USA > New Hampshire > A history of the Second regiment, New Hampshire volunteer infantry, in the war of the rebellion > Part 22
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46
"Upon accepting promotion to brigadier-general he was assigned to the command of the District of St. Mary's, embracing an extensive camp of rebel prisoners, the proximity of which to the contending armies rendered it of great importance and its command one of grave responsibility. Three New Hampshire regiments, the Second, Fifth and Twelfth, a regiment of colored troops, one full battery of artillery, two companies of United States cavalry and several gunboats constituted this important command.
"This guard and provost duty was well and conscientiously done, but it was not the work for General Marston's hand, and no more cheering or grateful words fell upon his ear during those long and dark four years of war than those in which General Butler announced to him that his work in that line was done, and hence- forth the longing of his soul should be gratified by active service at the front.
278
SECOND NEW HAMPSHIRE.
Smith A. Whitfield, Co. I.
Born in Francestown. Was wounded at Wil- liamsburg, May 5, 1862. The following August he was appointed captain in the Ninth N. H. and was wounded at Antietam. Oct. 15, 1864, he was commissioned lieutenant-colonel of the 123d U. S. C. T., and was mustered out Oct. 16, 1865. He has attained high distinction in civil life. For several years he was connected with the Internal Revenue service; later, postmaster at Cincin- nati; and under President Harrison was First Assistant Postmaster General. He is now in business in Chicago.
"On the Ist day of May, 1864, he assumed command of the First Brigade of the First Division of the Eighteenth Army Corps, then in the Army of the James, and subsequently he was transferred to the First Brigade, Third Division of the Tenth Corps. His services and achievements in these commands are matters of familiar history, and there today we must leave them. The record is safe, and will be sacredly and reverently cherished by a grateful people so long as valor and patriotism are cultivated among men, and unselfish devotion to liberty and country is counted among human virtues.
" A striking characteristic of General Marston, as developed in his military service, was his sublime, unflinching courage. A dis- tinguished citizen of our state, himself not wanting in this noble quality, once said that if he could ask but one favor of the Almighty
279
GILMAN MARSTON.
and have it granted, he would pray God to annihilate his fears. Gilman Marston had little occasion to breathe a prayer of this import. The spark which his keen blade struck from the steel of a worthy foe never kindled terror in his breast. In his noble and more than Roman form and spirit, fear had no place. And yet his courage was not of that brute and animal kind, born of insensibility to the presence of danger, but of that highest and noblest type of courage, which with every faculty awake and keenly alive to the presence of danger, yet courts it as the mountain peak courts the coming storm.
" What better illustration is furnished of this noble quality, in all the annals of war, than the example of General Marston at the battle of Drewry's Bluff. In his brigade was a regiment that had never before been under fire. The storm of battle was bursting over the parapet, behind which his command was stationed, and shot and shell were falling in their ranks. A terrific onslaught had been repelled and another was impending. Under the terrible nerve strain the raw troops wavered, and their lines showed that a panic was imminent. The colonel commanding went to General Marston in great distress and informed him of the situation. He knew that if his regiment broke he was disgraced. The general saw the danger of such an example and instantly resolved to reassure and give confidence to the wavering line. Taking his field glass in hand, in full view of his brigade, he deliberately ascended the parapet in full exposure of the enemy's shot, and slowly walked its entire length, pausing occasionally to survey the enemy's move- ments through his glass, and then as deliberately descending, passed in front of the untried troops, speaking words of cheer and confi- dence as he did so. The panic was averted, and the force of heroic example put fear to shame and not a man faltered when the crisis came.
" Another no less striking and marked characteristic was his ardent, lofty patriotism, coupled with a spirit of self-sacrifice and personal abnegation which the youth of this land may well ponder as a model worthy of all imitation. Had he been solicitous for personal advantage, he would have rendered, either in the army or in congress, that continuous, unbroken service so essential to the
280
SECOND NEW HAMPSHIRE.
best results in the line of self interest, but to this aspect of the matter he gave no care or thought, but alternated between the two as he saw his opportunity to render the most effective service to his country.
" What more beautiful or striking example of this characteristic is furnished in all history than General Marston has given us in his answer to the solicitations of a personal and political friend to obtain a brief leave of absence and visit New Hampshire at a time when his personal appearance among his constituents was deemed, by those upon whose judgment he relied, to be highly essential to his personal interests, and at a time, too, when he was sure to be received with all the demonstration and consideration so flattering to the pride and grateful to the feelings of one who had a right to feel that he had dearly earned his distinction. Did he listen to the solicitations of personal friendship? Did he do what is so human- weigh his own interests and fortune in the balance? Did he take an hour from his country and give it to himself? No. Listen to his answer, and tell me whether we do well to honor his name today :
""'You ask me why I do not obtain leave of absence. How can I? I am well enough, and the enemy is in sight. I have been listening all day for the sound of his guns. Horses saddled contin- ually. How is one to ask for leave? Could n't take it if it was offered. I have a fine division and intend to fight the first oppor- tunity.'
" There is a soldier born, not bred. No culture of the school, no discipline of the camp, can create such a spirit. Bound to the post of duty by cords he could not sever, by a charm whose magic spell he could not break. 'The enemy is in sight !' His whole soul was ablaze with the unquenchable fire of patriotic emotion. Restive under restraint, impatient at delay, he ' had listened all day for the sound of the enemy's guns.' Thoughts of home, selfish interests, personal ambitions-these were all rank treason in that sublime hour of the soul's revelry in the highest, noblest and loftiest impulses that ever thrilled the human breast.
" What a picture is here for some genius in art to spread upon
281
GILMAN MARSTON.
Surgeon William P. Stone.
Doctor Stone was a physician of ripe years and experience, in practice at Danbury, who joined the regiment as assistant-surgeon in October, 1862. He was mustered out with the original members, in June, 1864, but was re-commissioned, as sur- geon, in July, rejoined the regiment in August, and remained with it until the final muster out. He died at Danbury in 1872.
canvas as an object lesson for the gaze of the generations of youth who may come after him in this fair land. Call up, if you will, the canonized names in history's catalogue of patriots and heroes, and who among them all, by word or deed, in all the essentials of patriotism and heroism, has surpassed this true, noble and heroic man of the old Granite State ?
" General Marston was kind to his men and most considerate of their welfare. Their comfort, health and safety were ever to him objects of constant and deep solicitude, and nothing that he could do to serve them in these directions was neglected or left undone. The violation of some technical rule of military discipline by men all their lives unaccustomed to restraint upon their freedom of speech or action, was not considered by him as an offense meriting very condign punishment, especially when prompted by no criminal or disloyal intent or spirit.
282
SECOND NEW HAMPSHIRE.
"General Marston resigned his military commission, took up the broken thread of his professional practice where he left it at war's first alarm, and henceforth devoted himself with unabated zeal to his congenial life work, interrupted only by such public duties as his fellow citizens were pleased to impose upon him.
" The services of General Marston as legislator and statesman must be left to others and other occasions. That they were valuable to his state and country and distinguished for great learning, ability and wisdom, all know. And they closed not until in the fulness of his years, he laid down the burdens of life.
" A huge granite bowlder, in form and finish as it came from the moulding palm of the divine architect, emblematical of the rugged and sterling virtues of this true and unique son of nature, with plain and simple inscription, fitly marks the spot to which the footsteps, not only of the present, but of future generations, will turn in reverent contemplation of a character which so forcefully and so beautifully illustrates the best and noblest characteristics of modern civilization."
But little need be added to the above to give a complete outline of the public career of Gilman Marston. Upon the death of Sen- ator Pike, he was appointed by Governor Sawyer to serve until the legislature could fill the vacancy. In this way was fulfilled his well known ambition to hold a seat in the United States Senate-an ambition which probably could not have been gratified in any other manner. Though a giant and leader among men, he was but a helpless infant in the whirl of political intrigue and manipulation.
Year after year he came up to Concord as a representative in the legislature from Exeter, and was the acknowledged leader of successive houses. The room of the Judiciary Committee -- of which he was chairman-was his castle, and upon its walls hangs the most satisfactory picture extant of the old hero in his later years. The picture forming the frontispiece of this volume is from a photograph taken about the time of his entering upon the com- mand of the Second, and was selected by his law partner and executor, Attorney-General Edwin G. Eastman, as all in all, notwithstanding the civilian garb, the best picture of him at the time of his military service.
283
GILMAN MARSTON.
He died in Exeter, July 3, 1890 ; and in all the great concourse of people who gathered at his funeral there were none who brought a keener sorrow than the gray-haired " boys" of his old regiment, who came from near and from far to follow for the last time one who had been to them more than a leader. Their work was not completed until, in remembrance of a preference he had sometime expressed as to the marking of his last resting place, they had procured and placed in position the granite bowlder which tells where Gilman Marston rests. After long search a satisfactory stone was found, far away, in Cheshire County, symmetrical in propor- tions, beautiful in texture, and without a flaw, upon which is chiseled the simple inscription :
IS1I. GILMAN MARSTON. 1 890.
1890
S
Marston's Monument.
CHAPTER XIX.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES .- FRANCIS S. FISKE-EDWARD L. BAILEY- - JOAB N. PATTERSON-SIMON G. GRIFFIN-HENRY E. PARKER- - HARRIET P. DAME.
FRANCIS S. FISKE.
F RANCIS S. FISKE, a son of Phineas and Isabella Redington Fiske, was born in Keene, New Hampshire, on the ninth day of November, 1825. He entered Dartmouth College at the age of thirteen, and was graduated from that institution in 1843. Three years later, he took a degree at the Harvard Law School.
After practicing his profession for a few years in his native town, he traveled extensively in Europe and Asia. In 1857 and '58 he was a member of the New Hampshire legislature. Later, he was the Washington correspondent of the New York Evening Post, and about 1860 he published a volume on the great speculative schemes of the XVIIIth Century, entitled "Law and the Mississippi Bubble."
At an early age he joined the militia of the state, serving as aide to the governor and as captain of the Keene Light Infantry. This was one of the most famous companies in the state. When under command of Mr. Fiske's father-in-law-General James Wilson-it won especial praise from President Andrew Jackson at a reception held in his honor at Concord, about 1824. This company always maintained its reputation, until it was disbanded with all the inde- pendent companies of the state.
On the 16th day of April, 1861, after reading the message of President Lincoln calling for troops, Mr. Fiske wrote on the instant to the Governor of New Hampshire, offering his services to his state in any capacity, in defense of the Union. The next day a commission to raise troops in the western part of the state was brought to him by Thomas L. Tulloch, Secretary of State for New
285
FRANCIS S. FISKE.
Hampshire. During this interview Mr. Tulloch mentioned that Governor Goodwin had just told him that Mr. Fiske's offer of services was the first received by him. Mr. Fiske did not under- stand, however, that others might not have enlisted before his offer reached the governor.
The next day Mr. Fiske left Boston, where he was just estab- lishing himself in business, and returned to Keene. Within one week, six companies had been formed, four of which had gone into camp at Portsmouth. Mr. Fiske was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the Second Regiment, and was actively engaged in drilling the recruits when the order came suspending the three months' enlistments and calling for volunteers for three years. He at once volunteered for three years and was commissioned lieutenant- colonel of the regiment. In this position he was with the regiment, without a day's interruption, for the first seven months of its existence.
After Colonel Marston was wounded, early in the first battle of Bull Run, Lieutenant-Colonel Fiske was in command of the regi- ment, which came off that field with unbroken ranks, and with all the wagons taken onto the field. He remained in command of the regiment until the following November, when he was detailed to serve on a division court martial. On being relieved from this duty he was placed in command of the Twenty-sixth Pennsylvania regi- ment, with which he remained until the battle of Williamsburg, in May, 1862.
He was already stricken by fever, but on the evacuation of Yorktown by the Confederates, and the advance of the United States troops, he placed himself at the head of the regiment then under his command, and remained until General Hooker, who for two weeks had manifested much kind solicitude concerning his health, after repeatedly urging him to place himself under a sur- geon's care, sent him, with other malaria-stricken men, to Fort Monroe, and thence to Baltimore, where he lay for nearly two months, suffering an almost mortal illness. During the year 1862 he was twice at death's door from the malarial poisoning, from which he never fully recovered.
He was never able to return to the army. In the words of a
286
SECOND NEW HAMPSHIRE.
skillful Confederate physician of Baltimore (who saved his life), "the swamps of the Chickahominy had done the business for him," as for so many other men, helping the Confederate cause as effec- tually as grape shot.
In 1865 Colonel Fiske was made brigadier-general by brevet.
For the past twenty-three years he has been an officer of the United States District Court in Boston.
EDWARD L. BAILEY.
Edward L. Bailey succeeded Marston as colonel of the Second Regiment. He was a native of Manchester, and received his edu- cation in the common schools of that city. At the opening of the
war he was a clerk in the Manchester post office, under postmaster Thomas P. Pierce, to whose powerful influence and friendship he was largely indebted for his early commission in the Second. Enlisting in the "Abbott Guards," commanded by Captain William C. Knowlton, he went to Concord as first lieutenant of the compa- ny, April 24th-it being the first company to report at camp for
287
EDITARD L. BAILEY.
the First Regiment. May Ist, the company was transferred to Portsmouth, it being understood that Thomas P. Pierce was to be colonel of the Second Regiment, and the men desiring to serve under him.
In the reorganization of the Second Regiment for three years, Captain Knowlton was ".turned down," and Lieutenant Bailey succeeded him in command of the company, the "Abbott Guards" forming the nucleus of Company I.
He was appointed major July 26, 1862 ; lieutenant-colonel October 23, 1862 ; and April 26, 1863, upon the promotion of Colonel Marston to brigadier-general, he became the colonel of the regiment.
Although one of the youngest officers, being but twenty-one when he won his eagles, he was one of the bravest and most skill- ful. His handling of the regiment in its awful test at Gettysburg, was a model of technical skill and a triumph of personal valor. He commanded the regiment in all its battles from Gettysburg to Cold Harbor, led home the old men in June, 1864, and was mustered out with them.
Soon after leaving the service he went into business in Boston, in the hat trade, but soon became convinced that he was not in his proper sphere as a trader. His talents and his formative training were all in the direction of a military life, and he sought a commis- sion in the regular army.
March 7, 1867, he was commissioned second lieutenant in the Fourth U. S. Infantry. His good services as a volunteer were speedily recognized in a batch of brevets for gallant and meritorious services during the war, as follows : for Williamsburg,"brevet first lieutenant ; for Fair Oaks, brevet captaia ; for second Bull Run, brevet major ; for Gettysburg, brevet lieutenant-colonel.
But actual promotions in the regular army, in time of peace, come slowly, and only after long waiting. It was almost nine years (February 26, 1876), before a first lieutenant's commission came to him : and it was not until December 4, 1891, that he attained the rank with which he had entered the volunteer service, thirty years before-captain. He left the service in 1893, and is now at Boise City, Idaho.
288
SECOND NEW HAMPSHIRE.
JOAB N. PATTERSON.
To Joab N. Patterson belongs the unique distinction of being the only one of the original commissioned officers of the Second Regiment who served with it through its entire career, participated in every march and every battle, and was with it at its final muster out in December, 1865.
He was born in Hopkinton, January 25, 1835. After fitting for college at New Hampton, he entered Dartmouth College in 1856, and was graduated in 1860. Having fixed upon the law as the profession he would follow, he had made arrangements for a course of legal study, when the call to arms came and changed the whole course of his career.
He enlisted as a private April 22, 1861, and receiving a warrant as recruiting officer, opened an office at Contoocookville and enlisted a company of seventy-two men for three months' service. On the reorganization of the Second Regiment for three years, he was commissioned as first lieutenant of Company H, and was pro- moted to captain May 23, 1862.
His military career appears so fully in, and forms so large a part of, preceding pages, that they need be only epitomized here. When General Marston assumed command of the District of St. Mary's, he named Captain Patterson as provost marshal, a position which, in that district above almost every other, demanded the highest capacity for work, combined with firmness and tact. He filled this difficult position to the entire satisfaction of General Marston, with whom he was always a great favorite.
He participated with the regiment, as acting major, in Butler's campaign on the James and in the Cold Harbor battle, and when the old men went home, in June, he was left in command of the fragment of the regiment remaining, being for a time the only com- missioned officer on duty with the regiment.
June 21, 1864, upon the recommendation of Generals Smith and Marston, he was appointed lieutenant-colonel. January 10, 1865, he was commissioned colonel, but was not mustered until the following June, when the consolidation with the Second of about
S. G. GRIFFIN.
BRIG. AND B'VT MAJ. GEN'L U. S. VOLS. [Formerly Capt. Co. B, 2d N. H.]
JOAB N. PATTERSON. 289
three hundred men from the Tenth, Twelfth and Thirteenth New Hampshire regiments gave it the number requisite for a colonel.
In September, 1864, he was temporarily in command of the Third Brigade, Second Division, Eighteenth Army Corps, and commanded it in the action on the Williamsburg road, October 27, 1864. He served with distinction, as fully narrated elsewhere, and was finally mustered out with the regiment, December 19, 1865, having won his brevet as brigadier-general of volunteers, to date from March 13, 1865, for "bravery in battle and good conduct throughout the war."
Returning to New Hampshire, he settled in Concord, where, in March, 1867, he married Miss Sarah C., one of the accomplished daughters of Rev. Dr. Nathaniel Bouton, one of New Hampshire's most distinguished divines and historical writers. He was appointed United States Marshal for the District of New Hampshire, which position he held until the accession of President Cleveland.
At the close of the war, and before the reorganization of the New Hampshire militia, he held the commission of brigadier-gene- ral ; but upon the reorganization of the force, he resigned, and had no further connection therewith until the organization of the Third Regiment, April 18, 1879, when he accepted a commission as its colonel. He was subsequently commissioned brigadier-general, commanding the New Hampshire National Guard, which command he retained several years.
He was appointed by President Harrison Second Auditor of the Treasury, which position he filled with great credit for four years, and on retiring therefrom, settled in Washington, where he is now engaged in the life insurance business.
SIMON G. GRIFFIN.
But one of all the volunteer soldiers from New Hampshire won the right to wear the double stars upon his shoulder, and that man was Simon G. Griffin, a graduate of the Old Second.
He was a native of Nelson, born August 9, 1824. Arriving at
I9
290
SECOND NEW HAMPSHIRE.
manhood, he engaged in teaching, dabbled a little in politics, and at length commenced the study of law, being admitted to the bar in Merrimack county in the fall of 1860. But when, the following April, Sumter was fired on, he threw law books aside and took up the sword. He raised, and was commissioned captain of, the "Goodwin Rifles," which became Company B of the Second Regi- ment, and which he commanded at the first battle of Bull Run and until the October following, when he was appointed lieutenant- colonel of the Sixth New Hampshire. In March, 1862, Colonel Converse resigned, and Lieutenant-Colonel Griffin was appointed colonel on the 22d of April.
On the 7th of April, 1862, he commanded a highly successful expedition to Elizabeth City, North Carolina, and on the 19th of April led his regiment in the battle of Camden. At the second battle of Bull Run, and at Chantilly, the Sixth, under his command, distinguished itself by its good conduct ; and at Antietam, with the Second Maryland, it carried the stone bridge across Antietam creek by a valorous charge.
On the 20th of May, 1863, Colonel Griffin was assigned perma- nently to the command of the First Brigade, Second Division, Ninth Army Corps. Early in June the brigade went, under command of Colonel Griffin, to the assistance of General Grant in his operations against Vicksburg, and participated in its capture. He was also with his command in the campaign of General Sherman against General Joseph E. Johnston, and the capture of the city of Jackson, Mississippi, in July, where he was in charge of the Ninth Corps, having three brigades under his command.
In August the corps returned to Kentucky, and a part of it immediately proceeded across the Cumberland Mountains to join General Burnside in his campaign in East Tennessee, Colonel Griffin being in command of the Second Division. In October he was sent by General Burnside to bring forward the remainder of the Ninth Corps, which had been left in Kentucky, but was finally assigned to the command of Camp Nelson, at that time a large and important post, as the rendezvous of the Tennessee refugees, to the number of about nine thousand, who were there formed into regiments.
In the spring of 1864 the Ninth Corps was reorganized at
291
SIMON G. GRIFFIN.
Annapolis, Maryland, and Colonel Griffin was assigned to the com- mand of the Second Brigade, Second Division, composed of the Sixth, Ninth and Eleventh New Hampshire, the Thirty-first and Thirty-second Maine, and the Seventeenth Vermont regiments. He commanded his brigade in the battle of the Wilderness, May 6, 1864, and also in the battle of Spottsylvania Court House, on the 12th, in the latter of which it saved General Hancock's corps from being routed. It was in this battle that Colonel Griffin acted with such consummate skill and gallantry as to win a brigadier-general's commission, on the recommendation of General Grant. He was in command of his brigade at the battles of North Anna River, May 20th and 21st, Tolopotamy Creek, May 31st, Bethesda Church, June 2d, and Cold Harbor, June 3d.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.