The Boston “Home Journal” of September 22 published a very extended and complimentary article concerning the Twenty-ninth Regiment, entitled “Who Are They Now, and Where Are the Rest of Them?” The first part of this question was answered in a manner that must cause its living members and their many friends the keenest satisfaction, while the inquiry, “Where Are the Rest of Them?” which we only have space to quote, touches most tenderly the sweetest and the saddest chords of a soldier’s memory:—
“Where are the rest of them? Half of the living men of 1861 were in the line. The other half are scattered. All parts of the State sent up their contribution. Every New England State sent up its quota. From Maine to Oregon, from the great lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, the residue of the living three hundred are scattered. About seven hundred are dead. The killed in action; the men who died of wounds; the men who died of disease while in the service; the men who died, after their discharge, of disease contracted in the service; the men starved to death in rebel prisons; the men incurably weakened by famine and malaria at Knoxville and Vicksburg and Jackson,—they have all gone. It was the strongest of them that we saw on Monday, the best constitutions, the hardest muscles, the toughest fibres, and all of them were prematurely aged, and the boys’ faces which most of them wore at the time of enlistment, have now no trace of youth in them. To an old comrade, this age, this worn look, was inexpressibly sad, but sadder yet it was to think of the long roll of dead comrades, and how they died.
“And yet, on every man’s face, at some time in the day, in the presence of some old and loved friend, there momentarily returned the transfiguration of youth, and the faces of 1861,—a flash and play of the “battle light” of an earnest, honest, human heart, full of enthusiasm, love, and duty. This was recognizable, and invariably was recognized, no matter how worn and gray the older face and hair might be.
“To have returned to the Commonwealth at least two hundred good citizens, with characters educated by hardships and trials, and by the friendships of the valley of the shadow of death, into a willing and intelligent acquiescence in the rule of law, and the importance of preferring the common weal to mere individual pleasure and profit, is not the least credit of that old regiment; and if the military service has merely succeeded in teaching the necessity of orderly and systematic organization, and the ability to govern one’s self, as it has in most instances everywhere, the work of the war can never be undone, and never should be.”
FOOTNOTES:
[1] There is but one other military body that can claim a share of this honor, to this extent; viz., Capt. P. A. Davis’s company of Lowell, an independent company of infantry called the “Richardson Light Guards,” afterwards organized as the Seventh Massachusetts Light Battery. This company was mustered originally May 21, 1861.
[2] Chap. 222, Acts of 1861.
[3] Adjutant-General’s Report, 1861, page 7.
[4] Letter of Captain Tyler.
[5] This vote was faithfully carried out, each original member of the company receiving three months’ extra pay, amounting to $30.—Author.
[6] The commission of Captain Bates described him as a “Captain of Company C, Third Regiment of Infantry, Second Brigade, First Division of the Militia of this Commonwealth,” and was dated May 4, 1861.
[7] This sermon was afterward printed in pamphlet form, with the motto, “Stand by the Flag!” and circulated among the volunteers at Fortress Monroe, Va.