"The First Massachusetts Infantry was the first regiment to leave the State for three years' service in the national cause; and, indeed, is said to have been the first three years' regiment in the service of the United States." To the call from the War Department of May 8, 1861, for volunteers for three years, "the First Regiment immediately and unanimously responded," though the other regiments which had gone from the State were enlisted for three months only. The First left Boston on June 15, 1861, and reached Washington on the 18th, and the next day marched, with the temperature at 90°, to a camp beyond Georgetown and was at once put under strictly military discipline, being there in the enemy's country. It was not till July 16 that the regiment marched into Virginia with three other regiments, and the next night bivouacked at Centreville.
The battle of Blackburn's Ford, July 18, in which the Chelsea soldiers fell, was an affair of outposts, resulting from General McDowell's purpose to "feel of the enemy." It was begun by shots from the Rebels posted in the woods bordering Bull Run. Both sides were soon at work with artillery. Companies G and H of the First Regiment had advanced through a gully, or dry ravine, leading into Bull Run, until they found themselves exposed to a murderous fire from three different directions. For at least half an hour they remained in this position unable to advance or retreat. The New York Twelfth on their flank fell back, and a general retrograde movement soon followed, with a stand taken at Centreville. The only valuable result of the reconnoissance was the bringing under fire for the first time of some thousands of raw troops. Thirteen men of the First Regiment were killed, and as many more wounded and taken prisoners. Rev. Warren H. Cudworth, chaplain of the regiment, published in 1866 a very full and lively history of its operations.
THE BULL-RUN MUSKET.
A single dead soldier of the Union army was an object of intense public interest up to the date of the battle of Bull Run in July, 1861.
There were two lads of us who left Boston to visit our brothers—both of whom were in the army and in the same company. We expected to find the Army at Washington; and we each carried a box of dainties to delight our brothers with. On reaching Washington, we were sorely disappointed to find that the army had started on its march to Richmond; and that no civilians were allowed to follow—not even to cross the Potomac into Virginia. So there was nothing to do but see the sights in Washington and return to our homes. But we had been there only two days when the news came of a fight or skirmish on July 18th at Blackburn's Ford, where several were killed, and one of the dead was the brother of my companion. It was a terrible blow to my friend, and a great shock for me.
We immediately telegraphed home, and at once came the reply "Get the body, if you can, and send it home." Well, we two lads went to the War Department and I suppose our sorrowful tale moved them with compassion, for they gave each of us a pass to go to the front to get the body of the dead soldier. I've got that pass stowed away now, among my papers, as a War curiosity. It reads,
Allow the bearer, Mr. Andrew J. Clement, to pass the lines and go to the Front for the body of a friend.
Drake De Kay
Aid de Camp.Later in the war, the death of a soldier was of too little importance to awaken such sympathy at Headquarters. Indeed, two days later, there were thousands killed within two miles of the spot where those killed in this skirmish were buried. After much difficulty, we hired a light wagon in which my friend rode, while I got a seat in an army wagon that was taking out supplies. It was just midnight on Saturday July 20th when we started from Willard's Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue. There was a full moon, and the night was lovely. I was all excitement. I was going to join the army. I should see my brother, and perhaps I should see the big battle everybody was talking about as soon to be fought.
Well, I saw all that I expected to see and a good deal more. As the horses toiled painfully all that night over the rough and hilly roads, I little thought that on the very next night I should be more painfully trudging back over that very route footsore and weary, a gun on my shoulder—and ready to fight if the victorious enemy came up with us. Yet such was the case, and the gun in the hall is the one that I carried to Washington after the battle of Bull Run, July 21st, 1861.
Of course the ride that beautiful night was too exciting for sleep. It was just after daybreak, when we were taking a hasty breakfast at a small tavern, that we heard the first boom of a heavy gun. This was the gun that opened the great battle of Bull Run. We were yet six miles away from the army—and all were impatient to reach our destination. The horses were kept at their best working pace, and when we had gone three miles we met troops marching towards us. These were certain regiments that wouldn't fight because the ninety days of their term of service had just expired. They looked thoroughly ashamed of themselves, and marched in great disorder. The officer with our wagon, and the soldier who drove it, both scoffed at them and called them sneaks and cowards; and, cowards as they were, they didn't resent the insults. For myself, I felt as though they all deserved shooting when they got to Washington.
An hour later we reached Centreville and looked down on the battle-field. Hastily finding where my friend's dead brother was buried, I left him to his mournful task of recovering the corpse while I went to find my own brother whom I yet hoped to meet alive. But it wasn't an easy task. The line of battle was long; and, in spite of my inquiries, I went wrong. I went to the right wing only to find that the regiment I sought was probably away off on the left wing. Nobody seemed able to give exact information, and everybody wanted to know what a boy in black clothes and a straw hat was doing on the battle-field. Once I went up and sat down in the rear of a battery of light artillery to watch the effect of the firing, and the Capt. drove me off with terrible oaths. But I went around a small farm house and crept back again, and saw the grapeshot scatter the "rebs." And so I went on from point to point, staring and asking questions, and being stared at and questioned in return. At length I learned that the regiment I wanted was at the extreme left. So off I started, already weary from loss of sleep, excitement and tramping under the hot sun.
Arriving at the left, I again was attracted by a battery in action, and it was while I stood entranced with excitement that my brother discovered me. His regiment was lying in the bush close by supporting this very battery. Never was a man more surprised than was he at that moment. He supposed I was at home in Boston. But, before he would talk, he made me go into the woods and lie down with the soldiers so as to be in less danger. And there I crawled around and shook hands with nearly a hundred men whom I had known all my life. Many were the questions I answered, and scores of messages were given me to take home to parents and friends. The boys seemed very sad—for a member had been killed in this company only three days before, and they expected to be actively fighting again at any moment. At length my brother insisted that I should go back to Centreville out of danger, and I started with a heavy heart. But secretly I resolved to try to go to Richmond with the army, for I felt sure it would only take a few days. Up to that time it seemed to be victory for us; and I didn't believe it could possibly be otherwise. So I went back to Centreville. I was very hungry as well as tired. It was now past four o'clock in the afternoon.
I soon found a group of sick officers who were about to dine off of boiled beef close by the army wagon in which I had come from Washington. They asked me to join them. I had just got fairly seated when the astounding news came that our army was defeated and was retreating. I didn't believe it; but I rushed to the hilltop to see for myself. Down there on the plain, where I had been in the morning, there was certainly much dust and confusion. Just then fresh troops, the reserves, started to go down, but even to my inexperienced eye it was plain that they went in bad order and went too late. It was there that I saw the general who wore two hats—one crushed over the other—and who was reported in newspaper accounts of the scene as being very drunk that day. He certainly appeared decidedly drunk at that moment.
Wild with excitement, I rushed down hill too; but long before I got where I had been a few hours before, I met the rush of panic stricken men coming pell-mell from the field. To resist this rush was impossible and worse than useless. Wagons driven at full speed came with the men. Shouted curses filled the air. Wagons broke down, and, cutting the harnesses, men mounted the horses and rode off toward Centreville. Muskets were thrown away and filled the road for a long distance. It was there that I picked up my gun, begged a pocket full of ammunition, and resolved to do my share when the terrible Black Horse Cavalry reached us—for it was reported that they were coming at full speed. Ere long I reached Centreville again, and left the rush to look for my wagon. It had gone, long before, in the grand stampede for Washington. That didn't worry me much then—I thought I would find my brother again; and fight in company with the boys I grew up with. So I waited and waited at Centreville till the sun got low. I saw at length that it would be useless to try to find anybody. There were several roads; and all were full of disorganized troops.
But the first mad rush was over. All the army did not run. I did not run a step. It was nearly sunset when I left Centreville; and, as I was terribly hungry, I stopped, after going about a mile, and joined two of N. Y. 69th regiment who were having a regular feast out of a broken down and abandoned sutler's wagon. I remember that I ate a whole can of roast chicken and many sweet biscuits, and washed the whole down with some sherry wine drank from the bottle—my first experience in wine drinking.
Much refreshed, I took up my musket and started for Washington with an oddly mixed crowd of gay militia uniforms representing parts of many regiments. Yet there were still behind us good, orderly, full regiments, that stayed in Centreville till after midnight and came into Washington late the next day in fine marching order. They did not run, and my brother's regiment was one of them. It was 10 p. m. when I reached Fairfax Court House. There I rested, sitting on a rail fence, as a motley crowd poured by, each squad saying that the Black Horse Cavalry was coming. So I clung to my musket, though my shoulders began to get a little sore. It was after midnight when I started again. The night was very dark, for heavy clouds obscured the moon. The road, very rough in itself, was now full of materials thrown out of wagons. There were shovels, pickaxes, boxes, barrels, iron mess-kettles, muskets, knapsacks, and all sorts of litter that soldiers could throw away, and over these and the loose stones of the rough road we stumbled in the dark, amid choking dust, and up and down the long rolling hills that the army marched over so often afterwards during that terrible war. Still, I well remember that it seemed to me a sort of wild picnic; and I would clutch my gun and feel of my cartridges in a very determined mood to defend Washington to the death.
Wearily the night wore on; and steadily I tramped, talking in the dark, from time to time, with strangers—men from all parts of the Union whom I didn't see then and probably never saw afterwards. Bad as it was to march in the dust, it was still worse when it began to rain just before daybreak. Gently it came at first; and slowly the dust became a thick paste of slippery mud. Steadily the storm increased till it became a downpour. I had on a thin black summer suit, a straw hat, and a pair of low-cut thin shoes and white stockings. When day broke we were a bedraggled, thoroughly soaked, mud-stained party. Of all that vast crowd probably I presented the worst appearance, for I was the only citizen in that section of the crowd. I bantered jokes with such as were in joking mood, but most of the crowd were now silent and weary. All along the road lay men asleep in the pouring rain. There were blood blisters on my feet, but never once did I stop except to get a drink of water at a brook just after daylight. The rain now fell in torrents; we were literally wading in mud and water.
The thirty miles from Centreville to Washington seemed three times that distance. My gun grew more and more heavy, and I shifted it constantly. It was about ten o'clock Monday forenoon when I reached the Virginia end of Long Bridge. A strong guard was posted there to stop the troops; for Washington was already full of fugitive soldiers. Forcing my way through a vast mob of shouting, cursing soldiers, I reached the officer in charge, and got a rough reception. First he doubted my pass; next he wanted to take away my musket, but I protested that I had saved it from the enemy; and at length he allowed me to pass carrying the gun I had so honestly won. I went down Pennsylvania Avenue much stared at as I limped along. Reaching my hotel, I took a bath and turned into a good bed, thinking of my brother and the thousands of other soldiers who were out in the rain and many of whom would perhaps have no bed to turn into for three years; for there were a few three years regiments even then.
The next day, to my great joy, my brother's regiment marched in and over to Georgetown heights; and, after visiting them there, I sent my gun home by Adams Ex. and took the train for Boston. Said my father, when I got home, "Well, I think you have got enough of war now." "No, sir," I said, and in less than thirty days I had enlisted; and three years from the date of the first battle of Bull Run I was skirmishing about six miles from Richmond—three years—and yet I hadn't quite got to Richmond.
That Bull-Run musket is the only war weapon left in the family, and I hope you will keep it in memory of the good work I was willing to do with it, even before I was a soldier.
Allow the bearer, Mr. Andrew J. Clement, to pass the lines and go to the Front for the body of a friend.
Drake De Kay
Aid de Camp.
Dr. Samuel A. Green then said:
I have listened with intense interest to Mr. Clement's paper, as I was not only present at the skirmish therein described, but as Assistant Surgeon of the First Massachusetts Volunteers it was my professional duty to look after the wounded on that occasion. I remember vividly the events of that day, July 18, 1861, not only because it was the first time that I ever was under fire, but because it was the greatest fight that up to that time the Union army had fought. I remember, too, the proud record made by the First Massachusetts in that preliminary skirmish. In each of two companies,—G and H,—the regiment lost six men; and Company H—to which Mr. Clement's paper relates—had more men wounded than killed. Nor were these the only losses met by the Old First in that memorable action. The wounded men came under my professional charge, and they received such care as could be given them on the field of battle, scanty though it was. The men who fell in that skirmish—some of them my friends and all my acquaintances—left impressions on my mind so deep that I have since accepted without hesitation the fact that "war is hell." This action of July 18 was only a skirmish that preceded the first battle of Bull Run, which was fought three days later on July 21. The armies contending on that day were commanded, respectively, by General McDowell and General Beauregard; and the result is now a matter of history.