USA > Pennsylvania > History of the First regiment infantry, National guard of Pennsylvania (Grey Reserves) 1861-1911, pt 1 > Part 9
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The Committee appointed to confer with the "Citizens' Bounty Fund Committee " upon Armory expenses report that they addressed a communica- tion to the Committee in September last, as follows:
74
HISTORY OF THE FIRST REGIMENT, N. G. P.
1863
TO THE CITIZENS' BOUNTY FUND COMMITTEE
Gentlemen : In January last a communication was addressed to you by the Subscribers on behalf of the Regiment of Gray Reserves Ist Regt. Re- serve Brigade, in which the organization of the Regiment, the services it had performed and the expen-e incurred by the members thereof, were stated and to which we ask you to refer.
The experience of the two years past and the present state of the coun- try shows the necessity of having permanently organized Military bodies ready to meet all emergencies either in the State or City.
The object of the present one is to say, that again the Regiment has responded to the call of the Executive of the State and has from the want of proper arrangements of the Commis-ary and Quarter Master's Department been subjected to heavy expenses for their support in the field. Anxious to maintain the Regiment in its efficiency in case of another call for the de- fence of the State or to suppress insurrection at home; but finding it can- not be done without some aid in defraying the Armory expenses, etc., we have to a-k that an appropriation be made from the unexpended balance in your hands. If the Committee could be relieved in part of their expenses by an appropriation of $250.00 for ten companies of Infantry and one Howitzer Battery for four years, making eleven thousand dollars, the balance of expen-es would be paid by the members. Such appropriation could be made to the Trustees for the purpose of Armory expenses, for should the Rebellion be crushed this year, it will be at least four years before quiet can be restored and the necessity of Military organizations be abandoned. . . .
In reply your Committee received from the Citizens Bounty Fund Com- mittee a copy of a resolution . . . appropriating $11,000.00 to the Regiment for the purpose set forth in the application and to be receipted for by the individuals of the Committees as Trustees.
The $11,000.00 was received upon your Committee individually receipt- ing for the same and immediately invested in United States 5-20 Loan which is held by the Trustees for the purposes for which it was appropriated.
On December 9, 1574, the trustees having requested to be relieved from further custody and responsibility, the Board of Officers by resolution returning their thanks and making grateful acknowledgment for the valuable services they had rendered, appointed in their place and stead Col. R. Dale Benson, Lient .- Col. J. Ross Clark. Major Charles K. Ide and Captains James Mul- doon and Washington H. Gilpin to receive and hold " the said fund under the same provisions as those that were binding on the original trustees." Whereupon the principal of $12.000 in United States 5,20 bonds of 1865 was paid over and transferred to the newly appointed trustees. This fund was never diverted, its inter- est meanwhile devoted exclusively to "armory expenses," as a nueleus and invitation for subscriptions to the far greater amount needed for the accomplishment of the end in view. It ultimately lost its identity. and found its last abiding-place in the structure known now as the new armory building. at Broad and Callowhill Streets.
CHAPTER IV
GETTYSBURG CAMPAIGN, JUNE-AUGUST. 1863, AS THIRTY-SECOND PENNSYLVANIA NINETY DAYS MILITIA-ACT OF MAY 4, 1964- NON-ACCEPTANCE -- COMPANIES MAINTAIN ORGANIZATION -- BOARD OF OFFICERS PRESERVES IDENTITY-COLONEL SMITH RETIRES
Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville had emboldened the enemy to more aggressive ventures. Lee began to withdraw his army from Hooker's front on the Rappahannock early in June (1863). He concealed his withdrawal for a time, and so condueted his movements, with the mountains to hide him and his cavalry to cover him, that it was some days before his design of invasion was completely unmasked. Milroy's forees "brushed away " in the valley and the severe cavalry combat at Brandy Station on the ninth of June had awakened the army to a better realization of the heavy confliet that awaited it and bestirred the authorities to early notes of preparation. The people, however, were loathe to be convineed and slow to aet. The harvests promised a plenty, but the " laborers were few." All walks of life had seriously felt the heavy drain already made on the best and the bravest. There was work for all, toilers scaree, skilled men rare. There had, too, been many rude alarms of hosts advaneing across the border- seares of the night-time, that had disappeared with the dawn. At the most, whatever it was that was approaching, it would never be more than a raid ; an invasion was ineoneeivable. On the even- ing of June 15 Jenkins's Confederate cavalry brigade occupied Chambersburg. On the morning of the seventeenth a leading edi- torial in one of Philadelphia's best reputed journals elosed as follows: " While the enemy might rejoice in this opportunity of occupying Pennsylvania, they would not care to do so, with so powerful an army [ Hooker's] on their lines of communication."
The first note of warning that indicated that the Government was alert to the situation was a War Department order of June 9, 1563, which established in Pennsylvania two military departments, one with headquarters at Pittsburgh, to be known as the Depart- ment of the Monongahela and to be commanded by Maj .- Gen. William IL. T. Brooks, formerly a division commander in the
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1963
HISTORY OF THE FIRST REGIMENT, N. G. P.
Sixth Army Corps, and the other, with headquarters at Harris- burg, to be commanded by Maj .- Gen. Darius N. Couch, lately in command of the Second Army Corps, and to be known as the De- partment of the Susquehanna. The creation of these departments was promptly followed by orders from their respective command- ers calling upon the people to volunteer. Governor Curtin supple- mented these orders with his proclamation of the twelfth inviting attention to them and urging the importance of raising a sufficient force to defend the State. The United States stores at the Car- lisle cavalry barracks had previously been removed, and farmers in the threatened neighborhoods were instructed to look to the removal of their stock.
The President's proclamation of the fifteenth definitely settled the imminence of the situation, and because, as he stated, of " the armed insurrectionary combinations now existing in several States threatening to make inroads into the States of Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio requiring immediately an additional military force for the service of the United States," he summoned from the States of Maryland and West Virginia each 10,000, the State of Ohio 30,000, the State of Pennsylvania 50,000 -- in all, 100,000 volunteers to be mustered into the service of the United States forthwith to serve for the period of six months unless sooner discharged.
Governor Curtin's proclamation of the same date followed-an earnest, strenuous, eloquent, patriotic appeal, coneluding with the paragraph :
I now therefore call upon the people of Pennsylvania capable of bearing arms to enroll themselves in military organization and to encourage all others to give aid and assistance to the efforts which will be put forth for the protection of the State and the salvation of our common country.
Then followed, of even date with the proclamations, General Order No. 43, Headquarters Pennsylvania Militia. The first paragraph briefly reeited the proclamation and eall of the Presi- dent, and then directed that " all organizations or companies of men responding to the eall " should report by telegraph the place of their rendezvous to either Major-General Couch at Harrisburg or Major-General Brooks at Pittsburgh for transportation to either point or wherever else might be deemed expedient. And the order eoneluded with the provision that "troops rendezvoused at
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1863
BOARD OF OFFICERS SPECIAL MEETING
Harrisburg and Pittsburgh will be mustered into the United States service at those points, and those ordered to rendezvous elsewhere will be mustered in at their respective rendezvous by mustering officers detailed for that duty."
" All organizations," it will be observed, not companies only, were summoned. So, still on this eventful fifteenth of June, a special meeting of the Board of Officers was hurriedly called. There was a full, almost an entire attendance. Capt. James D. Keyser appeared as the suecessor of Col. Charles S. Smith, pro- moted, and Captain William W. Allen as the successor of Captain Atwood Smith, resigned. The proclamations and General Order No. 43 were read and appear in full on the minutes. Colonel Smith then announced that in view of the pressing needs in the emergency, the order, the proclamations, and the eall, he had summoned the Board to take such action in the premises as in their judgment might be deemed fit and proper. Thereupon, after a general interchange of views, a committee was appointed to visit Harrisburg and tender the services of the regiment for thirty or ninety days, " under the State Militia Law if ordered by the Governor." The regiment seemed still a little tenacious of its identifieation in name and number. Captain James D. Keyser, Quartermaster A. R. Foering, R. Rundle Smith, with Lieut .- Col. Isaae Starr, Jr., afterward added, were named as the committee. The Board then adjourned, to meet at eight o'clock on the following morning, the sixteenth.
At this meeting encouraging reports were received from the companies, and the adjutant was directed to advertise for reeruits to be received at the various armories. Their location was given and illuminated headlines gave special prominence to the inser- tions: " Attention ! Men of Philadelphia! Philadelphia is in imminent danger! Recruits are wanted to defend the City and State." An adjournment followed until the morning, the seven- teenth, at ten o'clock, to await the return of the committee, at which hour the Board re-convened. The committee reported the result of their mission. Having announced to the adjutant-general that they were authorized to tender the services of the regiment for thirty, sixty, or ninety days as of the militia of the Commonwealth, he informed them that he had that morning (the sixteenthi) " tele- graphed to all the railroads in the State to pass at State expense any
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HISTORY OF THE FIRST REGIMENT, N. G. P.
1863
able-bodied man with a musket desirous of going to Harrisburg; that he would accept a single man, squads, companies, or regi- ments intact, for a day, a weck, a month, or any time that they were willing to come." The report was accepted, the committee con- tinued, and it was resolved that the regiment should proceed to Harrisburg that night at eleven o'clock, provided transportation could be sceured for that hour.
The following extract from the minutes of the Board of Officers of October 7, 1963. gives the report of the committee verbatim :
The following report was made by the Committee to visit Harrisburg:
Philadelphia, October 6, 1863.
TO THE BOARD OF OFFICERS FIRST REGIMENT INFANTRY GRAY RESERVES R. B. Gentlemen :- Your committee appointed at a meeting of the Board held on the evening of the 15th of June respectfully beg leave to report that they left the City on Tuesday morning the 16th inst at 8 o'clock and arrived in Harrisburg about one (1) o'clock P. M. On the same train with us were two hundred (200) men with picks and shovels from the Junetion Railroad, West Philadelphia, under a contractor of the Pennsylvania Railroad Com- pany on their way to throw up entrenchments on the opposite side of the river at Bridgeport; upon arriving at the depot we found it thronged with people anxious to get away, the stores were closed, goods removed and the citizens fleeing in all directions they considered safe, everything in the way of a horse or vehiele being in use, ladies and their children riding in carts on their baggage. The farmers are coming in with their stock and movables and reporting the Rebels to be at Carlisle. We went at once to the Capitol Hill, found the Executive Chamber stripped, doors and windows wide open and no one there, went to the other Capitol buildings, found them removing the State Library, the Archives having been removed, went to the Adjutant Gen- eral's office and found it dismantled, were told he had gone home and that the Governor had been sent for on account of siekness in his family, went to General Russell's residence on the river bank. and while there heard firing. We stated to General Russell that we were authorized to tender the services of the Regiment as a Reginient for 30. 60 or 90 days as Militia for the De- partment of the Susquehanna to the Governor, the men objecting to being mustered into the U. S. service, he informed us that he had telegraphed that morning to all the Railroads in the State to pass at State expense any able bodied man with a mu-ket desirous of going to Harrisburg, that he would accept a single man. squads. companies or a Regiment intact for a day. a week. a month or any time they were willing to come: we mentioned that onr Regiment was 1100 men and a Battery of Five llowitzers and all of our officers, including surgeons, and that we feared that the Surgeon Gen- eral would not accept the surgeons, he replied he will take care of that and will take you as you are. and you need not be mustered in and beg of you to come as soon as possible as they could not answer for the safety of the Capital. We replied that we would telegraph to the City at once. that we were accepted on our own terms, be prepared to come at onee, we will be with you to-night, we then left him and went to the telegraph office at the
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COMMITTEE REPORT
1:13
Capitol and sent the di-patch, he having written a letter of introduction to Major Sees, the superintendent of Telegraphing and Transportation, with instructions to forward our dispatch. When we reached the depot we found the excitement very much increased and General Milroy's trains passing through the City on their retreat from llarper's Ferry. After a delay of two hours after the regular time of starting a train of 15 cars loaded with passen- ver- and their effects left for Philadelphia, where we arrived near midnight. We at once left notice at the armory of each company that the regiment was accepted and next morning carly reported to the Col. the result of our mis- sion.
The Regiment expected to move on Wednesday evening but on account of the delay of some equipments did not leave till Thursday morning. on the arrival of the Regiment in Harrisburg on Friday morning the 19th inst the Committee waited upon the Adjutant General to report the arrival of the Regiment with 1100 men and a battery as promised and asking for his orders, he told us he regretted to say we must be mustered into the U. S. service as General Couch the U. S. Commanding officer who had reached there the day after our interview with him, had refused to receive any men unless they were regularly mustered in, we told him this was not in compliance with the special agreement we had made with him nor the assurance that had been made to the men in consequence of that agreement; he said I am very sorry but you see my position, General Couch is supreme and I can do nothing.
The Committee then returned to the Regiment encamped at Camp Russell and reported ail the facts to the Board of Officers. By a refer- ence to General Couch's order it will be seen that it was not promulgated till the morning of the 17th, when the Regiment had been recruited accord- ing to the agreement with General Russell and was under marching orders; after remaining in camp eight days Governor Curtin issned his Proclamation calling out the State Militia. the Regiment was at once tendered to him and were the first accepted under the call, all of which is respectfully submitted, etc.
(Signed) ISAAC STARR, JR., Lieut. Col. JAMES D. KEYSER, Captain of Co. A. R. RUNDLE SMITH, Sergt. Co. A. Committee.
Transportation, as it subsequently appeared, was not available for the hour first proposed, and on the afternoon of the seventeenth the colonel published his General Order No. 9. The order dirceted the regiment " to assemble fully equipped for active service with three days' rations on Thursday the 18th of June at 11 o'clock 4,31. on Seventh Street right resting on Market Street facing cast." Commandants of companies were instructed to forward certified rolls, with an order on the Bounty Fund Committee to pay to Cap- tain William II. Kern, paymaster, the ten dollars due each man for bounty. John Rutherford, Jr., of Company G, was announced as sergeant-major.
1863
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HISTORY OF TIIE FIRST REGIMENT, N. G. P.
There were " over twelve hundred men and officers " who took up the line of march that morning of the eighteenth of June, at Market and Seventh Streets, to begin an eventful campaign replete with incident, adventure, exposure. The route was down Seventh to Chestnut, to Twenty-second, to Market, to Thirty-second, where at the West Philadelphia depot of the Pennsylvania Railroad it entrained for its destination. The regiment reached Harrisburg about nine in the evening, after the usual delays incident to the movement of an unscheduled train. All night in the cars, for the want of better quarters, the welcome daylight brought a meagre breakfast and a short march to Camp Russell, a camp ground on the outskirts of the city, so named after the State's efficient adju- tant-general. Cotemporaneous accounts differ as to the location of this camp. The adjutant's journal designates it by name, but without specific location, and gives the source whence the name was derived. The story of a line officer gives another and more familiar name and site as well known as its name. The incident is thus related : " With Colonel Smith in command the regiment left for Harrisburg, and on arrival was hustled into Camp Curtin to be disgusted with its dirt and foul smell: and were afterward en- camped near the canal for a week." An intermediate stop may have been made at Camp Curtin, but as all official matter is dated from Camp Russell, it was doubtless the location where the regiment " afterward encamped near the canal for a week."
The regiment's departure, as it subsequently appeared, had been premature. The adjutant-general's assurance that he would accept anything from a man with a musket to a colonel with his regiment, for any time from a day to a month, had been improvi- dently given. Relying upon this authoritative declaration the regiment had bidden its recruits to a defence of the city and State and tendered its services under " the State Militia law for thirty or ninety days if ordered by the Governor." The President's . proclamation called for volunteers "for a period of six months unless sooner discharged." It comprehended no sueli tender. There were no intermediate conditions made possible : there was then no other authority, state or nation, under which volunteers could be re- ceived. The situation had not definitely developed until after the regiment had reached its Harrisburg encampment. Negotia- tions, parleyings, propositions, followed for several days between
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FEELING OF UNREST
1863
the Board of Officers and the Governor. There was severe speech, sharp contention, on the part of some of the Board, threats to re- turn, bitter innuendoes, before the question was finally settled. Haw far this feelingof unrest had found a lodgement in the ranks is illustrated, if not in a contemporary writing, yet in a contribution from the recollections of a soldier of keen observation and previous experience in the field, then serving as a private in Company D. " There were," he says, " many debates among the men at Harris- burg as to the chances of our being surely granted discharge, when the emergency should be over, and some of the men came home."
A prominent figure in these negotiations was Sergt. R. Rundle Smith, of Company A, the colonel's nephew, whom the governor had invited to his couneils. So conspicuous was his prominence that he was thanked by resolution of the Board of Officers " for the prompt and able manner with which he had managed the mat- ter of the disposition of the regiment by the State authorities."
But the Gray Reserves was not alone in its urgency for better and more definite terms of service and enlistment. It prevailed throughout the entire force that had gathered and was gathering at the Harrisburg rendezvous. So formidably did the situation present itself, that Governor Curtin visited Camp Curtin and made an appeal to the soldiers in those tones of eloquence he could so readily command. "He was very sorry," so he said in part, as the papers reported it. " there was some dissatisfaction about the call. He would tell the troops they were called out only while the emergeney lasted, and when that was over they would be returned to their homes. He was to be the judge when that emergency was over." "Our soil has been invaded and we must drive the invaders from it. You are called for this emergeney and no longer. If I, as your governor, have kept my faith before with the volunteers, you can trust my promise now."
It was maintained also by eotemporancous writers that the attitude of the public press by minimizing the situation had continued to encourage rather than suppress the feeling of diseon- tent. On the 25th of June the New York Herald said: "We have no idea that General Lee meditates an advanee upon either Harrisburg or Baltimore." And publishing the extraet on the. twenty-seventh the Philadelphia Press adds: "This is the view we have several times expressed and it seems to be not unreason- able." "So long," says Bates's "History," " as these views pre- 6
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HISTORY OF THE FIRST REGIMENT, N. G. P.
1863
vailed and were spread broadcast by leading publie journals, it was natural, recruiting should be comparatively sluggish."
But the enemy's accelerated pace quiekened the disposal of the question. The Governor's proclamation, issued on the morning of June 26, settled it. "The enemy," so it reads, "is advancing in foree into Pennsylvania. He has a strong column within twenty-three miles of Harrisburg, and other columns are moving by Fulton and Adams counties, and it can no longer be doubted that a formidable invasion of our State is in actual progress." As " the ealls already made for volunteer militia in the emergency have not been inet as fully as the crisis requires," so states the Governor, he therefore issues his eall "for sixty thousand men to come forward promptly and defend the State." They were to be mustered into the service of the State for a period of ninety days, " but would be required to serve ouly so much of the period of muster as the safety of our people and honor of our State may require."
That afternoon, on receipt of the proclamation, there was the formal tender of the regiment to the governor, its prompt aceept- ance, and immediate muster, with Lieutenant-Colonel Starr as the mustering officer, of the Thirty-second Regiment Pennsylvania Ninety Days' Militia.
The following extract from the minutes of the Board of Offi- eers gives a list of the officers of the regiment :
HEADQUARTERS FIRST REGIMENT INFANTRY (GRAY RESERVES) R. B.
The Regiment was received and Lieut .- Col. Isaac Starr, Jr., was ap- pointed and sworn in as mustering officer, the Col. and Committee returned to Camp Russell and the action of the Col. and Committee was announced to the officers and men. and the Regiment was then mustered into service by Companies and became the 32nd Regiment Penna. Ninety Days Militia with the following officers:
Col. Charles S. Smith
Lient. Col., Isaac Starr, Jr.
Adjutant, George S, Bethell Major, Frank P. Nichol-on
Quartermaster, Edw. M. Watt-on.
Chaplain, J. W. Morris, Huntingdon County
First Asst. Surgeon, Win. Darrach, Jr.
Second Asst. Surgeon, Thomas A. Downs Sergt. Major, John J. Rutherford, Jr.
Q. M. Sergt., J. P. Broomall
Hosp. Steward, Samuel Meader
Commissary Sergt., George A. Smith
COLONEL CHARLES SOMERS SMITH 32D REGIMENT, ING3 THE FIRST COMMANDER OF THE VETERAN CORPS 1875
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LIST OF OFFICERS
1.63
Company A. Captain James D. Keyser
Fir-t Lient. Wm. W. Hollingsworth
Second Lient. Amos Lanning
Company B. Captain Charles S. Jones
First Lieut. John McCreight
Second Lient. George Dodd, Jr.
Company C. Captain Wm. W. Allen
First Lieut. John W. Powell
Second Lieut. J. Lowrie Bell
Company D. Captain J. Ross Clark
Fir-t Lient. Charles E. Willis
Second Lieut. Harry F. West.
Company E. Captain Jacob Loudenslager
First Lieut. James Muldoon
Second Lient. F. C. Garrigues
Company F. Captain Harry C. Kennedy
First Lieut. Benjamin MI. Dusenberry
Second Lieut. Robert M. Banks
Company G. Captain H. J. White
First Lieut. James C. Wray
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