Vermont: A Study of Independence

by Rowland Evans Robinson

CHAPTER XXIV.

VERMONT IN THE WAR OF THE REBELLION.

The dreariness of the long Northern winter was past. The soft air of spring again breathed through the peaceful valleys, wafting the songs of returning birds, the voice of unfettered streams, and the sound of reawakened husbandry. Though far off in the Southern horizon the cloud of rebellion lowered and threatened, men went about their ordinary affairs, still hoping for peace, till the tranquillity of those April days was broken by the bursting storm of civil war.

With the echo of its first thunder came President Lincoln's call for troops, and Vermont responded with a regiment of her sons, as brave, though their lives had been lapped in peace, as the war-nurtured Green Mountain Boys of old. The military spirit had been but feebly nursed during many tranquil years, yet, at the first breath of this storm, it blazed up in a fervor of patriotic fire such as never before had been witnessed.

At the outbreak of the Rebellion, no Northern State was less prepared for war than Vermont. Except in the feeble existence of four skeleton regiments, her militia was unorganized, the men subject to military service not being even enrolled. Some of the uniformed companies were without guns, others drilled with ancient flintlocks; and the State possessed but five hundred serviceable percussion muskets, and no tents nor camp equipage; while the Champlain arsenal at Vergennes, like other United States arsenals in the North, had been stripped by Floyd, the Secretary of War, of everything but a few superannuated muskets and useless cannon. The continual outflow of emigration had drawn great numbers of the stalwart young men of the rural population to the Western States, in whose regiments many of them were already enlisting, and she had not the large towns nor floating population which in most other States contributed so largely the material for armies.

The governor, Erastus Fairbanks, immediately issued a proclamation, announcing the outbreak of rebellion, and the President's call for volunteers, and summoning the legislature to assemble on the 25th of April. His proclamation bore even date with that of the President, and is believed to have antedated by at least a day the like proclamation of any other governor.[111]

In the brief interval between the summoning and the assembling of the legislature, in all parts of the State men were drilling and volunteering. Banks and individuals tendered their money, railroad and steamboat companies offered free transportation for troops and munitions of war, and patriotic women were making uniforms of "Vermont gray" for the ten companies of militia chosen on the 19th of April to form the 1st regiment.

The train which brought the legislators to the capital was welcomed by a national salute from the two cannon captured at Bennington. Without distinction of party, senators and representatives met the imperative demands of the time with such resolute purpose that in forty-eight hours they had accomplished the business for which they were assembled, and had adjourned. A bill was unanimously passed appropriating one million dollars for war expenses. Provision was made for raising six more regiments for two years' service, for it was forecast by the legislature that the war was not likely to be confined to one campaign, nor an insignificant expenditure of money. Each private was to be paid by the State seven dollars a month in addition to the thirteen dollars offered by the United States. If his aged parents or wife and children should come to want while he was fighting his country's battles, they were not to become town paupers, but the wards of the commonwealth.

The ten companies were rapidly filled, their equipment was completed, and they assembled at Rutland on the 2d of May, with John W. Phelps as colonel, a native of Vermont, who had served with distinction in the Mexican War as lieutenant, and captain in the regular army. No fitter choice could have been made of a commander for the regiment than this brave and conscientious soldier, who, though a strict disciplinarian, exercised such fatherly care over his men that he won their love and respect.

After some delay the regiment was mustered into the United States service on the 8th. It was the opinion of the Adjutant-General that there were troops enough already at Washington for its defense, and that the 1st Vermont might better be held in its own State for a while. But when General Scott learned that a regiment of Green Mountain Boys, commanded by Phelps, was awaiting marching orders, he wished them sent on at once. "I want your Vermont regiments, all of them. I remember the Vermont men on the Niagara frontier," and he remembered Captain Phelps at Contreras and Cherubusco. A special messenger was dispatched to Rutland with orders to march, and on the 9th of May, the eighty-sixth anniversary of the mustering of Allen's mountaineers for the attack of Ticonderoga, this regiment of worthy inheritors of their home and name set forth for Fortress Monroe. There were heavy hearts in the cheering throng that bade them Godspeed and farewell,—heavier than they bore, for to them was appointed action: to those they left behind, only waiting in hope and fear and prayer for the return of their beloved. On its passage through New York, the regiment attracted much admiration for the stature and soldierly bearing of its members, each of whom wore in his gray cap, as proudly as a knight his plume, the evergreen badge of his State.