Sleep at length overcome me, and I dreamed of rats made of glass, squealing "Jersey lightning! Jersey lightning!" until morning, when I awoke to find myself surrounded by comrades busy eating breakfast. Beside me stood a dipper of smoking hot coffee, some hard bread and salt beef, provided by one of the most thoughtful of my new friends.
After guard-mounting (9 A.M.) the recruits were drawn up in line, assigned to the various companies, examined by the surgeon, and, after a few words of encouragement or advice from their captains (and mayhap a glass of whisky), returned to their quarters, feeling relieved, no doubt, that the affair was over.
Thus, in the course of about an hour, the recruits were disposed of, and duly incorporated with the regiment—to share in its messes and marches, its skirmishes and scratches, its picket duty and plunder, its whisky and quinine, its tents and hospitals, its hard tack and salt horse, its pea soup and pea coffee, its baked beans without brown bread, its pride and its perils, its glory and its graveyards.
The following is a list of the principal staff and line officers of the 17th, the companies and where they were raised, together with an account—taken from a diary or journal of Mr. Wm. Noble, of Saugus, (the first color sergeant)—of the doings of the regiment from its inception down to the 5th of January, 1862:
Colonel—Thomas I. C. Amory.
[Mr. Amory was born in Boston, Nov. 27, 1828; entered West Point in 1846, and graduated in 1851, when he was appointed 2d lieutenant in the 7th Infantry, ordered to Fort Smith in Arkansas, and was promoted 1st lieutenant in 1855. In 1858 he was ordered to Utah, under the command of the late Gen. Albert Sidney Johnson, who joined the rebels at the outbreak of the Southern rebellion and was killed at Shiloh; was ordered to Boston on recruiting service in 1860, and was promoted to a captaincy May 7, 1861. When the war broke out, he obtained leave of absence from the War Department, and accepted a commission from Gov. Andrew as Colonel of the 17th Mass. Vols., on Sept. 7th, 1861. Since the regiment has been in the Department of North Carolina, he has acted as General of Brigade; but whether his nomination for the brigadiership has been confirmed or not, I am unable to say. Of this I am certain, however, that there are few officers at this time serving in our armies better capable of wearing the star or more fully deserving of it than Thomas I. C. Amory.]
Lieut. Colonel—John F. Fellows.
[Mr. Fellows, of Chelsea, is well known in Boston, having been for many years connected with its daily press. He was also an active member of the State Militia. When the war broke out he offered his services to Gov. Andrew, from whom he received a commission as Lieut. Colonel of the 17th Reg't on the 21st of August, 1861. He has proved himself a capable officer and a thoroughly brave man. I shall have frequent occasion to speak of him hereafter.]