CHAPTER VI.
Company C, Third Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer Militia.
[Written by James B. Smith, Member of the Company.]
The raising of Company C was unique, and in a sense highly sensational and dramatic. The President’s call for three hundred thousand men made it necessary for Fall River to furnish two hundred recruits; this in a manufacturing city of fifteen thousand with the cotton business booming was not an easy task. The question was asked, “How are we to persuade men to leave their lucrative employment and become soldiers?” But the “Fathers of the City,” rising to the occasion, called a mass meeting in City Hall, Aug. 13, 1862, where inspiring and patriotic speeches were made by several of the leading men of the city, among whom was Elihu Grant.
After the speech-making a call was made for volunteers. A great silence pervaded the meeting, and no one moved until a young man ascended the platform, and throwing his hat vehemently upon the floor shouted, “I will volunteer to go to war.” This so electrified the people that before the close of the meeting more than enough for one company had put their names on the roll of volunteers. The young man who said “I will volunteer to go to war” (according to the best authority at hand) was William Deplitch, the first man wounded in battle. So high ran the fever of enlistment that another company was started and raised in a few days. These two companies are known in local and military history as Companies C and D, Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, Nine Months’ Men. They were attached to the Third Regiment, and served with the same in North Carolina during its campaign.
At the election of officers for Company C (as was anticipated) Elihu Grant was elected captain, and, being a West Point graduate, he was eminently fitted for that position. Benjamin A. Shaw was elected first lieutenant, and Charles D. Copeland second lieutenant. The choice of officers was well made, and the company were pleased with their selection. Be it remembered that at this time the Governor of Massachusetts, John A. Andrews, instead of appointing the officers left it to the company to elect their own officers. Captain Grant was a kind-hearted, considerate man, with high ideas of military discipline; those men who obeyed the letter and spirit of the law were treated accordingly, and those who disobeyed were punished according to military law and usages. Captain Grant could not look with any degree of leniency on disobedience to orders. He was the pronounced enemy of liquor drinking in any form or by any one; so the transgressors on these lines received condign punishment. No doubt that the captain’s zeal like David of old, sometimes “eat him up;” but he was a true friend to every man in his company and sought their well being. No man of Company C could say that he did not have his full share of rations in food and clothing.
Lieutenants Shaw and Copeland were God’s noblemen. They were true and kind to the men, and were greatly beloved by both officers and men in the regiment. They were always in their places with the company on the march and in battle. They took a great interest in the company, visiting the sick in tent and hospital.
The non-commissioned officers were a good set of fellows from the orderly sergeant to the eighth corporal. Indeed, the whole company was made up of good men who were ever ready to obey orders, to go anywhere and to do anything reasonable; but, like all other men, they liked a little fun when not on duty. I never knew one of them to shirk duty, or fall out just before going into battle.
At a meeting for drill in Fall River on the 17th of September, 1862, an order was read for Company C to report for duty at Camp Joe Hooker, and the following day the company went into camp at Lakeville, Mass., as a part of the Third Regiment. The company was assigned to a barrack on the extreme right of the regiment, and, like all the other companies coming into camp, they did their part to make the first night in camp memorable by songs and speech-making until early the next morning, when tired nature asserted her right and there was silence until reveille.