USA > New Hampshire > Sullivan County > Claremont > History of the town of Claremont, New Hampshire, for a period of one hundred and thirty years from 1764 to 1894 > Part 23
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Arrived at the stand, the band performed a national air. The marshal, Nathaniel Tolles, called the assembly to order, and intro- duced Samuel P. Fiske, chairman of the committee of arrange-
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H. W. PARKER'S RESIDENCE.
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ments, and also chairman of the monument committee, who made a short address, giving an account of the inception of the soldiers' monument to be dedicated, and the work upon it to completion, announced the officers and introduced the president, John S. Walker. The president called upon the chaplain, Rev. E. W. Clark, who invoked the divine blessing in fitting and eloquent terms.
The president delivered a short address, welcoming, in well chosen words, all who were present, as well those of the town and county as those from more distant parts. He said that General Philip H. Sheridan had accepted an invitation to be present, and had been expected until that morning, when a telegram was received from him, explaining his inability to be with us. It concluded :
Please say to my old comrades and the good people in attendance how deeply I regret not being present with them to do honor to the memory of the gallant men from New Hampshire who fell in defense of the Union and their rights.
At the close of the president's address, the signal being given, the American flag, which had enveloped the bronze statue, was skillfully lifted therefrom by Samuel P. Fiske, chairman of the monument committee, assisted by Benjamin P. Gilman, raised to the top of the pole to which it was attached, and floated in the breeze over the monument.
The orator, Dr. J. Baxter Upham, was then introduced, and delivered a very appropriate oration, in a voice that could be heard by those of the vast crowd most remote from the speaker. It was a touching and eloquent tribute to the dead heroes com- memorated by the monument. Every word of it is worthy a place in this book, but the imperative law of necessity compels its abbreviation, at the risk of marring the beauty of the per- formance. Among other things the speaker said :
Standing here, under this gray October sky, near the spot where I was born, on an occasion at once so novel and impressive, before these high dignitaries of the state, these hero-representatives of our armies, in the presence of this vast multitude who have come up hither from all parts of the old county of
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Cheshire, and from more distant towns- many of whom are known to me from my childhood - a crowd of tender recollections comes rushing back upon my brain.
The outward world around us remains indeed the same. The same nature - undying, undecayed - is here. But all else, how changed ! As I look out upou these scenes, so familiar and dear to me - this amphitheater among the hills, the solemn Ascutney, the meadow and its winding river, -to swim in whose waters and skate upon whose glassy surface was a part of my early edu- cation, -the sight of the old schoolhouse and the church, these plains and valleys and fertile fields, calm and peaceful as of old, I can with difficulty bring to myself the reality that some of those who joined with me here in the sports of boyhood have passed through the maddening carnage of civil war, and I now read their names on yonder tablets - that martyr list of heroes.
But if, amid all the carnage, political and social, which must needs happen in a quarter of a century and more of one's life, it had been possible to foresee that "great trial and great task of our liberty " through which we have just gone, I could have also foreseen, to a certainty, that the part my native town should bear in it would be just the honorable record it has shown. The mili- tary history of the state justifies this. The chronicles of the town from the first settlement in 1762, have given a warrant and a pledge of it. From among the earliest settlers I find the name of Joseph Waite - whether or not an an- cestor of our respected fellow-citizen of that name to whom we are all so much indebted for his valuable and painstaking history of our Claremont soldiers in the recent struggle I cannot say - Colonel Joseph Waite, who, on the authority of Mansfield, the annalist, had already won distinction in the French and Indian war, was a captain in Rogers's famous corps of Rangers in 1759, and com- manded a regiment in the, war of the Revolution, - Captain Joseph Taylor, who, in 1755, was taken by the Indians and sold to the French, but escaped and took part in the siege of Louisburg, and afterward in the Revolutionary struggle, and died at the good old age of eighty-four, in 1813, - Hon. Samuel Ashley, a man of note in our annals, who had served with credit in the old French war, and filled many offices of civil trust in the town, and others of like distinction, who might be named if the time would permit. And imme- diately upon the outbreak of hostilities in 1775, I find the names of several of our citizens upon the muster rolls of the First New Hampshire regiment - that honorable regiment which, under the gallant Stark, was conspicuous at Bunker Hill, and which followed the varying fortunes of the patriot army till the final capitulation at Yorktown. The men of Claremont bore their part also in the second war with England, on the field where Miller and McNeil so nobly up- held the honor of the state. In later struggles- in Texas, under Houston - one life from here, at least, went down to its unknown grave. Nor were the Florida and Mexican wars without their representatives from this devoted town.
So, when the news came that treason and rebellion had burst forth into
ʻ
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actual hostilities on that memorable twelfth of April, 1861, true to the old · honor and name, the citizens of Claremont, with one accord, sprang to meet the issue. I need not recall to your minds with what alacrity the whole com- munity came together, each vying with the other in encouraging enlistments, and furnishing that material which has well been called " the sinews of war" - pledging, if need be, in the spirit and language of the Revolutionary fathers, " their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor,"- womanly hands, too, taking up the good work, and laboring earnestly and unceasingly for the same noble end - all this is still fresh in your memories.
Within three days of the President's proclamation and call for seventy-five thousand men to suppress a rebellion against the government of the United States, and immediately upon the order issued by the governor for a regiment to be raised in this state to serve for three months, an office was opened here for enlistments ; "the young men," says our historian, "flocked in faster than they could be examined and sworn." On the thirtieth of the same month, Major Waite set forth, with the eighty-five patriot soldiers recruited by Captain Austin, for the rendezvous of the regiment at Concord - a full company, nearly, from this town of about four thousand inhabitants, -and if the whole popu- lation of the state had been represented in the same ratio, instead of a single regiment of seven hundred and eighty rank and file, enough for more than ten regiments could have been had on this first call to arms. As it was, more than enough for two regiments volunteering, the Claremont men were sent to Portsmouth, where, at the second call of the President, on the third day of May, for three hundred thousand men for three years, one half of this company at once re-enlisted, the remainder being discharged for disability or sent to the defense of the sea coast at Fort Constitution. This was the first offering of some of its noblest representatives sent forth by this town to battle with the Rebellion. They could have been urged by no other than the purest mo- tives of patriotism - with no prospect of reward save the proud consciousness of doing their duty.
This regiment, in which they finally enlisted, was virtually the first of the New Hampshire regiments in the War of the Rebellion, though still retained as the second in nomenclature of the New Hampshire line - first, as it was, at least, coeval in its organization with the three months' regiment which preceded it, by a little, to the field of strife, -first, as it had the priority in its actual baptism of fire and of blood. Not to lay undue stress upon this point, I may be pardoned for dwelling somewhat on the exploits of this gallant regiment, from the circumstances I have already named, and from the fact that it was my proud good fortune, at the head of a thousand sons of New Hampshire, to welcome its full ranks as it passed through Boston on its way to Washington, on the twentieth of June, 1861; and therefore I have followed its onward career with more than ordinary interest. It alone, among the regiments of our state, par- ticipated in the first great battle of Bull Run, doing all, under its brave leaders,
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that valor and determination could do to breast the woful disasters of that day -giving in the death of Andrew J. Straw of this town, the first New Hamp- shire martyr to freedom, slain in battle, in this war. The loss of the regiment in killed and wounded was severe. Its gallant colonel was stricken down at the head of his command, early in the action, but returned and continued in the fight. It went into the fray with full ranks and buoyant spirits. It came out of it with at least equal honor with any other of that patriot army, which then and there learned the stern but salutary lesson of a first defeat. Its next experience was at the siege of Yorktown, and immediately afterward, at the sanguinary battle of Williamsburg, where it fought with honor and with varying success, with the loss of about one hundred men. We hear of it next at Fair Oaks and Malvern Hill, and in most of the bloody battles of the memorable seven days fight and retreat to the James river. The following year, after consecrating itself to the cause at the second Bull Run, where it behaved with distinguished gallantry, losing ten of its twenty-one commissioned officers, and one hundred and thirty-two of the little more than three hundred rank and file with which it entered the fight, it encamped at night on the identical spot where it formed its first line of battle in 1861. Thence its route was direct to Chantilly and Fredericksburg, in which last it found in the general-in-chief of the army, its tried and faithful leader, under whom, as colonel commanding a brigade, it had fought at the first Bull Run. In the memorable battle of Gettysburg its gallantry was conspicuous, suffering a loss, in killed and wounded, of a majority of its field and line officers, and more than one half of its rank and file. The next year finds the regiment engaged in the action at Drury's Bluff - the battle of Cold Harbor and second Fair Oaks, and the siege of Petersburg. This was after it had returned to New Hampshire, been reorgan- ized, had incorporated into its ranks the residue of the Seventeenth, a nine months regiment, and otherwise recruited its shattered forces, and came back with a renewed vigor to the scene of conflict. The regiment was subsequently in several skirmishes and minor engagements, losing heavily in the aggregate -took part, under Butler, in the defense of Bermuda Hundred-and on the third of April, 1865, entered the city of Richmond and encamped on its out- skirts, amid the smoke and cinders of the burning capital. Here it remained until after the surrender at Appomattox. It was not until the twenty-sixth of December following that the corps was finally paid off and disbanded, having enlisted earlier and remained later in the field than any other permanent organi- zation from the state.
" The roll of this regiment," writes one of its field officers, " presents, since its organization, a list of more than three thousand names. Every regiment from New Hampshire, with two exceptions, has been supplied, in part, with officers from its ranks. The rosters of more than thirty regiments in the field contain the names of those who were identified with it. It has marched six thousand miles, and lost in action upwards of one thousand men."
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On the marble tablets in yonder town hall, which from henceforth shall be a memorial hall as well, we may trace the names of seventy-three young men who fought in these armies and voluntarily laid down their lives upon the altar of their country - more than a seventh part of the four hundred and nine, who, from first to last, enlisted here -so many, alas, in number, that there is not room for them upon the entablature of this or any common monument. I could wish it were possible to write them, one and all, in letters of living light, on the sides of these everlasting hills, that they might be read and known of all men.
Suffer me, reverently, to speak to you some of these familiar names :
Colonel Alexander Gardiner, commanding the Fourteenth regiment, - the model of a faithful, efficient officer, the scholar, and the accomplished gentle- man, - Captain William Henry Chaffin, acting lieutenant-colonel of his regi- ment, and Lieutenant Henry S. Paull-both brave and true men, killed at the same time that their beloved commander was mortally wounded at the battle of Opequan creek, near Winchester, on the nineteenth day of September, 1864 - over whose remains, with others slain in that memorable engagement, a grateful state has placed a monument on the field.
Lieutenant Ruel G. Austin, mortally wounded at the battle of Gettysburg.
Lieutenant Charles O. Ballou, "whose memory shall be kept," wrote the captain of his company, " so long as the banner of the glorious Fifth continues to wave."
Lieutenant Robert Henry Chase, "than whom New Hampshire has sent no braver man to the field," said the commanding officer of his regiment.
Lieutenant Samuel Brown Little, stricken down in the thickest of the fight at Antietam, and though still disabled, hastened to Fredericksburg, to receive there his mortal wound.
Lieutenant George Nettleton, whose last words to his wife were, -" If I fall, remember it was at the post of duty and in a noble cause."
Lieutenant William Danford Rice, - "too well known and loved for any words of mine to add to or detract," wrote Lieutenant-Colonel Whitfield of him.
Sergeant Luther A. Chase, Sergeant Horatio C. Moore, Sergeant Edward F. Moore, Sergeant Ard Scott, Sergeant George E. Rowell, Sergeant Charles W. Wetherbee, - " Dead on the field of battle."
There remains unread a still larger list of the honored dead - equally high on the martyr roll of fame; indeed, it is the peculiar feature of this war that in the rank and file of the patriot army are to be found instances innumerable of heroic daring - of devotion, of self-sacrifice, and Christian patriotism - that can hardly be paralleled in the annals of war in the world. To name two or three only of such instances : Take young Putnam of the Second, who in the hurried and disastrous retreat of the first Bull Run, found time to go out of his way to visit his wounded associates in the hospital, and to get water for his dying comrades, under the storm of the enemy's shot and shell - of whom
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his commanding officer wrote, "His kindness and manly bearing had taught me to love him like a brother;" and Neal, of the Third, whose last regret was that he " had but one life to give to his country; " and Hart, of the Fifth, - Charles A. Hart, - who, when mortally wounded and left upon the field, did just what immortalized the name of Sir Philip Sidney at the battle of Zut- phen - declined the proffered aid to himself in favor of another at his side who seemed to him to need it more. But I forbear.
Surviving heroes !- who so freely offered yourselves to death and yet live- to you and your children and your children's children belongs the legacy of this goodly day.
Spirits of the heroic dead !- slain in battle, or dead of wounds or disease, of exposure or starvation, - martyrs to your country and to liberty, -if from your serene abode it be permitted you to take cognizance of things here, - to you and to your beloved memory we dedicate this offering of our admiration and our love. Nay, rather, in the undying words of our martyr president, "It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this thing. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate- we cannot consecrate-we cannot hallow -the ground where rests our heroic dead. It is for us. the living, rather to be ded- icated to the work they have so nobly achieved. It is rather for us to take from these honored dead, increased devotion to the cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; to highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain -that this great nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that the government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
After the oration, " America " was sung by the choir, under the leadership of Moses R. Emerson. The president then introduced Gov. Onslow Stearns, who made a short address, followed with ad- dresses by ex-Govs. Walter Harriman, Frederick Smyth, United States senator James W. Patterson, Col. Mason W. Tappan, and ex-congressman Jacob H. Ela. The exercises closed by the sing- ing, by the choir and all present, of that grand old ascription, " Be Thou, O God, exalted high."
The procession was then re-formed and marched to the Tremont House, where the invited guests, the committee of arrangements, officers of the day, and citizens, in all about eighty, ladies and gen- tlemen, at four o'clock partook of a sumptuous dinner. Members of fire companies and posts of the Grand Army were liberally pro- vided for by contributions of citizens, at the town hall, where tables were laid for about five hundred. After these had eaten, the doors
CHARLES H. LONG.
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were thrown open to the multitude, and not less than one thousand were fed in this way. There was a great quantity of food left, which was carefully gathered up and distributed to such as needed it.
THE MONUMENT.
The monument consists of a handsome granite pedestal, seven feet high, surmounted by a bronze statue of an infantry volunteer soldier, of heroic size, in full regulation uniform, leaning in an easy and graceful way upon his gun. Beneath the statue, on the gran- ite die, is the following inscription :
" ERECTED
IN HONOR OF THE SOLDIERS OF CLAREMONT, WHO DIED IN THE REBELLION OF 1861-65, BY THEIR GRATEFUL FELLOW-CITIZENS, 1869."
FINANCIAL STATEMENT.
Receipts.
E. L. Goddard, for Fourth of July committee of 1865; principal, $47.00; interest, $13.00 . .
$60.00
Mrs. E. L. Goddard, Treasurer Auxiliary Sanitary Com- mission : principal, $150.00; interest, $41.25 191.25
From subscriptions of 1867 : principal, $642.72 ; interest, $95.37
738.09
Dramatic company
94.00
Subscriptions, 1869
·
970.63
Town appropriations for monument and park improve- ments, as per vote of 1867-68
3,500.00
Total
$5,553.97
Disbursements.
Martin Milmore, for monument
$4,000.00
E. Batchelder, for granite curbing
250.00
Concrete walk and grading
807.23
Fence, $337.14; labor, $159.60 .
496.74
Total .
$5,553.97
CHAPTER XIX.
MEMORIAL TABLETS - RECORD OF SOLDIERS.
The large number of those Claremont men who were killed in battle and died of wounds or disease while in the service, rendered the inscription of all their names upon the monument impracti- cable; therefore marble tablets were erected in the town hall .- bearing the following Roll of Honor, except that the date and man- ner of death of each is added here, to perpetuate more fully their record :
CITIZEN SOLDIERS OF CLAREMONT WHO DIED FOR THEIR COUNTRY IN THE WAR OF THE REBELLION, 1861-65.
Colonel Alexander Gardiner. 14th Regt. N. H. Vols. Mortally wounded at the battle of Cedar Creek, near Winchester, Va., Sept. 19, 1864. Died of wounds Oct. 8, 1864.
Captain William Henry Chaffin. Co. I, 14th Regt. N. H. Vols. Killed at the battle of Cedar Creek, near Winchester, Va., Sept. 19, 1864.
Lieutenant Ruel G. Austin. Co. A, 5th Regt. N. H. Vols. Wounded at the battle of Gettysburg, Pa., July 6, 1863. Died of his wounds at Baltimore, Md., July 26, 1863.
Lieutenant Charles O. Ballou. Co. G, 5th Regt. N. H. Vols. Killed at the. battle of Fredericksburg, Va., Dec. 13, 1862.
Lieutenant Robert Henry Chase. Co. G, 5th Regt. N. H. Vols. Killed at the battle of Ream's Station, Va., Aug. 25, 1864.
Lieutenant Samuel Brown Little. Co. G, 5th Regt. N. H. Vols. Wounded at the battle of Fredericksburg, Va., Dec. 13, 1862. Died of wounds at Fal- mouth, Va., Dec. 24, 1862.
Lieutenant George Nettleton. Co. G, 5th Regt. N. H. Vols. Wounded at the battle of Fredericksburg, Va., Dec. 13, 1862. Died of wounds Dec. 23, 1862.
Lieutenant Henry S. Paull. Co. I, 14th Regt. N. H. Vols. Killed at the battle of Cedar Creek, near Winchester, Va., Sept. 19, 1864.
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HISTORY OF CLAREMONT.
Lieutenant William D. Rice. Co. G, 9th Regt. N. H. Vols. Supposed killed at Poplar Grove Church, Va., Sept. 30, 1864.
Daniel S. Alexander. Co. F, 3d Regt. N. H. Vols. Killed at the battle of Drury's Bluff, Va., May 13, 1864.
Oscar C. Alien. Co. H, 2d Regt. N. H. Vols. Died of disease at Philadel- phia, Pa., Oct. 2, 1862.
James P. Bascom. Co. G, 9th Regt. N. H. Vols. Died of disease at Fal- mouth, Va., Dec. 25, 1862.
Samuel O. Benton. Co. E, 5th Regt. N. H. Vols. Killed in battle at Ream's Station, Va., Aug. 16, 1864.
Horace Bolio. Co. F, 5th Regt. N. H. Vols. Killed at the battle of Gettys- burg, July 2, 1863.
Amos F. Bradford. Co. G, 9th Regt. N. H. Vols. Died of diphtheria at Paris, Ky., Nov. 10, 1863.
Josiah S. Brown. Co. G, 5th Regt. N. H. Vols. Killed at the battle of Fredericksburg, Va., Dec. 13, 1862.
James Burns. Co. G, 5th Regt. N. H. Vols. Killed at the battle of Gettys- burg, Pa., July 3, 1863.
Charles F. Burrill. Co. G, 5th Regt. N. H. Vols. Killed at the battle of Gettysburg, Pa., July 2, 1863.
Charles E. Ballou. Died at Washington, D. C., of disease, Feb. 18, 1864.
Samuel S. Carleton. Fourth Battalion, Mass. Rifles. Died at Claremont, N. H., Jan. 23, 1867, of wounds received in battle.
Luther A. Chase. Co. G, 5th Regt. N. H. Vols. Killed at the battle of Fredericksburg, Va., Dec. 13, 1863.
Wyman R. Clement. Co. H, 2d Regt. N. H. Vols. Died of disease at Wash- ington, D. C., Aug. 1, 1861.
Joseph Craig. Co. G, 5th Regt. N. H. Vols. Killed at the battle of Gettys- burg, Pa., July 2, 1863.
Albert G. Dane. Co. A, 3d Regt. N. H. Vols. Died while prisoner at Salis- bury, N. C., Feb. 3, 1865.
Ziba L. Davis. Co. H, 2d Regt. N. H. Vols. Died of disease at Falmouth, Va., Jan. 12, 1863.
James Delmage. Co. G, 5th Regt. N. H. Vols. Killed at the battle of Fair Oaks, Va., June 1, 1862.
Edward E. French. Co. E, Berdan's Sharpshooters. Wounded at the battle of Cold Harbor, Va., June 19, 1864. Died of wounds Sept. 7, 1864.
Moses Garfield. Co. H, 7th N. H. Vols. Died of disease at Goldsborough, N. C., June 29, 1865.
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HISTORY OF CLAREMONT.
John Gilbert. Co. F, 3d Regt. N. H. Vols. Killed at the battle of Deep Run, Va , Aug. 16, 1864.
Frederick W. Goddard. Co. H, 44th Regt. Mass. Vols. Died of disease at Pemberton Square Hospital, Boston, July 3, 1863.
Charles B. Grandy. Co. A, 62d Regt. N. Y. Vols. Died of disease at Wash- ington, D. C., Oct. 16, 1861.
David H. Grannis. Co. A, 3d Regt. N. H. Vols. Died of disease at Hilton Head, N. C., March 4, 1863.
Timothy Grannis. Co. E, U. S. Sharpshooters ; mustered Sept. 9, 1861; died suddenly in camp at Washington, D. C., Jan. 31, 1862.
Chester F. Grinnels. Co. G, 5th Regt. N. H. Vols. Killed at the battle of Fredericksburg, Va., Dec. 13, 1862.
Charles A. Hart. Co. G, 5th Regt. N. H. Vols. Killed at the battle of Fred- ericksburg, Va., Dec. 13, 1862.
Elisha M. Hill. Co. G, 5th Regt. N. H. Vols. Died of wounds received in battle, Oct. 27, 1862.
Damon E. Hunter. Co. G, 5th Regt. N. H. Vols. Mortally wounded at the battle of Fair Oaks, Va., June 1, 1863. Died June 22, 1862.
William L. Hurd. Co. F, 3d Regt. Vt. Vols. Killed at the battle of Lee's Mills, Va. April 16, 1862.
John S. M. Ide. Co. E, Berdan's Sharpshooters. Killed in an engagement at Yorktown, Va., April 5, 1862.
Joseph W. Kelly. Co. G, 5th Regt. N. H. Vols. Died of disease on passage from Fortress Monroe to Washington, in May, 1862.
Walter B. Kendall. Co. F, 3d Regt. N. H. Vols. Killed in front of Peters- burg, Va., June 16, 1864.
J. Fisher Lawrence. Co. H, 7th Regt. N. H. Vols. Died of disease at Port Royal, S. C., Aug. 8, 1862.
Charles B. Marvin. Co. G, 9th Regt. N. H. Vols. Killed in the battle of Antietam, Sept. 17, 1862.
Noah D. Merrill. Co. D, 2d Regt. N. H. Vols. Died of wounds received in battle, Sept. 16, 1862.
Edward F. Moore. Troop L, First New England Cavalry. Killed in the battle of Gettysburg, Pa., July 2, 1863.
Horatio C. Moore. Co. F, 3d Regt. N. H. Vols. Mortally wounded in the battle of James Island, S. C., June 16, 1862. Died June 19, 1862.
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