MASONIC LODGE
This original meeting was held at the regimental headquarters, Colonel Davis presiding, he having been named as Worthy Master of the Putnam Army Lodge, No. 8, thus called in compliment to the East Cambridge Lodge of which he was a member. It appears that army posts were no innovations at this date as the number of this new one would indicate. Already lodges had been formed in the Third, Sixteenth, Seventeenth, Twenty-fifth, Second and Forty-eighth Massachusetts Regiments and later dispensations were granted to the Forty-second and the Thirty-second. Aside from the Master of Putnam Lodge, Colonel P. S. Davis, the officers were Henry B. Leighton, S. W.; Capt. Geo. S. Nelson, J. W.; Capt. F. R. Kinsley, Treasurer; Lieut. Julius M. Swain, Secretary; Daniel Henry, S. D.; Perry Coleman, J. D.; Lieut. Henry F. Felch, S. S.; Lieut. Wm. T. Spear, J. S.; Lieut. Willard C. Kinsley, Marshal; and John M. Curtis, Tyler. In the distribution of officers it would seem that army rank had no place, fraternal relations being the only line of consideration. By-laws for the proper management of the lodge along with blank forms for application for membership were adopted and, though the Third Thursday of each month was named as the regular meeting date there were far more special than regular assemblings.
The second meeting of the lodge was in the Methodist chapel and when the Regiment moved back to Poolesville, the schoolhouse there was utilized, proper secrecy being gained by putting on guard, near the place of meeting, members of the order. Applications for membership came in rapidly and the record for the remainder of the calender year was twenty-three candidates admitted and seventeen meetings, $580 being received for dues and degrees. From April 6 to July 15, in front of Petersburg, after the death of Colonel Davis, there was a lapse; then the Lodge voted to bear the expense attending the return of the Colonels' remains to Massachusetts but, at the request of the family, the part of the lodge was confined to embalming and transportation to Boston, along with the expenses of Chaplain French, who accompanied the body on the sad journey to Boston. Help was given to the families of comrades who had been killed or were in hospitals or rebel prison. October 16, '64, at Fort Dushane it was voted to pay the expenses of sending the body of Lieut. Wm. T. Spear, Company B, to Roxbury, the officer having died in hospital from wounds; the same consideration was shown to the remains of Lieut. Willard C. Kinsley when he was killed. The final meeting of the lodge was in the State House Boston, January 29, 1866, with fourteen members present when it was voted that of the remaining funds, $198, $50 should go towards a portrait of Colonel Davis and the rest for relief. The officers were given the regalia that they had worn; the Bible was given to the widow of the Colonel, the square and compasses to the East Cambridge Lodge, the remaining set to go to Brother Henry B. Leighton, the S. W. During the activities of the field, the Master, S. D., J. S. and Marshal were killed, the Treasurer and Secretary were captured. There are recorded considerably more than fifty names of those voted in, while the brother, turning in the records, says that thirty-nine took the three degrees.
MITCHELL'S STATION AND THE SCHOOL IN CAMP
Channing Whittaker, Company B
Our most ideal winter's camp before the Wilderness Campaign was that at Mitchell's Station. A more perfect parade and drill ground could not have been desired. It had abundant length and breadth. It was the smooth level top of an extensive plateau. The log cabins of the officers were in a straight row where the slope to the rear began. The log cabins of the men stretched down the Feb., '64 slope toward a veritable Eldorado of firewood and drinking water. These log cabins were very comfortable. Each accommodated eight men. The entrance from the company street was at the middle of its length. The fireplace and chimney were directly opposite the entrance. The living room was between the two. There were four bunks, two at each end with one above the other. Each bunk was long enough for a tall man to stretch out at full length with his head upon his knapsack and wide enough for two men to sleep comfortably, side by side. The cabins of the field officers had, of course, the right of the line. The chapel was more to the front and a little to the left of the cabins of the field officers. The pioneers who constructed Col. Davis' cabin and the chapel were master workmen. No keel of ship in New England shipyard had timbers hewn and dowelled into a substantial whole with more absolute perfection. I never shall forget the perfect delight of an afternoon when, convalescing from a severe attack of measles, I was detailed to report at the Colonel's quarters. Here I was received by Lieut Colonel Peirson with a smile upon his face. He showed me that the cabin was not yet dry enough for occupancy, showed me the wood which I was to burn to dry it out, showed me the charming fireplace in which I was to burn it. If I remember well its top was arched. Perhaps the arch had blocks, with a central one of keystone shape. He gave me a comfortable seat and an entertaining book to read, by an army chaplain, "The Whip, Hoe, and Sword," by George H. Hepworth. The friendly behavior of the Lieut. Colonel, the restful charm of the roomy clean interior finished in natural wood showing its grain, the blazing fire in the big fireplace with its perfect chimney, and the extreme comfort of it all, after the discomforts of the measles, filled me with agreeable sensations and with gratitude to the Lieutenant Colonel.
And the chapel! It may have been thirty by fifty feet inside. Its hewn oaken logs were perhaps twelve inches square, its roof was a fly that the Christian Commission had furnished. Its fireplace was huge, magnificent. The prayer meetings were held in it, the Freemasons used it as a lodgeroom, the Sons of Temperance had meetings there, and the regimental school for those who could neither read nor write nor cipher was held in it. I well remember the morning when Comrade John F. Locke, of Company E, and myself were detailed to report at the chapel and appointed to be the teachers of the school by Lieut. Colonel Peirson. I remember hearing the roll-call of the students of my own and of a neighboring company and the ugly mutterings, the dissatisfaction, the almost mutinous emphatic expressions of discontent of some of those whose names had been called, because they had been detailed to attend a school. I fully expected trouble. A considerable number of men were in anything but a teachable spirit. We met in the chapel, the Lieut. Colonel, the teachers, and thirty students, some of them bristling with unwillingness. But the Lieut. Colonel, who was always a gentleman, drew us all into a comfortable semi-circle about the hearth where the cheerful fire blazed. He told us of the personal benefits and advantages which it was hoped that the work in the school would bring to each student, and his manner and speech almost immediately disarmed the embryo antagonism of the others in the group. When he finally asked if there were any present who desired to be relieved from attendance at the school, not a man wished to withdraw, all were glad of the opportunity. The antagonism had melted away like a mud-puddle in the light of a July sun. And the antagonism never returned. I have taught many hundreds of students since but none who were more interested, more attentive, more constant. Each of the men learned to write his name. Seven wrote letters home before we broke camp, to the great delight of themselves and their families. Twenty-three made especially commendable progress in reading and arithmetic. Our text and copy books had been Feb., '64 the generous gifts of Colonel Davis and his brother Robert. The Lieut. Colonel had offered a gold pen and case as a prize to the man who should gain the greatest proficiency in writing. All of the written exercises were carefully preserved from the beginning and, when the time came to award the prize, it was almost impossible to say whether it had been won by Johnny Gibbs of Company A, a brick layer, who was well along in years or by Daniel Lines, a carriage painter. For year after year the good right hand of Johnny Gibbs had clasped the small handle of a trowel. Its active exercise in that cramped position with the acrid lime sometimes in contact with it had caused its bones and cords and muscles to grow out of shape. He could no longer open it much more than enough to enter and remove a trowel handle. He could not hold a pen in usual position. There were sharp crooks made at the joints of his right thumb and forefinger when he brought them together, and there were similar crooks in his capital O's when he wrote his best. But his handwriting, though characteristic, was absolutely clear. It was perfectly easy to read. He had mastered his hand for the purposes of a writer. Despite the crooks he wrote a handsome hand. The hand of Daniel Lines had gained a wonderful cunning in the business of a carriage painter. He could do what he would with a camels-hair brush, when making scrolls and stripes and decorations. He brought to his copy book the artistic power of a hand over which he had a complete control. From the beginning his double-reversed curves were lines of beauty. At the end his writing had almost the perfection of the copyplate. There was no possible doubt that Daniel Lines' writing was more beautiful than that of any other pupil in the school, but which had gained the greatest proficiency in writing in the school, he or Johnny Gibbs? The teachers were puzzled. They called in the Lieut. Colonel as referee. He too was in doubt and suggested that Gibbs and Lines should draw lots. The lot fell to Gibbs. On Sunday, the 21st of August, 1864, Johnny Gibbs and his teacher, John F. Locke, were taken prisoners in a battle on the Weldon Railroad. They were both very sick, together, in that fearful prison in Salisbury, North Carolina. There were no tender-hearted, white-capped, trained nurses there, to keep in extreme cleanliness the clothing of the very sick. But the gratitude, the compassion, the sympathy of the old man for his youthful teacher became too strong. Like many another soldier who has volunteered to dare almost certain death in a forlorn hope, weak Johnny Gibbs washed the soiled clothing of John Locke. Within a day, Johnny Gibbs was dead.