USA > Maine > First Maine bugle, 1892 (history of 1st Maine Cavalry) > Part 7
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THE LADIES' AUXILIARY.
The Fourth Annual Reunion of the First Maine Cavalry Associa- tion of Ladies was held at the Revere House in connection with the
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EIGHTEENTH ANNUAL REUNION. 67
Reunion of the Regimental Association. The inceting was called to order by the Vice-President, Mrs. Celia Emery. Officers were clected for the ensuing year as follows: President, Mrs. Susie II. Drinkwater, Braintree, Mass. ; Vice-President, Mrs. Addie Tobie, Pawtucket, R. I .; Secretary and Treasurer, Miss Grace T. Cilley, Rockland, Me.
The secretary read a letter from Mrs. Zenas Vaughan, the presi- dent, expressing her regrets at not being able to be present, and saying that illness in her family prevented her attendance. The meeting adjourned to the same time and place as the reunion of the regimental association. There were fifty ladies present at the meeting, and eight names were received for membership.
THE MASSACHUSETTS BRANCH.
The comrades of the Massachusetts Branch of the First Maine Cavalry did noble service in preparing for this reunion, and to them and them alone belongs the credit for its magnificent success. and for the pleasure of the comrades who were so fortunate as to attend. The first meeting of the Branch to make preparations for the reunion was held June 3d, at the Sherman House, and was called to order by the President. Gilbert N. Harris. At this meet- ing, a committee consisting of Comrades Patrick F. Shevlin, Albert Edgecomb, Daniel W. Gage, Thaddeus Little, Henry C. Whitney, Henry C. Hall, Frank W. Green, Albion C. Drinkwater. Gilbert N. Harris, George F. Jewett, Bradbury P. Doe, Charles E. Jacks, Horatio S. Libby. and Charles A. F. Emery, was appointed with full power to make all arrangements for the coming reunion. A meeting of this committee was held July 24th, at which it was de- cided to hold the reunion of the regiment on Tuesday, Sept. 17th. The "Committee of Fifteen" was made a committee on finance. and Comrade Drinkwater was chosen treasurer ; the president and treasurer were appointed a committee on printing ; Comrades Edge- comb, Libby and Green were chosen a committee on transportation, and Comrades Jacks, Sheylin, Whitney and Hall were chosen a committee on entertainment. A special meeting of the Branch was held Aug. 21st, when the Committee of Fifteen and its sub-com- mittees reported progress, and everything was satisfactory. Com- rade Drinkwater reported that he had made arrangements with the Revere House for the banquet, and Comrade Edgecomb reported that he had secured the Lancers Armory for headquarters. On
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motion of Comrade Jacks. it was voted to request Gen. J. I'. Cilley to notify the First Maine Cavalry boys that "all members of the regiment who will come to the Boston reunion, who are not able to defray the expense of attending the same, their expenses at Boston will be provided for by the Boston delegation." As a rest.h of this action, and the work and the contributions of the Massachu- setts Branch. the thousand dollar banquet at the Revere House was served to the comrades and their friends free of expense to them. while every minute of their stay in Boston, on the reunion day and the next day, was made exceedingly pleasant. All honor to the comrades of the Massachusetts Branch.
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AFTER APPOMATTOX.
AFTER APPOMATTOX.
NO. I .- JUDGE COX.
BY MAJOR HENRY C. HALL.
In the south-western part of the county, twelve miles from the court-house, are the Clover Hill coal mines, which at this time were in successful operation. As a large number of men were employed here, it was decided to detail Captain Wilson with his F Company for duty at this point. In a day or two after our arrival at the court-house, Captain Wilson and I rode over to see and learn what duties might be required of his small force, to make the acquaint- ance of the citizens of the vicinity, to select a camping place, etc. Here we found the venerable Judge Cox, of the Superior Court of Virginia, a true type of the old Virginia patriots and statesmen, an carly proprietor of the coal fields, and the principal owner of the mines. He had long held his honorable judicial position, and had as long enjoyed the confidence and esteem of all those with whom he had been called to act. No man uttered an unkind word or manifested an unkind feeling towards Judge Cox. When the nulli- fiers of the Palmetto State had passed the ordinance of secession, and star after star was falling from the southern constellation of our political firmament, and in their places suspended red clouds of war, he said, " It cannot be that Virginia, the home of Washington, of Jefferson, of Henry, and of all the illustrious names that adorn the pages of her sacred history, and with all the hallowed ties that bind her to the union, can be severed from her orbit!" But, alas! un- holy hands had kindled fires there, too, and soon the southern and central portions of the Old Dominion were ablaze with the lurid flame. He saw the first flickering fires, and carnestly worked to quench them, but they were fed by treason's strong hand and fanned by secession breezes, and with all his mighty influence and magnetic eloquence he seemed powerless to stay them. The women early caught the secession spirit, and when they began to make Palmetto flags, triune emblems of rebellion, secession and disunion, and to place them over the outer doors of their dwellings, in the headstalls of their carriage horses, and even in the bridles of the working mules, and children were carrying them publicly in the streets. the
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voice of reason would not be heard. The brave old man labored incessantly thirteen consecutive days and nights, indeed until his strength was exhausted, fighting the fires of secession, and not with- out hope until these flags appeared, when there were no ears to listen to argument or entreaty. It was like speaking to a hurricane or trying to drown with one's voice the roar of the ocean storm. He returned to his home, weary, heart-sick and sad. The legislature was then sitting with closed doors, but all knew the subject of its discussion, and all knew, too soon, the result of its action. When he had sufficiently recovered so as to be about again, he reviewed the political situation with his accustomed judicial candor, and ex- claimed, with deepest grief, " Virginia is lost ! Virginia is lost!" He saw that his native State must go into the vortex ; that her fair fields must be the arena for the conflict; that her brave sons must fall in the useless contest; that her happy homes must be broken, and her peaceful dwellings become hospitals of suffering and death.
When the legislature had formally passed the ordinance of seces- sion, he called all his slaves to him, and told them in plain and simple language what had been done, and how the result would doubtless affect them. He told them there would be a long and bitter war between the sections which would finally be favorable to the North, and would result in the freedom of all the slaves in the South ; that they were free from that moment; that he should never more claim these persons nor their services; that they were free to go, or free to stay and fare as they had fared, so long as they were good and faithful freemen. He then kindly dismissed them and re- turned to his room where he could observe them alone so soon after their transformation of slaves into freemen. They stood a moment in mute amazement. apparently lost in the contemplation of what he had told them, and then slowh returned to their cabins. What transpired there he could not know, only that they were engaged in earnest discussion for a little time, when old Joe, who had been a slave more than three-fourths of a century, and whom they regarded as a sort of patriarch among them, came slowly up the steps and lingered at the door, as if doubtful whether he had heard aright or was being cheated again by the same old dream that so often had deceived him. The judge had watched them with much interest for he was a little uncertain what course they would pursue, and when he saw Joe at the door. evidently in trouble, he called to him. .. Come in, Joe, and let me see how you look, a free man." Too opened the door and entered, but the sight of his old master who
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was now his master no more, and the reassurance that he was frec, so affected him he was able to utter only, " God bless you, massa ! God bress you!" When he had suppressed his emotion so he could, he continued, " We's mighty glad to be free, massa, and we all wants to tank you for your great kindness to us all, and we all wants to stay wid you, massa, if you likes. and nebber leab you." Precisely how the presence of this simple old slave -no ! slave no more !- this new-born free man, this infant of eighty blessing the hand that so long had enslaved him, and at last had made him free- affected the generous-hearted old judge, I was unable to learn, but of this I am satisfied, that he was grateful to them for the sensible appreciation of the boon he had conferred upon them, and that he assured Joe that he was glad of their desire and of their decision to remain with him, and that he would employ and care for them as before.
Knowing the intense desire of all slaves for freedom and a reali- zation of all its blessings, I inquired how long they remained with him. "All are with me yet! never one has left me!" he replied, quickly and earnestly and with a manifest feeling of satisfaction. In the morning (we stopped with him over night) after they had been more than four years free, we saw them there willingly at work for wages in the mines, on the farm, and about the buildings, and they seemed to feel a pride in the fact that they had remained in their old homes since before the war began, not as slaves but as free men.
The motives that led the judge to thus early set free his slaves were purely patriotic. He saw that the institution of slavery had produced an "irrepressible conflict," and that the nation could not "exist part free and part slaves." He saw, indeed, that slavery was the rock on which the old ship of state was just ready to strike, and as he could not change her course he would, at least, remove all the rock that was in his power and possession, and then should she sink beneath the waves of civil war he would feel con- scious and certain that he had not by thought, or word. or act, or in any other way, wilfully or willingly, contributed to her sad fate ; and should she survive the storm and the shock and reach the port of safety, he would be among those who would rejoice in the triumph of our fathers' free government, and in the patriotic virtue and valor of their loval sons and descendants.
In 1861, the family of the judge consisted of himself, his wife, three sons and one daughter. Mrs. Cox was one of those grand,
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noble, womanly souls, of which Virginia had long been prolific, and was every way worthy to be the wife and companion of se wise and eminent a man. When the war broke out, the two oldei sons were in college, the elder of whom, the old man told us, more closely resembled Patrick Henry, his own political patron saint. than any man Virginia had ever produced. While he manifested a full father's pride in all his children, he could not conceal the fact that his young Patrick Henry was his chief pride, his central hope, his ideal sou. The boys possessed, in full measure, their father's love for the Union and loyalty to its flag, but in the carh spring of '62, when the waves of secession had submerged all the educational institutions of the State, they found themselves in their favorite college a hopeless minority of two, vainly striving against the overwhelming tide of rebellion and disnion. The brave boys struggled for a time, manfully and heroically, indeed until thei! generous and gifted natures could endure no more, and then rehuic- tantly and sorrowfully returned to their home, already sad with the rumors of the cause of their coming, to seek the counsel of their father, whose genius and wisdom had before been superior to any difficulties or troubles they had ever encountered. "Three courses," they said, "lay open to us -- to remain at home passive and despised by all our friends and associates until the conscript off- cers call for us, and then involuntarily serve the confederate cause : to pass through the confederate lines and go north; or to submit and join the confederate army. We can but die if we enter the army, and to a proud and cultured Virginian either of the former courses would be infinitely worse than death." The father listened to their statements with most intense interest, and he began to realize that they would have him decide the stop that should determine their future, but he told them he could not, that they must decide for themselves, that if they elected to go into the confederate army, to which he could never give his assent, he should be their father still, and wherever their best judgment led them, they should have a father's love and a father's blessing. At this time, the early summer of '62, to the ordinary southern mind the cause of the confederacy was assured and the leaders were defiant. The judge had noted this and he warned the boys not to be deceived by ap- pearances. He said that the people of the North were as carnes! and determined to save the Union as the people of the South were to destroy it, and that the resources of the North in men and material for carrying on a war as compared to the South were
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simply illimitable. The boys hesitated and doubted and reflected, and finally, after the most urgent appeals to their pride and their honor by their friends and fellow students, some of whom had already won distinction on the field of battle, they reluctantly sur- rendered.
The news soon reached Richmond, and the governor was so clated with the accession of two such notable young men to the ranks of the confederacy that he immediately sent them commis- sions and they soon joined their commands on the Chicahominy. But their services were sadly short.
In a few days they contracted malaria of a malignant type and in a short time their lifeless remains were borne to their loyal home and buried on a little hill-slope just beyond the garden wall. In the morning, the old man pointed to us the little mounds beneath which rest the sacred dust of his noble boys, his unwilling sacrifice to the insatiate Moloch of Secession and Slavery.
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BOWDOIN BOYS IN LABRADOR.
ON BOARD THE "JULIA A. DECKER," ) OFF ST. JOHN'S BAY, NEWFOUNDLAND. I
We are bowling along with a fine southwest wind, winged ont. mainsail reefed and foresail two-reefed, and shall be in the straits il. about two hours. The Julia is a flyer. Between 12 and of this morning we logged just 46 knots, namely, 13.5 miles per hour for four hours. I doubt if I ever went much faster in a sailing vosel. It is now about ro o'clock, and we have made over 75 miles since 4.
All hands are on watch for a first glimpse of the Labrador coast. which will probably be Cape Armours with the light on it.
I wrote last time from Hawkesbury in the Gut of Canso. We laid there all day Monday, July 6th, as the wind, southeast in the harbor, was judged by everybody to be northeast out in George's Bay, and consequently dead ahead for us. Monday evening, at the invitation of the purser, we all went down aboard the " State of Indiana," the regular steamer of the " State Line" between Char- lottetown, P. E. I., and Boston, touching at Halifax, and in the Gut.
After going ashore we stayed on the wharf till she left, singing college songs, giving an impromptu athletic exhibition, etc., to the intense delight of about fifty small boys (I can't conceive where they all came from), and the two or three hundred servant girls going home to P. E. I. for a summer vacation.
I would put in bere parenthetically, that since writing the above I have been on deck helping jibe the mainsail, as we have changed our course to about east by north, having rounded a couple of small low, sandy islands off the Bay of St. John, and now point straight into the strait of Belle Isle.
In the afternoon we examined some of the old red sandstone which underlies all that part of Cape Breton Island, found some good specimens, and some very plain and deep glacial scratches. There is also some coal and a good deal of shale in with the sand- stone.
We had a good opportunity to see this, since the railroad connect- ing Port Hawkesbury with Sidney is new, having started running
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only last March, and hence the cuts furnished admirable fields in which to examine the geology. The road is surveyed and bed made along the Cape Breton shore of the Gut nearly to the northern end, and when completed will be a delightful ride. I think the Gut for 10 miles north of Port Hawkesbury resembles the Hudson just by the Palisades. It is grander than Eggemoggin Reach and on a far larger scale than Somes' Sound. At the northern end it broadens and becomes just a magnificent waterway, without the grand scenery. We were becalmed nearly all day in George's Bay, at one time getting pretty near Antigonish, but got a breeze towards even- ing. We tried fishing several times but could not get a bite though several fishermen were in sight and trawls innumerable. We passed one fisherman, a fine three-master, just as we were coming out of the Gut from Frenchman's Bay, going home, but with very little fish.
I got the captain to call me about 4, Wednesday morning, to fish, but got none. We were then off North Cape, having had a good breeze all night. The wind was light all day, but towards the latter part of the afternoon commenced to blow from the southeast, kick- ing up a nasty sea very soon. We double reefed the mainsail, reefed the foresail and hauled the flying jib down. About 8 P. M. we laid to with the jib hauled down, on the starboard tack. The wind had backed to the east about four points and was blowing a gale. About 12 M. it suddenly dropped, a flat calm, leaving a tremendous sea running from the southeast, combined with a smaller one from the east. Our motions, jumps, rolls and pitches, can be better imagined than described. It seemed at times that our bow and our stern were where the mastheads usually are, and our rails were frequently rolled under.
Rice and Hunt stood one watch, Cary and I the second, and here Rice, though a good sailor and an experienced yachtsman, finally succumbed. We hauled everything down with infinite difficulty, owing to the violent motion, and made it fast, then let her roll and pitch to her heart's content. A sorrier looking place than our ward- room, and a sicker set of fellows it would be hard to find. The dishes had some play in the racks, and kept up an infernal racket that I tried in every way to stop and could not. To cap all, the wind came off a gale northwest about 4 A. M., and made yet another sea. As soon as possible we set a double-reefed foresail, and then I turned in. When I turned out at noon we had made Newfoundland and set a whole foresail, jib and one reef out of the mainsail. We were becalmed, but found excellent fishing, so did
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not care. The sea had gone down and we began to enjoy the Nor- way-like rugged coast of Newfoundland. The mountains con- right down to the water, and are about 1, 100 feet high, by our measurement, using angular altitude by sextant and base line. our distance off shore as shown by our observation for latitude and longitude.
There are many deep, narrow-mouthed coves and harbors, a good number of islands and points making a most magnificent coast line. In many cases 50 or 75 fathoms are found right under the shore. Great patches of snow, miles in extent, cover the mountain sides. Great brown patches, which the professor thinks are washing's front the fine examples of erosion, but which look to me like patches of brown grass as we see in Penobscot Bay on the islands, vary with what is apparently a scrubby evergreen growth and bald, bare rocks. As we are about iS miles off, the blue haze over all makes an en- larged, roughened and much more deeply indented Camden moun- tain coast line. The bays are in some cases so deep that we can look into narrow entrances and see between great cliffs, only a few miles apart, a water horizon on the other side. We wished very much to get in towards the shore, but the calm and very strong westerly current, about 132 knots, prevented.
While enjoying the calm in pleasant contrast to our late shaking up, it will be well to introduce the members of the party whom Bowdoin has thought worthy to bear her name into regions seldom vexed by a college yell, and to whom she has entrusted the high duties of scientific investigation, in which, since the days of Professor Cleaveland, she has kept a worthy place.
In command is Prof. Leslie A. Lee, of the Biological Depart- ment of Bowdoin. With a life-long experience in all branches of natural history, the experience which a year in charge of the scien- tific staff of the U. S. Fish Commission Steamer "Albatross" in a voyage from Washington around Cape Horn to Alaska, and an in- timate connection with the Commission of many year's standing, and the training that scholarly habits, platform lecturing and collegis instruction have given him, you see a man still young, for he was graduated from St. Lawrence University in 1872, and equal to all the fatigues that out-of-door, raw-material, scientific work demands.
The rest of the party have yet to prove their mettle, and of them but little can now he said. Dr. Parker, who, with the Professor, captain and mate, occupies the cabin proper, is an '86 man, cut out for a physician and thoroughly prepared to fulfil all the functions of
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a medical staff, from administering quinine to repairing broken limbs.
Cary of '87, who is even now planning for his struggle with the difficulties on the way to the Grand Falls, has had the most experi- ence in work of the sort the expedition hopes to do, save the Pro- fessor and Cole. Logging and hunting in the Maine forests in the vicinity of his home in Machias, and fishing on the Georges from Cape Ann smacks, have fitted him physically, as taking the highest honors for scholarship at Bowdoin, teaching and university work in his chosen branch, have prepared him mentally, for the great task in which he leads.
Cole who accompanies him up Grand River, was Prof. Lee's assistant on the "Albatross," and is well fitted by experience and by a vigorous participation in athletics at college before his graduation in 'SS.
From the expedition's actual starting place, Rockland, there are four members: Rice, the yachtsman, Simonton, Spear and the writer, all fair specimens of college boys, and eager to get some re- flection from the credit which they hope to help the expedition to win.
Portland has two representatives : Rich, '92, and Baxter, '93, the latter our only freshman; while Bangor sends three : Hunt, '90. Hunt, '91, who has charge of the dredging, and Hastings the taxi- dermist.
W. R. Smith, another salutatorian of his class, is one of the many Maine boys whom Massachusetts has called in to help train the youth of our mother Commonwealth, and has been at the head of the High School at Leicester for the past year. He, too, is thought to cqual in physical vigor his mental qualities, and has been selected to brave the hardships of the Grand River.
To complete the detail for this exploration, Young of Brunswick and of '92, has been selected, another athlete of the college, who has had, in addition to his training at Bowdoin, a year or more of instruction in the schools and gymnasiums of Germany.
Porter, Andrews, and Newbegin, the latter, the only man not from Maine, coming from Ohio, and only to be accounted for as a member of the expedition by the fact that his initials P. C. stand for Parker Cleaveland, finish the list, with but one exception and that is Lincoln. The merry-maker and star on deck and below - except when the weather is too rough-he keeps the crowd good- natured when fogs, rain, head winds and general discomfort tend to
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discontent; and on shore he sees that the doctor is not too hard worked in making the botanical collections.
For two days we lazily drifted, the elements seeming to be mak- ing up for their late riot ; but the weather was clear and bright. tl ... scenery way off to our starboard was grand, and no one was troubled by the delay, except as the thoughts of the Grand River men turned to the great distance and the short time of their trip. At last, hov- ever, the brecze came, with which I opened this letter, and which we then hoped would continue till we reached Battle Harbor.
We just flew up the straits, saw many fishermen at anchor with their dories off at the trawls, schooners and dories both jumping in great shape ; also a school of whales and an "ovea" or whale-killer, with a fin over three feet long sticking straight up. He also broke right alongside and blew. Considerable excitement attended our first sight of an iceberg; it was a rotten white one, but soon we saw a lot, some very dark and deep-colored.
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