USA > Massachusetts > The old First Massachusetts coast artillery in war and peace > Part 6
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Gettysburg. A model of the regimental monument may be seen at the museum of the Loyal Legion in the Cadet Armory, Boston.
Corporal Nathaniel M. Allen of the 6th Company was later awarded the Congressional medal of honor for here bringing off the regimental colors at the greatest personal risk, after the color sergeant had fallen. Col. Baldwin and Adjutant Mudge were wounded. It was on this same day that Lieut. James Doherty of the 10th Company steadied his men in the face of a hot rifle fire, by calmly exercising them in the manual of arms. Doherty was a character. A most gallant officer, he had risen from the ranks and never lost his fellow feeling for the enlisted men. An ex-sailor, he had the sailor's vices. Once, in 1863, while passing thru Baltimore, he became drunk, and tried to kill an officer of another regiment. Had not Col. Baldwin seized a musket and clubbed Doherty over the head, murder would have been done. In New York he was placed under charges for telling his commanding general that he "lied." But the charges were never pressed; perhaps the accusation was true. At Chancellorsville he was wounded in the finger by a bullet which managed to wind itself about the bone. Doherty roundly cursed the enemy for using defective lead. The brave lieutenant finally died in battle. A well-loved member of the regiment, Corp. Albert A. Farnham of the 4th Com- pany, was taken prisoner at Gettysburg, and died in Rich- mond the 15th of the following November, his death being due to dysentery caused by insufficient and unsuitable food. His soldier's hymn-book is in the museum of the A. & H. Art. Co.
July 30 to Oct. 7, the regiment was one of four on provost duty in New York City, guarding against further draft- riots, and preventing conscripts from deserting. Here they
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resumed heavy artillery drill; and incidentally became rested after the Gettysburg campaign.
A new commander directed the army in the Wilderness, Lieutenant General U. S. Grant. The difference of men showed itself in the different result. Altho the Ist, now under Gen. W. S. Hancock, and the other Union regiments were handled as roughly in 1864 as they had been in 1863, when they left the field of battle, it was to march southward past Lee's flank rather than northward toward security. Scrub oak and pine have obliterated practically all traces of the great fight. But men can never forget that the Wil- derness proved that the tide had turned, and marked a long step toward the downfall of the Confederacy.
Spotsylvania was a continuation of the Wilderness with the fighting increased, if possible, in ferocity. On May 12, the culminating day at the "bloody angle," the Ist Regiment was heavily engaged for the last time in its career. During the morning it acted as provost guard immediately behind the firing line, with orders to permit no one to pass to the rear excepting wounded men. In the afternoon it was ad- vanced into the very thickest of the conflict and assigned the task of covering part of the Confederate line with a curtain of fire. Here both armies intrenched, and charged each other's earthworks. The fighting was amid tangled underbrush wherein one could see only a few feet ahead ; at such short range the bullet gave way to the bayonet and even to the clubbed rifle. When the combat continued after darkness had fallen, the fighting increased in intensity. Someone had to yield-Lee retreated. The apples which today grow at the bloody angle should be redder and the corn should bear more red ears, for they grow on sacred soil once crimson with the life-blood of heroes.
As they approached the completion of their enlistment
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the Ist Regiment were stationed with the reserves. Here, on May 19, they took part in their last engagement, at An- derson's Plantation, on the road to Fredericksburg-and home. R. S. Ewell's corps of Confederates came around Grant's right flank and attempted to cut communications with the north and to capture the wagon-trains. A brigade of heavy artillery regiments fresh from the defenses of Washington were acting as convoy-one of them being the Ist Mass. Heavy Artillery from Salem. Here the Salem men have erected their regimental monument. The heavy artillery had seen but little fighting; but they now stood up like veterans and drove back an entire corps. Unfortunately the Confederates were taking some of the wagons with them as they drew back ; and it remained for the Ist Inf. and their companions in the brigade, some 1,200 in all, to rush to the rescue and recover the lost train. While both Ist Mass. regiments-the Art. and the Inf .- were equally brave, the Ist Inf. had learned by long experience to make use of "cover," to shelter themselves behind trees, stones and earthworks. It was largely this skill that enabled them to stop the panic and save the Union army at Chancellorsville. Now, on this less important field, it saved Grant's wagons from capture.
Then came the welcome order to return to Boston and be mustered out.
A great reception awaited the regiment in Boston. Gen. Cowdin was grand marshal of the parade, and all Boston came to extend the hand of welcome. Gen. Cowdin had been honored that year by election as Captain of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, and of course was loyally supported by this command in all the exercises connected with the reception. Another ex-Colonel of the regiment, Gen. Walter E. Lombard in 1916, was similarly to be hon-
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ored by America's oldest military organization. A grim pathos obtruded itself upon the spirit of the festivities ; for of the 1,651 men who had gone to war, only 494 were pres- ent on May 25, 1864, to be mustered out. The command had been in twenty general actions ; and nine of its seventy- one officers had been killed. It marched 1,263 miles, trav- elled by rail 1,325 miles, and on transports 724. The regi- ment gave three general officers to the army, and ninety-one other officers to sister regiments.
A number of noted clergymen have at times held the office of chaplain of the command. Applying the standards which control the selection of names for the volume, "Who's Who," amongst the distinguished chaplains would certainly have to be mentioned Otis A. Skinner, the noted journalist and preacher, 1850-'55 ; Thomas B. Thayer, the writer, 1858- '61; Jacob M. Manning, the lecturer, 1862-'63; Lewis B. Bates, father of ex-Gov. Bates, 1868-'72; Alonzo H. Quint, the ecclesiastical statesman, 1872-'76; William H. H. ("Adirondack") Murray, devotee of horses and woodcraft, 1873-'76; Minot J. Savage, author and poet, 1883-'96; and Edward A. Horton, the orator, Chaplain of the Mass. State Senate, 1896-1900. Preeminent among them stands the name of the war chaplain, Warren H. Cudworth, 1861-'72, '76-'82. Chaplain Cudworth possesses the added distinction that he was the historian of the "Fighting First."
Warren H. Cudworth had graduated from Harvard in 1850; and represented the finest type of American culture. If size of hat indicates mental caliber, his chapeau, sacredly preserved at the Soldiers' Home, Chelsea, proves him to have been an intellectual giant. For it is number seven and one-half. Since 1852 he had been pastor of the Unitarian "Church of Our Father" in East Boston. A bachelor, and of independent means financially, he was able to prove his
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patriotism before receiving appointment as chaplain by an- nouncing to his church that, if he should not secure the appointment, he would give his salary as minister to main- tain work among the soldiers. The church had raised a fund for the erection of a new house of worship; this the pastor urged them not to spend as intended, but to devote the money to the welfare of the Union soldiers. When appointed, he gave himself unreservedly to the duties of the office; and absented himself from his regiment only once, for a single week of Aug., '61, during the entire three years.
While not a "fighting chaplain" as some were, he was in every sense a brave soldier and true gentleman. Believing that the better American one is, the better American soldier he is, Cudworth both preached and exemplified this part of his creed.
His Massachusetts pride revealed itself in his comments upon the inferior standards of living and comfort as one progressed southward.
His scholarly interest in history and science kept showing thruout all his writings. Bladensburg is noted as the field of the disastrous militia defeat in 1814; there is no gloss- ing over the uncomfortable facts. Bladensburg is also the duelling-ground where Commodore Barron killed Decatur in 1820. A scientific observer, he comments upon the ex- cellence of the spring water. At Yorktown the regiment was encamped on historic ground, where Washington's tents had stood, and Cornwallis surrendered, in 1781. But he somehow fails to note there the oldest custom-house in America. One is reminded of high-school days to hear him commenting upon McClellan's bridges over the Chicka- hominy-that they were exact reproductions of Cæsar's famous span across the Rhine. Cudworth comments appre- ciatively upon the notable past of the Fairfax family, so
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influential in moulding the career of George Washington; of the Chancellors; and even records facts about Prince Frederick, father of George III, after whom Fredericks- burg was named. Fossils and other geological remains unearthed by regimental well-diggers on the Peninsula in- terest him.
But his chief interest was in men and their welfare. The degradation which he saw occasioned by slavery brought sorrow to his heart. The untidy appearance of Williams- burg and other Virginia towns-a consequence of slavery- impressed him, as it does the visitor today. None rejoiced more than he over the issuance of the emancipation procla- mation on Jan. 1, 1863, and he felt that such a clear pro- nouncement for justice and righteousness was more potent than many victories. At Williamsburg he commented on the generous hospitality of the southerners; he was also amused by quaint epitaphs in the old Bruton parish cemetery. At the close of the Peninsular campaign he manifested his social interest by commenting that the army was then exist- ing in accordance with ideal industrial conditions-eight hours daily for work, eight for rest, and eight for recreation. When a whiskey ration was instituted in 1862, he deplored the resultant moral evils.
Such a chaplain would do everything possible for the wel- fare of the men. During the first leisure season in the regi- ment's existence, that in 1861 at Budd's Ferry, he organized a chess club which conducted exciting tournaments; a lit- erary institute or debating society named after Mayor Frank B. Fay of Chelsea ; and a large temperance society bearing the name of their total-abstinence Colonel, Cowdin, which enrolled nearly two hundred soldiers on its pledge, and had fully one-third of the regiment "on the water wagon." The chaplain's tent was indeed the social center of the camp.
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Most important of all was his religious organization. The Y. M. C. A. had not then been introduced; so the chaplain devised an association, which he termed "The Church of the First Regiment." Their admirable covenant, by which they existed, "You now solemnly covenant, in the presence of God and these your fellow-soldiers, that you will endeavor, by the help of grace, to walk in all the ordinances of the gospel blameless, adorning your Christian profession by a holy life and a godly conversation," has received much un- solicited praise; and has afforded an inspiring model for other military chaplains.
Chaplain Cudworth was idolized by the men. They affec- tionately called him "Holy Jo"; and he accepted the title as a mark of affection, stipulating however that they must never pervert it into "unholy Jo." Fifer Bardeen of the Ist Company tells how, in a New York barber-shop, he thrilled the crowd by a narrative of his own supposed hero- ism in battle, all suggested by a boyhood scar on his head. After he had told enough "whoppers" to set himself up as a hero, he glanced into the mirror and was thunderstruck to see "Holy Jo" occupying the next chair but one. The chap- lain knew Bardeen well, and also knew just how true the yarn was not. But under the circumstances he showed his real self by utterly failing to recognize or embarrass the youthful hero. No wonder that Bardeen later wrote con- cerning the chaplain, "He was a good man, a patriot and a Christian, ready to pray with you at the proper time but never obtruding his piety, and always ready to help you in any way. There was no other officer in the regiment who approached him for genuine manhood of the highest type."
Chaplain Cudworth's passing was in keeping with the rest of his life. His death was that of a Christian soldier. It happened on Thanksgiving day, 1883, while the Chaplain
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was participating in a union observance of the day held in a neighbor church, the "Maverick Congregational" of East Boston. As he was standing beside the pulpit in the very act of offering public prayer, suddenly he was heard to ex- claim in pain, "I cannot go on." Before others could reach him, he fell to the floor, dead.
CHAPTER VI
1866-1878
It was inevitable that a reaction should follow the pro- longed military exertion of the Civil War. The north had strained its resources almost to the breaking point, and people were tired of the very thought of a soldier. Volun- teer regiments, upon their muster-out, disbanded outright ; while militia organizations languished, and ofttimes died. "General apathy" was again in command of the situation.
Disbandment was the ultimate fate of the three-year regi- ment which had gone out under Col. Cowdin. Fortunately many veterans of the companies retained interest in military affairs, and appreciated the importance of maintaining the militia, so that they connected themselves with organiza- tions designed to perpetuate the old regiment. Finally, on May 18, 1866, orders issued for the reorganization of the command.
As Col. Burrell's 42d Regiment had retained a place in the militia " establishment thru the sheer pertinacity of its officers, and as it was recognized to be a continuation of the old militia Ist Regiment, Col. Burrell was continued in command of the new Ist. The Ist Company was the cor- responding company of the 42d. An unattached company, the SIst, consisting largely of Ist Regiment veterans and commanded by Lieutenant George H. Johnston, Adjutant of the Ist, took 2d place in the reorganized regiment. The Fusiliers' reserve or "depot" company (the 25th Unat- tached) continued as 3d Company, under command of Capt. Alfred N. Proctor, who had led the 3d Company of the 42d.
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Chelsea continued to supply the 5th Company, having or- ganized the "Rifles" (4th Unattached), soon renamed "Vet- erans," as a "depot" company for the original 5th Company (the "Volunteers") ; Capt. John Q. Adams commanded. Veterans of the original 6th Company (now the 9th Un- attached) under their war commander, Capt. George H. Smith, continued to represent the old number. The 10th Company of the 42d, under command of their war Ist Lieu- tenant, Edward Merrill, Jr., remained as Ioth Company of the reorganized regiment. Thus six companies of Col. Bur- rell's new command were perpetuations of the old regiment of which he and Col. Cowdin had been field officers. The new 4th Company had seen ninety days' service under its designation of Ist Unattached, and was commanded by Capt. Moses E. Bigelow. Three companies, the 7th, 8th and 9th, had no war records, and merely came in as the 45th, 66th (the W. Roxbury Rifles) and 67th Unattached. The latter two, however, were commanded by veteran officers, G. M. Fillebrown, formerly a Ist Lieut. in the Mass. Cavalry, and John D. Ryan, a 2d Lieut. in the 61st Mass. Inf., respectively. Capt. Fillebrown's company is the 8th Co. today. With six of the ten companies coming directly from the old regiment, it is no wonder that the new organization was granted the right to call itself the Ist Mass. Infantry.
Col. Burrell remained at the head of the regiment only sufficiently long to see it established on a firm foundation ; on July 26, 1866, he was promoted to be Brigadier General. On August 29, 1866, Capt. George H. Johnston of the 2d Company became Colonel. The original record book of this period is in the custody of Maj. J. W. H. Myrick of the Fusilier Veterans.
Col. Johnston's first camp was held at Sharon in 1866, and had an attendance of 533. With so large a proportion
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of the membership war veterans, the event seemed very much like a military reunion. Officers and men were already thoroly trained; all enjoyed the experience of again wear- ing the blue uniform. Similar encampments were held in 1867, 1868, 1869 and 1872-all in Hull. In 1870 the entire state militia, under command of Gen. Benjamin F. Butler, encamped at Concord, and revived the memories of 1859. But how greatly had the situation changed during those eleven short intervening years! Then the war was a dread prospect ; now it was a glorious retrospect. In 1871 a regi- mental encampment was held at Quincy.
On June 22, 1867, Col. Johnston and his regiment paraded as escort to President Andrew Johnson. A similar compli- ment was paid to President U. S. Grant, June 16, 1869. The regiment also paraded in honor of Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, when he visited Boston.
A new company, the Claflin Guards of Newton, was or- ganized in 1870, and in 1872 became the 7th Company.
As a result of the Civil War the kepi and felt hat had been introduced into the bill-of-dress, and the five-button blouse had become the popular coat; the felt hat was a revival of a pattern common in old Colonial days. In 1869 the regiment profited by a new feeling on the part of the legislature that a good militia was worth the expenditure of a little money ; for at that time the state began to make an allowance toward the purchase of uniforms. $20.00 was paid for each man-not enough to buy a uniform, but far better than nothing. Since their experience at Bull Run in 1861, the regiment had worn blue; now, however, they returned to the gray uniforms of 1859. Breech-loading rifles were issued in 1872.
The year 1872 brought the most prolonged tour of duty for the maintenance of public order, if we except Shays'
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rebellion, that the regiment ever had. Boston was then a city of frame buildings, standing close together, and sepa- rated by very narrow streets. On Nov. II, fire broke out, and speedily grew uncontrollable by reason of high winds. When after three days of horror, the devouring flames were finally stayed in their work of destruction, old Boston lay in ashes.
Thieves, thugs and criminals of every sort are prompt to congregate in seasons of public calamity. When society is threatened by such a danger as conflagration, its ordinary police precautions break down; and people are helpless to protect their property or even their lives. All the militia in Boston were immediately called out to help rescue endan- gered lives, and to protect the panic-stricken fugitives. Where everyone is suspicious of everyone else, a man in uniform is the only one able to render any aid. Victims of the fire would not allow a stranger in civilian clothes so much as to assist them to places of safety, for fear of vio- lence and robbery. The troops were kept on duty during thirteen days, the latter part of the period being devoted to guarding the ruins and aiding in the task of rehabilitation. One picturesque feature of the regiment's service was the escorting across the city of treasure valued at $14,000,000. No other call to duty is so truly a test of military readiness as that in connection with a fire, coming as it does always without the slightest previous warning. And no other duty, performed as the Ist Regiment performed it in 1872, does so much to win friends for the organization, and for the Na- tional Guard of which it forms a part. At no' other time does the National Guardsman appear so nearly in his true rôle, as "a soldier of peace."
During the term of the next commander, Col. Henry W. Wilson, Dec. 12, 1872-April 28, 1876, the regiment felt the
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effects of a new movement for military efficiency. Col. Wil- son was himself a Civil War veteran, an ex-Captain in the 6th Regiment .. But he believed the time ripe for innovations and improvements. The Civil War officers were growing too old for active service; and no one was in training to take their place. England, with a military system not essen- tially different from ours, had introduced strict principles of instruction for her volunteers some ten years previously, and now commenced to reap beneficial results.
Consequently the Ist Regiment welcomed the new state muster-field, first opened for use in 1873. Framingham at once became a synonym for increased efficiency; that very year the tour of camp duty was lengthened from three to four days, and from time to time thereafter successful effort was made to secure further extension. Massachusetts had the proud honor of leading all other states in providing a regular state camp-ground.
Perhaps because so many "old fellows" were bidding fare- well to active military life, perhaps for other reasons, this was an age of sentimentalism in the regimental history. On Dec. 17, 1873, the Ist Company adopted a badge or medal for use with full-dress uniforms and also on civilian clothes ; and other companies were so favorably impressed by the innovation as to imitate it. Col. Mathews later designed the regimental emblem which stands on the cover of this book, and which is based on the "white diamond" of the old "third corps."
Capt. William A. Smith of the Ist Company was an en- thusiast about rifle-shooting; and kept agitating the matter with a view to inducing Massachusetts to take it up. Al- ready England had her ranges for volunteers, and in New York the Creedmoor range was in active operation. Capt. Smith presented many excellent reasons why small arms
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practice should be made part of the militia requirements. In Colonial days every farmer was a good shot-he had to be, in order to keep down "varmints" and to keep off In- dians. But when the state became fully settled the reason for popular skill in shooting ceased, and the shooting itself was discontinued. Thruout the Civil War, marksmanship was a neglected factor in the training of both northern and southern armies. By 1875 the need had become so crying that Capt. Smith and others succeeded in convincing the Massachusetts authorities. As soon as genuine rifle com- petitions were authorized, the members of the regiment, and especially of the Ist Company, stirred themselves to render the matches exciting; as a consequence, up to the time the regiment became interested in artillery, it was noted in the state for success in small arms competitions. From the Ist Company alone went out two such shots as Col. Horace T. Rockwell and Major Charles W. Hinman, both of whom had places on rifle teams which went to England and repre- sented America in international matches held in 1880, 1883 and 1888. After 1878 the 4th and 12th Companies also won fame with the rifle.
The annual routine of a militia regiment-weekly drills, two or more field-days, shooting, one or two weeks' camp, etc .- keeps the members busy along useful lines. But it does not afford a historian much to tell, save as he indicates the steps of progress from year to year. Parades, on the other hand, possess some romantic and popular interest ; and it is hard to convince laymen that they have almost no military value. A regiment is largely judged by its appear- ance on parade. In Col. Wilson's time there chanced to be included the fateful year, 1875, when eastern Massachusetts celebrated the centennials of Concord and Bunker Hill. With President Grant present from Washington on April
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19, there were "great doings." On June 17 the "crack"-est military organizations from other states visited Boston to lend "tone" to the procession,-the 7th N. Y., the 5th Md., the Ist R. I., the Ist and 2d Pa. That day Gen. W. T. Sherman was reviewing officer. Sherman's war experience had trained him to judge troops. He was forced to admit that Boston's parade was a fine military display ; and he had to add that the Ist Mass. was not behind the best. On Nov. 29, 1875, by a singular coincidence, Col. Wilson was called upon to parade his regiment as part of the funeral escort for his great namesake, the late Vice-President Henry Wil- son, who was interred at Natick.
At first the regiment suffered from the new innovations. Its older members, trained in the hard school of actual war service were capable soldiers and required little instruction ; and the younger men who needed more training were only a minority in point of numbers. As soon as it became evi- dent that more time was going to be demanded for en- campments and for small-arms practice, many older soldiers applied for their discharges. As the ranks grew shorter and thinner, the state authorities began to talk of disbanding companies, just as they had always been accustomed to do. Finally the break came. Col. Wilson resigned on April 28, 1876, leaving Lt. Col. Alfred N. Proctor in command ; and on the following July 6, the regiment was reduced to the dimensions of a battalion and was redesignated the "Ist Bat- talion of Infantry." Lt. Col. Nathaniel Wales, who was placed in command, was a Civil War veteran with a brilliant record. He had enlisted as a private soldier, had served in the 24th Regiment, the 32d, and finally in the 35th, and came out of the war-service a Colonel. It is highly unusual to pass thru so many grades within less than four short years. Furthermore, Col. Wales was said to have been the youngest
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