USA > Massachusetts > Thirteenth Massachusetts Regiment [circular no. 13] > Part 2
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that a conspiracy existed against me and I was the victim of a prac- tical joke. It was a literal roast. The stove crammed to the top became red hot, and so did I. I tried to bear it for a while, and discarding blankets endeavored to stick to my original design, but the snickers from various parts of the room, and the constant stream of volunteers with superfluous pine knots, proved too much for my temper. With the perspiration in beads all over my cuticle and my blood at boiling-point I exploded in wrath. My comrades exploded at the same time - in mirth. I expostulated, even appealed to them to let up on the fun, and give me that little fragment of sleep that I so longed for. I was informed that I " could not expect the rest of the company to freeze for my accommodation." Freeze ! when every one of the cusses had been sleeping in the open air, on frozen ground, every night for a week. Seated on my knapsack in the corner, the very picture of misery, I was deliberating whether to grab that infernal stove and throw it recklessly into the middle of the room, or exhaust my cartridges on the vindictive humorists, when the sergeant stuck his head in at the door and called me to go on guard. I vanished into the darkness amid the shouts of the conspira- tors and for four hours paraded up and down on the sidewalk in front of some low buildings containing quartermaster stores. When I returned to my corner I picked my way between two lines of snor- ing innocents and sank to rest behind a stove cold as the Peary meteorite. Thus ends that episode, but there's a sequel. Sausages come in links.
The following day it occurred to the authorities that it would be a good plan to establish a new connection to the base of supplies at Washington, by opening the Winchester & Potomac Railroad to Harper's Ferry, via Halltown. There were three dilapidated loco- motives in the yard that had long before been doomed to the junk heap, or ought to have been, and Company D was selected, as con- taining among its members a large part of the genius and talent of the regiment, to reopen communication. The least rickety of the three engines was chosen and the mechanics of the company went to work upon it. Being destitute of any mechanical knowledge, I had hoped that I might be designated as a sort of plumber's assistant, to
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watch the tools, pass an oil can, or give advice, but much to my chagrin I was informed by the orderly that I was detailed to saw wood. I said nothing, but I think a lot of thought, rather fitter for profane history than this classical composition. I was marched down to the lower end of the yard, and with an antiquated saw, that had been begged, borrowed, or stolen, more likely the latter, put to work, not on pine sticks or maple logs, but old oak ties reclaimed from service on the railroad. I earned a barrel of hard tack that afternoon, chewing up those old gravel-filled timbers, ramming that saw through the toughened fibre, and yanking it back again when the teeth had disappeared in the vise-like slit, and that old saw squeaked in agony, despite a liberal smearing with a blackened pork rind. I made up my mind that if ever I had to work for a living I would not become a manipulator of the serrated steel. As piece after piece fell beneath my herculean efforts, I ran my inverted fore- finger across my beaded brow and threw the chunks of perspiration upon the adjoining scenery. Every piece had blue ends from the close contact with the rusty blade, and I groaned in my spirit as I thought of the valuable fuel wasted on my roast of the night before. The only mitigation of the aggravating incident was the presence of an understudy who assisted me by adding to my pile the result of his labor.
The next morning, early of course, as all of these experiences were carried out on the Queen of the May principle, the engine with two ancient flat cars started out into an unknown country. Company D was stored on the cars, excepting, of course, a volunteer engineer and fireman in the cab. A few occupied the tender, sitting on my fuel and slipping down with it, as the fireman remorselessly fed it into the devouring furnace. The rest of us sat with our legs hanging down about the edges of the cars, forming a sort of blue upholstery and hiding the lack of paint on the sides. I sat where I could see the lavish use of my wood supply, breathing my smoke and brushing my cinders from my countenance when the accumulation became too oppressive. As the pile dwindled I began to fear that my talent as a wood-butcher might be called into exercise at a later hour. We were going at rather a rapid rate for the oscillating craft, as much as
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five or six miles an hour, when to my great relief we drew up along- side an open shed containing at least a dozen cords of wood all cut up in stove lengths, the regular running supply of the road. I have said that it was a relief, and such it was as regards my anticipated woes, but it was an aggravation to see the chunks rapidly laden into the tender on top of the almost worthless product of my labor. That was the load of hay that demolished the vertebrae of the Bactrian quadruped. The rest is history : Company D opened the railroad and returned to Winchester.
CLARENCE H. BELL.
Read at the reunion
of the 13th Mass. Vols.,
Dec. 13, IS97.
ARMY OF THE POTOMAC.
The entire service of the Thirteenth Massachusetts Regiment was passed in the Army of the Potomac. Though in the early months of the war this branch of the army was otherwise designated, still it is now generally known as such.
The association of the Army of the Potomac was formed immedi- ately after the close of the war and has held annual meetings in prominent cities of the country ever since. The gatherings have always been largely attended. It has been the custom on these occasions for the members to be entertained with an oration by one of its members, an original poem, and speech-making by various prom- inent individuals. Considerable rivalry has existed among cities to receive and entertain members of this distinguished army. Among the number was Fredericksburg, and this year it succeeded in obtaining the honor. The proceedings of these gatherings have always been in- teresting, but this year an additional interest was excited because for the first time the Association met on rebel soil. The speech of wel- come by the authorities has a peculiar interest to us and must awaken in the minds of all a recollection of the days we spent in the vicinity of that city when little expectation then existed that the Army of the Potomac would ever be received within its confines by hospitable and friendly welcome.
I have made a liberal extract from the address of welcome by Mr.
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St. George R. Fitzhugh, that you may see what a change has taken place since the day of the " mud march " :
And now, our friends of the Army of the Potomac, it is difficult for me to command adequate language in which to express the extreme grati- fication and enthusiasm of our people at your prompt acceptance of our invitation to hold your annual reunion in our old town. We not only welcome you with open arms and glowing words, but we feel that your action in this matter arises to the dignity of an impressive epoch in our national life, and we are not surprised that our illustrious president and these distinguished men desire to grace this occasion with their presence to-day. This is the first time that your Society has held one of its re- unions upon Southern soil, and it was preeminently fit, in making this new departure, that you should have honored Fredericksburg with your choice. A French philosopher has written, " Happy the people whose annals are tiresome!" but the far nobler and more inspiring thought of the Anglo- Saxon race is that character constitutes our true strength, and that the nation's historic glory is its best inheritance. As American citizens you are undoubtedly proud of the grand traditions and historic memories that crown your country's history, for nowhere on this continent would your feet tread upon more hallowed ground than right here. And I think be- fore you leave us that you will acknowledge that if the fame and deeds that this locality suggests were stricken from the records of time, our school books would be valueless and our national history would be like the play of Hamlet with Hamlet left out. Every school-boy and every school-girl in our country is familiar with the history of Pocahontas and Capt. John Smith, and history records that right here, on this spot, Capt. John Smith repulsed the Indians in 1608; so we can claim that the struggle for the establishment of Anglo-Saxon civilization and supremacy on this continent commenced right here. If we should draw a circle around this old town, within a radius of less than fifty miles, we should find within that narrow compass the birthplaces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Zachary Taylor, Chief Justice John Marshall, Patrick Henry, and Robert E. Lee. If we should extend it but a little we should find within those limits the birthplaces of William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, and Winfield Scott. And we should find also within it the birthplace of the Republic at Yorktown. Now, tell me, my friends, where there is any other similar segment of space so resplend- ent with the stars of the first magnitude as those I have mentioned? Right here the boyhood and youth of George Washington were spent, and here he was trained for his transcendent career, and it was to this town, . the humble home of his mother, that he came, when the war was over, to lay his laurels at her feet. But there are other memories of a
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historic type suggested by this locality which come closer home to our hearts, however sad, that time cannot pale. Here in this city, within fifteen miles of Fredericksburg, in Spottsylvania county, more great armies manœuvred, more great battles were fought, more men were killed and wounded than upon any other similar territory in the world. More men fell in the little county of Spottsylvania during the four years of the Civil war than Great Britain has lost in all her wars for a century, and more men were killed and wounded in the four hours at the battle of Fredericksburg than Great Britain has lost in her war in South Africa. When the fog lifted its curtain from the bleak waste around Fredericksburg on the morning of the 13th of December, 1862, the sun flashed down upon a spectacle of terrible sublimity, and one hundred thou- sand Union veterans and two hundred and twenty cannon were in battle array and in motion, and nothing to obscure their ranks from view. I do not need to say to you that the different subdivisions of the army were commanded by consummate masters of the art of war, whose names and brilliant exploits now illuminate the pages of our national history; and though its commander-in-chief may have been deficient in strategical ability, one of his most conspicuous points of merit seems to have been his profound faith in the courage and ability of his army. Gentlemen of the Army of the Potomac, General Burnside did not underrate the mag- nificent courage or the great self-sacrifice of his army on that occasion, or the reckless contempt for death on that day, which sent an electric thrill of admiration down the four miles of General Lee's command; but General Burnside did underrate the strength of the position which with- out any inspection he rashly assailed, and he did underrate the valor of the men that occupied that position. But the appalling magnitude of his mistake soon became apparent to his officers and men, when column after column of that devoted army marched onward without halt right to the carnival of death. Over the plains, swept by a remorseless and terrible fire of protected infantry and artillery, they went, as to which General Alexander had said on the evening before that not a chicken could live when his guns were opened on that plain. And so it was.
Now, my friends, pause with me one moment and picture serried ranks as they marched over the bleeding forms of their comrades to certain death, and many of them to unknown graves, and tell me whether heroism did not arise to a hallowed patriotism and courage and a grand coronation on the plains around Fredericksburg; and tell me further whether a country's gratitude and a country's meed of honor is measured by the in- cident of success or failure upon any one field, or whether it is measured by the grandeur, self-sacrifice, and devotion which is made for a country ? Tell me further, sir, whether the beautiful memorial which General Butter- field proposes to erect to-day does not mean a grander type of heroism than the mere result of one event; and tell me, sir, whether there was not
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more courage and more manhood required to assail Marye's Heights than to hold Cemetery Hill? I think, sir, it was.
Napoleon, after the battle of Austerlitz, addressing his army, said : "Soldiers, it will be enough for one of you to say, ' I was at the battle of Austerlitz,' for your countrymen to say, 'There is a brave man; '" but, sir, far more of us than that, when history records that the Union soldiers that fought at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, the Wilderness, and Spott- sylvania Court House, were not only brave soldiers, but with their splendid valor on those memorable fields have decorated the Stars and Stripes with imperishable glory.
And I tell you, sir, that no American army in the future, composed of those who wore the blue and gray, or the descendants of those, will ever permit that glory to be tarnished. It was the brilliant prowess of the Confederate armies upon the battlefield of Spottsylvania that shed such dazzling lustre upon the Union armies of Gettysburg, and if we should blot out the Spottsylvania battlefield we should rob Gettysburg of all its glory.
The Army of the Potomac, under the consummate leadership of Gen- eral Grant, won infinitely more prestige when 8,0001 men of the Con- federate army laid down their arms than the German army under Von Moltke did at Sedan. You all recall Appomattox, the culmination of the courage and carnage of Spottsylvania. It was a conspicuous characteristic of both the Union and Confederate armies that that courage was to all mankind a light invincible, to shed lustre in the hearts of all; so that even in the gloom of temporary disaster no soldier on either side need fear to have borne a part in any of the great battles of the Civil war, however the events of the war may have decreed as to its temporary results.
It is noteworthy, my friends, above almost any other event in history, that the two most momentous and memorable struggles of our Anglo- Saxon race both closed on the soil of Virginia by the surrender of an Anglo-Saxon army to an army of the same race without any loss of pres- tige upon either side. One of those great struggles closed at Yorktown, and the other was when National Independence was established and this great republic was born at Appomattox, when the doctrines of secession and the institution of slavery perished, and a more perfect Union than our forefathers formed was here established.
Yes, my friends, secession and slavery both perished on the soil of Vir- ginia, and we now shed no tears at the graves of those dead issues. They will ever serve to honor the memory, however, of those Southern heroes
1 The surrender of S,ooo men at Appomattox seemed to me, on reading it, to be a small number, so I looked up the records of the War Department, where I find the number of officers and enlisted men of the Army of Northern Virginia, paroled on the 9th of April, 1865, to be as follows : Officers, 2,862; enlisted men, 25,494, making a total of 28,356.
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whose sacred ashes repose in sacred soil representing a heroism sublime with self-sacrifice, and a deep courage born of their then conscientious convictions.
A wise Providence seemed to forbid that in this grand struggle the South should have the honor of final triumph, but the South to-day shares equally with its victors of that day the glorious fruits of that victory which has resulted in a more perfect union, an indestructible union, under that grand symbol the glorious Stars and Stripes.
The oration, which was delivered by Gen. Daniel E. Sickles, was too long to be printed by us in full, but the following extract is made as containing much matter of interest showing the marvellous changes that have taken place during the lifetime of one man, and almost within the knowledge of us all :
My forecast of the future of the South is expressed without hesitation, because in my time I have seen this country advance from a small group of States with twenty million inhabitants - a doubtful experiment in gov- ernment - until it has become an empire with a population of eighty millions, firmly established as one of the great powers of the world. In my time I have seen the birth of railways, steamships, telegraphs, tele- phones, and the application of steam and electricity to all forms of indus- tries and transportation. In my youth Chicago was a part of the wilder- ness that bounded all the great lakes of the West. Hoe's best printing press, which can now turn off one hundred and ninety-two thousand sheets in one hour, could then print no more than two hundred. A daily news- paper, outside of the largest cities, was unknown; all the news of the day was local - now it comes to us every hour from every part of the world. New York was then a fair-sized commercial town, drawing water from wells on street corners; dimly lighted by dingy oil lamps; and Fifth avenue was a suburban lane running through orchards and fields. The Erie Canal was the main channel of commerce between the East and the West. The revenue of the Federal government yielded forty million dollars a year. A member of the Legislature of New York was a high- salaried official, receiving $3 a day for one hundred days' service -- and nothing afterward. A silk gown and a piano were emblems of wealth. The bank of the United States, with a capital of $25,000,000, controlled the finances of this country - and was abolished because it was believed to endanger the liberties of the people. I have seen the old stage-coach of your forefathers superseded by one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles of American railway. I have seen the establishment of all the public parks in this country - beginning with the Central Park of New York,
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for which I drafted the organic act, as a member of the Senate of my State. I witnessed the arrival in the bay of New York of the first steamship that ever crossed the Atlantic - and curiously enough Dr. Lardner, the famous English scientist, had demonstrated to a New York audience, only the night before, that no vessel propelled by steam could cross the Atlantic, because no ship afloat could carry coal enough for the voyage. Having seen in my own lifetime our prodigious growth from a period when our productions were not a perceptible element in the industries of the world, until now, when our trade rivals that of any nation, and surpasses most of them, - having been spared long enough to see my country refute the predictions of her enemies and realize the aspirations of her friends, - I am in a position to outline some phases of our future development.
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[Circular No. 14.]
THIRTEENTH MASSACHUSETTS REGIMENT.
THIRTEENTH MASSACHUSETTS REGIMENT.
BOSTON, Dec. 1, 1901. To the Members of the Thirteenth Regimental Association :
Our annual meeting and dinner will take place at Young's Hotel in this city, Friday, the 13th of December, at 6 o'clock P.M. Tick- ets for the dinner are $1.25 each.
Enclosed is a postal card, addressed to the secretary, upon which you are requested to state whether or not you will be present. You are requested to bear in mind how much annoyance you will save the secretary by forwarding as early as possible the information asked.
The last meeting of the Association was held in Young's Hotel, Dec. 11, 1900, with the President, Ambrose Dawes, in the chair.
The following comrades were elected as the Executive Committee of the Association for the ensuing year :
GEORGE E. MECUEN, President.
ENOCH C. PIERCE, Vice-President.
CHARLES E. DAVIS, JR., Secretary.
J. FRANK POPE. S. A. BRIGHAM.
Following is a list of those present at the dinner :
Thomas L. Appleton,
J. F. Childs,
Harry W. Baker,
D. B. Coffin,
William Barnes,
Wm. M. Coombs,
N. F. Berry,
William Wallace Cushman,
James Dammers,
John Best, J. P. Blake,
W. Wallace Davis,
S. A. Brigham,
Ambrose Dawes,
C. H. Brown,
W. W. Day,
Walter C. Bryant,
F. H. Dunn,
Samuel E. Cary,
Frederic H. Fay,
A. E. Chamberlain,
John S. Fay,
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Eugene Foster, Edwin R. Frost,
James B. Fuller, George E. Gardner, Frank A. Garnsey (2d Md. Vols.), S. K. Goldsmith, Joseph Halstrick, J. Theo. Heard,
George E. Orrok, C. E. Page, Elmer Parker, George E. Parker,
L. P. Parker, P. L. Parker, Wmn. H. Parker, Elliot C. Pierce,
R. B. Henderson, Samuel A. Hildreth, George H. Hill,
J. M. Holt,
H. A. Holyoke,
Cranston Howe,
W. H. H. Rideout,
J. A. Howe,
F. B. Ripley,
George S. Hutchings,
P. J. Rooney,
Samuel E. Hunt,
Wm. Ross,
William B. Kimball,
Aug. N. Sampson,
Anton Krasinski,
J. M. Sawtell,
James A. Shedd,
Wm. P. Jackson, Edwin R. Jenness,
W. E. Shedd,
George E. Jepson,
Horace E. Shepard,
Paul Revere Jepson,
Joseph P. Silsby, Jr.,
Wm. G. Johnson,
Austin C. Stearns,
Albert V. Johnston,
Edward A. Storey,
F. A. Jones,
W. H. Storey,
S. A. Langley,
Fred W. Stuart,
Alonzo C. H. Laws,
J. Stuart,
S. H. Leonard,
Walter E. Swan,
Oliver C. Livermore,
George W. Swift,
Henry C. Ford,
George A. Tainter,
C. T. Love,
Ansel K. Tisdale,
Stephen W. Lufkin,
Thomas F. Trow,
George H. Maynard,
Wm. H. Trow, Samuel Vaughn,
George H. Moore,
A. L. Vining,
A. E. Morse,
M. H. Walker,
C. F. Morse,
M. R. Walsh,
Thomas J. Munn,
John A. Nye,
Wm. R. Warner, Stephen Warren,
Ephraim A. Wood.
The following letters from comrades were received and read : George H. Smith, Philadelphia ; Moses P. Palmer, Groton, Mass .;
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J. Frank Pope,
J. F. Ramsay, George T. Raymond, Milton Reed,
J. D. Richardson,
George E. Mecuen,
A. D. Whitman, East Auburn, Me. ; William H. Cary, Wayne, Me. ; Samuel D. Webster, St. Louis, Mo. ; Chas. W. Manning, Philadelphia ; Lyman H. Low, New York ; E. William Schutte, New York : George D. Armstrong, Lewiston, Me. ; James H. Lowell, Holton, Kansas ; C. C. Wehrum, formerly adjutant of the Twelfth Massachusetts. The expressions of love and good-will contained in the letters and telegrams met with a hearty response.
The following telegrams were also received while the company were at dinner and read :
NEW YORK, Dec. 11, 1900.
Once more it is my loss to be severed from my dear comrades at another annual meeting which I hope will be full of ". the feast of reason and the flow of soul." I shall drink to you in the form and be with you in the spirit.
LYMAN H. Low.
LOWELL, MASS.
God bless the old Thirteenth. A personal interest in our local election alone keeps me from you to-night.
CHAS. E. HOWE.
The following letter from Judge James H. Lowell, of Kansas, is of unusual interest, and will no doubt be read by those who were not present with great pleasure :
HOLTON, KAN., Dec. 5, 1900.
DEAR COMRADE : Your notice to report for duty the 11th instant at Boston, to companion again with the old boys of the Thirteenth, is received. I am not happy to say that I shall have to be one of the invisibles. I find in your excellent and interesting circular the ranks are fast dimin- ishing. Thirteen in one year! It awakens the thought that a pilgrim- age, even so far, would always remain a cherished incident in one's career. It intensifies the regret. also, that it is, this year, not to be. I was glad you gave Colonel Hovey a memoriam in your circular. The articles all have to us, so far away, a peculiar interest. The adjutant at the soldiers' home near Leavenworth tells me there were for quite a while two of our regiment there. They have left he knows not where to. There are two with their families living here who were of the Sixteenth Indiana, at one time in our brigade. They are both in business and near neighbors, well to do. I meet out here occasionally others who were in one or other of the regiments of our brigade. I have yet to meet one of those comrades who is not respectable. It grieves me to know of our old commander's
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affliction. Won't you say to him that he is affectionately remembered by one of his disciples in the art of war? He was to so many of us a preceptor during the period from green kidhood to sternest manhood.
I have always been impressed that our regiment was made up of pretty good Massachusetts blood, and it is not to be wondered at that such mate- rial would take the lead in perpetuating that comradehip which is born of a common danger. I think it was the Sunday before I enlisted that I went to Music Hall to hear Wendell Phillips, and it has always since been in me that he was the best recruiting agency in the country - that speech put in the ranks many of the best youth of Boston. The article of Comrade Bell on the hot time at Winchester was worth reading to a fel- low who was along. I must confess that I heaved a colossal sigh of thankfulness when we found the unmet enemy. There is an old proverb, "Better ten mistaken suspicions than one close encounter." I wish you would send a writ of fieri facias if I am again caught so far in arrears. I enclose post-office order, $6.
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