The first vacancy among commissioned officers of the regiment was caused by the resignation of First-Lieutenant David A. Partridge, of Company B, who remained in Massachusetts to look after deserters when the regiment left the State, and was granted a discharge by War Department Special Orders No. 105, dated March 5th, to enable him to accept a commission and recruit for the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts Colored Volunteers. The vacancy was filled March 24th by the election of Second-Sergeant Benjamin C. Tinkham, Company B, jumping Second-Lieutenant J. C. Clifford and the first-sergeant, who were in the line of promotion.
The second vacancy was caused by the resignation of Captain Charles A. Pratt, Company E. This vacancy was also filled by an election by the company, April 2d. First-Lieutenant John W. Emerson was made captain, and Second-Sergeant Augustus Ford, Company E, was elected a first-lieutenant, vice Emerson, promoted (if this can be called promotion), jumping Second-Lieutenant Brown P. Stowell, a prisoner of war in Texas, and the first-sergeant, who were in the line of promotion.
This elective system of filling vacancies, one of the inducements held out to attract men to enlist in the nine months’ troops from Massachusetts, was a ridiculous system; one of caucus politics in the army. It was the cause of considerable ill feeling and much trouble in nine months’ organizations from the State. To allow the rank and file to choose by an election their company officers was entirely wrong. Under it any man in the company, no matter what his qualifications may be, stands a chance, by electioneering, to win an officer’s position that is vacant. Merit in that officer who has a right to expect the promotion is overlooked, if that officer has been so unlucky as to incur the displeasure of a few prominent men in his company, and they proceed to spread the dissatisfaction to others, and take their revenge by electing another over him not entitled to the vacancy. What is the consequence? The officer so jumped forthwith loses the interest he formerly had in the command, and does not exert himself to work for the good of the men under him.
It is just to say that in the above cases the selections were good. Perhaps could not be better.
With the exception of a slight clashing of authority between Captain Coburn, in command at Battery St. John, and Lieutenant-Colonel Stedman, concerning some captures of prisoners and seizures of contraband goods on the night of the fourteenth, which required two peremptory letters to be sent to Captain Coburn before it was straightened out, everything worked smooth with the command. This was a case where four citizens were arrested near Bayou St. John in the act of smuggling contraband goods across Lake Ponchartrain; three of them were sent to New Orleans March 17th by orders, and one was discharged March 16th by Lieutenant-Colonel Stedman.
The City of New Orleans so near to many camps, full of enticements of a varied character, was the place to tempt many a soldier who was disposed to evade duty and absent himself without leave. Stragglers from these camps without passes gave provost-guards so much trouble and the evil grew to such proportions every day, Department Special Orders No. 61 were issued March 2d to put a stop to it. There were five hundred men in the city without passes and in confinement reported to the provost-marshal-general March 2d. In one day the provost-guard found nineteen men from one company without a pass; but one man from the Forty-Second is known to have visited the city in this way during March, and he, Private Owen Fox, Company A, was promptly arrested by the guard and sent back to the regiment.
Besides the details already mentioned, the following details were made and changes occurred during the month:
March 4th—Corporal John C. Yeaton, Company E, was reduced to the ranks by regimental special orders as unfit for the position.
March 4th—Private G. G. Belcher, Company F, was relieved as a wagoner and ordered to duty in the ranks, and the captain ordered to appoint a trustworthy person to fill the position of wagoner.
March 5th—Privates Thomas H. Sawyer, Company B, and Joseph V. Colson, Company G, were detailed as markers.