USA > Rhode Island > History of the Ninth and Tenth Regiments Rhode Island Volunteers, and the Tenth Rhode Island Battery, in the Union Army in 1862 > Part 7
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"Quartermaster George Lewis Cooke (promoted to major, July 3d), is a busy man. Although surrounded with stores, he can hardly find time to eat his own meals, and this morning, I noticed him, bright and early, at the commissary store-house in the general post-office building at Washington, as busy as a bee in loading up his teams. It is said that he can provide everything for our comfort, from a tent pin to a twenty-inch collar."
A correspondent of the Evening Press, wrote July 24th : "Judging from the weather tables spread before your readers
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Fort Wayne. 1862
FORT WAGNER .- Bird's Eye View.
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so regularly in your columns, you have had hot days at home, but here, we of the Ninth have sweltered through the blazing hours of days and weeks together, on the bare summit of a shadeless hill, our only comfort being to look down upon smoky Washington and say 'Sorry for the Sen- ators.' Our post, the regimental head- quarters, is named in honor of the brave Maj. George Lewis Cooke. Senator Baker, who made the name heroic at Ball's Bluff ; but we get familiar with heroism-we soldiers- and have taken the liberty of calling our earth-works 'the Bakery.' According to our 'Cooke,' however, we shall all be 'done' in about thirty days more. An admirable ' Cooke,' a very 'model cook,' have we; but I cannot speak of his praises without includ- ing our other field officers. We pit our colonel against 'any other man'; and to say of our lieutenant-colonel that he is 'every inch a soldier,' is to give him only about seventy-six inches of justice. Lieutenant-Colonel Powell is a faithful and accomplished officer and has won the respect of all. The three officers are sleeplessly vigilant. Many's the night on which they gird on sword and pistol, mount their chargers, and spur away through the woods. Weary and worn, wet with the night dews, they return during the small hours. May the consciousness of having done their duty faithfully, at their own risk, without calling upon any- one to aid them, be their sufficient reward."
Another correspondent describes what he saw at Fort Wagner, the quarters of Company H. He says : "Col. J. A. Haskin-an
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officer who left his arm at Chepultepec, but who has never left anywhere a certain cheerful manliness which secures the admi- ration of all who meet him -- has charge of the defences north of the Potomac. He often visits our forts, and the other day, just after battalion drill, he asked to see a specimen of our proficiency in handling the 32-pounders. Either because Fort Wagner was close at hand, or because of Lieut .- Col. John H. Powell. a dim suspicion in the minds of Colonel Pitman and Lieutenant- Colonel Powell that Company H would as fairly represent the artil- leryism of the regiment as any other men, the little fortress com- manded by Capt. Henry F. Jenks was chosen as the scene of opera- tions. Two or three hours of field drill, under the sun, hadn't quite taken all the starch out of the Pawtucketers, and they were ready.
"I could the better describe artillery practice were I sure whether the 'cascable' should first be removed from the muzzle, or the 'tompion ' secured to the breech ; but ignorant as I am of the nomenclature of big guns and the details of loading and firing them, I could appreciate the fact that the 'babes' of Company H were lively, rather, and that between 'From Battery' and 'Fire,' the intervals were busy and brief.
"It is a mistake to suppose that '32-pounders' weigh only thirty-two pounds ; they are in fact much heavier. Several of them will weigh a good deal. On a warm day the metal becomes penetrated with heat, and reflects caloric upon all who approach
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A short corporal of Company H has assured me that it is con- ducive to perspiration to stand long near these guns. He thinks, I suppose, that the shorter you stand by them the better. Speak- ing of size, I may remark that very few of the members of Com- pany H are eminent for personal altitude ; indeed, on account of their juvenility of stature and appearance, they are sometimes called 'the babies' by the bearded men of other companies. It may be said, however, by your correspondent, that if infants can handle the thirty-two pounders as they do, what a racket, with hand- spikes and rammers, there must be, when adults take hold.
"Out of tender compassion, of course, for these 'babes in arms,' the men of the Ninth allowed the boys of Company H to take the prize from them all, at our recent 'target-shoot.' General orders were, a week before, that each company should keep accu- rate account of its target practice for the week, and send the record of its five best shots to headquarters for a regimental trial of skill. A prize of five dollars was made up by the field-officers, to give a little more interest to the trial, but the chief incitement was honor rather than gold. Last Saturday morning the squads of five came in, each man clasping his polished Enfield, while the expectation of Victory gleamed upon his sunburnt brow. Target at two hundred yards ; three rounds to each man ; result, Com- pany H ahead of all others. Then came the trial to decide who of the five of H should get the five of dollars. Out of their fifteen shots at this last, eleven hit the target, and Sergt. Ambrose P. Rice made the closest shooting and won the 'Five.'" Alas! that this gallant soldier, who afterwards re-entered the service, should have perished of starvation in the Andersonville prison pen !
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" It is noticeable that there has been less talk about 'weaning the babies' of Company H, since these 'enfants terribles' have won at the target match for which, and at which, the whole regiment did its best. Captain Jenks takes some pride, also, in the general drill and behavior of the little ones committed to his charge. He will not admit, and few others will affirm, that they can be surpassed in the manual of arms. And it is to the credit of any company to stand comparatively well with them in the Ninth Rhode Island Volunteers. We shall not be unwilling · to compare ourselves with our predecessors or our contemporaries, on Dexter Training Ground, or anywhere else, when we get back to the martial city of Providence. In comparative anatomy, philology, entomology and cookery, we may be surpassed by the 'inimitable' punsters of the 'Tenth Rhode Island,' but in drill, dear friends, we venture, humbly, to claim that you can't sustain a spermaceti to us."
"July 30th. General orders were read to-day, to the effect that our term of service will expire August 26th, and that permission is granted to any member of the Ninth Regiment to re-enlist in the new Seventh Rhode Island Regiment, now being organized, and who can thereupon be mustered out of the Ninth and into the Seventh."
Another correspondent says : " Yesterday, I paid a visit to a few of the forts on the east of the city, garrisoned by our gallant boys of the Ninth Rhode Island, and had the pleasure of witnessing a battalion drill. Although these drills are in great disrepute with the men these hot midsummer days, yet they are undoubtedly the basis of their military proficiency. The accuracy of their
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drill, and general excellence in battalion movements, call forth the warmest commendations of all who are so fortunate as to wit- ness them, and should afford ample compensation to the men of the Ninth, for the physical hardships they have endured in acquir- ing their present military status."
" The different companies of the regiment are provided with the large Sibley tents, and if the number of tents were only increased,
The Sibley Tent.
The "A" Tent.
The Shelter Tent.
they would be very comfortable; but to have nineteen or twenty men sleeping in one tent in this warm weather seems rather close packing." But the Sibley tent soon had to "go." The armies of the Union were growing rapidly, and the shrinkage of tents began. "In the years 1861 and 1862 most of the troops on taking the field were furnished with the Sibley tent. It was quite a spacious pavilion, large enough almost for a good size circus side show. When pitched it was a perfect cone in shape, the apex
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being fully twelve feet from the ground. The foot of the centre- pole was held in position by an iron frame, called a tri-pod, the three legs of which straddled out like those of a daddy-long-legs. This straddling attachment seems to have been invented expressly for the soldiers to stumble over when moving about at night. It served its purpose admirably. Five or six and sometimes eight Sibley tents were supplied to a company, and the men were packed like sardines in a box, from fifteen to twenty in each tent. At night they lay with their feet mixed up around the centre-pole, their heads fringing the outer line. Each man's knapsack marked the particular section of ground that belonged to him. When the messes were very full the men slept like a great circular row of spoons, and if one wanted to turn over to give the bones on the other side a chance, he would yell out the order to 'flop' and all would go over together, thus reversing the spoon along the whole line. But the Sibley tents proved to be cumbrous things to handle, and enormously bulky. A regiment with sixty of them and all other baggage in proportion, required a train of wagons sufficient to transport a menagerie. So the Sibley tent had to ' go.' New and larger calls for troops were made, and it became a grave question whether there were in the country enough mules avail- able to haul Sibleys for a million men. The second year of the war the skrinkage began. After the Sibley came the A or Wedge tent-the shape of which is, perhaps indicated clearly enough by its name-and the "Bell" tent, much like it, except that it swelled out at each end, increasing its capacity. Five or six men could be comfortably domiciled in the A tent, and from eight to ten in the Bell. A year or so later the quartermaster
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gave the thumb-screw another turn and squeezed out the unique shelter tent, which was as near the point of none at all as it was possible to reach. To each man was given a piece of stout cotton cloth, about six feet long and four feet wide; along one edge half of them had a row of buttons, and the other half had buttonholes to correspond. It took two-one of each kind-to make a shelter tent, in which two men were to live and move, and have their being. The shelter-tent was three feet high to the ridge, and the 'spread' at the bottom was about four feet. It was soon dubbed the 'pup' tent, and henceforward to the close of the war, the 'pup' tent became the only protection of our armies from the sun and storm." Lieut .- Col. Hinman's "Corporal Klegg."
The hot summer of 1862 was passed away in the forts manned by the Ninth Rhode Island Volunteers, in regular drills and customary fortification duties, preparing those who afterwards re-enlisted for greater efficiency. Fort life thus proved an excel- lent school for military order and improvement. The separation of the companies necessarily prevented much regimental inter- course and the monotony of spare hours was broken by such sports as were warranted within the limits of a fortification, and by frequent correspondence with home.
Sergt. H. H. Richardson, of Company H, wrote home :
"Some of us were in Washington yesterday, and I managed to dispatch my business quite early, so that I had no need to hurry back to camp. I sent the team back and devoted the re- mainder of the day to visiting the Smithsonian Institute, and the halls of Congress. I have become somewhat familiar with the intricate passages about the Capitol so that I can find what I
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want without difficulty. I find it quite in- teresting to visit the House and the Senate, and listen to the debates, especially in the Senate, where Vice-President Hamlin is the presiding officer, and where I can hear many of our most noted men, whose names have long been familiar to us. The House of Representatives is the much larger and the popular body. The speaker is Mr. Grow, of Pennsylvania."
Vice-President Hamlin, statesman and governor of Maine, served as United States Senator from that state for several terms, until 1861, when he resigned, having been elected vice- president on the ticket with Abraham Lincoln. He presided over the Senate from March 4, 1861, till March 3, 1865. When elected vice-president with Mr. Lincoln in 1861, he accepted an invitation to visit the latter at Chicago, and, calling on the Presi- dent-elect, found him in a room alone. Mr. Lincoln arose, and coming toward his guest, said abruptly : " Have we ever been introduced to each other, Mr. Hamlin ?" "No sir, I think not," was the reply. "That also is my impression," continued Mr. Lincoln, "but I remember distinctly while I was in Congress to have heard you make a speech in the Senate. I was very much struck with that speech, Senator-particularly struck with it- and for the reason that it was filled, chock up, with the very best kind of anti-slavery doctrine." " Well now," replied Hamlin, laughing, " that is very singular, for my own and first recollec- tion of yourself is of having heard you make a speech in the 14
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Salushat Grow
'House,' a speech that was so full of good humor and sharp points that I, together with others of your auditors were convulsed with laughter." The acquaintance thus cordially begun, ripened into a close friend- ship, and it is affirmed that during all the years of trial, war and bloodshed that fol- lowed, Abraham Lincoln continued to re- pose the utmost confidence in his friend and official associate, Hannibal Hamlin.
Galusha A. Grow, statesman, was a native of Connecticut, and had rendered important service in Congress previous to the war for the Union, and helped secure the election of Nathaniel P. Banks as speaker of the House, and the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, in 1860. At the con- vening of the first, or extra session of the Thirty-seventh Con- gress, on July 4, 1861, Mr. Grow was elected speaker of the House of Representatives, and held the position until March 4, 1863, when, on retiring, he received a unanimous vote of thanks, the first vote of the kind given to any speaker in many years.
""I don't see anything in the papers about a scarcity of specie at the North. It is worth ten per cent. premium in Washington. It is now four o'clock, and the order will soon be given for 'Dress Parade,' so I must stop and give my 'whangs' a little polish, and equip myself in all the paraphernalia of war."
"July 23d. An order has just been issued by our general-in- chief, Pope, forbidding all officers or soldiers leaving their camp on any account, without an order from his headquarters. This
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shuts us up pretty close, and had it been in force when we went on our night expeditions to Washington, we should very likely have been taken prisoners by the provost guard.
" If we remain here very long we shall have to fall back upon General Pope's late general order, July 18, that the troops in the army under his command (and we are) shall draw their subsistence from the region in which they may be quartered. There is no doubt but that we might do that to our hearts' con- tent without robbing a single Union man. Inosope Twice since we have been here a body of cav- alry have moved past our camp scouting, and [A Recent Picture.] both times, after being away several days, have brought in several prisoners. Day before yesterday they went by with ten or twelve prisoners, among them one wearing a captain's uniform. He was taken within five or six miles of here.
"A court-martial is now in session in the Ninth regiment. Lieut. Francello G. Jillson, of Company G, is the judge-advocate. The court sits Wednesday and Saturday of each week, provided there is any business before it. Several cases have been disposed of for fighting, stealing and sleeping on guard, My duties are sim- ilar to those of a sheriff in the civil courts, viz. : To bring in the prisoners for trial and return them to the guard-house and to see that witnesses are in attendance. A few days ago, while the court was in session a most terrific whirlwind came up, bringing with it such dense clouds of dust as to completely conceal from view objects not ten feet distant.
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That august body, the court, was scattered, and with the judge left for parts unknown, leaving only your valiant ser- geant and six guards, with five prisoners in charge. The tent itself now violently threatened to disperse and follow the court, but by the united efforts of sergeant, guards and prisoners, who all lent a hand, one at each tent-pin, the court-house was saved from demolition. Colonel Pitman at Battalion Drill. When the lowering elements finally subsided and peace was restored, it was no small task to remove the dust which had accumulated on the premises. Upon the reassembling of the court its members appeared metamor- phosed from a group of spruce, blue-uniformed Federal officers into a sorry looking set of fellows, wearing a garb of sackcloth and ashes.
" We are now practising daily on our heavy guns. In the morning and every afternoon we have battalion drill at head- quarters, under the immediate orders of Colonel Pitman. We drill in battalion movements three or four hours at a time. The more distant companies are conveyed to and from the field in our army wagons, but we, being quite near, march. Some of the officers appeared at first to be sadly ignorant of military phrases,
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and the movements executed were something startling." Said one of the boys, "it reminded me of the officer whose last command had been a pair of draft horses on his Pennsylvania farm. Coming with his company to a pit in the road, he electrified them with the order to ' Gee around that hole.' But any little errors of this sort were quickly corrected, and by one officer particularly, with the order, 'as you were, men, my mistake.' We are now making commendable progress in battalion movements, and ex- pect to astonish our friends at home when we return."
A. D. Nickerson, Eleventh Rhode Island Volunteers, says, in his "War Experiences :" "It is not within the province of a private soldier-more especially a 'raw recruit'-to criticise his superiors, and consequently I will not attempt it, notwithstanding this is the 'piping time of peace,' and all fear of the guard-house has forever vanished. I will say, however, that all of the officers named had their peculiarities, but that our lieutenant-colonel was peculiarly peculiar ; and yet I believe him to have been every inch a soldier-at any rate, there was no such word as fear in his dictionary. He was in command when the regiment came the nearest to being in an engagement, and I fancy I see him now, mounted on his horse and riding at the head of the column, wearing a moth-eaten blouse and an exceedingly dilapidated straw hat, with a very black 'T. D.' clay pipe stuck in his mouth, the bowl downwards. He looked more like the 'cowboy' of modern times than the pict- ures of military heroes which I used to see in my school-books when I was a boy. This was our lieutenant-colonel-John Talbot Pitman. He had good 'staying qualities.' He never threw up his commission, nor did he die. He remained with us to the last,
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and rose considerably in the estimation of the men after his appearance at the head of the regiment at the time I have just mentioned. Men everywhere-especially soldiers-admire pluck. Our lieutenant-colonel had pluck, even though his heart seemed somewhat lacking in tenderness. He never winked at any breach of discipline on the part of an officer or a private while he was in command of the regiment. If at times he appeared to have too little consideration for his men, he never failed to exact the fullest measure of consideration for them from all others."
"July 27th. The routine of camp-life has been interrupted by another long march. The forts which the regiment occupy are all new, and had never been furnished with flags, until a few days ago, when one was sent to each fort. Suitable flag-staffs having been erected on Friday last, the staff officers with the companies at headquarters started in the morning fully equipped with twenty rounds of blank cartridges for the fort at the right of the line, receiving as they went along the companies at the several forts, similarly armed and equipped. Upon reaching the most distant fort (manned by Company A, Captain McCloy). Their flag was run up and saluted by the battalion with two volleys of musketry and three cheers for the flag. Captain McCloy's company then fell into line with us and the march was continued to the other extremity of the line, eight or ten miles distant, raising and saluting the flag at each fort in passing until headquarters, Fort Baker, was reached. Here there were two flags, one for the fort, and the other for the colonel's quarters. These were saluted with three volleys of musketry and twenty- one guns from the fort. A rest was then taken for dinner, after
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which the march was resumed towards the forts at the left, the flag of each of which was raised and saluted as those on the right had been, after which all marched back to their quarters again. The whole march probably exceeded sixteen miles, and as the day was hot, the men were not sorry to 'call it a day' and find themselves back again, and relieved of their heavy equipments. The view from some of the forts was magnificent, that from Fort Greble (Captain McCloy), being particularly fine. Fort Greble is located upon the heights exactly opposite Alexandria, and commands a fine view of the Potomac, both shores, and for many miles each way, including camps and forts innumerable, with the cities of Wash- ington, Alexandria and Georgetown in full view. On my last visit to Washington I found the flags displayed at half mast, and the public buildings closed and draped in respect to the memory of/Ex-President Martin Van Buren3'ad 9% -
("Box, from home .; One of the best things in the box you so kindly sent us was the cake,, There is no danger of its being slighted, as the boys always want to, enjoy the boxes together. The only regret I feel about it is. that I cannot eat my cake and still have it. : When I opened the package, a quarrel immediately followed, the 'corporal ' disputing the possession of the cake with me. : I suspect nothing but my superior rank saved it. Finally the matter was compromised by my giving him a good piece of it, whereupon he left me in peaceable possession of the remainder."
i Foraging. One of the men wrote home to his mother that his bright new bayonet had been stained with Southern blood, and the old lady shuddered at the awful thought. "But," he added, ".it wasn't a man I killed, only. just a pig." ..
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"Our team has just come in, loaded with bed-sacks, so that we must buy or steal (or else in camp language, ' forage '), some straw to put in them or go Foraging. without. Some of the boys have recently managed to 'find ' some new potatoes, cab- bages, cucumbers and other good things, so that the straw will probably soon be found. We are also enjoying some ripe pears which were raised out of our garden.
"We are nearing the end of our three months' service in the Ninth regiment. In that period we have seen quite a variety of soldier life, although we have made but few movements. We have held an exposed position in a chain of forts of the eastern defences of Washington, but have encountered no raiding Early or Jackson, so that the results achieved are not conspicuous, but we have stood at the post of duty assigned us, thus relieving older troops for more active service, and we feel that without our history the record of the war for the Union would be incomplete.
"I notice that the Tenth regiment has written more letters to the papers than our regiment. As the two organizations have not met since we parted at Cloud's Mills, Va., we can have no idea what progress they may have made in the art of war, and doubtless each regiment will be prepared to criticize the other pretty sharply when we meet at home. As they are composed of city companies, and rather 'aristocratic' withal, it will per-
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haps be becoming to us while the crowd is admiring them."
The duties of chaplain were satisfactorily performed by Rev. Mr. Root, of Lonsdale, R. I. As postmaster of the regiment, also, and in various other ways, he found daily opportunity to render acceptable and ap- preciated services to the men.
Religious services were maintained Chaplain N. W. T. Root. through the summer, which were well attended by officers and men.
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