USA > New Hampshire > History of the Twelfth regiment, New Hampshire volunteers in the war of the rebellion > Part 2
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When, on the second day of July, 1862, the call for three hundred thousand more men, to serve for three years or the war, was made, it was supposed that many of those recruits, especially the first enlisting, would be used to fill up the decimated ranks of the regiments already in the field.
With this impression, Col. George W. Stevens, of Laconia, foreseeing the great inducement and many advantages for men and boys, who had lived and been brought up together as neighbors and acquaintances, to enlist and serve together, not only as members of the same regiment, but comrades and tent-mates of the same company, wisely conceived the idea of raising a regiment in Belknap county and bordering towns; the com- panies to be enlisted, as nearly full as possible, from the different centre- sections of the population.
This plan being readily acceded to by Col. Thomas J. Whipple and other leading men of the county, to whom it was submitted, it was de- cided, in order to successfully inaugurate the idea and awaken the public mind to a clear sense of the necessity as well as the duty of the hour, to call and hold a grand war meeting at the North Church, in Laconia.
The meeting was advertised for the evening of Friday, July 25, 1862 ; and long before sunset, teams were coming in from every direction; and when, at half-past seven, it was called to order by W. N. Blair, Esq., the house was crowded-many being unable to get in-with men and women from almost every town in the county. Col. Charles Lane presided, and after a fervent prayer by Dr. Young, speeches were made by Gov. Berry, who had been invited, Col. Peter Sanborn, Hon. Larkin D. Mason, Cols. Stevens and Whipple, W. N. Blair, Esq., Hon. Warren Lovell, Dr. Nahum Wight. and others, all earnestly eloquent and patriotic, and received with that responsive enthusiasm that left no doubt but one or two regiments could be raised in Belknap county alone, if found necessary.
Col. Lane, upon taking the chair, said :
Gentlemen : We have met this evening to consider our duty to our country, now in a condition that we never expected, in our day, to realize or behold.
Strength and wisdom are required to carry us through this dreadful trial of civil war, and we are ready to ask counsel of our ablest men.
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History of the Twelfth Regiment
We have heard that our President is an honest man and we trust that he is : but one thing we are certain of, for many of us are personally acquainted with our Governor and know him to be honest and honorable. Ile will explain the situation to us this evening.
Gov. Berry was received with approbation, and listened to as one upon whose words of advice and promise they could safely act and rely. He spoke at considerable length of the critical situation of the country, the depleted condition of our armies in the field, and the absolute necessity of supplying this want, by an immediate and patriotic response to the call that had just been made, by the President, for three hundred thousand more volunteers to assist in maintaining the laws of the land and saving our free institutions for generations to come. He believed that while our only hope was in the patriotism of the people, that hope would not fail us, but carry us triumphantly onward over every obstacle, and through every trial to a final victory.
Col. Whipple was next called upon and was greeted with enthusiastic cheers. He spoke substantially as follows :
My Friends : I want you to appreciate if you can the magnitude of this crisis. We have just been called upon for three hundred thousand men and a thousand millions of treasure, but the end is not yet. It is to be followed by more men and more money, and when the last man and the last dollar has fallen and been expended, that dear and glorious old flag (pointing to the stars and stripes) has been preserved at a cheap price. I should be ashamed to survive this contest. I ask no higher glory than the privilege to add my name to the long list of heroes who shall give their lives for their country in this great struggle for the Union and the Constitution. If I address a man here to-night who would even dodge a bullet that could not find its way against this hell-born rebellion, but through his own heart, he is a coward and does not deserve the protection of the old flag. The hour demands the sacrifice, and who shall be base enough to withhold?
As for one, I now offer my life, my property, my all, to the support and preservation of our common country.
Peter Sanborn, state treasurer, was now introduced, but his naturally excitable temperament had been so charged by the electric eloquence of the last speaker. that his tongue, trying to vibrate in unison with his emo- tions, was too rapid for anything but a phonograph, which not being then invented, no record of his speech, not even from memory, remains. It was an impassioned effusion, characteristic of the man, whose whole heart was in the cause : but, to use the words of one who listened, "served bet- ter as a relish to the other proceedings, than as a set dish in the regular course." He closed his appeal by offering ten dollars each to the first ten men who would enlist, giving and advising them to take time to consider and counsel with their parents, wives and sweethearts, if they had any, before deciding. A day or two after several accepted the offer, and en- listed as soon as the enlisting papers were ready for them to sign.
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New Hampshire Volunteers.
Larkin D. Mason, of Tamworth, who was afterward state agent to look after the sick and wounded at the front, and thus instrumental in saving many lives, was another of the leading speakers. He was an ardent sup- porter of the Administration, and when Lincoln was nominated at Chicago, said that he believed "that the convention must have been inspired." On this occasion he said that he stood at the head of one of the largest families in the state : but he would rather sacrifice every other child by lot, and let the remaining ones have the benefit of the dear old flag, than to have them all survive with no stars and stripes to protect them. He thought Abraham Lincoln was called to the most critical position ever occupied since Washington, and that their relative positions were well described by the poet :
" 'T was great to speak a world from naught, But greater to redeem."
Washington brought from chaos the first successful republic, but oppress- ors had prostituted. and were then seeking to destroy it. But the mission of Lincoln was to restore it to its primitive purity, and make it conform to the Declaration of Independence. He had no doubt of the final result.
The speeches of Col. Stevens, Dr. Wight, Lovell, and others that fol- lowed were all noble and patriotic appeals to manhood, honor and duty, and added new fuel to the flame already kindled.
Such were the tocsin notes, sounded along the shores of the Winnipise- ogee, echoing and re-echoing amid the surrounding hills and mountains, and reverberating up and down the valleys of her contributary streams, that called together. as if by almost magic power. a thousand stalwart youth and hardy mountaineers, so quickly for the camp. as to hardly be equalled in the whole history of the war.
It was at this meeting that Col. Stevens first made public his design of raising the Twelfth regiment, and, in behalf of the people of the county, offered the same to the Governor, ready for muster, within ten days ; provided it should have the privilege of choosing its own officers-field, staff, and company-and be allowed to keep its distinctive organization as a regiment, so long as it should remain in the service.
This proposition, being afterwards formally submitted to the Governor and Council, was accepted : and on the twelfth day of August, 1862,* the necessary enlisting papers were issued by the Adjutant-General, and the work was at once commenced with a will and determination worthy of the cause.
Col. Whipple. who seemed the man best fitted by education and experience to carry out the plan so ably originated by his patriotic com- peer, entered heart and soul into the effort ; and with that inspiring elo- quence which the orator can only reach when the cause and the occasion
+ The Adjutant-General's record of the "tenth," which was Sunday, is incorrect.
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History of the Twelfth Regiment
demands, exerted a powerful influence throughout the many towns in which he spoke night and day, in his memorable circuit around the lake, leaving a continuous line of recruits falling in behind him.
So rapidly were the enlisting papers made out and signed, that hardly had three score and ten hours elapsed before returns from the recruiting offices of the different companies footed up an aggregate so near the requisite number, that it has been claimed by some that the regiment was raised in three days. According to the best authority now available, enlisting did not commence until the afternoon of Tuesday, the 12th day of August ; and sometime in the afternoon of the next Saturday, Col. Stevens sent a telegram to Adjutant-General Colby, that enough men had enlisted for a battalion of ten full companies. It must not be understood, however, that all the men of the regiment enlisted between the dates above given : for a few, whose names are found on the general roster, enlisted at an earlier date, intending and expecting to go in the Tenth or Eleventh regiment : while quite a number, who enlisted later than the 16th, took the place of those who were rejected by the examining surgeon and mustering officer, or of those who had enlisted for the Twelfth, but went in some of the later regiments, because those who enlisted them did not get elected to such official positions as they thought the number of their respective squads entitled them.
Nearly a whole company that had enlisted for the Twelfth in Sandwich, and chosen their officers, afterward went in the Fourteenth regiment.
Thus in about four days a full regiment of the hardy yeomanry of New Hampshire, who were destined to make for themselves a name and fame as enduring as their own granite hills, sprung into numerical and potential existence.
On the 26th of August, the line officers who had been previously chosen by their respective companies, met at Morrison's Hall in Laconia and elected the regimental field and staff officers, all of whom were afterward commissioned by the Governor, except Thomas J. Whipple for Colonel, George W. Stevens for Lieutenant-Colonel, and Dr. George Montgomery for 2d Assistant Surgeon : the place of the latter being after- ward filled by Dr. John II. Sanborn of Meredith.
When it was known that the Governor had refused to commission Col. Whipple to command the regiment, there was, among the enlisted mem- bers and their friends, a strong feeling of dissatisfaction which, with many, soon ripened into bitter resentment.
It was claimed, with much truth and reason, that the regiment was raised upon the express agreement that it should be allowed to choose its own officers ; and, from the very beginning, the intention and under- standing had been general and out-spoken, as the Governor himself was aware, that Col. Whipple was to command it when organized and ready for service ; that there was no other man in the state so well fitted, by nature and experience, for that position as he ; and that to withhold his
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New Hampshire Volunteers.
commission was not only a great wrong to Col. Whipple and the men who had unanimously elected him, but an act of bad faith on the part of the chief executive himself.
In reply to this, Gov. Berry claimed that in refusing to commission Col. Whipple he was acting for what he believed to be for the best interests of the regiment ; that while the risk was theirs, the responsibility was his ; and that he could not surrender his conscientious convictions of duty to any request or demand of friend or foe. He indignantly repelled the insinuations that he was influenced by either personal or political motives : and to the charge of bad faith. said that it was not only well understood, but in the " letter of the bond," that the choice of officers by the regi- ment should be subject to the approval of the Governor and his Council ; and that he had told the first one who had ever suggested his name, that he could and would not commission Col. Whipple to command the regiment.
The reasons given, which were purely prudential-the question of competency being conceded-were not sufficient, however, to satisfy the men who would listen to no name or claim but Whipple's. Petitions and remonstrances, by tens and scores, signed by officers and men of the different companies and citizens of localities where they were raised, with many letters from influential men in every part of the county and other sections of the state, were sent in and piled upon the Executive table, all asking that Col. Whipple be commissioned colonel of the regi- ment or remonstrating against the Governor's refusal so to do. The large number of these papers, still to be seen filed away in the Adjutant- General's office, are mute but convincing witnesses of the great pressure brought to bear upon Gov. Berry to move him from his negative position, and get him to comply with the popular demand ; and they attest, with equal force, how strong a hold Col. Whipple had upon the confidence and admiration of that section of the state where he lived and was best known. So intense was the feeling in the regiment against the Governor's course that, at one time, it needed but a word to have secured an oath-bound resolution, from a large majority of its members, never to leave the state until Col. Whipple should lead them ; and had not the wiser counsels of the cool-headed and law-abiding men in the ranks pre- vailed over the more excitable and less considerate, overt acts of mutiny would doubtless have been the result.
As it was, an indolent sore was formed that healed slowly, long remained irritable and tender, and left a scar upon some that still remains.
The reasons why Stevens, who was every way worthy and capable. was not commissioned colonel in place of Whipple were, to use the Governor's own words, " more than one." But the only one given by him may be understood from the following : It seems that Stevens, finding that further effort in behalf of Whipple was useless, had, by the advice of his friends and the earnest desire of Whipple himself, consented to
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History of the Twelfth Regiment
accept the position that the latter had expected to fill. and to which the regiment, naturally falling back upon him as their second choice, had elected him : and Capt. John F. Marsh, of Nashua, who had been assist- ing to organize the regiment, was at the same time elected as lieutenant- colonel, and afterward received his commission.
In the meantime Gov. Berry had made arrangements with the Secre- tary of War to get Col. Potter, then a captain in the regular army, to command the regiment.
When, therefore, the election of Stevens and Marsh was made known to him. he was placed in an embarrassing position ; for which, however, none seemed more to blame than himself.
The regiment had made its second choice in good faith, supposing, as they had every right and reason to, that, if their first choice was denied them they would, at least. have the privilege of making another, instead of having their wishes entirely ignored.
It further appears that the Governor acted without the knowledge or consent of the regiment. although he says. "This I supposed was known to them."
But why he should have supposed so, or even so acted as to have made such a supposition possible, by selecting and making efforts to secure a new man, regardless of the will or the wish of those who were to follow and obey him as their commanding officer, and in the face of the fact that their promised choice he had once seen fit to refuse them ; or why he did not finally commission Stevens lieutenant-colonel, instead of Marsh, are among the many mysteries of the past.
And thus it was. that what at the beginning seemed settled and certain, within a few short weeks went for naught; and both Whipple and Stevens, who were first and foremost in the inception and raising of the regiment, and who were able and ambitious to win honored names in the service of their country, were left in sad dissappointment at home ; while the men, who had twice elected them as their commanders, and whom they had so ardently hoped and confidently expected to lead, went marching onward to fields of fame and glory.
That this was the only instance, during the war, where any special contro- versy arose between the Governor of this state and the enlisted men and officers of a regiment as to whom should be given the commission to command them, and that this assumed such magnitude and engendered so much bitterness as it did, is the author's excuse, if any be needed, for giving it so much attention. If mentioned at all, impartial justice requires that both sides, in the main. without improper personal allusions, be represented : and without mention the history of the regiment would. certainly. be incomplete.
Knowing that it is the historian's duty to elucidate rather than mystify. and that to the proper understanding of the merits of this case too much is nec- essarily left to inference and conjecture, it is but proper that the reader should
New Hampshire Volunteers.
know that, while Gov. Berry had strong reasons for opposing the will of the regiment, and no good reason has yet been found for impugning his motives, yet it is the belief and opinion of many (including one who has recently heard both sides from the lips of the two principal parties in the contest, and taken special pains to investigate). that he should not have finally decided and actually refused to have commissioned Col. Whipple. until all his reasons for so doing had first been submitted to the regiment and acquiesced in by a majority of its members.
That while he acted conscientiously, he allowed his firm convictions of duty to partially blind him from what, in the light of surrounding circum- stances, that duty should be : taking an unwarrantable responsibility upon himself and deferring too little to the wishes and opinions of those equally competent to judge, and far more interested in the result.
That a hearing of some kind was not had. either before the whole regiment as a grand jury, or before all its line officers, acting in a representative capac- ity, with Gov. Berry and Col. Whipple both present to accuse and answer, face to face, so that the whole truth could have been elicited, and all the facts fully understood : and then ample time given for the regiment to discuss and consider those facts before giving their final verdict, was, as is believed, a mistake, without which there might and probably would have been a compromise honorable and satisfactory to both parties.
The companies, from the different towns where they were principally raised, or in rendezvous, went into camp at Concord called " Camp Bel- knap," during the last days of August and the first of September, and were soon after mustered into the United States service as follows : Cos. A and B on the 30th of August : Cos. C. D. E. and F. September 5th ; Cos. G, II, and I, September 9th ; and Co. K. September roth.
Dr. Hadley B. Fowler of Bristol. N. H., who had been chosen sur- geon of the regiment, and was the first field or line officer to receive his sealed parchment of authority. was selected by the Adjutant-General to act as examining surgeon, and passed or rejected every man who pre- sented himself as a volunteer of the Twelfth, except one company. The examination, as it should be, was careful and thorough ; but such was the texture and soundness of the material that but few pieces were rejected as unfit for the regimental structure. After running in single. " undress " file safely through the gauntlet of Surgeon Fowler's eyes and hands, each supposed himself all right for the muster-roll, but the final test was yet to come.
Capt. Charles Holmes. U. S. A .. was mustering officer at Concord at that time, and he required each man to walk along in front of him, while his sharp eyes watched every motion and scrutinized every feature. judging the fitness of the man for the business required of him quite as much from his vital motive as his physical power.
He would commence on the right of the company, and when it was seen that he began to challenge and throw out some of the men before,
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History of the Twelfth Regiment
perhaps, he had got to the center, it made some of the smaller ones, on the extreme left, think that their chances were few and fast growing less ; and when their turn would come to step out and march up the company front, each one did so, expecting, surely, his fate was sealed. But Capt. Holmes was not so green as his subjects, but knew from experience that it was in the left wings of the companies, instead of the right, that the toughest and most lasting material of every regiment is found; and for this reason it is, undoubtedly true, that the Twelfth regiment, with so large a number of men above the average size, suffered greater loss from discharge for disability and sickness than many other regiments that went through equal hardships and exposure.
After the "boys " had received their muskets and donned their uni- forms, they looked and felt so much more like what they had enlisted to be-Uncle Sam's body guard-that they all wanted their pictures taken in their new garb of army blue; and the city photographers were kept busy in supplying this want to the Twelfth and other regiments in camp at that time on the plains.
They, also, wanted now to visit their homes before they left the state, not so much, however, to be seen as they were soon to appear in the ranks of war, but once more to see the loved ones that they must leave behind : to give and receive the parting kiss and the farewell word ; and to look, perhaps for the last time, upon the heart-cherished faces and scenes of love and home. This privilege, of course, was not denied, and each one received a short furlough of two or three days or more, according to the distance he had to travel and how much time his busi- ness required before his final leave. Many had left the hay field to enlist, and some enlisted in the field, standing in the swath they were cutting and wetting the papers that they signed with the dropping sweat of honest toil. But uncut fields of grass and grain were not all nor the most important business that needed to be looked after in those few short, precious days. There were infirm and needy parents, depend- ent wives, and helpless children that must be provided for ; accounts, debts. and claims to be settled, paid, collected, or secured : law suits to be postponed, or compromised to save non-suit or default : and, always last in order, though often first in importance, wills were to be executed ; for although young, healthy, and strong, their mission was too hazardous for thoughtful, prudent men to leave the distribution of their property to the chances of war, or the cold, unfeeling law.
Thursday, the 18th of September, was a memorable day to the mem- bers of the regiment, and the many friends and relatives that visited Camp Belknap. During the early part of the day many of the roads, leading into the city from a northerly direction, were lined with carriages, filled with fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters, near and dear friends, and many others more or less intimately acquainted with and interested in the "soldier boy," his happiness and welfare. But while many come
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(the reader will excuse the misuse of the verb to help the writer forget time and space and imagine himself the happy and hopeful drummer boy, once more receiving good things to eat and presents to keep from loved ones on that occasion ) by private conveyance, steam gave its aid to con- vey to the state's capital three times as many more-the Montreal railroad having twelve cars filled with passengers, most of whom left the train at the depot for the camp ground on the plains. Each family and many of the friends sent, or took along with them, a choice portion of home's best supply to load the tables the soldiers had prepared, and leave many relishable after-bites as a dessert to their regular camp rations.
After happy hours of greeting and eating the regiment was paraded in battalion order before the large crowd of interested. earnest-gazing visitors (many of whom had never before seen a thousand men in line, and none of whom, before or since, ever saw ten full, battle-lined com- panies of nobler-looking men), and then, after this gratifying exhibition of themselves, and as quickly and well as the officers and men could at that time execute the movement, the line was broken into divisions and formed into a hollow square to listen to an address from Col. Whipple.
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