VERMONT IN THE WAR OF THE REBELLION.
The dreariness of the long Northern winter was past. The soft air of spring again breathed through the peaceful valleys, wafting the songs of returning birds, the voice of unfettered streams, and the sound of reawakened husbandry. Though far off in the Southern horizon the cloud of rebellion lowered and threatened, men went about their ordinary affairs, still hoping for peace, till the tranquillity of those April days was broken by the bursting storm of civil war.
With the echo of its first thunder came President Lincoln's call for troops, and Vermont responded with a regiment of her sons, as brave, though their lives had been lapped in peace, as the war-nurtured Green Mountain Boys of old. The military spirit had been but feebly nursed during many tranquil years, yet, at the first breath of this storm, it blazed up in a fervor of patriotic fire such as never before had been witnessed.
At the outbreak of the Rebellion, no Northern State was less prepared for war than Vermont. Except in the feeble existence of four skeleton regiments, her militia was unorganized, the men subject to military service not being even enrolled. Some of the uniformed companies were without guns, others drilled with ancient flintlocks; and the State possessed but five hundred serviceable percussion muskets, and no tents nor camp equipage; while the Champlain arsenal at Vergennes, like other United States arsenals in the North, had been stripped by Floyd, the Secretary of War, of everything but a few superannuated muskets and useless cannon. The continual outflow of emigration had drawn great numbers of the stalwart young men of the rural population to the Western States, in whose regiments many of them were already enlisting, and she had not the large towns nor floating population which in most other States contributed so largely the material for armies.
The governor, Erastus Fairbanks, immediately issued a proclamation, announcing the outbreak of rebellion, and the President's call for volunteers, and summoning the legislature to assemble on the 25th of April. His proclamation bore even date with that of the President, and is believed to have antedated by at least a day the like proclamation of any other governor.[111]
In the brief interval between the summoning and the assembling of the legislature, in all parts of the State men were drilling and volunteering. Banks and individuals tendered their money, railroad and steamboat companies offered free transportation for troops and munitions of war, and patriotic women were making uniforms of "Vermont gray" for the ten companies of militia chosen on the 19th of April to form the 1st regiment.
The train which brought the legislators to the capital was welcomed by a national salute from the two cannon captured at Bennington. Without distinction of party, senators and representatives met the imperative demands of the time with such resolute purpose that in forty-eight hours they had accomplished the business for which they were assembled, and had adjourned. A bill was unanimously passed appropriating one million dollars for war expenses. Provision was made for raising six more regiments for two years' service, for it was forecast by the legislature that the war was not likely to be confined to one campaign, nor an insignificant expenditure of money. Each private was to be paid by the State seven dollars a month in addition to the thirteen dollars offered by the United States. If his aged parents or wife and children should come to want while he was fighting his country's battles, they were not to become town paupers, but the wards of the commonwealth.
The ten companies were rapidly filled, their equipment was completed, and they assembled at Rutland on the 2d of May, with John W. Phelps as colonel, a native of Vermont, who had served with distinction in the Mexican War as lieutenant, and captain in the regular army. No fitter choice could have been made of a commander for the regiment than this brave and conscientious soldier, who, though a strict disciplinarian, exercised such fatherly care over his men that he won their love and respect.
After some delay the regiment was mustered into the United States service on the 8th. It was the opinion of the Adjutant-General that there were troops enough already at Washington for its defense, and that the 1st Vermont might better be held in its own State for a while. But when General Scott learned that a regiment of Green Mountain Boys, commanded by Phelps, was awaiting marching orders, he wished them sent on at once. "I want your Vermont regiments, all of them. I remember the Vermont men on the Niagara frontier," and he remembered Captain Phelps at Contreras and Cherubusco. A special messenger was dispatched to Rutland with orders to march, and on the 9th of May, the eighty-sixth anniversary of the mustering of Allen's mountaineers for the attack of Ticonderoga, this regiment of worthy inheritors of their home and name set forth for Fortress Monroe. There were heavy hearts in the cheering throng that bade them Godspeed and farewell,—heavier than they bore, for to them was appointed action: to those they left behind, only waiting in hope and fear and prayer for the return of their beloved. On its passage through New York, the regiment attracted much admiration for the stature and soldierly bearing of its members, each of whom wore in his gray cap, as proudly as a knight his plume, the evergreen badge of his State.
Each succeeding regiment bore this emblem to the front, to be drenched in blood, to be scathed in the fire of war, to wither in the pestilential air of Southern prisons, but never to be dishonored.
"Who is that tall Vermont colonel?" one spectator asked, pointing to the towering form of Colonel Phelps.
"That," answered another, "is old Ethan Allen resurrected!"
The 1st was stationed at Fortress Monroe, and remained there and in the vicinity during its term of service. At Big Bethel, in the first engagement of the war worthy the name of a battle, it bore bravely its part, though the ill-planned attack resulted in failure. The throngs of fugitive slaves who sought refuge with Colonel Phelps were not returned to their masters, but allowed to come and go as they pleased, and thereafter were safe when they had found their way into the camps of Vermonters, though they were given up by the officers of other volunteers and of the regulars. General Butler, in command at Fortress Monroe, assuming that they were contraband of war, refused to return them to slavery, and put them to efficient service in the construction of fortifications. The regiment returned to Vermont early in August, and was mustered out, but of its members five out of every six reëntered the service in regiments subsequently raised, and two hundred and fifty held commissions. Their colonel, now appointed brigadier-general, remaining at Fortress Monroe, greatly regretted their departure. "A regiment the like of which will not soon be seen again," he said to Colonel Washburn. Yet, before the leaves had fallen that were greening the Vermont hills when the 1st regiment left them, five other regiments in no wise inferior had gone to the front, to a more active service and bloodier fields.
The 2d Vermont, its ten companies selected from over 5,600 men who offered themselves, went to the front in time to take part in the first great battle of the war at Bull Run. Thenceforth till the close of the war this splendid regiment took part in almost every battle in which the Army of the Potomac was engaged. Its ratio of killed and mortally wounded was eight times greater than was the average in the Union army. The 3d regiment followed in July, the 4th and 5th were rapidly filled and sent forward in September, the 6th in October. These five regiments formed the First Brigade of the Sixth Corps. The heroic service[112] of this brigade is interwoven with the history of the Army of the Potomac. The estimation in which it was held is shown by the responsible and dangerous positions to which it was so often assigned, and in the praise bestowed upon it by distinguished generals under which it served. When the Sixth Corps was to be hurried with all speed to the imperiled field of Gettysburg, Sedgwick's order was, "Put the Vermonters in front, and keep the column well closed up." "No body of troops in or out of the Army of the Potomac made their record more gallantly, sustained it more heroically, or wore their honors more modestly."[113]
At the time of the draft riots in New York, in July, 1863, the First Vermont Brigade, with other most reliable troops to the number of twelve thousand, were sent thither to preserve order during the continuance of the draft. It was a strange turn of time that brought Vermont regiments to protect the city whose colonial rulers had set the ban of outlawry upon the leaders of the old Green Mountain Boys. These later bearers of the name performed their duty faithfully and without arrogance, and received warm praise of all good citizens for their orderly behavior during what was holiday service to such veterans.
Vermont horses had won a national reputation as well as Vermont men, and it seemed desirable that the government should avail itself of the services of both. Accordingly, in the fall of 1861, a regiment of cavalry was recruited under direct authority of the Secretary of War; and in forty-two days after the order was issued, the men and their horses were in "Camp Ethan Allen" at Burlington. But one larger regiment, the 11th, went from the State, and none saw more constant or harder service. It brought home its flag inscribed with the names of seventy-five battles and skirmishes.
The 7th and 8th regiments of infantry and two companies of light artillery were raised early in 1862, and were assigned to service in the Gulf States, in the department commanded by General Butler. Arrived at Ship Island, much to their gratification, they were placed under the immediate command of their own general, Phelps. Faithful to the spirit of his State and his own convictions of justice, he had issued[114] a proclamation to the loyal citizens of the Southwest, declaring that slavery was incompatible with free government, and the aim of the government to be its overthrow. Fugitive slaves found a safe refuge in his camp here, as in Virginia, and in May, 1862, he began drilling and organizing three regiments of blacks. But upon his requisition for muskets to arm them, he was peremptorily ordered by General Butler to desist from organizing colored troops, and he resigned his commission. "The government," says Benedict in "Vermont in the Civil War," "which before the war closed had 175,000 colored men under arms, thus lost the services of as brave, faithful, and patriotic an officer as it had in its army, one whose only fault as a soldier was that he was a little in advance of his superiors in willingness to accept the aid of all loyal citizens, white or black, in the overthrow of rebellion."
In July, 1862, the 9th regiment, commanded by Colonel Stannard, went to the front, being the first under the recent call for three hundred thousand men. Its initial service was at Harper's Ferry, where it presently suffered the humiliation of surrender with the rest of Miles's force. In the little fighting that occurred, the raw regiment bore itself bravely. Colonel Stannard begged Miles to let him storm London Heights with his command alone, and then to cut his way out of the beleaguered post, but both requests were refused. The 9th passed several months under parole at Chicago, was exchanged, and at length took its place in the Army of the Potomac. A portion of this regiment was the first of the Union infantry to carry the national flag into the rebel capital.
The 10th and 11th regiments were speedily forwarded in the fall of 1862. The former joined the army in Virginia. The latter, recruited as heavy artillery, spent two years in garrison duty in the defenses of Washington. When Grant began the campaign of the Wilderness, it joined the First Vermont Brigade as an infantry regiment, and its fifteen hundred men outnumbered the five other thinned regiments of the brigade that had so often been winnowed in the blasts of war, which soon swept its own ranks with deadly effect.
Before these two regiments were organized came the President's call for three hundred thousand militia to serve nine months, under which Vermont's quota was nearly five thousand. The five regiments were quickly raised and sent forward, and to three of them, just before their term of enlistment expired, fell a full share of the glories of Gettysburg, under the intrepid leader, General Stannard. The charge of his Vermont Brigade beat back Pickett's furious assault, and decided the fate of the day.[115] Once more the brave little commonwealth was called on to furnish a regiment, and the 17th was sent to the front with ranks yet unfilled. Its third battalion drill was held on the battlefield of the Wilderness. The untried troops were hurled at once into the thick of the fight and suffered fearful loss, and henceforth were almost continually engaged with the enemy till the fall of Richmond.
Besides these seventeen regiments of infantry and one of cavalry, the State furnished for the defense of the Union three light batteries and three companies of sharpshooters, who well sustained the ancient renown of the marksmen whom Stark and Warner led, and at the close of the war Vermont stood credited with nearly thirty-four thousand men. Thus unstintingly did she devote her strength to the preservation of the Union to which she had been so reluctantly admitted. What manner of men they were, Sheridan testified when, two years after the war, standing beneath their tattered banners in Representatives' Hall at Montpelier, he said: "I have never commanded troops in whom I had more confidence than I had in the Vermont troops, and I do not know but I can say that I never commanded troops in whom I had as much confidence as those of this gallant State," and the torn and faded battle-flags under which he stood told more eloquently than words how bravely they had been borne through the peril of many battles, and honorably returned to the State that gave them.
When, after four weary years, the war came to its successful close, the decimated regiments of Green Mountain Boys returned to their State, received a joyful but sad welcome, and then, with all the embattled host of Union volunteers, dissolved into the even, uneventful flow of ordinary life. Notwithstanding the remoteness of the State from the arena of war, Vermont suffered a rebel raid from a quarter whence of old her enemies had often come, though of right none should come now. A majority of the people of Canada were in warm sympathy with the rebellion, their government was indifferent, and the Dominion swarmed with disloyal Americans, who were continually plotting to aid their brethren at the front by covert attacks in the rear. The federal government was on its guard, but a blow fell suddenly at an unexpected point.
On the 19th of October, 1864, while Vermont troops under Sheridan were routing the rebels at Cedar Creek, a rather unusual number of strangers appeared in the village of St. Albans, a few miles from the Canadian border. Moving about singly or in small groups, and clad in citizen's dress, they attracted no particular attention, till, at a preconcerted signal, three small parties of them entered the banks, and with cocked and leveled pistols forced the officials to deliver up all the moneys in their keeping. Other armed men in the streets at once seized and placed under guard every citizen found astir, while some attempted to fire the town by throwing vials of so-called Greek fire into some of the principal buildings. Having possessed themselves of the treasure in the banks, amounting to two hundred thousand dollars, in specie, bills, and bonds, the party took horses from the livery stables, and rode out of town, firing as they went a wanton fusillade which wounded several persons, but happily killed only a recreant New Englander who was in sympathy with their cause. They proved to be a band of rebel soldiers, commanded by a Lieutenant Young, who held a commission in the Confederate army. They beat a hurried retreat with their booty beyond the line, whither they were pursued by a hastily gathered party of mounted men under the lead of Captain Conger, who had served in the Union army. None of the raiders were taken, but later fourteen were captured in Canada, with $87,000 of the booty, by Captain Conger's men, acting under orders of General Dix, and aided by Canadian officials. During their brief imprisonment they were entertained as honored guests in the Montreal jail, and, after undergoing the farce of a trial in a Canadian court of justice, they were set at liberty amid cheers, which evinced the warm sympathy of the neutral Canadians. It appeared in the testimony of a detective that Colonel Armitinger, second in command of the Montreal militia, was aware of the contemplated raid, but took no measures to prevent it. "Let them go on," he said, "and have a fight on the frontier; it is none of our business; we can lose nothing by it."
The affair formed an important point of consideration in the Geneva arbitration, and Secretary Stanton declared it one of the important events of the war,—"not so much as transferring in part the scenes and horrors of war to a peaceful, loyal State, but as leading to serious and dangerous complications with Great Britain, through the desires and efforts of the Southern people to involve Canada, and through her Britain, in a war on behalf of their Southern friends."[116] The unfriendly attitude which the Canadians held toward our government, throughout the struggle for its maintenance, might be profitably considered whenever the frequently arising project of annexation comes to the surface.
The Fenian irruptions of 1866 and 1870, abortive except for the panic which they created in Canada, with more than the ordinary certainty of poetic justice, formed their base of operations at St. Albans, the point of rebel attack in Vermont.
Impelled by the military spirit which the war had aroused, the legislature made provision for the organization of a uniformed volunteer militia, to which every township furnished its quota. Under the instruction of veterans of the war, the militia made commendable progress in drill and discipline. But after a few years it was disbanded, and the commonwealth has drifted back into almost the condition of unpreparation which existed at the beginning of the war. For the most part, the young men who have become of military age since those troublous days are more unlearned than their mothers in the school of the soldier.
FOOTNOTES:
[111] G. G. Benedict, Vermont in the Civil War.
[112] The limits of this work preclude detailed account of the noble services of Vermont troops, which are fully and graphically related in G. G. Benedict's valuable work, Vermont in the Civil War. Of many noble examples of heroic self-devotion where Vermonters unflinchingly endured the storm of fire, the record of the 5th regiment at Savage's Station is memorable,—in the space of twenty minutes, every other man in the line was killed or wounded. Company E went into the fight with 59 officers and privates, of whom only seven came out unhurt and 25 were killed or mortally wounded. Five brothers named Cummings, a cousin of the same name, and a brother-in-law, all recruited on one street of the historic town of Manchester, were members of this company. All but one were killed or mortally wounded in this action, and he received a wound so severe that he was discharged by special order of the Secretary of War.
[113] Adjutant-General McMahon of the Sixth Corps.
[114] December, 1861.
[115] On this historic field Vermont has marked with monuments the position held by her troops. Where the war-worn First Brigade stood waiting but uncalled to stem the tide of battle, a crouching lion, alert for the onslaught, rears his majestic front, like the lion couchant of the Green Mountains. Another monument stands where the Second Brigade beat back the impetuous fury of the rebel charges; another where the Vermont cavalry dashed like a billow of fire and steel upon the foe; and two where, at the Hornet's Nest and the Peach Orchard, the unerring rifles of Vermont's three companies of sharpshooters rained their constant fire upon the enemy.
[116] History of the St. Albans Raid, p. 48, by E. A. Sowles.