Nor does this corps-pride lack warrant. Since 1844, under one designation or another, the First Massachusetts, as a regimental organization, has been continuously in the service either of the Commonwealth or of the Nation; through long years of peace it faithfully has held itself in trained and disciplined readiness against the hour of need; in two wars it unhesitatingly has responded to the call of the Government, returning from each with an untarnished record of duty well done. Furthermore—in part, at least, if not as a whole—it has been identified for over a century with the making of American history; for, like the sturdy oak, the regiment may trace its growth from still vigorous roots which reach far back into the historic past. "D" Battery (Roxbury Train of Artillery) was chartered in 1784, bearing upon its original muster-rolls the names of many veterans of the Revolution, and first seeing active service in the Shay Rebellion of 1787; "G" Battery (Boston Fusileers) dates its organization from 1786 and its record of active service from the War of 1812; "K" Battery (Boston Light Infantry) was first enrolled at the time of our brief naval war with France in 1798, and served with the coast-guard in 1812.
The story of the heroic work of the regiment in the Civil War already fills a volume by itself: Blackburn's Ford, First Bull Run, Yorktown, Williamsburg, White Oak Swamp, Fair Oaks, Savage's Station, Glendale, Malvern Hill, Second Bull Run, Chantilly, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Locust Grove, Spottsylvania—tremendous names like these may hint at the regimental record which was written in blood from 1861 to 1864. With an honor-roll of one hundred and seventy-three dead, and with a grim list of six hundred and forty-three discharges for wounds and disease, the First Massachusetts honestly bought and dearly paid for its treasured place among the "Three Hundred Fighting Regiments" of the Union Army.
This latest chapter in the regimental history deals neither with battles nor with foreign service—and yet it ill could be spared from the records of the Old First. Nothing possibly could have been finer than the spirit in which the young men of the regiment sprang to their places under its colors at the call of 25th April, 1898, believing, as they most sincerely did, that the very first of the fighting was to be theirs; nothing could have been more honorable than the unvarying discipline maintained during the dull months of garrison duty, when, day by day, their hope for action waned.
Half forgotten by the very citizens for whose protection the regiment was assigned to its stations; wholly ignored by the press, which ever has failed to comprehend the exacting requirements of efficient coast-defence,—the men of the First Massachusetts, like their comrades of the regular artillery, quietly stood to their guns during the time of possible peril, and as quietly returned to the routine of peace when that peril had passed. Time alone can fix the relative value of many things, and while that final adjustment is taking place the regiment may rest content with its own consciousness of having carried out well and faithfully whatever orders came to it.
JAMES A. FRYE.
Boston, 25 April, 1899.
INTRODUCTORY
I.
The Spanish-American War has passed into history. Regiment by regiment the troops of the United States have been transported to Cuba and Porto Rico, to take quiet possession of the stations relinquished by the departing remnants of the Spanish colonial army, and now our flag flies over even Havana itself. Of the six regiments—the First Heavy Artillery, Second, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Ninth Infantry—sent out by Massachusetts in response to the calls of the President, all now are home again, while the officers and men of the gallant Naval Brigade have returned from their service afloat on cruiser and monitor to rejoin the command from which they volunteered. Gradually, but none the less surely, the stirring events of the spring and summer of 1898 are becoming but memories—memories to be recalled in years to come at the reunions of those who served together in the war so happily brought to a conclusion.
Even today, after the lapse of but a year, it has become difficult, if not impossible, to realize the state of public feeling in Boston on that wet, raw day in April, 1898, when the First Massachusetts Heavy Artillery, then a militia regiment, marched solidly and grimly through the muddy streets on its way to Fort Warren. The sight of the long, blue column—officers on foot, men in heavy marching order—told more plainly than any telegraphic despatch that the long-expected war had come at last. Day by day the feeling of uneasiness in the cities and towns along the New England coast had been growing in intensity. Bombardment insurance was being written, securities and valuables were being removed from the safe-deposit vaults of shore cities to those of inland towns, while letters by the hundred, and delegations by the score were coming to the governors of coast States, praying for protection against naval raids. As in 1812, and as again in 1861, the authorities at Washington were overwhelmed with petitions for the naval protection of local interests, and—even as in former wars—they were compelled to reply that the few ships of war on the navy list could not be spared to do the work of shore batteries. The entire fleet of battleships, modern monitors, and cruisers barely sufficed for the composition of Dewey's squadron in the far East, of Sampson's and Schley's in the West Indies.