The story of the Thirty Eighth regiment of Massachusetts volunteers

by George Whitefield Powers

By some oversight in the chief mustering officers’ department, there were no blank-rolls on hand, and none arrived until the 23d; but then all other duties were at once suspended, including an inspection which was to have taken place, and the officers worked night and day on the rolls. On the 26th, the recruits, and the colored under-cooks who had been enlisted at Baton Rouge, less than thirty in all, were transferred to the Twenty Sixth Massachusetts, leaving the regiment with less than three hundred of the ten hundred and forty who had left the State three summers previously.

Finally, the papers were all completed; but there was no transportation. It seemed to be the fate of the regiment to serve its full time out. Every other regiment organized under the call of 1862 had already reached home; and, on account of their being a greater portion of their time in a distant department, probably fewer men of the Thirty Eighth had ever received furloughs than those of any other command. Ill feeling began to arise between the men and the officers, the former, in their nervous, excited state, charging their officers with not using proper exertions to get home. A few words, however, from the lieut.-colonel, at the close of the last dress-parade that took place, on the evening of the 29th, cleared away the cloud and restored good feeling.

In the forenoon of June 30, the welcome orders came, “strike tents, to go home.” The orders had scarcely left the mouths of the orderlies, before the men were swarming on the roofs of the shebangs.

The shelter-tents and mosquito-nets, with all property belonging to the government, except guns and equipments, were at once turned in, and the knapsacks packed ready to start.

An order had been issued by the war department, a short time previously, allowing the soldiers to keep their guns and equipments by paying six dollars each for them,—about the price they would bring at a public sale; nearly all the men in the Thirty Eighth had concluded to take them, and for several days previous to this had been busily at work, polishing the barrels, varnishing the stocks, and making covers to keep them in good order on the passage home.

At five o’clock, the assembly was blown, the regimental line formed, and, escorted by the drum-corps of the One Hundred and Twenty Eighth New York, the regiment marched through the city, with muzzled guns, and embarked on the steamer Fairbanks,—a small blockade-runner, barely large enough to accommodate the reduced command.

The boat left the wharf at eleven o’clock, and proceeded down the river, anchoring at the mouth until daylight, when she steamed up to Hilton Head, to land a portion of the cargo. At two, P. M., she left Hilton Head, and steered north. It was the general desire to reach home before the 4th of July, but the sailing qualities displayed by the transport during the first two days dispelled that hope. On the afternoon of Wednesday, Gay’s Head was made,—the first New England land the majority of the regiment had seen for three years. A pilot was taken off Holmes’s Hole, and the men retired to their quarters with the expectation of being in Boston Bay before morning. But it was the day after the Fourth, and the lights looked hazy to the eyes of the old pilot; so he concluded to anchor back of Cape Cod until morning. The cool northern breeze was in striking contrast to the soft summer airs of Savannah; and the men shivered under the slight clothing they had brought.

In the morning, the ship weighed anchor, and continued the voyage. It seemed as if Cape Cod would never be doubled: headland succeeded headland, until, finally, the point was passed, and the bay entered. As the towns and villages on the South Shore came in sight, eager eyes were strained to catch a glimpse of the one spot so long the object of thought. The luxuriant banks of the Mississippi, or the historical ones of the Potomac, had no charms compared with the dwarfed shrubbery of Cohasset, of Scituate, of Marshfield, and of Plymouth.

At nine o’clock, the steamer cast anchor off Deer Island. The pilot objected to taking her up to the wharf without a permit from the health officers; and the lieut.-colonel and Surgeon Ward went on shore, and procured the necessary papers. But the regiment was not allowed to get home so easily. Just as the mouth of the harbor was entered, a sputtering little quartermaster’s boat came alongside and ordered the captain to land the troops at Gallop’s Island. The lieutenant-colonel, however, had been too long in the field to take orders from every boy who talked loudly, and directed the captain to proceed to the wharf. When off Long Wharf, the tug-boat again came alongside, and the officer, in a more respectful tone, informed the commander of the regiment that the order for the troops to land on the island was from head-quarters, and, at the same time, offered to take him on shore to report. It was now midnight; and there being no hope of landing, the men left the decks and retired.

The morning opened with a cold rain; and at nine o’clock, the steamer proceeded to Gallop’s Island, where the regiment landed, and went into quarters in barracks. Here, in sight of the homes from which most of them had been absent for three years, the men remained while the muster-out rolls were being examined, and preparations made to pay them. Three passes to each company were allowed for twenty-four hours; but a majority of the men lived at such a distance that they were of no avail.