USA > New Hampshire > Merrimack County > Concord > History of Concord, New Hampshire, from the original grant in seventeen hundred and twenty-five to the opening of the twentieth century, Volume I > Part 54
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By 1863 the New Hampshire regiments, and the Concord men therein, had done honorable service in the war. The Second had fought at the two battles of Bull Run; at Williamsburg, losing one of its captains, Leonard Drown, of Fisherville, the first of New Hampshire's commissioned officers slain on a battle-field of the war ; at Oak Grove, where Leaver and Lamprey perished ; and at Freder- icksburg. The Third and Fourth had seen severe fighting at South Carolina. The Fifth had been at Fair Oaks, and there had fired the first and the last shot; at the Seven Days' Fight, where the senior captain, Edward E. Sturtevant-the colonel, lieutenant-colonel, and major having been disabled by wounds-was in command ; at Antie- tam, where, under the lead of Colonel Cross, it earned its title, the " Fighting Fifth "; at Fredericksburg, where Major Sturtevant, "in the thickest of the fight," died beneath the fatal crest of Marye's Height. The Sixth had won, at Camden, North Carolina, name as a fighting regiment, losing there its first in battle, Curtis Flanders, of Fisherville ; it had been at the second battle of Bull Run; at Chan- tilly ; at Antietam, too, where it helped carry Burnside's Bridge ; and finally at Fredericksburg. The Eighth had fought at Georgia Landing ; and the Ninth, at South Mountain, Antietam, and Freder- icksburg ; and it was on the last-named fearful field that the Tenth, the Eleventh, the Twelfth, and the Thirteenth had fought their first battles.
502
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
On the 1st of January, 1863,-the critical year of the war,- Abraham Lincoln, in fulfilment of his promise made on the 22d of September, 1862, put forth his Proclamation of Emancipation. In Concord that New Year's day had much of summer pleasantness, and its morning was greeted by the joyful ringing of the city's bells, that rang again at noon, accompanied by the salute of fifty jubilee guns fired in the state house park. Furthermore, Emancipation day saw assembled in its honor the Republican state convention.
The Democratic party declared its hostility to this war measure, and thus another important issue was added to the issues already joined by the contending parties in New Hampshire, pending the March election of 1863. That election came during the darkest days of the struggle with Rebellion, those between the 13th of December, 1862, and the 4th of July, 1863; and with a result, at some points, closer than any other for years. This statement applies especially to the governor vote, given upon three tickets: the Republican, for Joseph A. Gilmore, of Concord, a merchant and railroad manager; the Democratic, for Ira A. Eastman, also of Concord, and recently on the New Hampshire bench ; and the Union, for Colonel Walter Har- riman, then with his regiment at the front. Eastman received a plurality over Gilmore, but through the combined Republican and Union tickets, the administration strength counted a majority of five hundred seventy-four. The legislature had a safe Republican ma- jority, thus securing Mr. Gilmore's election as governor.
In this election of 1863 Concord gave an administration majority of four hundred twenty-nine-which happened to be precisely that of 1862. Of the nine of its ten members of the general court, one was William E. Chandler, re-elected, who became speaker of the house at the ensuing session-being the fifth resident of Concord called to that position. The election of Mr. Chandler to the legislature of 1862 was the beginning of a remarkable political career, unsurpassed in New Hampshire in the prominence of the positions to be held and in the influence exerted in state and nation. He served as speaker for two terms of the legislature, in 1863 and 1864. In March, 1865, he was appointed solicitor and judge advocate general of the navy, and in June following, was made first assistant secretary of the treas- ury, which position he resigned in November, 1867. He was a mem- ber of the constitutional convention of 1876. Mr. Chandler was elected again to the legislature in 1881, and, in March of that year, was appointed solicitor-general of the United States by President Garfield, but rejected by the senate, which was opposed to him polit- ically. In April, 1882, he was appointed secretary of the navy by President Arthur,-in which office he served until March 7, 1885.
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503
LARGE MASS CONVENTION.
He was elected to the United States senate for filling out the unex- pired term of Austin F. Pike, to be re-elected in 1889, and also again in 1895,-serving in that body fourteen years; and at the close of his senatorial service was selected by President Mckinley as presi- dent of the Spanish Treaty Claims Commission.
The two branches of the city council, in 1863, remained of the usual party complexion. To elect the regular Republican candidate for mayor, Benjamin F. Gale, required a second trial; his requisite majority having been defeated in the first by votes cast upon an inde- pendent ticket.
Political interest did not abate after the election, for war events kept alive war polities; but especially warm did that interest become during the period of suspense which intervened between the Union reverse at Chancellorsville, early in May, and the Confederate defeat at Gettysburg, early in July. A stirring call was circulated in May throughout the state for signatures, thousands of which were obtained. It invited " the Union citizens " of New Hampshire " without distinc- tion of party to assemble in Mass Convention at Concord on the Sev- enteentli Day of June, 1863, for the purpose of associating together as a Public Loyal Union League of the State; of pledging themselves to unconditional loyalty to the government of the United States, and an unwavering support of its efforts to suppress the Rebellion ; and of renewing their unyielding resolve that the unity of this nation shall not be impaired." The answer to this call was to convene at the capital the largest assemblage ever witnessed in New Hamp- shire, numbering nearly thirty thousand. More than three thousand marched in procession to the music of thirteen bands, while other thousands thronged the state house park, the sidewalks, the hotels, the stores-in fine, all available standing places from Free Bridge road to Railroad square. At the speakers' stand in state house park the convention was regularly organized, with Ira Perley to preside. Postmaster-General Montgomery Blair, General Benjamin F. Butler, Congressman James W. Patterson, and Major E. B. Turn- er, a Texas Union man, were the principal speakers. Resolutions drafted by a committee and presented by Henry P. Rolfe were adopted, while the songs of the Hutchinson family pleasantly varied the exercises. Songs, resolutions, speeches-all were consonant in spirit with the unpartisan, but unequivocally loyal, call which had summoned the Union citizens of New Hampshire to take counsel together.1
Seventeen days later, on the 4th of July, 1863, another mass state convention was held in Concord, the leaders of the Democratic party
1 See more minute description in a special chapter.
.
504
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
having determined to open, then and there, the campaign of 1864. The gathering was large, numbering about twenty thousand, and the usual concomitants of display on such occasions-the procession excepted-were not lacking. Ex-President Pierce presided at the organized meeting in state house park and made the principal speech. It denounced the war policy of the national administration, and the war itself, as " fruitless in everything except the harvest of woe which it " was "ripening for what was once the peerless republic." It scouted "any of the coercive instrumentalities of military power," and urged reliance upon "moral power " alone. This failing, and thus "all efforts, whether of war or peace, having failed " to save the Union-to the question, " What then?" the speaker replied in these words of peroration : "You will take care of yourselves; with or without arms, with or without leaders, we will, at least, in the effort to defend our rights as a free people, build up a great mausoleum of hearts, to which men who yearn for liberty will, in after years, with bowed heads and reverently, resort as Christian pilgrims to the sacred shrines of the Holy Land."
Some other speaking followed in the same strain of "peace and compromise," and all to the purport that the war against Rebellion and for the Union had been and would be "a failure." While the convention was in progress, the first news of the victories at Vicks- burg and Gettysburg was received in Concord. The official intelli- gence, certified by President Lincoln and General Meade, did not come to the ears of the convention until much of the speaking was over, and then was received with incredulity. Its confirmation came later, and was recognized by the legislature, then in session, by an order directing the firing of one hundred guns in Concord, in honor of the decisive, far-reaching results achieved at Gettysburg and Vicks- burg.
With war politics thus engaging popular thought, war preparation was continued. Congress had, on the 3d of March, 1863, passed the "act providing for the enrolment of the National forces." .This measure, generally known as the "Conscription Act," prescribed that Federal provost-marshals and enrolling officers should make enrol- ment of all able-bodied male citizens between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, in two classes, those between twenty and thirty-five to constitute the first class; and all others, the second. From this enrolment, the president was authorized, from and after July 1st, to draft, at his discretion, persons to serve in the national armies for terms not exceeding three years. A commutation of three hundred dollars was to be accepted in place of such service, and provision was made for certain exemptions. The president proceeded, under this
505
THE DRAFT IN CONCORD.
law, to constitute an enrolling board for each congressional district in the loyal states, and the several boards, to perform the duty assigned them. By the 1st of July this work was completed in New Hamp- shire, but the draft did not come at onee. On the 10th of July the legislature, by resolution, instrueted the governor to confer with the war department as to equalizing, if possible, the draft among thie sev- eral towns, so that those which had furnished their quotas or more under previous calls should not be reduced to a level with those which had not. As a result of this action, such towns as could, through the governor, prove to the provost-marshal-general a surplus number raised on former quotas, might have that number of drafted men discharged. Acts were also passed authorizing towns and cities to pay bounties, not exceeding three hundred dollars each, to drafted men or their substitutes, and to aid the families and dependents of these. The city council of Concord did not hesitate to make appro- priations under these enactments, the bounty being put at the maxi- mum, or three hundred dollars. When, about the middle of July, serious draft riots occurred in the cities of New York and Boston, with disorderly indications elsewhere, the city council deemed it proper to take precautionary measures by authorizing Mayor Gale to appoint one hundred special police officers, and to purchase one hun- dred revolvers with the requisite ammunition. The purchase was made for fourteen hundred sixty dollars; but fortunately, and to the honor of the city, there was no occasion for the use of the firearms or for any further draft upon the ten thousand dollars put at the dispo- sition of the mayor to meet police emergency. In Concord there was no spirit of resistance to the draft. The prevalent disposition was to submit good-naturedly to the disagreeable necessity; while citizens liable to conscription formed, in some cases, associations to assist in obtaining substitutes for such as might be conseripted.
At last, on Wednesday, the 19th of August, 1863, the draft was made upon the seven wards of Concord. The drawing took place in representatives' hall, in the presence of many spectators, and with only half a dozen soldiers present as a provost-guard. Of the nine hundred twenty-four names placed in the wheel, two hundred sev- enty-seven were turned out, and the persons bearing them were announced as drafted. The result of the drawing was cheerfully accepted ; and, in the evening, the Concord conscripts, with a band, and under the lead of Colonel Josiah B. Sanborn, made a march through the streets. The bounties paid by Concord in this draft amounted to thirty-one thousand five hundred dollars; denoting a shrinkage upon the number drafted of about thirty-seven per cent., through commutation and physical disability. The Draft Rendez-
506
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
vous for New Hampshire having been established in Concord, with General Edward W. Hinks in charge, the first detaehments of eon- scripts eame into camp during the last days of August; and by the 24th of September, nearly six hundred had been sent to join regi- ments in the field.
In course of the spring and summer of 1863 the return of regi- ments began to be a feature of interest in the life of the capital. The Second and Fifth returned for rest and reeruitment; the Fif- teenth and Sixteenth, for final discharge, their nine months' term of serviee liaving expired. All were received with demonstrations of hearty welcome. The ringing of bells, the salute of cannon, the display of flags, the musie of bands, the march in procession, the speeches of welcome and reply, and the bountiful repast were favor- ite features of the ovations. The Second was the first of the New Hampshire regiments to whose lot sueh an ovation fell. Ordered to report to General Wool commanding the Department of the East, it reached Concord on the 3d of March, 1863. Here, at its reception, it was met and addressed by the veteran commander himself, and assigned its headquarters for ninety days. In May, with ranks replen- ished by the men of the disbanded Seventeenth, and other recruits, it departed again to join the Army of the Potomae.
On the 11th of August, came the reception of the Fifth and Fif- teenth regiments-the former, just from Gettysburg, where its ranks, already thinned at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, had been thinned again, with loss of its commander, the heroie Cross; the latter regiment, sadly depleted in the Port Hudson siege and the pestilential climate of the lower Mississippi. The city had liberally appropriated for the reception of three regiments, including the Six- teenth ; but the last returned too late. The welcome was warm and brilliant. Main street and the state house with its grounds were tastefully decorated. Military companies from Dover, Manehes- ter, and Nashua, with the Manchester, Milford, and Dover Cor- net bands, were present. Governor Gilmore received the two regi- ments in front of the state house park, with a speech of wel- come, to which Lieutenant-Colonel Hapgood of the Fifth and Major Aldrich of the Fifteenth responded. The procession was formed, under the marshalship of Nehemiah G. Ordway, and in the following order, with bands interspersed at proper intervals: General Hinks and staff, Governor's Horse Guards, Governor Gilmore and staff, Amoskeag Veterans, Nashua Cadets, Strafford Guards, a company of U. S. Regulars, the Concord Lancers (a boys' company), the Fifth and Fifteenth regiments, carriages containing wounded offieers and soldiers, members of the Executive Council, the City Government,
507
RETURNING REGIMENTS.
and distinguished visitors from abroad. After its march, the proces- sion ended at state house park, where, early in the afternoon, several hundreds dined. From a stand erected near, Congressman Edward H. Rollins called the assembly to order, with brief remarks, and thir- teen speakers responded to as many toasts. Mayor Benjamin F. Gale made response to the sentiment in memory of Major Edward E. Sturtevant; and William L. Foster to that in memory of Colonel Edward E. Cross. Among other speakers were Colonel Walter Harriman, Senators John P. Hale and Daniel Clark, and General Nathaniel B. Baker, of Iowa, formerly governor of New Hampshire.
The Fifth, on its arrival, had reported at Camp Gilmore, and it remained in Concord nearly three months, during which it was re- cruited to the minimum strength. Taking, on one occasion, its oppor- tunity to mingle the grave and the gay, it had celebrated, on the evening of September 17th, in a brilliant ball at Eagle hall, the first anniversary of Antietam, where it had won distinguished honors.
The Sixteenth regiment, though not reaching Concord until the 14th of August, and so missing the reception intended for it, had one of its own, as cordial and grateful, if less elaborate. A cannon salute greeted its arrival at the station, where a large number of people had assembled, and whence, under the general management of Colonel Natt Head, of the governor's staff, and City Marshal Jonathan L. Pickering, it was escorted, in procession, by the Fifth, with detachments from New Hampshire regiments in the field, and the Heavy Artillery, to Phenix hall, where Joseph G. Wyatt had prepared a collation under the direction of the state and city author- ities.
There were fifty-one sick and disabled men of the Sixteenth, who had reached Concord, but could not share in this reception. These were speedily cared for by the Soldiers' Aid society, and placed in hospital at the City hall, where were already some malarial patients of the Fifteenth. It was not long before, through the zealous efforts of both the state and city authorities, that a new structure, projecting from the southwest angle of the City hall building, was completed, capable of accommodating the more than one hundred victims of Southern malaria who were there treated. Of these, seventeen died; but those recovering were one by one removed to their homes, till, on the 5th of September, the extemporized hospital became vacant.
The draft had not answered expectation in furnishing men to the armies : and, on the 17th of October, 1863, a call for three hundred thousand volunteers was issued, to be enforced by a draft commenc- ing on the 5th of January, 1864. The quota of New Hampshire, under this call, was three thousand seven hundred sixty-eight; that
508
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
of Concord, one hundred thirty-two. All volunteers were to be mus- tered into regiments then in the field-no new organizations being authorized-and recruits could enter any existing regiment they might select. Recruits who had served not less than nine months were to receive five hundred two dollars in bounty and premium,-four hun- dred two from the United States, and one hundred from New Hamp- shire. Fresh recruits were to receive one hundred dollars less.
Concord heard the call and made haste to comply. On the 10th of November, the city council authorized the city treasurer to borrow, from time to time, at a rate of interest not exceeding six per cent. a year, money not exceeding in all ninety-five thousand dollars, to be expended under the direction of the mayor, in encouraging and securing the voluntary enlistment of a sufficient number to fill the city's quota. The mayor was also authorized to take an assignment of the claims of volunteers to the bounties from the state and national governments, and advance to the said volunteers the amount of such claims in cash. This action was taken upon assur- ance from the war department, that the national bounties would be reimbursed by the general government. Mayor Gale promptly and judiciously exercised the authority thus conferred. He paid out on account of volunteers, sixty-four thousand one hundred dollars of the city appropriation, and received assignments of state and national bounties-to be reimbursed-amounting to fifty-two thousand four hundred fourteen dollars; making the balance of expenditures over receipts, only eleven thousand six hundred eighty-six dollars,1 and showing the ultimate unreimbursed expenditure for each man to be about eighty-eight dollars. On the 25th of November, the quota of Concord under the call of October the 17th was declared full ; while voluntary enlistment throughout the state finally precluded the threatened draft of January, 1864.
Then came, on the first day of February, the order for a draft of five hundred thousand men to be made on the 10th of March. But as New Hampshire had filled her quota under the recent call for three hundred thousand, she would be required to furnish only her proportion of two hundred thousand; and it was soon ascertained and duly proclaimed that she had already done this-she being even in excess of all demands upon her for men, and, consequently, out of the draft.
On the 14th of March, 1864, a call for two hundred thousand more was issued, with the 15th of April designated as the time up to which the numbers required from cach town or ward of a city might be obtained by voluntary enlistment; but after that time
1 Eleventh Annual City Report, p. 34.
509
RE-ENLISTMENT OF VETERANS.
drafting was to commence as soon as practicable. Under this call, drafting was not completely avoided; and, in a draft for the Second Congressional district, which took place on the 17th of May, in the rotunda of the state house, nineteen men were drawn, including a few from Concord. This was the last enforcement of the draft in New Hampshire, though, in course of the last and eventful year of the war, two other calls for troops were made. Concord was, all the while, contributing her share of newly enlisting volunteers and of veterans re-enlisting; so that, during the year 1864, she disbursed, in bounties to volunteers, the sum of one hundred thirteen thousand five hundred fifty dollars.1
The re-enlistment of Veterans-as those who had been in the service two years were called-helped to obviate the necessity of drafting. The Sixth was the first New Hampshire regiment to re- enlist for three years or during the war. The re-enlisting veterans arrived in Concord on the 29th of January, 1864, upon their fur- lough of thirty days, and received an enthusiastic reception. On Sunday, the 28th of the following February, detachments of the Second, Fifth, and Twelfth regiments, to the number of four hun- dred fifty,-mostly re-enlisted veterans,-reached Concord upon fur- lough from Point Lookout. Among the demonstrations in their honor was a public meeting accorded them at Phenix hall, on the evening of the day of their arrival, and presided over by Mayor Gale. After prayer by the Rev. Dr. Bouton and a speech of welcome by His Excellency Governor Gilmore, appropriate speaking followed, in which the Revs. Henry E. Parker and A. J. Canfield, the Rev. Dr. Cummings, Nathaniel G. Upham, and others, participated. By the 1st of March, the state was credited with nearly seventeen hundred vet- eran re-enlistments in the following regiments, besides those already mentioned : The Third, Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, Eighth, Heavy Artil- lery, Sharpshooters, and Cavalry.
Early in 1864, the New Hampshire Battalion of Cavalry, which, since 1861, had constituted four companies, or "troops," of the Rhode Island Cavalry, was detached therefrom. The men largely re- enlisted, and formed the substantial nucleus of the First New Hamp- shire Cavalry regiment, made up of twelve troops, and having John L. Thompson, of Plymouth, for colonel, and Benjamin T. Hutchins, of Concord, for lieutenant-colonel. Two of its first lieutenants, George W. Estabrook and George II. Thompson, were also of Concord.
Concord supplied a considerable number of men and officers for the Heavy Artillery, consisting of twelve companies raised in 1864, in- cluding the Light Battery organized in 1861. The regiment had for
1 Twelfth Annual City Report, p. 25.
510
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
its first colonel, Charles H. Long, of Claremont. Its surgeon, Ezekiel Morrill ; its principal musician, John H. Caswell; its captains, Robert S. Davis, Charles O. Bradley, and Richard E. Welch ; and its second lieutenants, Joseph I. Shallis, Melvin L. Ingalls, George E. Crummett, and Asa D. Gilmore,-were of Concord.
The last New Hampshire regiment raised in the War of the Rebellion was the Eighteenth. It was enlisted partly under the call of July the 19th, 1864, for five hundred thousand troops; and partly, under that of December the 21st, 1864, for three hundred thousand -the last call of the war; for the state's quota under the first call had been filled when the sixth company was organized, but early in 1865, the organization of the regiment was completed under the sec- ond. Major Thomas L. Livermore, of the Fifth, became its colonel. Concord supplied, as its major, William I. Brown (of Fisherville), recently adjutant of the Ninthi; quartermaster-sergeant, Samuel N. Brown ; commissary-sergeant, Henry L. Harris ; principal musician, Nathan W. Gove; company captains, Alvah K. Potter, Willis G. C. Kimball, John A. Colby ; first lieutenant, Henry S. Brown.
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