USA > New York > The Ninth New York heavy artillery : a history of its organization, services in the defe battles, and muster-out, with accounts of life in a rebel prison, personal experiences, names and addresses of surviving members, personal sketches and a complete roster, pt 1 > Part 27
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Access to the order-book, so carefully kept in Washing- ton, but which is sealed to the only persons whom it could in the least interest, would tell us just when the enterprise was started. It is probable that the period of incubation must have been at least a month, for it was April 6th, 1863, that the first public appearance was made, and then the chick may be said to have had its first peep. It was not fully fledged until it had received a deal of instruction and had filled the neighboring groves full of melody in practicing.
Though "Belle Brandon" was an early favorite, the repertoire of the band gradually grew to include all the popular music of the day. The story is told that one of the field-officers on dress-parade in the infantile period of the band's existence sent word wanting to know if they could not give him some other tune than "Belle Brandon," which, though beautiful, had grown a trifle stale. Some survivors never hear the tune to this day without recalling the incident.
The nucleus of the organization was the old Rose Brass Band, seven members of which were in Company H. While Lieuten- ant Harmon may not have been an active wind-blower, he was
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REGIMENTAL BAND.
W. F. Hickok. F. Smocker.
D. Marshall. E. B. Wing.
A. B. Harmon. Jacob Sager.
J. J. Seelye.
E. H. Pond. Alvah Lowe. P. T. Shorkley.
291
MISCELLANEOUS.
of course friendly to the project, and his brothers were members. Jacob Sager of Clyde, the leader, had played with the Rose members if he had not belonged to their body.
As we remember them and their music, the impression re- mains that they could play as well as any similar organization in the defenses. They helped out all state occasions amazingly, and the power of music to charm, etc., was generally acknowl- edged. Shakespeare could have found in the ranks of the Ninth very few if any men with no music in their souls, hence none who were fit for treasons.
As a reward for the melody that they gave us, they were excused from carrying guns, but they were expected to assist in caring for the wounded and to help in all hospital duties. That they generally did their duty in this direction, no one questions. There were usually twenty-two men present for duty in the band. As there were changes from time to time, the total number belonging, in all, was considerably above those figures.
While the band was supposed to be at headquarters, there were never any doings of note at Fort Foote when the band was not invited down, and it always had a good time while it dis- pensed sweet music for the occasion. The boys could not, how- ever, live on sweet sounds alone, hence the pleasures of the table that followed their public appearances are yet treasured with delight.
When the regiment was having one of its regular visits to Harper's Ferry or its immediate vicinity, a death occurred in the hospital of a member of the Ninth, and Surgeon Sabin de- termined to vary the monotony of camp-life by a military burial. All proceeded properly till the procession was ready for the march; then when he was expected to give the signal for a selection appropriate to the occasion, Leader Sager found his wits wandering, and he could not, for his life, think of a single marching piece that would be sufficiently sad. Nothing better than the long metre Doxology occurred to him, so he gave word, and his boys pumped away on the familiar notes. In vain did the surgeon essay to get his horse into step, but it would not work; then turning to the perspiring leader he said, "What kind of a tune do you call that? I thought I could march to almost anything, but I'll be blamed if I can get this horse into step with Old Hundred." Just then Jake's wits came back to
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NINTH NEW YORK HEAVY ARTILLERY.
him, and with a premonitory wave he switched the boys off into the "Dead March in Saul," and to the strains of
"Unveil thy bosom, faithful tomb,"
the body was borne to its burial.
The collection of the pictures which make up the two groups is owing to the thoughtfulness and care of J. J. Seelye of Rose, a member of Company H. It required many letters to get these reminders together after so many days. As the men themselves so often marched before the regiment, their faces will in almost all cases be readily recognized. It is to be regretted that there are any vacancies in the list, but some veterans, though presum- ably living, have disappeared beyond the reach of ordinary means of discovery.
Mr. Seelye, in his communication, kindly named the instru- ment that each man played, but at this late day it will matter very little whether it was a flat or a sharp, whether he beat or blew. Through our memories, the past comes back in one harmonious whole, in which faces and sounds are blended be- yond possibility of separation.
They by their music inspired those that followed, for Aesop tells us that the trumpeter was killed when made a prisoner, though he was unarmed, because he inspired others to fight, and they made many a day seem shorter when there was a dis- position to homesickness. Their names are as follows :-
Benjamin L. Avery, Co. M, now of Genoa, N. Y., had a facile hand in wartimes, and at least one of our pictures is owing to his skill.
Romain C. Barless, Co. H, Rose, N. Y., was one of the "Band Boys" of ante-wartimes, and in those days was known as "Doc." Since the war he has been something of a lawyer, and at present is a justice of the peace, at the same time doing considerable as a pension agent. Perhaps no one in the county has been more successful than "Doc" in this respect.
George W. Bates, Co. M, resides now in Lodge Pole, Neb., one
of New York's contributions to the West when the war was over.
Charles F. Crowfoot, Co. E, Venice Centre, N. Y.
Charles Foster.
Henry Foster.
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293
MISCELLANEOUS.
William Foster.
Three brothers, Co. M. Their addresses not known. Barton Gage, Co. A.
Alfred B. Harmon, Co. H, Palmyra, N. Y. Involuntarily the picture of Mrs. Harmon appears in our illustration, but to get the face of the player, that of Mrs. H. was taken also. Mr. Harmon was one of the original players of Rose, as was his brother, whose name follows.
William J. Harmon, Co. H, deceased. Was from Rose, but for several years before his death lived in Rochester.
William Felton Hickok, Co. H, Rose; another of the original players; everyone calls him "Felt"; since the war has fol- lowed the pursuit of farming and house carpentering.
Pitts, O. Hudson, Co. F, Bay City, Mich. Not only played in the band, but has been a musician ever since. He leads an or- chestra, teaches violin music, writes poetry and music, gives concerts, living by as well as for music.
George Klumpp, Co. D, died in Weedsport Feb. 23, 1899.
Alvah Low was a Co. I man from Sennett and played the clari- net.
David Marshall, Co. A, enlisted from Genoa.
Edward F. Moulton, Co. M, Batavia, N. Y.
Edson H. Pond, Co. M, Greenville, Mich.
Jacob Sager, Co. H. No one can remember when he was not a
player in a band; has been since the war a cebinet-maker in Clyde, N. Y.
J. Judson Seelye, Co. H, Rose, N. Y. His best friends know him as "Jud."; born and reared in Rose he was struck with a wild-western fever some years after the strife, and he spent several years trying to hold down a claim or two in South Dakota, but latterly he has concluded that New York is good enough for him.
Pardon T. Shorkley, Co. E, Merrifield, N. Y.
Mortimer Smith, Co. A, was discharged to take commission in a colored regiment. When he left, his comrades in the com- pany gave him a sword.
Frederick Smocker, Co. A, enlisted from Wolcott.
Ira Soule, Co. H, Rose, N. Y. Another of the old band boys; descended from George Soule, one of the Mayflower pas- sengers; he is one of the few survivors of the regiment who can say, "I had a son with me in the service." He has long followed the trade of a shoemaker.
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NINTH NEW YORK HEAVY ARTILLERY.
Ira T. Soule, Co. H, Rose, N. Y. Ira is the son of the above, and he is a worthy one. His business is that of a house- painter. It should be said that he beat the snare drum in the ante-bellum days of the Rose band.
Fred A. Tallman, Co. E, Syracuse, N. Y., was a drummer in his company, and no one can give the drum a better beating than he when the old boys come together for a reunion. John Van Liew, Co. E, Mapleton, N. Y.
Eugene B. Wing, Co. M, Attica, N. Y.
Stephen P. Wing, Co. M, Flint, Mich. . Cousins.
TWO HARVESTS. BY N. A. M. ROE.
In the early morning, at Monocacy, laborers worked rapidly to gather from the field. just to the west of the Washington pike, the crop of wheat, which in shock was ready for garnering. Late in the afternoon lifeless bodies plentifully bestrewed the same field; the later reaper was Death. ( Vide page 126.)
The reapers are binding the yellow grain, The mocking-bird drops with an eddying strain, That pierces my heart with ecstatic pain, While I watch for his jubilant rising again, Over the hill.
The sunlight shakes on the ripling flow,
Of blue Monocacy gliding slow; Its murmuring waters caressing low
The fleeting shadows that come and go, At zephyrs will.
Such was the harvest the noontide brought, Sunny the field where the reapers wrought, Pleasant the sound that the west wind caught, And the beautiful laughing day was fraught With joyous thrill. There's a line thin and blue, There are hearts staunch and true, There are shots quick and loud, Then a pall of battle cloud.
Shot and shell Make a seething hell Of that field.
Do comrades lag?
That tattered flag With Company A
Goes proudly on, While here and yon, Fate has sealed
Some hearts so bold In silence cold Along the way.
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REGIMENTAL BAND.
R. C. Barless. P. O. Hudson. E. F. Moulton.
Geo. Klumpp. Geo. W. Bates.
John Van Liew. B. L. Avery.
C. F. Crowfoot.
Ira Soule. Ira T. Soule.
295
₹
MISCELLANEOUS.
There the blue and gray are meeting, God in Heaven! the blue retreating! Fighting, fleeing, never seeing Aught of sunny skies o'ermeeting.
Like a twisted, broken ribbon Was that brave and gallant line,
While the frightened sobbing river's Tide is red like crimson wine.
Where the mockbird's joyous music, Now the wailing cry of pain,
And the shocked and shivering ether- Will it ne'er be still again?
And what was the harvest the twilight gray In pitiful shadows at close of the day, Enfolded and covered in silence away? Oh, sun of the morrow, I pray thee delay Nor haste thee
To look on the harvest the angel of woe Hath reaped on this desolate field below, 'Twas a harvest of heroes, true soldiers I trow, Who fell where the waves of Monocacy flow To the sea.
THE FORTS ABOUT WASHINGTON.
The consideration of the defenses of Washington demands a volume by itself, consequently any word here is entirely inade- quate to the proper discussion of the subject. The best that can be done is to name some of the forts with which the regi- ment was specially connected, with the barest outline of the scheme of defending the city.
It was early recognized by the government that the capture of the Capital would be a serious blow to the Union cause, hence the extent of earthen walls that gradually grew around its borders. So near was it to the first scenes of hostility that the sound of conflict fell upon the ears of Washington dwellers, and the Stars and Bars were visible above the roof of the Mar. shall House in Alexandria.
The very first advance into Virginia in May, 1861, was accom- panied by the making of fortifications. The end of the Long Bridge was made safe and the approaches to the Aqueduct Bridge were defended by Fort Corcoran, which was one of the first if not the very first to be completed. It was here that Henry Watterson of the Louisville Journal witnessed the rais- ing of the flag, and of the event wrote a glowing description
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NINTH NEW YORK HEAVY ARTILLERY.
following reply:
to a Philadelphia paper, an article for which he subsequently said he had to apologize throughout the entire war, for he went home soon after and threw himself into the Confederate cause. It is of interest to all 6th Corps men that General H. G. Wright had to do with the laying out of some of the earliest of the forts, especially on the Virginia side of the Potomac. A letter addressed to the general in 1898, drew from him the
FORTS ABOUT WASHINGTON.
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297
MISCELLANEOUS.
My connection with the actual construction of the defenses of Washington was confined, mainly, to the laying out and building of Fort Ellsworth, in which I was assisted during a portion of the time by Lieutenant George W. Snyder, Corps of Engineers, a very bright and intelligent officer, who died in November, 1861, and had he lived I am sure he would have attained high rank in the Civil War. I also assisted Captain B. S. Alexander in the selection of the site and the laying out of Fort Runyan, but had no connection in the actual construc- tion, which was carried out under Alexander's supervision. My next and last connection with the "defenses" was at Fort Stevens when the Capital was raided by Early, being in com- mand of the forces engaged in the action in advance of that portion of the line on the 12th of August, 1864.
It is difficult to find many forts of which it can be said they were built by this or that regiment, for seemingly almost every organization that passed through the District lifted a shovel a longer or shorted period upon these works. Some officers decried the whole system, saying it would never be of the slight- est use, but the work progressed till the Capital was surrounded by a series of forts and batteries, large and small, sixty-eight in number. They had an aggregate perimeter of thirteen miles; there were twenty miles of rifle-trenches and three block- houses; ninety-three unarmed batteries for field guns having 401 emplacements; the forts themselves had 1120 emplacements with 807 guns and 93 mortars actually in position. There were thirty-two miles of military road besides the existing roads and avenues of the District by which communication could be had from point to point; the entire circuit of the forts was thirty- seven miles.
The first works, those of 1861, were almost entirely rebuilt in a more substantial manner. They became a place of security to the demoralized Potomac Army in 1862, and their utility in 1864 has already been shown.
The work of the Ninth in building was entirely on the Mary- land side of the river and, with the exception of Fort Foote, in a section to the northwest of the city, though at first and later some shoveling was done near the Bladensburg road. Some of the projected forts were already named before we began our labors, and some were changed ere we finished, if, indeed, we really got through before our muster-out, since some of the hold-overs in 1865 remember very warm days devoted to re- sodding and otherwise beautifying the earthworks.
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NINTH NEW YORK HEAVY ARTILLERY.
As a general thing, the forts, early in the building days, took some appellation suggestive of the makers. Thus the Rhode Island boys who started the works, later called Fort Slocum, at first referred to them as Fort Rhode Island, but when Bull Run took from them their brave colonel, John S. Slocum of the 2d Rhode Island, the fort took his name. Thus Fort Massa- chusetts became Fort Stevens and Fort Pennsylvania was changed to Fort Reno. Thereafter forts received the names of distinguished Union officers who had lost their lives.
When the 13Sth sat down before Fort Kearney (see page 36) they found a fort begun and named. Of the utility of this fort, General Barnard says, "It is a connecting link between Forts Pennsylvania (Reno) and DeRussey. It sees well the upper valley of the Broad Branch and crosses its fires with those of the above-named forts and intermediate batteries upon the dan- gerous heights in front."
Fort Gaines was another work to whose existence the regi- ment contributed. It was in the second line, and Barnard says: "The enemy could not establish himself on the ridge occupied by Mansfield, since the rifled guns of Gaines could explode the magazines of Mansfield."
Fort Mansfield, named for the gallant general (see page 47) killed at Antietam, was almost exclusively the work of our hands. "The works are well located as connecting links be- tween Forts Sumner and Reno; are well built and deemed adequate for their purposes."
Fort Simmons, very near Mansfield, was peculiarly a work of our making, and preserved in its appellation the memory of Colonel Seneca G. Simmons of the 34th Pennsylvania Infantry, killed at the Battle of Glendale June 30th, 1862. It was one of the later works, and with Mansfield constituted a part of the line connecting Sumner and Reno. Though above the valley, they were a hundred feet lower than Fort Gaines.
Fort Bayard came, also, within the claims of the Ninth, and was the outgrowth of an almost circular fortification, known for some time as Battery Ellipse, but eventually was honored with the name of Brigadier General George D. Bayard, a native of Seneca Falls. N. Y .; West Point, 1856; killed at Fredericks- burg, December 13, 1862. This fort was rendered necessary by the northern location of Sumner and the need of connection with Reno.
FORT STEVENS IN 1899.
LOOKING NORTH, THROUGH EMBRASURE. LOOKING WEST. PARAPET AT RIGHT. LOOKING NORTH, PARAPET AT RIGHT ..
INTERIOR. LOOKING WEST.
299
MISCELLANEOUS.
Our regiment was not ignorant of the making of Fort Reno, which at first was called Fort Pennsylvania, on account of the troops who early worked upon it. After the death of General Jesse L. Reno at South Mountain, his name was fittingly pre- served here. Situated just north of Tennallytown, it occupied one of the most commanding sites about Washington, and its 100-pound Parrott ranged to hills beyond the scope of Sumner and DeRussey.
Fort Stevens grew from Fort Massachusetts, which was it- self an outgrowth from the camps of the 10th and 7th Massa- chusetts, the 2d Rhode Island and the 36th New York, which were at Brightwood in 1861. These regiments labored diligent- ly here, and the name of the Bay State was at first applied to the results of their work. After it had grown to be one of the most important of all the works about the Capital, it received the name of General Isaac I. Stevens, colonel of the 79th New York Highlanders, and afterwards major general of volunteers. who was killed at Chantilly September 1st, 1862, having in his hands the colors of his own Highlanders.
No fort in the entire range has so great a reputation as this, for in front of it the main part of the fighting was done, July 12, 1864, though firing extended from Slocum to Simmons. Upon its ramparts stood the president during a part of that eventful day, and for a while the city back of it held its breath. wondering what the outcome would be. Here was proven the utility of the miles of earthworks which enclosed the Capital.
Naturally, the question arises, "What is there left to show of the fort to-day?" Very little. The unknowing traveler might pass through the fort and think only that the surface was a trifle irregular, but should he seek closely he will find traces, as appears in the accompanying plate. Brightwood has become a suburb of Washington, and alleged improvements will eventually wipe out all traces, as they have already of a part of the eastern portion.
The fort of all others where there is no dispute as to what should be ascribed to our regiment is Fort Foote (see page 60). It is one of the few deemed worthy of preservation on account of its location. General Barnard says: "This fort was con- structed for the purpose of defending, along with Battery Rodgers, the water-approach of the city. . It was de- signed as a water battery of eight 22-pound Parrott ritles and
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NINTH NEW YORK HEAVY ARTILLERY.
two 15-inch guns. The river front was made 5153 feet in length, with a return (at an angle of 120 degrees) of 75 feet. The rear of the fort, parallel to the long water-front, was bas- tioned and armed with ffeld and siege guns for land defense. The parapets on those faces exposed to naval attack were made from twenty to twenty-five feet in thickness, and of a sufficient height to give a cover of at least eight feet. The crest level was : from 103 to 106 feet above high water. All the earth- work was sodded even to the scarps and counterscarps."
The fort was completed in the fall of 1863, and is yet main- tained (1871) as an armed and garrisoned post. It is in excel- lent condition, and with proper care will remain so for years to come.
The general describes with some minuteness the slopes, bomb-proofs, wooden buildings and the entire make-up of the fort. The cedar and chestnut used in the works were at the time of his writing, 1871, in an excellent state of preservation.
Though not assisting in the building of all these forts, the order-books of the regiment would show that during our stay in the defenses, the 9th Regiment, or some part of it, did for a longer or shorter period occupy or assist in the construction of nearly every fort and battery in the entire cordon. Seeming- ly our experience in this direction exceeded that of the majority of our associate regiments.
A MONOCACY EPISODE.
On page 126 reference is made to the evident distress of two young women, the morning of the Battle of Monocacy. Before the troops had moved into position, they were seen repeatedly near the headquarters of General Wallace. Since the war, the cause of their anxiety has appeared, and the following letter from one of the parties interested, though not seen by us then. is given to the public for the first time. The writer, a son of Colonel C. K. Thomas, on whose farm the most of the fighting of the 9th was done, is now a resident of Berryville, Va., in the very section so familiar to the members of the Ninth, where he holds several hundred acres of that most fertile land, and for several years he has represented the counties of Clarke and Warren in the Virginia Legislature. At the same time he holds, from Governor J. Hoge Tyler, the position of colonel of cavalry on the latter's staff. Colonel S. S. Thomas tells his own story in the following interesting manner:
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