CHAPTER XXXIX.
I have spoken in the last chapter of being intimate with Commodore John Marston and family during a winter I spent in Philadelphia. There was another Commodore whom I knew there. I lived four months next door to Commodore James Barron, who in 1820 killed Commodore Stephen Decatur in a duel. Before the war of 1812 Barron was in command of the Ship Chesapeake, from which, under a claimed right of search, a British frigate had taken several sailors, alleged to be British. For his conduct in that affair he was tried and sentenced to five years’ suspension without pay. After the war he returned from Europe where he had lived some time, and his application for employment in the navy was opposed by Decatur on the ground that he had been disloyal to his country in not returning to fight her battles. A challenge followed, and a duel was fought on the historic field of Bladensburg. Both fired together, Decatur receiving a mortal wound in the breast, and Barron a wound in the thigh which he thought was also mortal. As they lay on the ground bleeding, the scene was a pathetic one. Barron said, “I hope, Decatur, when we meet in heaven that we shall be better friends than we have been here.” Decatur answered, “I have not been your enemy, but tell me, Barron, why you did not come home and fight for your country.” Barron replied, “I had been living many years in Europe, and had contracted debts which I could not run away and leave unpaid.” “Ah,” said Decatur, “If I had known that, we should not be lying here awaiting death.” Barron recovered, and was again employed in the service. His life was saddened by the event, but he never alluded to the melancholy scenes attending it. “If I had known that,” said Decatur! Alas, how many duels might have been averted if the parties had come together and heard in a personal interview reasons and explanations. Yes, and in the broader field of national honor if nations had sent their representatives to discuss dispassionately their complaints and differences, how many thousands of lives might have been saved and how many millions of treasure.
After returning from a visit to the Massachusetts troops at the front I was kept busy during the summer of 1861, enlisting men in Plymouth, and Kingston and other neighboring towns. I was several times in Washington on business in the war and navy departments. Simon Cameron was secretary of war from the 4th of March, 1861, until January, 1862, when he was succeeded by Edwin M. Stanton. I have nothing of interest to say concerning the former, but later I shall tell a story of my interview with the latter in October, 1862. The secretary of the Navy was Gideon Welles of Connecticut, but Gustavus Vasa Fox, the assistant secretary, was really the right hand of the department. Mr. Fox I had known for many years, my acquaintance beginning when a midshipman he came, I think in 1838, to Plymouth in the practice brig Apprentice, commanded by Lieut. Moore, and anchoring in beach channel, remained over a Sunday and attended church. He was a remarkable man, thought by some to be the strongest man connected with the administration during the war. He was born in Saugus, Massachusetts, June 13, 1821, and was appointed midshipman January 12, 1838. In 1856 he resigned with the rank of first lieutenant, and was appointed agent of the Bay State Mills in Lawrence. In March, 1861, he was sent by President Lincoln to Charleston to confer with Major Anderson about sending him aid at Fort Sumter, and was soon appointed assistant secretary of the Navy. To him was due the plan for the capture of New Orleans, and the selection of Farragut for the command in which he distinguished himself. His sound judgment and earnest advice led to the construction of the Monitor, and he established and perfected the blockade. After the war he was assigned to the duty of carrying the ram Miantonomah to the Baltic, which had been sold to the Russian government, and he was at the same time made a bearer of despatches conveying the congratulations of our government to Emperor Alexander 2nd, on his escape from assassination on the 16th of April, 1866. The Miantonomah was the first iron-clad to cross the ocean, and Capt. Fox reported her a comfortable craft, which instead of pitching and rolling in heavy weather, took the seas across her deck, and remained comparatively on an even keel. On his return home he was appointed manager of the Middlesex Mills in Lowell, and died in New York, October 29, 1883. In my communications with him, concerning appointments in the service, I never failed to receive a favorable response. I was the more careful therefore in making requests. In one instance I recommended a man for ensign, and hearing something soon after leading me to doubt his competency. I immediately wrote to Mr. Fox withdrawing my recommendation, and the applicant now dead, failed to receive an appointment. Sometimes at a later period of the war I was often asked to intercede in behalf of some soldier for a furlough. I remember the case of an officer, now dead, who was quite successful in obtaining furloughs on his own account, and who was in the habit while at home of criticising the conduct of the war. On one of his visits an old lady said, “lah, that —— is home again—this is the curiousest war that ever I see, if they don’t like the percedings they come home.” In quoting the quaint remark of the old lady I do not intend to suggest any doubt of the fidelity of a brave and efficient officer who probably had good and sufficient reasons for his furloughs.
The Standish Guards returned home after their three months’ service, on the 23d of July, and were received at the railroad station by the Home Guard, and in the evening at a festival in Davis hall. The officers of the company chosen after their arrival at Fortress Monroe, were Charles C. Doten, captain, and Otis Rogers and Wm. B. Alexander first and 2nd lieutenants, respectively. Lemuel Bradford, 2nd, who went out with the company as 4th lieutenant, was not permitted to be mustered, as only two lieutenants were allowed to each company. I have always understood that four lieutenants were mustered in the companies of the 5th, 6th, and 8th Massachusetts Regiments in and about Washington, where for some unknown reason a different rule prevailed.
In August, 1861, a second three years’ company was recruited by Capt. Joseph W. Collingwood to be attached as Co. H. to the 18th Massachusetts Regiment. All the men of this company were enlisted in the recruiting office established by the Plymouth Selectmen. Thirteen Plymouth men were enlisted in Co. H, and eight in other companies of the 18th Regiment. The Regiment was mustered into service August 24, and on the 26th left Readville, where they had been in camp, for Washington, joining the army of the Potomac at Hall’s Hill near that city.
In September, 1861, Capt. Wm. B. Alexander was authorized to raise a company to be attached as Co. E to the 23d Regiment, and ninety-seven men were enlisted at the Plymouth office, of whom sixty were Plymouth men. This company, with Wm. B. Alexander, Capt., and Otis Rogers, and Thomas B. Atwood, respectively, first and second lieutenants, went into camp at Lynfield, and November 11 left for Annapolis. Three other Plymouth men later joined Co. E as recruits, and three Plymouth men joined other companies in the 23d regiment.
In December, 1861, Lieutenant Josiah C. Fuller aided in recruiting Company E for the first Battalion of Massachusetts, which was finally recognized as the 32d Regiment, and twenty men were enlisted in Plymouth. Twenty more were enlisted for Company F, and four more for other companies in the same regiment, and three recruits were added later to Company E. This regiment was organized for garrison duty at Fort Warren in Boston harbor with Josiah C. Fuller, Capt. of Company E, and Edward F. Phinney second lieutenant of Company F, and May 20, 1862, left for Washington.
On the 7th of July, 1862, an order was issued at headquarters, stating that Massachusetts had been called on for fifteen thousand men, of which number Plymouth was required to furnish sixty. The Governor asked me to raise two companies to be designated as Companies D and G in the 38th Regiment, and to select officers for them. I first enlisted men for Company D, and soon filled its ranks with thirty men from Plymouth, and the remainder from neighboring towns. I first recommended Chas. H. Drew for captain, Cephas Washburn and Albert Mason, first and second lieutenants, respectively. Charles H. Drew was then first lieutenant in Company H, 18th Regiment, and the war department refused to muster him out to enable him to receive his commission. I then filled, the ranks of Company G with thirty-one from Plymouth, and the remainder from neighboring towns, and recommended Charles C. Doten for captain and George B. Russell, second lieutenant. The town’s quota was completed by one enlistment for the 13th Regiment, one for the 20th and one for the 35th. The 38th Regiment went into camp at Lynfield, and September 24, 1862, left for Baltimore, where it went into camp near the city and left November 9th in the steamer Baltic for Ship island. I went with the Plymouth companies to Lynfield and spent a week with them under canvas to aid in making requisitions for equipments, and looking generally after the comfort of the men. My classmate, Wm. Logan Rodman of New Bedford, was commissioned Major of the Regiment, and later before it left, lieutenant colonel. When the commission as lieutenant colonel was offered to him he asked my advice about accepting it, as he knew nothing about military matters, but he was finally commissioned, and in the absence of Col. Ingraham, went to Baltimore in command of the regiment. Poor fellow, he was killed at the siege of Port Hudson in May, 1863. He was lying down with his command behind logs, and lifting his head was instantly killed by a rebel sharpshooter. During my stay at the Lynfield Camp, I for the first time was christened with a high military title. Patrick Maguire of Company D was found one night outside the camp somewhat under the influence of liquor, and carried to the guard house. When asked what regiment he belonged to he said, “by gorrah, I don’t belong to no regiment at all, I belong to Davis’s brigade.”
In August, 1862, a call was made for 300,000 nine months’ men, of which the quota of Plymouth was thirty-seven. Every organized militia company in the 3d Regiment was authorized to recruit up to the standard, but as it would be impossible to fill the Standish Guards and the Carver and Plympton companies, it was agreed that the three companies should recruit together as Company B, the letter of the Standish Guards, under a Carver Captain, and with a first lieutenant from the Guards, and a second lieutenant from the Plympton company. Under this arrangement Thos. B. Griffith was made captain; Charles A. S. Perkins of Plymouth, first lieutenant, and Wm. S. Briggs of Middleboro, second lieutenant. Thirty men enlisted in Plymouth, including John Morissey, who was appointed Major. The regiment went into camp at Lakeville, and October 22, 1862, sailed from Boston in the steamships Merrimac and Mississippi for Newbern, North Carolina. Twelve other nine months’ men were enlisted in Plymouth for the 4th, 6th, 44th, 45th and 50th Regiments. Thirty-five of the nine months’ men received a bounty of one hundred dollars in accordance with a vote of the town.
After the defeat of General Pope by General Lee at the second Bull Run, the rebel army crossed the Potomac at Noland’s ford, and reached Frederick in Maryland on the 6th of September, 1862. In the meantime General McClellan had been restored to the command of the army of the Potomac, and crossing the Potomac in pursuit of Lee, entered Frederick on the 12th, two days after its evacuation by the rebel army. On the 13th the union army passed through Frederick and overtook the rebel army at South mountain, where they fought a victorious battle on the 14th. The pursuit was kept up through Boonesboro and Keedysville, until Antietam river was reached, where the rebel army was strongly entrenched. Without intending to write a history of the battle, I think I can say as a result of my frequent studies of the conflict, that the Massachusetts troops acquitted themselves with special bravery. The battle was won, but while Burnside on the left was fighting desperately to hold a position, the loss of which would have involved the defeat of the army, and was calling on McClellan for aid, the 18th corps, under Fitz John Porter, to which the 18th and 32d Massachusetts belonged, was held fifteen thousand strong in reserve, and had no share in the battle. With the light we now have it is easy to see that if the reserves had been put in at the critical moment, as they were put in by Wellington at Waterloo, when he shut his field glass with a snap and gave the order, “Up guards, and at them,” the rebel army would have been destroyed before it recrossed the Potomac. The only excuse for McClellan was his belief that the battle was only suspended, not terminated, when night set in, and that on the morrow the army with fresh troops would win.
In the two battles, of South Mountain on the 14th of September, and Antietam on the 17th, the Massachusetts regiments suffered severely. In the first the 12th, 13th, 21st and 28th regiments, and the 1st and 8th batteries were engaged, and in the last the 2nd, 12th, 13th, 15th, 19th, 20th, 21st, 28th, 29th and 35th regiments, and two batteries. The 12th had seventy-four killed and 165 wounded, the 15th had 108 killed, and the 29th, 9 killed and 31 wounded, while the others suffered in various degrees between the highest and lowest as above. The most severely wounded were carried to hospitals on the field, and to temporary hospitals in Sharpsburgh and Frederick, while those less severely wounded were carried to Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia, and some sent to their homes. Governor Andrew asked me to go out and visit the Massachusetts men, wherever they might be found in the hospitals. They needed no supplies, for they were abundantly furnished by the commissariat and the sanitary commission with everything from bedding and underclothing to wines and canned fruits and preserves. But there was something which neither of these agencies could supply, something to remove the depression of spirits which a sick man feels away from home, and which is the greatest obstacle to recovery. I have often seen the pallid cheeks of a soldier furrowed with pain, light up with a smile as he opened his eyes and found standing by his bedside a messenger from home.
Reaching Baltimore at night, I met at the hotel Dr. LeBarron Russell, and the next morning we went together by rail to Frederick, where we passed the night. Every available public building, including churches, had been converted into a hospital, and in one of these I remember finding Barnabas Dunham of Plymouth, a member of the 29th Regiment. In one of the church hospitals, I found Dr. Theodore Cornish in charge, brother of the late Aaron H. Cornish of Plymouth, who I think was either surgeon or assistant surgeon in a Rhode Island regiment. He gave us much information about the condition of the wounded in Frederick, and their dispersion to other places. About five years ago I met him on the steamboat coming to Plymouth, never having seen him since our interview in Frederick, and called him by name. He failed to recognize me until I reminded him of my encountering him in the hospital dressing the wound of a soldier who had been operated on by an excision of a section of the humerus to avoid amputation. The next morning we hired a conveyance to Boonesboro, a small village, through whose streets both armies had passed from South Mountain gap, where the battle of September 14th had been fought. The shattered trees and levelled fences and trodden down fields told their story of the conflict. We passed the night at Boonesboro, finding no Massachusetts wounded there. I was amused at a custom prevailing in that neighborhood disclosed to me by the landlady, when to a mild complaint of sleeping on a blanket, she answered that nobody thought of putting more than one sheet on the bed. The next morning we rode on to Keedysville, a straggling village of five hundred inhabitants, where nearly all the houses contained wounded men. There was a provost marshal stationed there, and going to his office we were surprised to find him to be Capt. Joseph W. Collingwood. His company was attached to Fitz John Porter’s Corps, held in reserve, and consequently had not been in the battle. Taking Capt. Collingwood into our carriage we drove to the Locust Spring hospital, containing under canvas about two hundred and fifty severely wounded men. Here Charles Henry Robbins, son of Hernan C. Robbins of Plymouth, died from a wound received in the battle. I saw his nurse, a fine woman from Chicago, named Mary Everingham, who expressed great interest in him, and I visited his grave in a pleasant field marked with a head and foot stone by a soldier named Keith of North Bridgewater, from which I took a stone to carry to his mother. Mr. Robbins belonged to Company H, 35th regiment, and enlisted in Weymouth. The next field tent hospital which we visited was at Smoketown, less than a mile from the extreme right of the Union line of battle, where hard fighting was done under Hooker in the early part of the day. This hospital contained about four hundred and fifty patients, under the charge of Dr. Vanderkeefe, a Hollander, who had served in the Crimea. His hospital was a model in care, cleanliness, distribution of comforts, and surgical skill. The work done by the sanitary commission was wonderful. At the first sign of a battle it despatched many wagons loads of sheets, coverlids, beds, towels, handkerchiefs, preserved meats, stockings, drawers, shirts, bandages, wines, etc., which reached the vicinity of the battle field before a gun was fired, and was ready for work when the wounded were carried to the rear. From this point we rode over the whole battle field, four miles in length, from Hooker’s cornfield to Burnside’s bridge, by the sunken road and the Dunker church, still littered with the debris of battle, and reached Sharpsburg late in the afternoon, on our way visiting Porter’s camp, and calling on Captains Charles H. Drew and Wm. H. Winsor of the 18th Massachusetts regiment. Late in the evening we reached Harper’s Ferry, where after a supper of ham and eggs we found sleeping quarters in an attic room, lighted and ventilated by a broken glass scuttle, and equipped with a bed with broken slats, leaving us to sleep on the floor, with our heads and feet on the rails of the bedstead. The next morning we went out to Boliver Heights, and visited the camps of the 15th, 19th, 20th and 29th Massachusetts regiments, the last having returned the night before from an expedition to Charlestown, and in the evening went by rail to Washington.
During my stay in Washington I visited all the hospitals, beginning with Lincoln Hospital. While passing through one of the wards I heard my name called by an occupant of one of the beds. Responding to the call I found a young man whom I had enlisted in Plymouth a few months before as a recruit for Col. Lee’s 20th Regiment. His name was Erik Wolff, a Swede of good education, who came to America to learn to become a soldier, and thought that promotion would be sure and speedy. His father, a merchant in Gottenburg, had had some years before business relations with Capt. John Russell, and having letters of introduction to Capt. Russell’s family he came at once to Plymouth on his arrival. He was now very sick with typhoid fever, and in his anxiety to be discharged, was so depressed in spirits that the surgeon said his recovery was hopeless, unless his discharge was secured. Col. Lee’s efforts had been unavailing, as at that time every application of the kind was rejected by the department. I told him that I would see what I could do, and jumping into a horse car, rode at once to the war department, reaching there before the office of the secretary was open. A long line of men and women stretched down the hall, all with anxious faces, evidently waiting to ask some favor of the secretary. When the door was opened the line shortened up so rapidly that I felt sure that short work was made of the applications. When I reached the door Mr. Stanton was standing at a small standing desk, and turning off the applicants right and left. I had never seen him before, and had no reason to believe that he had ever seen or heard of me. When my turn came I told him my story in as few words as possible, that I enlisted Wolff, that he was a foreigner, on whose service we had no claim, and was in the Lincoln hospital. Not a word was spoken by the secretary, not a single question asked, but as soon as I finished he touched a hand bell, to which an officer responded, and the secretary said, “Mr. Davis, if you will follow Major Hardee, he will make out the discharge.” Within two hours from the time I left the hospital I returned with the discharge to gladden the young fellow’s heart. He recovered after a protracted confinement, and returned to Massachusetts, receiving later from Governor Andrew a captain’s commission in the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry Regiment. On my way home I visited the hospitals in Baltimore and West Philadelphia, carrying with me a realizing sense of the terrible incidents of war. I have told the story of my interview with Secretary Stanton to show the injustice of the charge that he was destitute of sympathy for the soldiers whom he used merely as a part of the machinery of war.
Proceeding in my narrative in chronological order, in the winter of 1862 and 1863, strenuous, but unavailing efforts were made by Governor Andrew to have the exposed harbors of the state properly protected. Finally it was determined to construct earthworks on the Gurnet and Saquish, and the work was entered upon at once under the direction of the Selectmen at the expense of the Commonwealth. I obtained from Mr. Fox, assistant secretary of the Navy, an order on Commodore Hudson in command at the Charlestown Navy Yard for seven guns for Fort Andrew, and five for Fort Standish, and had carriages made in Plymouth. These forts were completed in the early summer of 1863, and Governor Andrew was advised by the selectmen of their intention to name that on the Gurnet, Fort Andrew, and that on the Saquish, Fort Sandish. On the 16th of March I received from the Governor the following letter:
Dear Sir.—No fort as yet bears the name which your board of selectmen has so generously proposed for the larger fort now in progress in Plymouth harbor, nor had any ambition of my own ever suggested to my mind the possibility of becoming in that manner associated with such a work. I am deeply sensible of the honor; and while I feel that it does not properly belong to me, I can only leave to you and your associates the final decision, with a single suggestion that it would seem to be more fitting the occasion to connect the name of the first Governor of the Plymouth Colony with one of the fortifications of the harbor of Plymouth than the name you propose, even if I were a hundred times more worthy than I know myself to be.”
Notwithstanding Governor Andrew’s modest estimate of his public services, the fort received his name.
In 1862 I became quite intimate with Capt. James Birdseye McPherson of the United States Engineers. He was undoubtedly one of the ablest officers in the army, and his early death closed a career of great brilliancy. It was widely believed in the army up to the time of his death, that if Grant had died or resigned, he would have been his successor. During several years of the war I was obliged to spend much time in Boston, and while there I made the Tremont House my home. There were five or six regular bachelor boarders who occupied a table by themselves, one of whom was Capt. McPherson. He was born in Sandusky, Ohio, November 14, 1828, and graduated at West Point first scholar in the class of 1853. He rose rapidly, and while serving as an engineer in California, he became acquainted with General Halleck. When the war came on, having been promoted to a captaincy he was sent to Boston to mount guns on Fort Warren, and it was at that time that he boarded at the Tremont House, and at the table where he sat I was always when in town offered a chair. No one could meet and talk with him without being struck with his clear eye, his thoughtful face and thoroughly trustworthy deportment. One afternoon while I was at the Hotel, Captain Paraclete Holmes of Kingston, boarding there took up the Transcript and read aloud a news paragraph stating that Capt. McPherson had been ordered west to join the staff of General Halleck. When the Captain came in he was shown the despatch, and said that he knew nothing about it. When, however, he received his evening mail, his orders reached him. As he was ordered to report at once, we arranged a parting supper for the next evening, for which I remember, by the way, I ordered a gallon of oysters, which had been bedded on the Plymouth flats by S. D. Ballard, and which were pronounced by the supper party as the best they had ever tasted. When I bade the Captain good bye he said, “I shall have an opportunity now to see whether I have mistaken my profession.” The sequel demonstrated that he had not. He was soon promoted to be Major General of volunteers, and transferred to the staff of General Grant as Chief Engineer, serving with him at the battles of Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Corinth and Iuka. He later commanded the right wing of Grant’s army, and at the siege of Vicksburg commanded the 17th Army Corps. After Grant assumed command of the army of the Potomac, he joined Sherman, under whom he was in command of 30,000 men. At the siege of Atlanta he was killed, July 22, 1864, at the age of thirty-five.
I was again in Washington visiting the hospitals after the battle of Fredericksburg, on the 13th of December, 1862, and after the death of Capt. Collingwood on the 24th, I sent a despatch to Andrew L. Russell, who informed his family and friends. I was on a visit to the College hospital in Georgetown, when Capt. Charles H. Drew was brought in severely wounded in the Fredericksburg battle. It fell to me while in Washington, during the battles of the Wilderness, to send a despatch to Mr. Russell, informing him of the death of Lemuel B. Morton, killed at the battle of Spotsylvania Court House, May 12, 1864.
On the 17th of July, 1863, as the result of a draft, one Plymouth man commuted, thirteen found substitutes, and three entered the service. In the autumn of 1863, under a call for 500,000 men, the quota of Plymouth was fixed at one hundred and seventeen. After the selectmen reported that the quota had been filled they were notified that in consequence of a delay in crediting enlistments for the army and navy, there existed a deficiency of twenty-five men, which must be filled by a draft. One man was held under the draft who found a substitute, and before another draft was ordered the selectmen had filled the quota by the purchase of recruits in Boston. A vote had been passed by the town offering to recruits a bounty of $125, and a committee of citizens were appointed to raise such funds to increase the bounty to such an amount as the selectmen might think advisable. The committee raised the sum of $3,776.25, and with this sum and the bounty, voted by the town, the selectmen secured twenty-two recruits for the army and four for the navy. Another call for 500,000 men was made July, 1864, and with money raised by the above committee to wit, $5,011.00, the selectmen obtained twenty-six recruits, who with the credit for the men in the navy heretofore withheld, and one representative recruit purchased by a citizen, filled the quota of the town.
On the 19th of November, 1864, seven Plymouth men were mustered into the 20th unattached company, stationed at Marblehead for one year’s service, and on the 11th of December, forty-two more were mustered into the 26th unattached company raised to garrison Forts Andrew and Standish, but which finally was stationed at Readville, where it remained until it was mustered out. Until a late period in the war, the recruiting office in Plymouth was kept up by the selectmen, and at various times ninety-eight were enlisted in Plymouth and other places for the 1st, 7th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 20th, 24th, 28th, 30th, 34th, 41st, 55th, 58th, Massachusetts Regiments, 1st, 4th, 5th Massachusetts Cavalry, 2nd Massachusetts Heavy Artillery, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 12th Massachusetts Batteries, 2nd Massachusetts Sharpshooters, 3rd Rhode Island Cavalry, 5th, 8th New Hampshire Regiments, 3rd, 10th, 99th, New York Regiments, 10th Pennsylvania Regiment, 8th Illinois Regiment, the Signal Corps, President’s Guard, Veteran Reserve Corps and California Cavalry. In addition to the above, six were recruited by the commission appointed to recruit in rebel states, and credited to Plymouth, and the following re-enlistments were also credited to the town—six in Co. E, 29th Massachusetts Regiment, one each in companies C, E and H, 18th Regiment, twelve in Co. E, 23rd Regiment, eight in Co. E, 32nd Regiment, five in Co. F, 32nd Regiment, four in other companies in the 32nd Regiment, two in the 1st Cavalry, one in the 58th Regiment, one in the Rhode Island Cavalry, one in the 17th Regiment, one in the 30th Regiment, one in the Regular Army, and one in the Corps D’Afrique. On the first day of February, 1866, all the above soldiers enlisted and re-enlisted to the credit of the town had been mustered out except Brevet Major Geo. B. Russell, Provost Marshal of the District of Columbia, and Philander Freeman and Stephen M. Maybury in the regular army. Before closing this record of the Plymouth soldiers in the war it should be stated that on the 26th day of May, 1862, a telegram was received by Governor Andrew from the war department urging him to send at once all the militia force of the state, as General Banks had been driven from the Shenandoah Valley, and Washington was in danger. On the 27th in obedience to an order from the Governor, Capt. Charles C. Doten reported in Boston with the Standish Guards of fifty-seven men. Fear for the safety of the Capital, however, was soon dissipated, and the company returned home without being mustered into the service.
In order to complete the roll of men furnished by Plymouth for the war, it only remains to say that the enlistments in the navy were three acting lieutenants, six ensigns, ten masters, two acting masters, seventeen mates, one assistant paymaster, three assistant engineers, one sailmaker, and sixty-five seamen.
One of the most troublesome features of the service which the selectmen were called on to perform, was that regulating to filling the towns quotas with purchased men. There were private recruiting offices in Boston, where men were furnished, and to a great extent the recruits offering themselves were bounty jumpers as we called them. Unless a sharp eye was kept on these recruits, and the bounty withheld until they were examined by an army surgeon in Faneuil hall, and receipts given for them by the Provost Marshal, stating age, date of enlistment and Regiments for which they were enlisted, they would take up with a higher bid, or steal away with the bounty and receive another elsewhere. I landed all my men, but I knew of a number of cases where unwary selectmen lost their bounty and their men. Many recruits who failed in their efforts to evade service after they had received their bounty, deserted their regiments and enlisted where they could safely do so with another bounty.
The whole number of men furnished by Plymouth for the war was 653 soldiers and 111 naval officers and seamen, which number filled all the quotas and left a surplus of 28 to the credit of the town. The cost to the town for all purposes connected with the war was a little more than $28,000, to which should be added $8,787.25 subscribed by the citizens for bounties.