men got by running the guard at night, was considered sufficient compliance with the doctor's recommendations. Despite these hi-jinks, camp disease was always a grim business as the men of Company C learned when Henry Parsons, a popular member of the company, died of camp fever at Brightwood. Indeed, throughout the Civil War two men died of disease in the Union army for every one killed in battle.
At the end of March came the orders that freed the 10th Regi- ment from the sickness, the filth, and the routine of camp life. The Regiment was transported to Fortress Monroe at the mouth of the James River, to become a part of General McClellan's Peninsular campaign against Richmond. By the end of May, the Army of the Potomac was within sight of Richmond, and the 10th Regiment was a part of General Keyes' Fourth Corps, in position just south of the Chickahominy River. Consequently the Regiment was fated to meet its first real battle test in the battle of Seven Pines (May 31, 1862) or Fair Oaks, as it is more frequently called by Union army historians.
The battle of Fair Oaks was the first effort of the Confederate Army to destroy McClellan's army moving up on Richmond. A heavy spring rain had flooded the Chickahominy River, separat- ing two corps of McClellan's force from the rest of the Army of the Potomac sweeping toward Richmond north of that river. The Confederate commander, General Joseph Johnston, struck with
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heavy forces at the Fourth and Third Corps south of the swollen river in the hope of destroying them while they were isolated by the raging waters of the Chickahominy.
Company C and the 10th Regiment were in the thick of the fighting. The Regiment was in a forward area, a narrow strip of cleared ground in which some rifle pits had been previously thrown up. It was a bad position to be in, because bushes and brush in front made it difficult to see the enemy, while on the left of the roth's line of battle was a patch of woods into which the rebels had infiltrated several companies of infantry. Thus the 10th Massachusetts was receiving an enfilading musketry fire from its left as well as musket and artillery fire in front. It would have been a very perilous position even for a veteran regiment.
Four different times that day the Regiment broke under the murderous fire, and four different times it was rallied and went back into the fight. Captain Joseph Parsons was wounded early in the fight, one ball hitting him in the head, and another passing through the right leg above the knee between the bones and the artery. The fire of the enemy was so great that it was impossible to carry off the wounded, so Captain Parsons crawled a short dis- tance and lay down behind a small stump, very near the Confed- erate lines. It was impossible to go farther, the air was full of whining bullets, many of which were slapping into the stump be- hind which he was concealed. Several times the rebels charged across the field, and Captain Parsons' greatest fear, before he was finally carried off, was that he would be bayonetted on the ground.
Sergeant James Braman of Northampton was severely wounded in the leg. Several members of Company C, including his best friend, Calvin Kingsley of Northampton, managed to get to him, but while he was being carried off, a shell tore off his arm and shoulder close to the neck. In terrible agony, he was taken back to the field hospital by his comrades, and when they left him, he said to Kingsley, "Good-by Cal, give good-by to all of the boys." He died four hours later.
Lieutenant Charles Brewster of the Northampton Company was particularly gallant. At one point he could rally only 9 men of the Company, but he made a stand with these few and came out of the battle uninjured.
The casualties among officers were particularly heavy. Gen-
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eral Devens, leader of the Brigade was severely wounded in the thigh, Captain Smart of the North Adams Company was brutally shot through the neck by a rebel soldier as he lay wounded in the field. Captain Day of the Greenfield Company was killed. By late afternoon, the only senior officer left on the field was Captain Miller of H Company (Shelburne Falls). It was he who rallied the 10th Regiment and held the ground until dark when rein- forcements arrived. For his gallant and meritorious conduct on this occasion, Captain Miller was afterwards promoted to Major of the Regiment.
The battle of Fair Oaks was the 10th Regiment's first great battle and it was a shattering experience. Casualties were heavy: 27 killed, and 96 wounded, 6 of whom died from their wounds. Company C lost 4 killed and 12 wounded, one of the hardest hit companies in the battle. For the first time, the men had seen the wholesale death and suffering of a large scale battle. Moreover, the men of the 10th were depressed by the knowledge that they had run from the enemy four times in the fight.
Nor was the experience of the next few weeks such as to raise the morale of the Regiment. Major Marsh, former Captain of the Northampton company, was charged with cowardice in the battle and a court-martial was proposed. He had stayed in the rear dur- ing the fight, and division headquarters was not satisfied with his explanation of his conduct. The affair was ended when he was allowed to resign without a court-martial.
The weeks following the battle produced other distressing oc- currences. The June rains brought water and mud, rheumatism and malaria to the men on the banks of the Chickahominy. The rains often washed away the hastily dug graves exposing many a black decaying hand or foot. Under the hot June sun, the whole atmosphere was filled with the sickening stench of the decaying carcasses of the horses killed in the battle. Rations were often short; for a full week after the battle only hard-tack and coffee were available. The men of the Regiment endured these hard- ships, shaken in their confidence and uncertain of the future. Yet these and many more trials had to be endured before the 10th be- came a confident, hard-fighting veteran regiment.
II. "THE GALLANT IOTH"
At the end of June, 1862, the Confederate army, under its new commander, Robert E. Lee, struck against the Union army with
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all its strength in the famous Seven Days battles (June 26-July 2). The Seven Days were a nightmarish experience for the roth Mas- sachusetts. The Regiment was not directly engaged in the first battles of Mechanicsville, Gaines Mill, Savage Station, White Oak Swamp, or Frayser's Farm. The men of the roth could hear the guns of those battles, but they were stumbling along in the hasty general retreat to the Union army bases on the James River, not knowing where they were going, or what their fate might be, certain only that a hard-fighting enemy was pursuing them.
For six nights, the boys of Company C did not get more than two hours' sleep at a time. At every halt they threw themselves down to try to get a few moments sleep, only to be aroused again by the orders to march. On the second day of battle, they marched all night long in the strictest silence, no talking being allowed, and even the tin cups were muffled. They passed through dense woods, occasionally wading through small streams of black muddy water.
The strain of flight before the enemy was partially relieved when the Army of the Potomac stood and fought back in care- fully prepared positions at Malvern Hill. The 10th Regiment was in the thick of this battle, the heaviest of all the Seven Days battles. Company C was in an oat field while rebel artillery played over their heads and rebel sharp-shooters, posted in trees, pecked away at anything that moved. Company C had only 26 men left fit for duty at this point, but not a man flinched. They fired all their 60 rounds of ammunition and then fixed bayonets waiting for another attack that never came. The Union army had beaten back General Lee's desperate assaults with such a heavy toll of casualties that the Confederate commander could no longer re- new the battle.
The battle of Malvern Hill restored the 10th Regiment's belief in its fighting ability which had been shaken in the battle of Fair Oaks. They had fought the enemy on even terms at Malvern Hill and had won. But the taste of victory was made bitter by the knowledge that the Peninsular campaign had failed and that Mc- Clellan's army was ordered back to the Potomac River bases.
Then, too, the toll of campaign had been particularly heavy for the Regiment in combat casualties and in sickness. Only 370 out of the original 1045 men were left fit for duty. Company C had 30 left out of the original 101 men in the Company. At Malvern Hill, 5 Company C boys had been wounded, including Calvin
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Kingsley of Northampton who had slight head wounds. More- over the whole Regiment mourned the loss of the gallant Major Ozro Miller who was wounded fatally at Malvern Hill by a minié ball through the neck.
Morale was not particularly high in the Union army at this time. The 10th Massachusetts shared the general sense of failure and of doubt about the abilities of the top Union army leaders. But the western Massachusetts companies had an additional gripe against their higher commanders. Several changes were made in the commissioned officers of the Regiments. The men were happy to see Captain Joseph Parsons of Northampton, fully recovered from his wounds, promoted to Lieutenant Colonel of the Regi- ment. In August of 1862, however, General Devens had secured the appointment of Dexter F. Parker of Worcester as Major in place of William Marsh, resigned. This appointment was much resented by the officers of the Regiment: captains who had faith- fully performed their duties thought the commission should have gone to one of their own number even as Joseph Parsons had been promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. The line officers believed that Major Parker's appointment had come about "by personal and political influences, through self-appointed guardians and med- dlers."
The ill-feeling over Major Parker's commission simmered be- low the surface for the next few weeks but no overt action was taken until after the battle of Antietam. The roth Massachusetts did not take part in the bloody fight at Antietam. The Regiment spent the fateful day of September 17 marching at the double quick with the roar of guns in the distance, reaching Antietam at dark. The next morning they were in the lines, but General Lee had begun his retreat to Virginia.
When it was clear that all danger of invasion had passed, the suppressed ill-feelings of the line officers were expressed in a most drastic and dramatic fashion. On September 27, 1862, 1 I officers of the Regiment (4 captains and 7 lieutenants) resigned their commissions in a body. The resigned officers were arrested at the request of General Devens, through whose influence Major Parker had received his appointment. A court-martial was or- dered of which General Devens was appointed presiding officer, on charges of which he (General Devens) had previously certi-
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fied in writing over his own signature, that he had every reason to believe they were guilty.
For almost three months, the court-martial cases dragged on and the Regiment made a strange picture with 11 officers with- out swords marching in the rear. Samuel Bowles, the outspoken editor of the Springfield Republican, called the whole proceeding a great injustice, saying of the 11 officers, "It will be impossible for their friends and neighbors at home, or for any fair-minded man looking at the matter from the point of justice, to regard these men with any other feelings than those of sympathy, respect and honor."
Be that as it may, the 4 captains were cashiered, and the lieu- tenants dismissed from service, a week after the battle of Freder- icksburg. Although none of Company C's officers took part in the group resignation, the Northampton men undoubtedly shared the resentment towards General Devens and some of his staff officers.
The low spirits of the 10th Regiment in the winter of 1862- 1863 were probably, also, a reflection of the general state of morale in the Army of the Potomac after the bloody defeat at Fredericksburg. The 10th Massachusetts took part in Burnside's famous "mud march" and shared in the general disgust over the complete futility of that operation.
In the early spring of 1863, the spirits of the men began to re- vive. General Burnside was replaced by General ("Fighting Joe") Hooker as commander of the Army of the Potomac. General Hooker was popular with the men and he also saw to it that rations were distributed more liberally. The 10th Regiment be- gan to get used to its new officers, some of whom became excel- lent leaders. In every sense, now, the 10th was a veteran outfit; it had learned to accept the discomfort and hardship, the bungling and petty injustices of army life in wartime. It was a regiment that was to prove its dependability again and again in the great battles of '63 and '64, from Gettysburg to Cold Harbor.
The 10th Massachusetts was stationed with the Sixth Corps at Centreville when the orders came on June 26, 1863, to march at the double quick to Maryland and Pennsylvania. The men were in high spirits as they marched through Maryland. The filled barns, the well-kept farms and orchards looked so much more like home than the weed grown, battle-scarred soil of Virginia.
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The people of the villages through which they passed were friendly. Crowds came out to cheer the troops. Pretty ladies lined the roads with drinks and refreshments for the thirsty, hungry troops. In World War II, the soldier expressed his approval at the sight of a pretty girl with a "wolf-call whistle." In the Civil War, this appreciation was expressed by an abrupt, significant clearing of the throat. On the march through the villages of Maryland, the sight of pretty girls was greeted by such a chorus of throat noises that one would have thought that the entire Army of the Po- tomac was terribly afflicted with some bronchial infection.
The 10th Regiment made one of its fastest marches in the en- tire war to cover the long distance to Gettysburg. On July 2, when the battle of Gettysburg was in full fury, the 10th Massa- chusetts joined the reserve forces in the afternoon, after march- ing 34 miles in less than 24 hours (Stonewall Jackson's "foot cavalry" rarely did any better!). The timely arrival of the Sixth Corps gave General Meade the reserve strength that he needed to throw back the last desperate charge by General Pickett. There were an unusually large number of Northampton boys in the battle, because, since early spring, the 37th Massachusetts, containing G Company of Northampton, had been brigaded to- gether with the 10th in Eustis' Brigade of the First Division.
Neither of these two regiments was in the front lines on "Little Round Top" on the day of Pickett's charge. They were in re- serve behind the front lines but were under heavy artillery fire during the concentrated artillery preparations by the massed guns of the Confederate army. Colonel Joseph Parsons of North- ampton was in command of the 10th in this battle and his coolness and efficiency made a strong impression on the men. Also, in this battle, Dr. Cyrus Chamberlain was surgeon in charge of the en- tire Sixth Corps hospital, and, after the battle of Gettysburg, created, organized, and conducted the United States General Hospital at Gettysburg.
Gettysburg was the turning of the tide in the Civil War but there were many bloody battles to be fought yet. The 10th Regi- ment became part of the army under General Grant's command and fought in the bloody campaigns of attrition in Virginia in the spring of '64, suffering grievous losses. In the Wilderness cam- paign, the 10th Regiment lost fully one third of its number in killed and wounded. Company C's captain, Flavel Shurtleff, was
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severely wounded by a minié ball in the arm, and Robert Sheehey, who later lived in Florence, was wounded in the hand.
In the battle of Spottsylvania, the 10th Regiment reached its pinnacle of glory. There, only a few miles away from the Wilder- ness battle, General Grant was relentlessly continuing his effort to get between General Lee and Richmond. The 10th Regiment was in the heaviest part of the fighting, undergoing the heaviest musketry fire in all of its experience. On the 12th of May 1864, the 10th was one of the regiments which took and held the log breastworks known as "The Bloody Angle."
Colonel Parsons described this fight at the log works of "The Bloody Angle" several years later, saying, "My colors never left the position they were in. Beyond those logs that were built to the rear was where the rebels were close to us. Men would load their pieces, raise the butt with the left hand and fire down into the trenches. Many examples of bravery were seen there during the day. Men would jump to the top of the works, fire, change muskets, fire, and soon be knocked over and others would take their places."
In this fight the 10th Regiment lost many brave men. Company C's losses were heavy including Captain James Weatherill and Lieutenant Alanson Munyan, of Northampton-both mortally wounded. Major Parker, whose appointment had caused so much controversy, was also killed in this battle, ending a record of per- sonal courage and gallantry.
Two months later, the three-year enlistments of the Regiment had expired and it was ordered home to be mustered out. And so the boys came home to receive a delirious welcome from the people of western Massachusetts. On June 25, 1864, the Regi- ment's arrival in Springfield was greeted with the ringing of church bells, the blowing of steam whistles, and a salute from the battery, while thousands who had poured in from the up-river towns joined the people of Springfield in cheering themselves hoarse. The highlight of the day was a grand parade, but of the 1000 strong who had left Springfield only three years before, only 220 men were marching in the ranks of the 10th Regiment on that home-coming day.
Company C returned to Northampton on the next day. No formal reception was arranged, and each veteran took his own way home surrounded by friends and relatives. There could be
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little jubilation in Northampton because the arrival of Captain James Weatherill's body coincided with the return of the Com- pany. The whole town paid its respects in the crowded funeral services at Edwards Church on Sunday, June 26, 1864.
The remnant of the "Gallant roth" had come home to enjoy the honor and the glory. And for what had its terrible sacrifices been made? In the words of Lincoln, they were made "to demon- strate to the world that those who can fairly carry on election can also suppress a rebellion; that ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors of bullets; and that when ballots have fairly and con- stitutionally decided, there can be no successful appeal back to bullets; that there can be no successful appeal, except to ballots themselves, at succeeding elections. Such will be the great lesson of peace: teaching men that what they cannot take by an elec- tion, neither can they take it by a war; teaching all the folly of being the beginners of a war."
PART III The Athens of the Connecticut Valley
Chapter Seventeen
Northampton Architecture: A Sequence
By KARL S. PUTNAM
I N Northampton, up until the beginning of the 20th century could be clearly read, in the physical makeup of the town, some of its story of the 18th, but more particularly and com- pletely of the 19th century. It had the dignity and substantial economic background, basically agricultural, of the shire town with some educational fame, and while the railroad affected some- what its organization after 1850 and some industry came in the '70's, its character of rural county-seat remained intact until 1900.
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