USA > Vermont > Points in Vermont history : address before the Boston Vermont Association, January 27, 1892 > Part 2
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On the same day, Gov. Fairbanks issued a proclamation announcing the receipt of the requisition from the President, calling for a regiment for immediate service, and calling a special session of the Legislature to take measures to aid the general Government in the suppression of the Southern Rebellion. This proclamation antedated by at least a day all similar proclamations by the governors of the other Northern States.
The first Vermonter who volunteered under this call was George J. Stannard, Colonel of the 4th Regiment, consist- ing of but four companies, and numbering less than two hundred men, but who, he notified the Adjutant General, would be ready to march upon twelve hours' notice.
The Legislature met in special session on April 25, and the Governor announced that he had called into service ten companies of militia to form a regiment under the requi- sition of the President, and urged immediate appropriations for military purposes. Within twenty-four hours the Legis- lature passed a bill appropriating one million dollars for war expenses, and authorizing the same to be borrowed by the issue of State bonds .* -
The next day it passed Acts providing for raising and
* Chap. 4 Laws, Special Session, 1861.
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equipping six additional regiments to serve two years, and giving State pay of seven dollars a month to each private, in addition to the government pay of thirteen dollars, and providing for the relief of families of volunteers at State expense, and also an Act levying a war tax of ten centson a dollar of the grand list; * and at the October session it passed a solemn resolution informing the President of the United States that the people of Vermont desired that no troops which it furnished should be used directly or indirectly to return slaves to bondage. ยก
The troops thus provided for were Vermont's proportion of an army of six hundred thousand men. The one million dollars appropriation was larger in proportion to its resources than that made made by any other State, and the provision for State pay and relief to families of volunteers ultimately required an expenditure of nearly four million dollars.
Before the first regiment was mustered into service the Governor called for volunteers for two additional regiments requiring twenty companies. Within three days after this call was made fifty-six full companies were tendered of which only twenty could be accepted.
The 1st Regiment at the end of its three months' service returned with rank and file of 753, of whom over 600 re-en- listed for three years, and 250 of whom afterwards held com- missions in the army.
One third of the troops from Vermont served in the First Brigade composed of the 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th, and 6th Regiments.
Exclusive of the 11th Regiment, which was a part of the brigade for only about a year, it comprised during its entire service 8,817 officers and men. Of these 110 out of every thousand were either killed in battle or received fatal
* Chaps. 2, 3, 7, 9, 11 Laws, Special Session, 1861.
t Joint Resolution No. 79, Laws 1861.
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wounds, 774 died in Union hospitals, and 135 in Confed- erate prisons, while the total number of wounded was 2,328.
The proportion of men killed in action in the Union Army during the war was 2.88 per cent, and of those fatally wounded 1.85 per cent, - but in this brigade 4.48 per cent were fatally wounded and 6.55 were killed in action.
It took part in thirty-seven battles and engagements officially reported, or an average of nearly three a month, and marched over 2,000 miles in Maryland and Virginia. It was a part of the Sixth Corps, and was the only brigade in the army that was known by a distinctive name, being called throughout the war, "The Vermont Brigade," and known as "The Fighting Brigade of the Fighting Corps."
It carried the colors of Vermont in the forefront of the bloodiest battles of the war, but even Southern valor never plucked from its hands a single flag.
Its reputation was shown by the significant order of Gen. Sedgwick when he marched the Sixth Corps, of which it was a part, to the field of Gettysburg : " Put the Vermont- ers ahead, and keep the column well closed up "; and by Lincoln's laconic remark, when, on going to the dock at Washington to meet the Vermont troops who had been or- dered-there to repel the rebel raid under Gen. Early, he was told that only Gen. Getty and his staff had arrived : "I don't care to see any major-generals. I came here to meet the Vermont Brigade."
The 11th Regiment, during a service of less than three years, fought in twelve battles, some of them the most bloody of the war. Four of its officers were brevetted by President Lincoln for bravery at Cedar Creek, and it lost five hundred and forty-two of its numbers by death.
The 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th Regiments were not united in
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one brigade, but they saw some of the severest fighting of the war.
The 7th Regiment served in the Department of the Gulf, and of its number one in every three died in the South, most of them in the Vicksburg campaign.
The 8th Regiment served in New Orleans and in Virginia, and lost 345 of its number by death, and upon the expiration of their term of service, 321 of its members re-enlisted. It was under fire on sixty-two different days, and at Cedar Creek, with not over 350 effective men in the field, it lost 124, while of its 16 commissioned officers 13 were killed or wounded .*
The 9th Regiment served in the army of Virginia. It lost by death one third of its original number, fought at Fair Oaks and in the closing battles of the war, and led the Union army when it marched into Richmond.
The 10th Regiment served in the army of Virginia, and was engaged in 13 battles, was the first regiment that entered the rebel works at the storming of Petersburg, and lost 332 of its number by death. Of its 297 officers and men who took part in the battle of Cedar Creek nearly one third were killed, and of the 17 officers who went into that battle only seven came out unharmed.
The first full regiment of cavalry raised in New England was enlisted from Vermont. It comprised from first to last 2,297 officers and men, and was raised and provided with uniforms and horses in forty-two days.
Its original members were of such equality of social and other conditions that they did not readily surrender their right of independent judgment, and submit to necessary military discipline. In the language of Surgeon Edson : -
* Its history has been admirably written by Captain George N. Carpenter, now of Brookline, Mass., and treasurer of the Boston Vermont Association.
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" The field and staff officers were but privates raised through the Company grades, alike inexperienced and igno- rant of their duties, except those pertaining to the regimental town meeting that seemed to be always in session."
They were mustered into service on the 19th of November, 1861. Their first engagement was on April 16, 1862, and the last on April 9, 1865, during which time they fought in seventy-five battles and skirmishes, or a little more than two every month.
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At the battle of Cedar Creek they captured one hundred and sixty-one prisoners, including one general, one colonel, one lieutenant-colonel ; and took three battle-flags, and twenty-three out of the forty-eight pieces of artillery cap- tured by the entire Union Army in that engagement, being more than were captured by any regiment in any single battle during the entire war. Of the eight medals of honor awarded to the cavalry for captures of colors in that battle, three went to the members of the First Vermont Cavalry.
Three batteries of light artillery went to the field from Vermont. The first and the second, raised in 1861, served in Louisiana, in the Red River campaign and in the South- west. The third mustered into service in January, 1864, served in Virginia and fought at Petersburg. Of their original number of 418, officers and men, they lost by death 121.
Of the United States Sharpshooters, 620 (including two lieutenant-colonels of the command), being more than one sixth of the whole number, and more than were furnished by any other State in proportion to its population, were fur- nished from Vermont ; and from August, 1862, to February, 1865, they fought in twenty-seven different battles.
Six hundred and nineteen Vermonters served in the Navy and Marine Corps, and they included men in every rank,
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from seamen to commodores, of which last rank there were three .*
August 4, 1862, President Lincoln called for three hun- dred thousand troops to serve nine months, and although Vermont was then engaged in equipping the 10th and 11th Regiments, and its proportion under this new call was 4,898 men, that number was raised by voluntary en- listment and organized into the 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, and 16th regiments, which were, on the 27th of October, 1862 united as the Second Brigade. A very large number of students and professional men enlisted in these regiments, and during the twenty-five years after the close of the war three governors, two lieutenant-governors, two judges of the Supreme Court, and congressmen and minor officers too numerous to mention, had been furnished the State from its members.
Their short term of service prevented their becoming trained soldiers, but it was reserved for these boys from the farms and the schools to strike the decisive blow in the decisive battle of the war.
On the third day of the battle of Gettysburg, when Lee, after concentrating upon the centre of the Union line the fire of one hundred and fifty guns for two hours, hurled against it the flower of his army, under Gen. Pickett, in the most determined assault of the war, t it was the 13th and 16th Vermont Regiments which, directed by Stannard, wheeled from the line and moving at double quick struck the
* These figures are mainly from the complete and admirable " History of Ver- mont in the Civil War," by George G. Benedict.
t Speaking of this attack, the Confederate historian, Pollard, says: "The havoc made in the ranks of Pickett's Division was appalling. Every Brigadier in the division was killed or wounded. Out of twenty-four regimental officers only two escaped unhurt. The colonels of five Virginia regiments were killed, and the 9th Virginia, which went in two hundred and fifty strong, came out with only thirty-eight men."
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advancing rebel column in the flank, and broke the charge that would otherwise probably have pierced the Union line.
No wonder when Gen. Doubleday saw this daring move of Gen. Stannard, and realized what its result would be, he shouted, "Glory to God ! glory to God! See the Vermonters go it." The scene has been often painted in words to which nothing can be added by me, and it will live in story and in song as long as American history endures.
The seventeenth regiment was mustered into service Oct. 17, 1864. It fought at Petersburg, participated in the pursuit of Lee's army until its surrender and was mustered out on July 22, 1865. No regiment had such severity of service with so little preparation, but its cool and determined bravery in action won the admiration of all .*
Nor did the men who served in organizations raised in Vermont alone represent the entire contribution of that State to the Union Army. An incomplete list of Ver- monters holding commissions in organizations of other States comprises the names of six full major-generals, fifteen brigadier generals, twenty-five colonels, thirteen lieutenant-colonels, forty-five majors, and two hundred and six captains and lieutenants, among whom it is not invidious to mention Gen. William F. Smith, who com- manded the Sixth and Eighteenth Army Corps, Maj .- Gen. George C. Strong, who fell leading the assault on Fort Wagner, and Gen. Thomas E. G. Ransom, who com- manded the Seventeenth Corps, and died on Sherman's march to the sea.
The number of Vermont troops killed in battle exceeded the ratio of the killed in the whole army by twenty-five in
* Ad. Gen. Report, 1864, page 78.
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every thousand ; and taking into account the Vermonters killed in action in troops from other States, more men of Vermont fell in battle than from any other Northern State, in proportion to its population, while of the fifty-four regi- ments of the army, which had over two hundred men killed in battle, the 2d, 3d, 5th, and 6th Vermont were four .*
With a population in 1860 of only 315,098 men, women, and children, and a total number of only 60,719 men subject to military duty, Vermont sent to the Union Army 35,242 men, or more than eleven per cent of her entire population, and 1,513 men more than the aggregate quotas due from the State under all calls from the General Government.
She secured by legislative enactment the right of her soldiers to vote in the field ; and by special officers and com- missions she tenderly cared for those who were wounded or diseased. Her troops fought in the first battle and in the last battle of the war, and in over one hundred and fifty engagements. The best evidence of their high character for steadiness and bravery is found in the exposed and danger- ous service to which they were constantly called, and in the fact that while they captured many colors, every flag which they carried, save only one, was by them brought back.
More than five thousand of her troops were killed in action, or died in the service of wounds and disease. More than five thousand more were discharged from the service from wounds or disability received in it, making more than ten thousand men, or nearly one third of the whole number ; and thousands more returned to their homes shattered with wounds and enfeebled by disease contracted in the service, from which they have since died.
Two hundred and thirty-six perished in rebel prisous under privations and tortures, the story of which, as told in the
* Benedict's History, Vol. 2, page 792.
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official report of the military agent who received the exchanged Union prisoners at Annapolis in 1864, chills the blood after the lapse of more than a quarter of a century .*
And it should be remembered that these troops were not from the vagrant and vicious, or from the surplus and idle population of crowded cities. They were the flower of the young men of the State, nurtured in Christian homes, taught in Christian schools. They came from the farms, the shops, and the professions, and from every walk of industrious and honest life. Each was dear to some family circle, where loved ones silently suffered when they fell, and where in many a woman's heart there still rests the shadow of an unending sorrow.
Substantially one half of the able-bodied men of military age in Vermont volunteered and served in the defence of the Union. With a total taxable valuation of only $85,- 000,000, she expended nearly $10,000,000 for war purposes ; and yet, such is the industry and thrift of her people, that in 1880 Vermont was one of the three States of the Union which had no bonded debt, while in 1890 its cash assets exceeded its obligations of all kinds by $75,146.t
There is among the uninformed a belief that Vermont is
* This report, speaking of the arrival of the exchanged Union prisoners, says: " Here, day after day, men, emaciated, hunger-stricken, worn away to skele- tons by disease and starvation, trooped out from the ships until the heart sick- ened at the fearful scene of human misery. Here were human beings covered with filth, their bodies alive with vermin, with gaping wounds that never had been cleansed or dressed, filled with maggots, fairly eaten up alive, with pallid, sunken cheeks, the skin drawn tightly over the bones, with eyes that had lost their siglit, and souls from which every spark of intelligence had forever fled, crazed, idiotic, dead in life, with all that makes existence worth having forgotten or only remembered as a dream, maimed, distorted, unable to speak, or mum- bling inarticulate of senseless sounds." - Ferment Adjutant General's Report, 1865, page 56.
t The floating debt of the State in 1880 was $151,020 and in 1890, $148,416. The cash funds on hand, in 1880, amounted to $349,341 : and in 1890, to $223,562; the excess of assets over floating debt in 1880 being $198,321 and in 1890, $75,146.
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declining in material prosperity, and its abandoned farms are a constant text for the mournful tirades of those who think that because farmers leave poor land for better land the country is hastening to ruin. The belief is unfounded. Vermont is still prosperous and growing.
Its assessed valuation increased from $86,392,534 in 1880, to $162,098,513 in 1890; the valuation of its real estate alone increasing from $71,017,001 to $112,895,125, and the valuation of its personal property from $15,375,533 to $49,203,388.
In 1880, the total number of persons employed in manu- factures was 17,540, to whom wages were paid amounting to $5,164,479, and the total value of its manufactured products was $31,354,336. In 1890, there were 20,000 persons employed in manufactures, whose wages amounted to over $6,500,000, and the total value of the manufactured products was $37,000,000.
The deposits in its savings institutions have increased from $7,348,112 by 29,143 depositors, or an average of $252.16 to each, in 1880, to $19,330,565 by 65,759 deposi- tors, being an average of $293.96 to each, in 1890; while the gain during the five years from 1885 to 1890 was $4,077,- 037.
Such are some of the points in the history of our sturdy native State, - this Sparta of America.
Time does not permit even a brief notice of her constant effort, by legislation and efficient enforcement of law, to pro- mote temperance, education, and reform, or to mention even a few of her many illustrious sons. She has always kept her best men in public life. By the wise and conservative action of her Assembly, an elective judiciary has been made practically as permanent in its official tenure as one appointed for life.
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Her senators in Congress have always been leaders; and we have but recently seen one of them, after many years of conspicuous service, resign his office, to the regret, not only of his State, but of the nation, and decline the highest judicial position because it could add no honor to his illustri- ous career, while the other, entrenched in the affections of all Vermonters, still stands in his place and with the vigor of manhood and the wisdom of age does sturdy battle for sound currency and honest finance.
About 190,000 natives of Vermont are residents of other States, there being in Massachusetts alone nearly thirty-six thousand, or nearly seven thousand more than the entire population of Barnstable County. Only nine of the twenty- seven cities of the Commonwealth (exclusive of Boston) have a population greater than the number of native Ver- monters in the Commonwealth, and there are seven cities, each of which has a population less than one half their number .:
If all the inhabitants of the city of Taunton should move out of it, the native Vermonters in Massachusetts could repop- ulate it, and have a surplus equal to the population of undivided Beverly.
If all the inhabitants of the extensive city of Newton should leave their beautiful homes, the native Vermonters of the Commonwealth could fill them, and also populate eleven towns in Middlesex County, and then there would be a surplus of them equal to the population of the exclusive town of Nahant.
Her sons are in positions of private and of public respon- sibility and influence in every State of the Union ; and in Massachusetts those who have attained success and distinc- tion are so numerous that time will not permit me to mention them even by name.
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The junior vice-president of this Association has been twice called to the chief executive office of the national gov- ernment in New England, which he now so ably fills .*
Another of our number holds with even hand the scales of justice in the Superior Court, t while our senior vice-presi- dent, as Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth, is no unworthy successor of the long line of able jurists who have held that high office.#
We love the soil of our native State. From its mountains robed in green and its hilltops crowned with the clustering maples to its valleys clad in verdure ; from the beautiful Connecticut winding amid broad and fertile meadows, to the romantic Winooski and Missisquoi flowing to the shin- ing Champlain, it is all dear to us.
But more than this we cherish its history and its memories ; the story of its early trials and of its later success, of the lives of its sturdy men and its noble women, of their devotion to freedom and to personal liberty, of their constancy and their courage, and the sacred memories that cluster about the homes of our childhood, - these are our choicest heritage. And as the years go by and our " moorings to the past snap one by one," we love our birthplace more and more.
*Alanson W. Beard, Collector of Boston.
t Edgar J. Sherman, Attorney General from 1883 to 1887, when he was ap- pointed Justice of the Superior Court.
# Walbridge A. Field, member of Congress in 1877, 1879, and 1880; Associate Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court from 1881 to 1890, and Chief Justice since.
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