USA > New Hampshire > A history of the Second regiment, New Hampshire volunteer infantry, in the war of the rebellion > Part 23
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
On the night of the 16th of June General Griffin, in command of his own and General Curtin's brigade, made an adroit and suc- cessful attack on the enemy's intrenched lines in front of Petersburg, carrying their works for a mile in extent, capturing nearly one thousand prisoners, besides four pieces of artillery, caissons and horses, more than a thousand stand of small arms and a quantity of ammunition. General Potter, commanding the division, intrusted the whole planning and execution of this attack to General Griffin, and most skillfully did he carry out his part of it. He had made a wide breach in the enemy's lines, and there was nothing to prevent an advance into the city, had supports come up in time. But the other corps were not ready to advance, and when, at three o'clock in the afternoon, the First and Third Divisions attacked, the enemy was prepared to meet them, and they were repulsed with immense slaughter.
On the 2d of April, 1865, General Griffin arranged and led the assault on the enemy's lines at "Fort Hell," on the part of the Second Division, Ninth Army Corps. At the commencement of the action General Potter, commanding the division, was severely wounded, and was succeeded by General Griffin, who exhibited throughout the greatest activity, bravery and skill. For "gallant conduct" in this battle he was brevetted a major-general of U. S. volunteers-a brevet won sword in hand on one of the most bloody fields of the entire war. He retained command of the division and
292
SECOND NEW HAMPSHIRE.
joined with the corps in the pursuit and capture of General Lee's army. He returned with the division to Alexandria, and was mus- tered out of the United States service in September, 1865.
After returning home, General Griffin was offered by the gov- ernment a position as field officer in one of the old regiments, and his appointment was made out and sent to him; but after so thorough an experience of the hardships and privations of the field, and after the war was over and there being no real call of his country for his services, he preferred the quiet and enjoyment of home, and declined the offer. Subsequently General Griffin settled in Keene, where he still makes his home. In 1866, '67 and '68 he was elected to a seat in the popular branch of the legislature, and served the last two years as Speaker of the House.
HENRY E. PARKER.
In Chaplain Parker was typified the high personnel of the Old Second. A native of Keene, forty years of age, possessed of high scholarly attainments, and for ten years the pastor of the South Congregational church in Concord-such was the man who went to the front with the Second as its first chaplain. After leaving the service, he was for a quarter of a century Professor of Latin at Dartmouth College, which position he resigned in 1891. The Dartmouth Literary Monthly for November of that year contained the following sketch, at once a biography and a tribute :
" PROFESSOR PARKER. Gentleman, Scholar, Christian !- These words so often used, so often misapplied, rang in the hearts of every one of us in all their truth and strength, as the man known and reverenced by all stood in the old chapel some few days ago and said good-bye. And the standing forms, the silence broken only by the simple words of farewell, and the eager faces fixed in grave attention showed that truth and gentleness and bravery were receiving their homage due.
" One of the senior speakers had quoted that afternoon many a line from the English Laureate, but one verse, often quoted, he had
CHAPLAIN HENRY E. PARKER.
294
SECOND NEW HAMPSHIRE.
not used ; but it seemed when Professor Parker stood before us as though its meaning was clearer than ever before :
** ''T is only noble to be good; Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith, than Norman blood.'
"Over half a century ago he entered Dartmouth, which had been the college of his father before him, and throughout his course was known as a strong man, the leader of his class, and as one in whom absolute confidence could be placed. Many a story has been told of his utter indifference to fear of any kind. It was considered in those days quite a feat for the more daring among the students to run and jump from the top of a high bank, that overlooked the Connecticut, into the water. Many took the leap, but 'Parker,' said the gentleman who told me the incident, 'was the only one who would jump with his eyes open, the others shutting them tight when they reached the edge.'
"From 1843 to 1844 he was tutor in the college, after which he went to Union Theological Seminary in New York, from which he graduated in 1847. Men who were in the seminary at the time, even those knowing him but slightly, speak of him as a man whose acquaintance was a benefit. 'A good man,' 'a true-hearted gentle- man,' are phrases frequently used by them.
" He was ordained as evangelist at Eastport, Maine, March 13, 1849, was acting pastor of the South Congregational church at Concord for one or two years, and installed there May 4, 1851. Here he spent ten years of earnest, hard work, and here again his simple, true-hearted honesty and singleness of purpose raised up friends on every side.
" Then came the war. Mr. Parker went to the front as chaplain of the Second Regiment New Hampshire Volunteers, Colonel Marston commanding, and was as much at home in the camp as in the pulpit. Every man in the regiment, from colonel to the hum- blest private, respected and loved him. The chaplain's duty in our army is an anomalous one ; he has, by the regulations, the rank and the pay of a captain, but has really nothing to do, and is usually regarded by the soldiers as more or less an incumbrance. But Chaplain Parker was an exception ; he endured every hardship, he
295
HENRY E. PARKER.
was a comforter in trouble, while among the wounded and the dying no presence was so welcome as his. When the regiment went into battle he would lead his horse with splendid courage where the bullets fell thickest, and loading the animal with the wounded would carry them away to a place of safety only to return again and again on the same errand.
"Until the battle of Antietam, Mr. Parker had been in every battle in which the almost always beaten, and always just as pluckily fighting, Army of the Potomac had taken part. These included among others the seven days' fight before Richmond, which culmi- nated in the battle of Malvern Hill. After the army went into camp at Harrison's Landing, the malaria, which had painted nearly every man in the army with its yellow pigment, forced Chaplain Parker, though much against his will, to go back to New Hampshire. It was almost a year before he was himself again, but finally the Northern air succeeded in driving the enemy, bred in the Virginia swamps, from his system.
" After a visit to Europe, he became, in 1866, Professor of Latin here in Dartmouth, a position which he has held ever since. The previous incumbent had been Professor Noyes, whom Professor Parker had succeeded once before when he became pastor of his Concord church.
" For twenty-eight years has Professor Parker been instructor in Latin in this college, and in all that while not a word has been heard concerning him that was not of honor and affection. Some- thing better than the meaning of Latin nouns and verbs has come to every man who has been under his instruction, for a spirit of rare courtesy, a gentleness and yet strength of manner, an atmos- phere of courtliness and high breeding, have shown to class after class the true meaning of the grand old word, gentleman. Known and honored outside the college walls as well as in, it is safe to say that no man walks the streets of Hanover so well beloved as Pro- fessor Parker. In him the poor and the friendless have found a warm heart and a helping hand, while his broad sympathies have identified him with every good work.
" Some years ago, while, courageous as ever, he was rendering assistance at a fire, a chimney fell upon him, injuring his head and
296
SECOND NEW HAMPSHIRE.
back severely. He was carried home, and it was not expected that he would live. But he rallied, grew strong, and once more took up his duties in the college. He has, however, never fully recovered, and for the last few years has been advised again and again by his physicians to lay aside the harness, and, finally unable longer to bear the burden, he placed his resignation in the hands of the trustees.
"No one of the present Senior class will ever forget the hours spent in the North. Latin room ; the dignified, wrinkled face, look- ing at us over the text-book; the gentle, kindly voice, the cour- teous manner, the honest true spirit of the man who seemed more like some intimate friend than an instructor ; old Dartmouth hall will not seem the same when his form shall no longer go in and out of its door-ways ; the college yard will seem different when he shall pass no longer beneath the elms. And when one thinks again of the courtly gentleman, polished scholar, true Christian, Henry Elijah Parker, these other words of Tennyson, once used in describ- ing Arnold of Rugby, spring naturally to the lips :
"' Strange friend, past, present and to be, Loved deeplier, darklier understood; Behold I dream a dream of good, And mingle all the world with thee.'"
MISS HARRIET PATIENCE DAME.
In the city of Concord, where, in April, 1861, New Hampshire's earliest volunteers mustered for the war, there was then residing a maiden lady of middle age, a lady of refined manners and of delicate physique, whose destiny it was, in her own sphere, to win fadeless laurels and undying fame as one of the genuine heroines of the war. She was born in Concord, January 5, 1815. Her name was Harriet Patience Dame. It is a name that will not be found on any official roster of the Second Regiment ; but she was with them, she was of them, and was and is honored and respected and loved by her old comrades with a depth of affection that can find no adequate expression in words.
297
HARRIET P. DAME.
'There were army nurses and army nurses ; but those who, like Harriet Dame, " roughed it" with the men, who shared their hard- ships, and often their dangers, whose ears were familiar with the roar of battle, and whose hands bound gaping wounds fresh from the battle line, could probably be counted upon the fingers of one hand, with fingers to spare.
It is not probable that when she first opened her house for the reception of sick soldiers from the camp at Concord, she had any thought of the remarkable experience which lay before her ; but when the Second Regiment went to the front, she joined it as a hospital matron, and was with it or near it to the end, although at times her services took a wider range, making her name a familiar one throughout the entire Army of the Potomac.
At one time at Budd's Ferry (she has said), " I received a letter from Doctor Hubbard, our surgeon when we first left home, urging me to join him at Paducah, Kentucky. The prospect of a change was very alluring. Anything was preferable to the stagnation, and I seriously considered the offer. But the familiar faces of the boys I had known in their beardless, happy days proved a strong mag- net. I consulted our chaplain, Mr. Parker, telling him of my divided ambition, and he counseled me to wait one week. During this time he wrote to Colonel Marston, who had then taken his seat in Congress, and asked his advice. There was the true military atmosphere in the answer : 'Stay where you are, and do not desert the regiment.' I obeyed this command, and down deep in my heart rose a quiet thanksgiving that duty had been made so plainly to lead inclination. With this first diversion perished every desire that was not prompted by devotion to the regiment of my choice."
She shared with the regiment the fortunes of the Peninsular campaign. Her first night before Yorktown was spent in a feed- box which one of the teamsters brought her for a couch. At Fair Oaks a random shell from the enemy tore its way through the tent in which she was ministering to one of her sick boys.
But it was on the retreat to the James that her courage and endurance rose to the height of sublime heroism. The announce- ment to the sick men in the hospital that those who could not walk must be left behind, fell upon many with all the weight of a death
298
SECOND NEW HAMPSHIRE.
warrant ; the horrors of life in rebel prisons were now well known, and to them capture meant death. Harriet Dame resolved to remain with them ; but when, nerved by desperation, they rose from their cots, resolved on a supreme effort for liberty, she led them forth upon their doubtful journey. They took nothing with them. One faithful fellow, prompted by a tenderness born, perhaps, of a remembered mother or wife, destroyed her little wardrobe so the rebels should not desecrate it. With her feet encased in a pair of rubber boots, her head protected by a faded tatter of mosquito netting, and bearing a coffee boiler and a supply of coffee, she went forth, the guiding spirit of that party of feeble, tottering men.
Although one man of the squad (Josiah Taft, of Company A), died before reaching Harrison's Landing, yet it was to her devotion and inspiring courage that most of them owed their liberty and some their lives. At every halt for rest she would fill her coffee boiler and cheer the lagging spirits of her boys with the reviving decoction. At length, reaching the great tangle of the trains, she encountered Captain Godfrey, the division quartermaster, and while she resolutely kept her own feet to the ground, she fought for her boys, and corners were found for more than one of them in baggage wagons and ambulances.
Along in the night she reached a farm house somewhere near Charles City Cross Roads. "The provost guard," she says, "went into the farm house to find a sleeping place for me, but the aggres- sive and disgusted women of the household refused, under the plea that the house was full. I added my own resolute statement that I had a blanket and would sleep in the empty hall, which I proceeded to do in defiance of the opposition offered by the indignant women, and left the house to tell my men where I might be found. Return- ing, I was met by a meager specimen of a negro boy, who piloted me to a large room up-stairs, where a bed upon the floor invited me to repose. And, in one moment, sleep for me had knit up the raveled sleeve of care. The war, its cruelty and horrors, all were forgotten, until a small voice piped into my ear : 'Missis, you had better git up. They 's gwine ter fight.' And when my heavy lids lifted and the cheerful daylight showed me the situation, my awak- ening senses realized that the teams were all gone, and the army
1
-
Photograph by Parker, Washington, 1895.
MISS HARRIET PATIENCE DAMF.
300
SECOND NEW HAMPSHIRE.
was drawn up in line of battle before me, waiting for the rebel attack. My toilet was a delayed luxury. My willing and respon- sive feet obeyed the bent of my mind, and the two carried me to my boys, whose eager welcome and enthusiastic energy proved them to have been improved by the forced march of the preceding day."
The following day, near Malvern Hill, she had her first unique experience as a prisoner. Pushing out of the crush of the train with one attendant, they had proceeded a little distance on a side road when they ran plump upon a rebel picket. She was taken back through an apparently very anxious and panicky line of rebel pickets, and ushered into the presence of an officer, with whom she had the following dialogue :
" Got too far into Dixie, hey? "
" No, not as far as I'm going."
" How far are you going? "
" As far as Richmond."
"Ah! Going as a prisoner ? "
" No. I am going under the old flag."
The officer had no further time to devote to a woman. It soon dawned upon Harriet that her new acquaintances had dropped her, and that she was no longer under guard or surveillance, but at perfect liberty to wander away at her own sweet will. She improved the opportunity, and when the rebels fell back, soon after, had no difficulty in making her way back to her own people.
In the second Bull Run campaign she was at the stone church at Centreville, and near here she was again a prisoner for a brief time. Wandering forth on some mission, about dusk, she was startled by the ominous " click, click " of a rifle lock in a clump of trees she had approached.
"Surrender, thar, or I'll shoot !" said some one in a low tone.
" Don't do that," replied Miss Dame, quietly, " but come on and arrest me. I am doing no harm."
As she turned toward the dark forest several Confederate sol- diers stepped forth. " What are you doing of ?" asked one.
" Nursing the wounded."
" 'That won't do. You will have to come to headquarters."
301
HARRIET P. DAME.
With that she was marched away, even to the tent of Stonewall Jackson himself. The grand old warrior sat alone. He glanced at her, and when she showed her bandages for the wounded, her flask and her medicines, he thundered : "Take that lady back to the Northern lines." She was carefully escorted to the spot where she had been captured, from whence she made her way back without difficulty.
It would fill a volume to follow her career in detail. In the winter of 1862 and the spring of 1863 she was in the Washington hospitals, and organized the New Hampshire Relief Association. Then she was sent by Governor Gilmore to South Carolina to exam- ine into the condition of the New Hampshire men of the Third, Fourth and Seventh regiments. Miss Dorothy Dix resolutely opposed her going, saying she would not be allowed to land and would make the effort at great risk. But the determined little woman went forward, and her personal magnetism won her a landing and the opportunity for gathering all the materials for her report. More than that, her visit led to a reform in the transpor- tation service for the sick in that department, as a report which she took the liberty to make to Surgeon-General Barnes led to the detailing of the " Argo " and "Fulton " as hospital boats.
She was back in season for Gettysburg, and there, in the field hospitals, found herself in the midst of such a multitude of her old boys, wounded and dying, as would have appalled any but the stoutest heart.
During the winter of 1863 she had charge of the New Hamp- shire Soldiers' Relief rooms in Washington, but in the spring of 1864 she took the field with the Army of the James. During the Cold Harbor campaign she established herself at White House, and later was at the Eighteenth Corps field hospital at Broadway Land- ing, or Point of Rocks, on the Appomattox, a view of which is to be found on page 240. Chaplain Adams has drawn a pen picture of her at this post-"one moment distributing garments, comfort- bags, cordials, &c., from her private tent, at another moving under the large cooking tent, surrounded with delicate and substantial articles of diet, and the large kettles steaming with wholesome and palatable food in a state of preparation. This tent was her throne :
302
SECOND NEW HAMPSHIRE.
but she did not sit upon it. From this place she issued her orders, dispatched her messengers, and distributed luxuries to thousands. Here she not only ruled with system, but with sleeves rolled up, toiled harder than any of her assistants."
With the surrender of the rebel armies and the breaking up and disbandment of the Union hosts, she again united herself closely with the regiment, in which there was at times a great amount of sickness, and remained with it until its muster out.
Soon after the war Hon. William E. Chandler offered her a position in the Currency Division of the United States Treasury- now Loan and Currency Division-which she still holds. Three or four years ago she was induced to place herself under a civil service examination for promotion, and passed the ordeal trium- phantly.
In the winter of 1894-5 she suffered a fracture of the bone of one leg by falling upon an icy pavement ; but notwithstanding her advanced years, her iron constitution and unconquerable courage carried her triumphantly through the crisis to recovery, so that in August following she was able to make her annual pilgrimage to Weirs, where, in the spacious headquarters building which was her own royal gift to the Second Regiment Association, she spent days of pleasant reunion with her old comrades, receiving the homage due the bravest, the sweetest and best beloved of them all.
CHAPTER XX.
THE GETTYSBURG MONUMENT.
IN sympathy with the great conception of making of the battle- field of Gettysburg a national park, with the designation of positions by enduring monuments and memorials, the legislature of New Hampshire appropriated the modest sum of five hundred dollars for a monument to each New Hampshire organization par- ticipating in that battle.
At a subsequent meeting of the Second Regiment Association, a committee, consisting of General J. N. Patterson, Lieutenant F. C. Wasley and M. A. Haynes, was chosen to procure the monument and attend to the details of its erection.
The design selected was worked out in the finest of Concord granite, at the shops of Thomas Nawn, at West Concord. It consisted of three pieces-a base five feet square and one foot and eleven inches thick, with champered corners ; a plinth of the same shape, four feet square and fifteen inches thick; the plinth sur- mounted by a pyramid three feet and four inches square at the base and seven feet and one inch in altitude. The corners of this pyramid are champered, and on each is cut in bas relief a full sized musket ; while below, on the square formed by the champered corners of the base of the pyramid, is the diamond badge of the Third Corps, with polished surface. The four sides of the plinth are polished, and on three of them are inscriptions, as follows :
On the north side-
2D NEW HAMPSHIRE
VOL. INFT.
3 BRIG., 2 DIV., 3 CORPS.
SECOND REGIMENT MONUMENT AT GETTYSBURG.
305
GETTYSBURG MONUMENT.
On the east side-
ENGAGED. 24 OFFICERS, 330 ENLISTED MEN. JULY 2, 1863.
On the west side-
CASUALTIES. OFFICERS. KILLED 7, WOUNDED 14. ENLISTED MEN. KILLED 18, WOUNDED 119, MISSING 35.
The location assigned to the monument by the Gettysburg Bat- tlefield Association was at the southern edge of the peach orchard, near the Emmitsburg pike, on the advanced line held by the regiment in the terrible struggle of July 2. In the accompanying illustration the view is toward the south, across the fields over which Kershaw's rebel brigade advanced.
The monument being completed and placed in position, it was decided to dedicate it in connection with a general reunion of the Third Corps to be held on the field on the twenty-third anniversary of the battle. The following circular was issued :
Ho! SECOND NEW HAMPSHIRE FOR GETTYSBURG.
CONCORD, N. H., June 8, 1886.
COMRADE: A meeting of survivors of the Third Army Corps is to be held on the battlefield of Gettysburg, on the second day of July next, the twenty-third anniversary of the day on which were fought the battles that were decisive of the final overthrow of the armies of our gallant but misguided foes.
The old Second New Hampshire will never cease to boast that they belonged to the Third Corps, and took no insignificant part in the bloody struggles of that memorable day. To per- petuate the memory of the valorous deeds then and there performed by her gallant sons, the State of New Hampshire has provided monuments to be erected on that world-renowned field; and the monument for our regiment will be erected and dedicated at that time. Comrade Haynes will deliver an oration, and Chaplain Adams a poem. Gen. Gilman Marston has signified his desire to be present, and he will do so, unless prevented by circumstances beyond his control. Miss Dame will surely be with us.
The expenses of the round trip from Boston to Gettysburg and return, including transporta- tion, rations and lodgings, will not exceed twenty dollars. Any comrade who receives this circular, and knows of any comrade who has not received it, is requested to send at once the name and address of the latter to the secretary; and all comrades who can and will go are desired to send their names to the secretary without delay. Comrades have the privilege of taking their families and friends, but are requested to notify the secretary of the same.
If the weather shall be favorable, and the members of our association shall be inclined tha way, we can bivouac in the Peach Orchard where we received and withstood that shower of shot
20
306
SECOND NEW HAMPSHIRE.
and shell which put hors de combat three-fifths of all the men of our command who answered to the roll-call on that fateful morning.
There will never be a more favorable opportunity for the surviving members of the "Old Second" to visit the scene of their most bloody conflict, and to pay their tribute (the last it may be) of respect and love to the memory of their fallen comrades.
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.