USA > Vermont > Washington County > Waterbury > History of Waterbury, Vermont, 1763-1915 > Part 25
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us, an answer to these questions can be found in the records both of the state and of the nation, and a little later I shall have occasion to speak in no uncertain tone of their devotion to the sacred cause.
But before doing so, let us look at Vermont's record as a whole and ascer- tain whether among the people of any of the states of the Union there was found a readier response to the call for service, or a service more brilliant than that of the volunteers from our little mountain state. It is with a feeling of glowing pride that I approach this subject, and with deep personal emotion, also, because of the sacred memories which hallow my thoughts.
I am one of the comparatively few among those present on this occasion who can recall in memory that April day more than half a century ago when the news that Fort Sumter had fallen stunned the nation, and the powerful reaction which followed the proclamation of President Lincoln calling for 75,000 troops.
For days my father, strong and resourceful in character, but com- prehending, as few then did, the strength and earnestness of the South, and foreseeing, as few did, the bloody years of war which were to follow, had sat with bowed head vainly seeking light where all was darkness. But with this call to arms he rose in the strength of one who served God and loved his country, and turning to his first-born son, exclaimed: "Charley, what are we to do?" The response was: "I shall answer the call and recruit a company as quickly as I can secure authority." The father, with the same spirit which actuated countless other fathers throughout state and nation, with outstretched arms and with tears gushing from his eyes, exclaimed: "Go, my son; and God bless you. If I were of your age, I would go with you."
The news of the fall of Sumter and of Lincoln's call to arms, was received in Vermont on the 14th of April. Within twelve days from that time the Vermont Legislature had met in extraordinary session, had appropriated $1,000,000 for war purposes and had provided for raising and equipping six regiments for two years' service.
Not waiting to receive from Federal authority the official blanks upon which to secure enlistments, the work of recruiting was immediately begun by Charles Dillingham and was actually completed before the official blanks were received. I hold in my hand the paper employed, which contains the original signatures of the first men of Waterbury and sur- rounding towns who volunteered for three years' service in the army of the United States for the suppression of the rebellion. For fifty years it has been in my possession carefully preserved, and this is the first occasion when it has been publicly exhibited. Let me read these names as a whole, for those from neighboring towns who honor this occasion by their presence have an interest equal to our own in this historic group.
The contract so entered into by these men clearly indicates their patriotic zeal to defend the Union, as well as the resolute purpose of the authorities of the state to prepare in advance for such requisitions as might soon be
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made upon Vermont by the general government for troops. It reads as follows:
"STATE OF VERMONT."
"We, and each of us, who hereunto affix our names, agree to enlist and be enrolled in a Company of Volunteer Soldiers, to be raised in the town of Waterbury and vicinity, subject to the orders of the Commander-in-Chief of the State of Vermont, or of the President of the United States, and Con- sideration of arms and equipments to be furnished us and each of us by the State, and of such pay and allowances as are allowed by law, we, and each of us, agree to serve as such soldiers for the period of three years from and after the first day of June, 1861, unless sooner discharged agreeably to law. We enlist and agree to serve for the first two years under and by virtue of the provisions of an act of the Legislature of this State, entitled 'An Act to Provide for Raising Six Special Regiments for Immediate Service for Protecting and Defending the Constitution and the Union,' approved April 26, 1861, and are to receive the compensation therein provided."
Those from Waterbury were Charles Dillingham, William W. Henry, Samuel Morey, William Bruidnell, James W. Nichols, George Brown, John W. York, Wilber Foster, Charles C. Gregg, Ira A. Marshall, Frank Huntley, Edwin Parker, Robert Hunkins, Lyman Woodward, Elihu Wilson, Charles Prescott, Charles N. Collins, Allen Jewett, Henry F. Parker, Christopher P. Brown, John Murray, Luther Merriam, Franklin Carpenter, William Clark, Tilton Sleeper, Hartwell Moody, George E. Smith, Harvey J. Wilson, George W. Farnham, Patrick F. Flaherty, Lorenzo B. Guptil, Lorenzo S. Bryant, Harper A. Demmon, George C. Sherman.
Those from our sister town, Duxbury, were: Mason Franklin Atkins, William Kelley, George C. Center, Nathan F. Huntley, Warren C. Gilman, Edwin Turner, Sidney Sherman, Truman M. Dow, Orin Gilman, Chancey Shonio, Charles H. Gilman.
Those from Stowe were: George W. Colby, Isaac S. Pratt, Albert W. Russell, Holden S. Hodge, Alexander Warden, Dennis H. Bicknell, John R. Smith, James S. Perrier, John Knapp, Orlo W. Bickford.
Those from Middlesex were: John T. Bass, Rufus S. Marsh.
Those from Moretown were: John Travers, Orlando S. Turner, James Diamond, Edwin Murphy, Henry Newton, Michael Conway.
Those from Montpelier were: Francis Gravlin, Richard Dodge, Andrew J. Allen, Ira S. Honan, Robert Lamont.
From Barre: George W. Goodrich, S. D. Strong, Henry C. Jones, Eldon A. Tilden, Orin Beckley, Jr., Albert Smith.
From Berlin: Daniel K. Stickney, Obadiah W. Hill.
From Marshfield: Chauncey Smith, Alfonzo Lesser, Hiram Hall.
From Calais: James O. Horey, George Soper. From Woodbury: Henry Goodell, Aaron P. Hall.
From Northfield: Charlie C. Canning.
From East Montpelier: Samuel Looker.
From Cabot: Andrew Hill.
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From Hyde Park: Francis Finnigan, Philo J. Crowell, George W. Perry, John Roddy.
From Elmore: Edmond Holden.
From Eden: Terrence Roddy.
From Orange county: C. E. Turner, John H. Fuller, Horatio G. Platt.
From greater distances: H. H. Matthews of Barnet, Edwin M. Suther- land of Montgomery, Josiah Watson of Granville, and John Gowing of Providence, Rhode Island.
These men constituted, in the main, Company D of the Second Vermont Infantry. It was officered by Charles Dillingham, William W. Henry and Charles C. Gregg. This regiment was the first body of men enlisted in Vermont for three years' service. It was organized early enough to have part in the first battle of Bull Run and its organization was retained until the last shot had been fired near Appomattox.
This regiment formed the nucleus of the Old Vermont Brigade, composed of the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Regiments of Vermont In- fantry-a brigade whose service measured by any test suggested by the exigencies of war was so brilliant as to merit the admiration even of the army. Its steadiness and dependable character was such that the heaviest demands were made upon it in every crisis. If the presence of the Sixth Corps was imperatively demanded in the neighborhood of Gettysburg to repel the invasion of Pennsylvania by Lee with his army of veterans, and a forced march was required, General Sedgewick's laconic order to place the Vermonters at the head of the column and keep the ranks well closed up, told the story of his trust and confidence in these veterans from our rugged little state. If gallantry and dash in battle ever was required, the Vermont Brigade never failed to respond to any call, and if stubborn resistance to the onslaughts of the enemy was necessary to turn the tide of battle, then, also, they always stood as firm as the rocks upon the mountains among which they were born. It is not necessary on this occasion to deal in rhetoric, nor to indulge in any flights of oratory, for deeds speak louder than words.
In this month of May, just fifty years ago, the Vermont Brigade, which had crossed the Rapidan with 2,800 effective fighting men, was thrust into the terrible battles of the Wilderness and Spottsylvania, where they fought with a desperation which can never be described but which is in part indi- cated by the losses they sustained. The story is best told to a thoughtful listener by the statement that out of the 2,800 brave men who entered that vortex of death, 1,645, or 58 per cent of the whole, had, in a single week, been killed or wounded or reported missing.
But the story is not fully told without the added statement that this Brigade during its long service fought its way out of any class and achieved a distinction all its own; one so marked, so unequalled in character, that it comes down in history as the one brigade among all the brigades consti- tuting all the armies of the United States, both in the East and in the West, whose losses in killed and mortally wounded in battle exceeded all 19
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others. These brave and gallant sons of Vermont were the first in the field and the last to leave. From Bull Run to Appomattox, every step in their history was crowned with glory, and it was the men of the Brigade who fired the last shots of the Sixth Corps while engaged with the rear guard of Lee's retreating army in the final battle near Sailors Creek, just preceding the surrender of Lee at Appomattox. With just pride they marched together at the grand review in 1865, and then, in the exercise of the same qualities that had made them soldiers of the grandest type, they laid down their arms to become equally faithful citizens of the coun- try they had helped to save.
The regiments of the Old Brigade were hardly in the field when succeed- ing calls for men were made, and regiment after regiment was rushed to the front. The First Cavalry went out in the autumn of 1861, among its members from Waterbury being Lieutenant William Wells of Company C. In February, 1862, the state equipped and sent to the front for service in the gulf states the Seventh and Eighth Regiments, Charles Dillingham having been made Major and later Lieutenant-Colonel of the latter. In July they were followed by the Ninth Vermont, and in September by the Tenth, Company B of which was recruited by Edwin Dillingham and was comprised of men from Waterbury and surrounding towns. It was officered by Dillingham, Stetson and Thompson, who sealed their devotion to the cause by giving up their lives, every one of them having been slain in battle. The Eleventh went out during the same month, and in October, following the nine-months' regiments, the Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth and Sixteenth and in 1864 another three-year regiment, the Seventeenth, went out to a distinguished service, and among those enrolled were Lieutenant J. Edwin Henry and Frank S. Henry, a cousin, whose action in presenting this monument to his native town is so keenly appre- ciated by all who are gathered here today.
If Vermont was so greatly honored by the achievements of the Old Brigade, she was not less honored by the men thus later called to the service. They were equally brave, equally gallant. Not having been brigaded together, comparison with other regiments, all brave and doing "well their part, can only tell the story of their sacrifices, and of the relative rank they achieved among the other organizations constituting the armies of the Union. Let the records speak in unimpeachable terms. In the Union army as a whole, there were no less than 2,000 regi- ments in active service. Measured by the actual losses in battle, there were 300 individual regiments, which specially distinguished themselves for gallantry as measured by the number of their men left dead upon fields of battle. These 300 constitute the whole number of regiments which lost more than 130 men each in battle. And of Ver- mont's 12 regiments enlisted for three years or during the war, nine are found in this distinguished list. In the Union armies also there were many cavalry regiments. All had hard and even desperate service; but, while all suffered severely, there were nine whose services were such that
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they lost more heavily than any others. And among these nine so singled out for distinction, the First Vermont Cavalry was fifth, while it was first in the number of guns and prisoners captured in battle. To tell the story of Vermont's record as a whole and in strictly official language, I again quote from Colonel Fox, who says: "The percentage of killed in the quota furnished by Vermont is far above the average, and is exceeded only by one other state. Its large percentage is easily understood by a glance at the battle losses of its regiments."
Nor do we, in speaking of those who served longest, overlook the fact that the Second Vermont Brigade, composed of the Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth and Sixteenth Regiments, enlisted for nine months' service, had the honor of being a part of that wall on the hills of Gettysburg against which the highest tide of the Rebellion struck and from which it receded never again to reach a similar height. To some of these regiments fell the lot of flanking Pickett's Corps as it struck the Union lines at the point where the Vermont state monument now stands, and to gather in as prisoners the men who, under Pickett's intrepid leadership, had exhibited a courage, nay, a desperation, never surpassed in the history of battles, and to hold them as prisoners of war.
But if Vermont as a whole was so greatly distinguished by the valor of her troops in this great conflict, which demonstrated that they were noble sons of noble sires, what shall we say of Waterbury's record in that great struggle? Bear with me in leading up to the subject while I tell you of the percentage of killed and wounded in the greatest armies of foreign nations in modern wars and compare them with the losses of the Union forces during the Civil War.
In the Austrian army of 1866, the losses of killed in battle were 2.2 per cent. In the splendid German army engaged in the Franco-Prussian War such losses were 3.I per cent. In the allied armies in the Crimea they were 3.2 per cent.
Compare these with the vastly greater losses of the Union army in the War of the Rebellion, where they amounted to 4.7 per cent. And remem- ber that the losses among the Vermont troops in such army were 6.8 per cent, which is more than double that of any of the European armies in the great wars I have mentioned, and almost a third larger than that of the Union armies as a whole, and larger than that among the troops from any other state in the Union save one.
But as great as Vermont's loss was upon which her proud record is based, we remember with sad but enduring pride that Waterbury's loss as a town was still greater, and that the proportion of the slain was over 8 per cent of all her sons whom she sent to the field.
Who were these men who were killed or mortally wounded in battle? Ira S. Gray at Savage Station, Marcellus Johnson at South Mountain, and George S. Woodward in a cavalry engagement in Virginia. Who among us whose memories extend back to that period can forget the terrible year of '64, when the armies both of the North and South had become
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veterans and had entered upon a struggle which must go down in the annals of war as unequalled either in the desperate character of the battles fought or in the multitude of those who were slain? For while men fought, women wept. In every town, village or hamlet, however small, mothers mourned for their sons, wives for husbands, and children for fathers. Thirteen times during that year of sorrow the church bells of this place tolled out the news that another of Waterbury's sons had been slain in battle and that another household had been made desolate. Willard S. and Horatio G. Stone, Alva Rowell, Robert Hunkins, George Hubbard, George W. York, and Theodore Wood fell at the Wilderness or Spott- sylvania in the budding month of May. In June Edward C. Bragg, Henry B. Burleigh, Hamilton Glines, and Mason Humphrey closed their earthly career in the battle of Cold Harbor, and Allen Greeley received wounds from which he died the following month. Captain Stetson, too, who went out as one of the officers of Company B, Tenth Vermont, was among the slain. July brought the news of the death of John Brown at Andersonville, and with the news of the battle of Winchester, on the 19th of September, came the announcement that Major Edwin Dillingham had fallen while in com- mand of his regiment. Just a month from that day, on the 19th of October, his comrade and devoted friend, Captain Thompson, was instantly killed at Cedar Creek; while in the January following, almost at the close of the war, came the news that Lieutenant J. Edwin Henry of the Sev- enteenth had fallen in the assault upon the fortifications at Petersburg.
But in recounting the valor of those who fell in the shock of battle, we must not forget that larger number who, in the hospital and the prison pen, suffered from exposure, hardships and disease, showing the same soldierly qualities, and who laid down their lives with equal honor and devotion. Think of the number of mourners who walked our streets because of the death of Surgeon Drew, Lieutenant Don D. Stone, Corporal Charles B. Lee, Dennis A. Bickford, George Brown, H. S. Burleigh, Charles N. Collins, Joseph B. Conant, Henry Dillingham, Lyman Godfrey, Marcellus B. Johnson, Edwin Joslyn, Henry Lee, Sayles H. Locks, Lucian W. Murray, George C. Rice, Frank Stearns, Burton C. Turner, Henry Wells, Henry M. Wood, William H. Wood, Hiram Young.
But if the loss among all classes representing Waterbury was so great, what shall be said of that among the officers who originally went out in command of such brave men? Do not let it be forgotten, write it upon the tablets of your hearts, that 43 per cent of these gallant officers fell in the shock of battle and died with their faces to the foe, counting their lives as naught when the life of the nation was at stake.
This record of sacrifices made by the men of Waterbury in the Civil War places her in a rank by herself. If the valor of her men has been established by these terrible losses in battle, their quality as soldiers and commanders has been equally demonstrated by the fact that of the three men entering the service with the Vermont troops who, by their ability and gallantry, reached the rank of brevet major-general of volunteers, Waterbury is
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credited with William Wells who, entering the service as a first lieutenant, passed through every grade by promotion until in the grand review of the Union armies at the close of the war he rode proudly at the head of the Sec- ond Brigade of the Old Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Potomac, of which corps he also became the last commander. And of the seven brevet brig- adier-generals of volunteers appointed from among the Vermont troops, Waterbury was credited with one, in the person of William W. Henry, who, entering the service as a lieutenant, also passed through each successive grade and who still lives to tell the story of the gallantry of Vermont men.
May I add, also, that no elements entering into the exercises of this occasion can so impress the minds of those whose memories reach back to the period of the war as the presence with us of Doctor Henry Janes! The tremendous proportions of the Civil War, the magnitude of its battles and the awful slaughter of brave men are indelibly impressed upon the minds of those who remember that during his service as surgeon of the Third Vermont and as lieutenant-colonel and surgeon of United States volunteers, he not only ministered to multitudes of those who suffered from exposure and disease, but also had directly under his charge and was responsible for not less than 50,000 wounded men, an army of wounded men twice as large as the standing army of the United States before our war with Spain. In the honor that was thrust upon him in being placed in charge of all the hospitals in and about Gettysburg after the sanguinary battle at that place, Waterbury was equally honored. Every person within the reach of my voice joins with me in an expression of high regard and deep affection for Doctor Janes, and, by reason of his record both as citizen and as soldier, they accord to him the first place in the citizenship of the town.
In tracing to some extent the struggle for individual liberty, the over- throw of arbitrary power, the establishment of free institutions in America and the successful maintenance of them in the great war between the states, I have had a definite purpose. In addition to the desire which fills every heart here present to pay a just and affectionate tribute of praise to the veterans of the Civil War, whose record has never been equalled and will never be surpassed, as well as to the few who gather with us as to that larger number who, having fought the fight and kept the faith of good citizenship, have gone to their reward, I have desired to impress upon all who hear my voice the priceless value of the legacy which has been be- queathed to us and the terrible cost through which it was obtained.
I have done this at the express desire of the man toward whom the thoughts of this audience are most directed, to whom in his lifetime their affections went out in generous measure and for whose presence with us on this occasion we had so fondly hoped. Frank S. Henry was to the manor born. His love for Waterbury was an inheritance from generations running back to the time of the settlement of the town, strengthened and developed by early associations and later by his military service with the companions of his boyhood. It was perpetuated through friendships old and new, resulting from family and social relations which he sustained
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through life with the people of this community. He loved us, he gloried in our history, and his great desire was to make a lasting impress upon our future. He remembered that the boys of the nation fought the War of the Rebellion, and his great desire was that the boys of the present day and those of the future should be prepared to do well their part in perfecting and carrying out the work of the fathers.
It is an astounding fact that out of the 2,672,34I men constituting the Union armies during the war between the states, 2,157,798 or 81 per cent, were under twenty-one years of age when they enlisted, and that of this number 1,151,438-43 per cent-were under eighteen years of age. The miracle of the nineteenth century was the almost instantaneous develop- ment of these boys into strong, rugged, thoughtful, determined men, when the developing powers of great responsibilities were laid upon them.
No one remembered this fact more perfectly than Mr. Henry, and no one comprehended more perfectly the importance of having succeeding genera- tions equally well equipped for great national exigencies. His generous and patriotic action in erecting this monument was born not alone from a desire to honor those who had been his comrades in that great conflict, but by placing it in the grounds of the public schools, he hoped that countless generations would daily look upon it and derive inspiration from the record it discloses. So strong was his interest in those who are to succeed us in the responsibilities of citizenship that even when upon a bed of suffering and when facing that great change in which the mortal puts on immortality, he asked me to impress upon the heart and mind of this audience today the value of patriotism, of loyalty, of devotion to free institutions and the obligation that rests upon every community to keep alive the spirit of the fathers, and to impress it upon their children; and he was particularly impressed with the conviction that there should be included in the curricu- lum of the schools not only proper instruction in the elements of patriotism, but also in military tactics among the older boys, that there may be aroused in them an enthusiastic love of country and that there may be developed in them that military instinct which is so essential as an element of character in manly men and model citizens.
May the memory of his great generosity, his deep love for his native town and her people, and his patriotic interest in those who are to follow us, remain in the hearts of Waterbury's sons and daughters as long as bronze and granite endure, and God grant that such memory shall ever inspire them to a high conception and heroic defense of the great principle of liberty under law which the fathers established, and the maintenance of which made immortal the men of '61 to '65.
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