USA > Massachusetts > The story of western Massachusetts, Volume I > Part 40
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In Philadelphia, in the early morning hours in the last week of October, 1781, the night watch roused the sleeping people with the cry that it was "past three o'clock, and Cornwallis is taken". The news spread rapidly and soon the students at Yale and Harvard were singing triumphal songs, while village greens throughout the land
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were ablaze with bonfires. Parson Williams recorded in his diary that at Springfield there was "great rejoicing in town; great guns fired, bells rung, rockets played at the Court House, taverns illumi- nated. Rev. Mr. Breck, pastor of the First Church, and many people went into the Meeting House. He prayed; the people sang psalms and hymns".
As it became increasingly apparent that the war was in its final stages, consideration was given to the proper care of existing stocks of munitions. On April 26, 1782, Congress directed "that the Secre- tary of War take order for the establishment of good and sufficient magazines for the reception of the public ammunition at the following places, to wit,-at Springfield, in the State of Massachusetts; at West Point in the State of New York; at the Yellow Springs in the State of Pennsylvania and at New London in the State of Virginia".
On receipt of notice of the wishes of Congress, the town of Springfield called a meeting for August 6, 1782, to determine "if the town will lease out to the Continent or give liberty for them to build a magazine somewhere on the Training Field" and it was "voted that the selectmen be a Committee to view the place requested in the Training field to erect a magazine and it was the sense of the town that such liberty be granted and that the selectmen be a committee to lease out a piece of land therefore according to their best skill and judgment".
The powder magazine at Springfield was of brick and stood at the easterly end of the Training Field, on the ground of Squaw Tree Dingle, and near the present Magazine Street. On a stone over the doorway was the inscription,-"Erected by act of Continental Con- gress, 1782". In later years the magazine was deemed a menace to nearby dwellings and it was demolished in 1842. Eventually, the cap-stone became a part of the base of the iron fence, near the corner of State and Byers streets, but when the southwest gate was installed at that point in 1870, the location of the stone was altered and its present location is unknown. In 1935 it was proposed to widen Byers Street by setting back the iron fence along that highway, and Lt. Col. Thomas J. Smith, then commandant at the post, directed that when the work was undertaken, a careful examination of every rock in the foundation should be made in an effort to retrieve the lost cap- stone. Colonel Smith arranged also that other sections of the Armory grounds be searched in hopes that the stone might be found in some obscure spot. For some reason the project was never carried out, so there is still no clue to the present location of the stone.
We are indebted for our knowledge of the appearance of the powder magazine to a chance traveler, Samuel Davis of Plymouth, Massachusetts. Passing through Springfield in 1789, he tarried long enough to include in his journal, a sketch of the building, which he also briefly described :
"Parsons' tavern, Springfield, ten miles from Wilbraham. Break- fast at this place. The road hither is not unlike that from Plymouth
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THE CONTINENTAL ARMORY
to Plimpton, a continued pine plain, without fence. Passed the maga- zine, a long brick building, remarcable for the defence before it in 1787 by General Shepard. Further on are two large public stores for arms, and a number of barracks &c. The meanest houses we have passed this stage are neatly underpinned with Connecticut stone. The magazine appeared thus as I passed it.
"Springfield is a pleasant town of some extent, on the east side of the river Connecticut. It has a handsome meeting house, painted and furnished with a clock and electrical rod, a small court-house, several well furnished shops; the hair-dressers being one of them. It is level and a continued street along the river, of great length. The river is eighty rods wide here and ten feet deep in the midst.
Sketch of Continental Powder Magazine by Samuel Davis, 1789
There are marks of great freshets on the trees, when it rises twenty feet. The ferry, on which we crossed at Springfield, is very commodi- ous. Several ladies came over with us and their carriage entered and left without untackling".
Washington visited Springfield in 1789 and observed that he reached the town on Wednesday, October 21st by four o'clock, and "while dinner was getting, examined the Continental stores at this place, which I found in very good order at the buildings on the hill above the town, which belong to the United States. The barracks, also public property, are fast going to destruction and in a little time will be no more, without repair. The laboratory, which seems to be a good building, is in tolerably good repair, and the powder magazine, which is of brick, seems to be in excellent order, and the powder in it very dry."
"The distance from Hartford to Springfield is 28 miles. At the latter the river is crossed in scows set over with poles and is about eighty rods wide. Between the two places is a fall, and others above that again, notwithstanding which, much use is made of the navigation for transportation in flats of about five tons' burden. The whole road from Hartford to Springfield is level and good, except being too sandy in places and the fields inclosed with posts and rails generally, there not being much stone. There is a great equality in the people of this state. Few or no opulent men and no poor. Great similitude
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in their buildings, the general fashion of which is a chimney, always of brick or stone, and door in the middle, with a staircase fronting the latter, running up by the side of the former; two flush stories, with a very good show of sash and glass windows; the size generally from thirty to fifty feet in length and from twenty to thirty in width, exclusive of a back shed, which seems to be added as the family increases. The farms, by the contiguity of the houses, are small, not averaging more than one hundred acres. They are worked chiefly by oxen, which have no other food than hay, with a horse and sometimes two, before them, both in plow and cart. In their light lands and in their sleighs they work horses, but find them much more expensive than oxen. Springfield is on the east side of Connecticut River, before you come to which, a large branch of it, called Agawam, is crossed by a bridge. It stands under the hill on the interval land and has only one meeting house".
The journal of William Loughton Smith of Charleston, South Carolina, records that on August 25, 1790, "passing on to Spring- field, I crossed the Connecticut River, which is wide here and then entered the town, which is a pretty considerable one. Here are some public stores of arms and accoutrements and cannon belonging to the United States; they are kept in very good order. I think there were 8,000 stands of arms and a large quantity of gun powder. In the rebellion in Massachusetts in 1787, Daniel Shays made an attempt on this place, but though superior in force to the Government party, was completely routed at the first shot from a piece of cannon, which killed a few of his men. I saw two stockade forts which were hastily erected for the protection of the stores and are still standing. The public stores are on an eminence just above Springfield and the adjacent country, which is highly cultivated and pleasing".
Thus, after serving its purpose, the establishment was virtu- ally abandoned, the unpainted buildings being left to the elements, while broken windows and missing shingles were utterly neglected. So the situation remained until 1794, when interest was revived by a proposal to renew the project as a Federal affair.
CHAPTER XXXVI
Company A
I N THE spring of 1861, Southern radicals fired on Fort Sumter and the country was thrown into four years of war. With Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers, a wave of enthusiasm swept the North, bringing quick response to the need, but as the weary days became weeks and the endless weeks grew into war-torn years, it became apparent that something more than patriotism was needed to keep the ranks complete. At one time, a bonus system was tried out which gave to a recruit a substantial sum in cash, in addition to his govern- ment pay. However, it was too often found customary for the recipient of the bounty to soon desert the army and reenlist in another town or even another state. There being in that age an utter lack of fingerprinting or such detectors, it was simply impossible to cir- cumvent such tactics. When the draft was attempted it was with the proviso that a drafted man could supply a substitute whom he hired for the purpose. Eventually such procedure was simplified by the payment of the requisite sum to the recruiting officer who hired the substitute through known channels.
Prior to the war it was confidently expected that if conflict actually occurred, it would be of short duration. Southerners felt it quite certain that men of their out-door experience had nothing to fear from a parcel of Yankee mechanics while those of the North were equally sure that a force of effete Southerners held no terrors for them. As the second summer was drawing to a close, an uneasy feeling gripped the North. On August 30, 1862, the second Battle of Bull Run proved an even greater disaster than the earlier engage- ment there. Young women took an active interest in the situation and as in all wars, both before and since, halted young men on the street, demanding to know why they were not in uniform. The under- graduates of Mount Holyoke Seminary (now Mount Holyoke College) at South Hadley, formed groups whose members promised to write cheery letters to all who enlisted; a very bold measure in those days when unsophisticated young maidens were closely guarded against the machinations of worldly men.
In Western Massachusetts, the call went out for a new regiment, which came to be the 46th Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer Militia. and it was proposed that Hampden County provide one company (one hundred men) for that regiment.
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In Springfield at that time, was a group of young men in their late teens or early twenties who had made little contribution to the cause. The fathers of some had provided hired substitutes, some were exempt by occupation, while others were too young for compulsory service. They were the sons of well-to-do parents, each with a good education, according to the standards of the day. They associated with the same girls and escorted and beaued the other-fellow's sister to the social affairs of the community. As each recruit actually enlisted, he was the object of keen competition in the providing of going-away parties, where the most cherished gift was the latest model Smith & Wesson revolver, complete with leather holster and belt loops. So common did these become that in after-years, a second generation could always muster a sufficient number for surreptitious target practice.
Though no feeling of superiority influenced these young men, it actually was a blue ribbon organization. They came home from the war to become the leading merchants, bankers, industrialists and executives of their day. For a half-century after the war the annual reunion of Company A a Riverside Grove was an event of great importance for which guest tickets were eagerly sought.
At that time there was in Springfield, a youth named Andrew then nineteen years old, who lived on Bliss Street with his father and mother and his older brother Ben. He had graduated from high school with the class of 1860, and shortly after became an assistant to Postmaster William Stowe, in the post office, then located in the brick building still standing on Elm Street, east of the Court Square Theater Building. As a postal employee he was exempt from military service. He reported for work at the post office at 6 A. M. and when night came on he took a folding cot from a closet on which he spent the night, working through the next day and check- ing out at 6 P. M. The office was then taken over by an alternate who worked a similar trick. Hence the office was on three tricks a week, there being no mails on Sundays. 1
Andrew's letters show him to have been a sensitive and con- scientious lad and while on his vacation in the late summer of 1862, some siren perhaps propounded that old question concerning a notice- able lack of Uncle Sam's uniform. With no telephones, no automo- biles; not even a trolley, he had but one means of informing his friends of a momentous decision. and so wrote to little Sarah Brown on note paper, engraved with the words Post Office, Springfield, Mass .:
"September 10, 1862.
"My Dear Friend :
"Still continue to live and have my being in the Post Office though I thought ere this to be lying around loose upon the ground some- where within the precincts of Hampden County. All signs fail in fair weather and I remain an humble citizen with peaceful intent though we are confident that we shall be in camp by the 18th inst. sure.
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"We shall probably go into camp on the Old Road to Chicopee, near the Green Paint Works, where we have a friend.
"Very sorry I could not be present at your Annual Squantum but having just returned from my vacation, it was impossible for me to be absent.
"Did not dream of enlisting when I was away, but coming home and finding friends going and feeling the need of every stout arm to defend the country and though I was exempt, put my name down upon the roll of honor, resolving to defend the country which had nurtured and protected me all my life.
"T'was no more than anyone would have done and I am willing to sacrifice something to help the cause.
"In my younger days, when I read the history of the Revolution, I saw depicted the trials, suffering, bravery and manly courage of our fore-fathers. My heart burned as I became fired with ambition, eagerly wishing for such a time to come in my day when I might make my mark and show the man within me. The time has come and I have accepted the challenge of our Southern Brethern to meet them upon the field of battle. I can't do much but what little I can, that shall my country have without stint. And if I should fall on the field-but I shall not write it. I am coming home again and I hope that at the end of the nine months, the war will be ended. Should have stopped and seen you on my return trip if I had known to what I was coming.
"Work only days this week and shall probably finish Postal duties Saturday for a season and try to serve Uncle Sam in another manner.
"Hugh's regiment left for the seat of war last Sunday. Mary I see occasionally and it reminds me very much of Fiskdale and I wish that you might be here too. Sociables are minus just now.
"Excuse bad writing, the result of poor pen and haste.
"Believe me, your old friend and schoolmate,
"ANDREW."
In explanation of the foregoing letter it might be said that "the Old Road to Chicopee" is now Armory Street. The "Green Paint Works" was the concern that provided the base for the green ink used in printing the first government "greenbacks" and is now the Hampden Paint & Chemical Company, still makers of "Hampden Green" paint. It was then and still is located where Armory Street crosses the railroad. Actually, the regiment never encamped there but for its basic training it was assigned to Camp Banks, at Gunn's Pasture, south of the Wilbraham Road, in the vicinity of the present Gunn Square. The meaning of what appears to be a sly reference to a "friend" at the "Paint Works" is not apparent. In a later.age, it might be assumed to refer to a bootlegger or some such clandestine operator, but those boys were entirely without guile, and such an assumption would be wholly unwarranted.
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Squantum was a word then in common use in New England and referred to a picnic or some similar outing. Hugh, the mutual friend mentioned, was Hugh Donnelly, who, three weeks earlier had been commissioned captain of Company I of the 37th Massachusetts Regi- ment. Even at that early date, he was a seasoned veteran, having previously served with Company K, of the 138th New York Regiment. The 46th Regiment was recruited for nine months' service and
Home Built in 1819 for John Howard, 95 Maple Street, Springfield
Company A was officered as follows: Samuel B. Spooner captain; L. A. Tifft first lieutenant; Daniel J. Marsh second lieutenant; Wil- liam B. Shurtleff went as lieutenant colonel and was later made colonel of the regiment.
It was a great disappointment to that circle of intimate friends when one of their number, young Harlan Stone, was rejected for defective eyesight. His home was at the north end of the city and for a long time after the departure of the regiment, he went to his daily occupation via Water Street (now Columbus Avenue) rather than down Main Street, to avoid the raised eyebrows of his fellows. So keen was his embarrassment that it summed up almost to a minor tragedy.
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COMPANY A
From his elder brother Ben (for whom a substitute had been provided) young Andrew received a pocket-size blank book, with the written admonition to "keep a good record." That reads, in part, as follows :
"Went into Camp Banks, three miles east of Springfield, September 24, 1862. Sworn in the 25th. Left for Boston on November 5, as Co. A, 46th Regiment, Massachusetts volunteers. November 5, evening, went on board the steamship Mississippi, Bos- ton harbor. The 43d regiment on board the Merrimac and the 45th on board the Mississippi; 500 of the 46th being on board the Mis- sissippi and the remainder on board the Merrimac. Remained on board amidst a terrific storm till November 9, and then were taken off by the steamer Nantasket, landed at Liverpool wharf, marched to Faneuil hall, treated to a bountiful collation and furnished with sleep- ing quarters in the hall. Suffered greatly from the cold, storm and mud, also want of fresh air, being stowed in the hold of a vessel like Congo Niggers.
"It seemed ahnost like going home to get once more into com- fortable quarters and the boys were in very high spirits indeed. Got breakfast at the Parker House. Bully one. Left Boston for the steamer Mississippi at about 2 o'clock, on board the Nantasket, seven companies on the Saxon, one and a half on the Merrimac and one and a half on the Mississippi. Co. A, on the Mississippi. Very well treated by Bostonians before leaving.
"Left Monday evening, the 10th, for Newbern amidst playing of the band etc.
"Tuesday the sun rose beautifully and a pleasant day was inaugu- rated. The water was smooth as a pond, and we sailed beautifully, though slow, in order to keep the gunboat alongside. Was not sea- sick on the whole passage. Nearing Hatteras we steamed away from the Huron and did not see her again.
"Arrived at Morehead City, Friday noon, passing the Merrimac, which ran aground on the bay. Got an excellent supper on the sloop. Started Saturday at 6 A. M., for Newbern and arrived safely at noon. Encamped a mile from the city. God-forsaken looking country. Niggers, pine trees and sand, chief productions. Camp on bank of Neuse river. Nice weather. Niggers everywhere and the white civilians scarce. Got an excellent dinner at Gaston house, with the others. Great country to get up a rain in short order. At 8 o'clock one of the hardest rains I ever saw. Got supper at niggers.
"Received our equipment; first rate guns of the Windsor Rifle pattern.
"27th, Thanksgiving day in old Massachusetts and in Newbern. Pleasant day, and but very little cold. Went with Frank Graves, Rob Ingraham, Bill Bush and Charles Nichols down town and took dinner at the Gaston House. Charge $1.00. First-rate dinner, and plenty of it. Breakfast in camp of coffee and hard-tack. Supper, tea and hard-tack.
W. Mass .- I-26
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"Graves, Nichols and Ingraham were stopped in the street by provost guard, who threatened to take the officers' buttons off their dress coats. Took them to the guard-house and finally let them off on the intercession of a lieutenant of the 46th regiment, and by their promising to cut them off when they got to camp. Made quite a joke for Thanksgiving Day. My first Thanksgiving away from my home and my relatives, but got along very well, indeed. Soldiers were allowed more freedom this day.
"Some days ago, Colonel Bowler appointed me postmaster of the regiment, which relieves me of all guard duty and other duty, except Sunday Inspection. Kingsley wanted it, but colonel gave me the appointment.
"Went to the Congregational church with J. W. Clark on Sunday, November 30. Text, 'This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.' Preacher, chaplain of one of the regiments; very good sermon.
"Company A, and K, ordered down to Newport barracks on picket duty to relieve 3d Mass., Volunteers. Stayed with the regi- ment at Newbern and got rations of Co. F. Visited the boys at New- port barracks, several times, having a pass over the road. December 7. Orders were read to our brigade, Colonel Lee commanding, to march in 36 hours. The great expedition left the 9th, inst. com- manded by Major General Foster; first brigade, Brig .- General Wissel; second, General Amory; third, Colonel Stevenson; fourth, Colonel Lee, by the Trent road. Eight companies of our regiment were on the expedition, with three days' rations of meat and hard-tack in haversacks, and seven days in wagons. Lieutenant Marsh went as aid to acting Brig .- General Lee. Stewart of ambulance Eldridge, orderly for Marsh-Foster, Quartermaster, Chapman, wagons.
"The regiment being gone, I went to Newport barracks to join Co. A, during their absence. Expedition returned after 11 days, having taken Kingston, Whitehall, and destroyed the railroad bridge across the Neuse at Goldsboro. Colonel Bowler returned after the battle at Kingston, being sick, also Lieutenant Knapp.
"46th lost one man. Co., B, Holyoke, and three wounded, Co., B, and Co., I, Wilbraham. Regiment did not fire off their guns but lay under fire two hours, supporting Battery B, of Belger's, Rhode Island Battery. Boys helped themselves to plunder of all descrip- tions, ransacking houses, stores, plantations, etc., at Kingston. Returned very much worn out, hungry, tired and foot-sore. Blacker than when we came off the Mississippi.
"I returned to Newbern and stayed in the captain's tent with quartermaster clerks. 46th is spoken well of by their brigade.
"Christmas day passed away very quiet in camp, although the streets of the city were crowded with sailors and soldiers, who evi- dently had renewed their acquaintance with the "whiskey glass." Went down to the barracks and returned the same day. All quiet there. Colonel Lee's house was hung with Christmas wreaths.
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"December 29, went down to Newport barracks and returned in the afternoon. Subscribed for four copies of the Newbern Progress. Cost $2.00 for one month.
"December 31, mail in from the North about 10 a.m. The old year went out pleasantly although it was rather cold.
"January 1, 1863, went down to the barracks with the mail and returned the same day. Had oysters for supper. Sent letters home.
"Another expedition on foot. Troops arriving from Suffolk, Va. Sipola's Zouaves have arrived. Monitor sunk off Hatteras on account of leakage. Twelve men and five officers lost and seven men and two officers of the steamer, Rhode Island, which was towing her and went to her relief.
"Montauk and Passaic, ironclads, lay off Beaufort. No mails going on account of expedition, the steamers being held to transfer troops. Application made to General Foster to have me work in post office by postmaster at Newbern.
"January 10, made up mail at the post office for the dispatch boat and mailed letters of my own to Springfield. Stayed at the post office all night, together with the postmaster of the 43d Massachusetts.
"Captain Cooley and Lieutenant Bailey of the 27th resigned. Captain Swift and Lieutenant Warner arrived from the North. 27th gone to Washington, N. C. General Foster refuses to detail any more men for post office.
"Went to work in the post office January 12 to mail, what time I do not need in my regimental duties. Board in city and room at post office. Saturday worked all night and until 9 a.m., Sunday. "Tuesday worked all night on mail for North. Received box from home full of good things. Company returned from Newport Barracks, and go to the new camp off Broad street. Very pleasant camp and very much like by the boys. The expedition is safely off, bound for Port Royal, S. C. Consisted of about 20,000 men and iron- clads, gunboats, steamers and schooners. General Palmer left in command of Newbern. No nine months' men went with the expedition.
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