The History of the Twenty-ninth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry / in the Late War of the Rebellion

by William H. Osborne

These enlistment papers were prepared by the Adjutant-General, issued at his discretion, and accompanying each paper was a copy of General Order No. 8, dated April 22, 1861, announcing the conditions upon which enlistments would be received. These were substantially as follows: That when the requisite number of men to form a full company had enrolled their names, and the authorities of the cities or towns where such companies were formed had attested the roll and certified their approbation of the application, an inspection of the men by a competent surgeon was to be ordered.

By this order, it was also announced that the “companies organized in the vicinity of existing regiments which at the present time have not ten companies, will be annexed to said regiments until they are full.”

The laws of the Commonwealth made no provision for the pay or subsistence of these volunteers until they were ordered by the Governor into active service, yet this proved no hindrance to the work of enlistment, which went actively on. To such of these companies as were likely to be called into active service, arms were issued by the State, while the uniforms were provided by the local authorities, and in some instances by private individuals.

It was under the circumstances which we have just narrated, and at this time, that the seven original companies of the Twenty-ninth Regiment were formed.

The company commanded by Captain Chamberlain, raised in Lynn, was gathered as early as April 18; the companies commanded by Captains Tyler (afterward Wilson) and Clarke, raised in Boston, were recruited April 19; the companies commanded by Captains Leach, Chipman, Barnes, and Doten, raised, respectively, in East Bridgewater, Sandwich, East Boston, and Plymouth, were all formed about April 20. There was no concerted action among the officers and persons who recruited these companies, nor was it understood at the time of their formation that they were to be united in the service, their subsequent union being one of the many accidental occurrences of the war.

The original term of enlistment of these commands was five years in the State’s service; but before they could be put in preparation to take the field, the President had concluded not to accept any more militia troops.

On the third day of May, the National Executive issued a call for a force of volunteers, “to serve for a period of three years, unless sooner discharged.” Nearly every man of these companies at once enlisted under the new call.

Governor Andrew concluded to make up the deficiency of men in the Third and Fourth regiments, then at Fortress Monroe, with these three years’ troops, and accordingly, on the 10th of May, the companies commanded by Captains Tyler and Chamberlain were despatched to Fortress Monroe, where they were assigned to duty with the Third Regiment.

On the eighteenth day of May, the commands of Captains Leach, Doten, Barnes, and Chipman were ordered to the same place, where they were assigned as follows: Captains Doten’s and Chipman’s companies to the Third, and Captains Leach’s and Barnes’s companies to the Fourth Regiment. Four days later, the company commanded by Captain Clarke was ordered to Fortress Monroe, and, upon arrival, was attached to the Fourth Regiment. These companies served in the Third and Fourth regiments from the dates of their respective assignments till the expiration of the three months’ term of the latter commands, when, on the sixteenth day of July, 1861, they were, by order of General Butler, commanding the department, organized as the “Massachusetts Battalion,” retaining the latter organization until December 13, 1861, at which time, upon the addition of three new companies, commanded, respectively, by Captains Sibley, Richardson, and Tripp, they became the Twenty-ninth Regiment.

This delay in forming the battalion into a regiment resulted in depriving it of the honor of being the First Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers; for while it was toiling upon the ramparts of Fortress Monroe, mounting guns under the withering rays of a July sun, throwing up earthworks at Newport News, fighting and marching, and thereby obtaining for the Government a foothold upon the soil of rebellious Virginia, twenty-eight regiments of infantry had been organized in Massachusetts and sent to the seat of war.