Arriving at the Navy Yard at Washington about ten o’clock, after breakfast at the hotel we visited the 5th Massachusetts Regiment, of which my friend, George H. Brastow was Major. They were encamped near Alexandria, and with the 5th Pennsylvania, 1st Michigan and the Ellsworth Zouaves formed the Union outpost near Shooter’s Hill, between Alexandria and the Fairfax seminary. The next day, Sunday, I went out to the Relay House at the junction of the Harper’s Ferry and the Baltimore and Washington Railroads, where were encamped the 6th and 8th Massachusetts Regiments and Cook’s Massachusetts Battery. I spent the night with Col. Hincks of the 8th, whose commissary of the post was Dexter F. Parker of Worcester. The Colonel was a clerk in the office of the Secretary of State when I was in the Senate in 1858 and 1859, and Commissary Parker was a brother Senator in 1859. Their camp was delightfully situated on the grounds of Dr. Hall overlooking the Valley of the Patapsco River. On Monday I went down to Baltimore and rode round to Fort McHenry, where the 3d Massachusetts Battalion of Rifles, under Major Charles Devens was quartered. This Battalion consisted of the Worcester City Guards and the Holden Rifles, to which were attached the Emmet Guards of Worcester and a Boston Company, raised after the call for troops was issued. I found General Banks at the Fort, and on our way back to Baltimore together he criticised the limitation of the President’s call to 75,000 men, feeling assured that the war was to be a long one. He was wise in his anticipation of a long war, but I think he was mistaken as to the call. The delay in raising a larger number of three months’ men would have disheartened the North and encouraged the South, and a larger call for short service would have interfered with enlistments for a long one. On the whole it seems to me that the early war measures were conceived and executed by wise, far-seeing men. From Baltimore I returned home and made a report to the Governor.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
I have spoken in the last chapter of being intimate with Commodore John Marston and family during a winter I spent in Philadelphia. There was another Commodore whom I knew there. I lived four months next door to Commodore James Barron, who in 1820 killed Commodore Stephen Decatur in a duel. Before the war of 1812 Barron was in command of the Ship Chesapeake, from which, under a claimed right of search, a British frigate had taken several sailors, alleged to be British. For his conduct in that affair he was tried and sentenced to five years’ suspension without pay. After the war he returned from Europe where he had lived some time, and his application for employment in the navy was opposed by Decatur on the ground that he had been disloyal to his country in not returning to fight her battles. A challenge followed, and a duel was fought on the historic field of Bladensburg. Both fired together, Decatur receiving a mortal wound in the breast, and Barron a wound in the thigh which he thought was also mortal. As they lay on the ground bleeding, the scene was a pathetic one. Barron said, “I hope, Decatur, when we meet in heaven that we shall be better friends than we have been here.” Decatur answered, “I have not been your enemy, but tell me, Barron, why you did not come home and fight for your country.” Barron replied, “I had been living many years in Europe, and had contracted debts which I could not run away and leave unpaid.” “Ah,” said Decatur, “If I had known that, we should not be lying here awaiting death.” Barron recovered, and was again employed in the service. His life was saddened by the event, but he never alluded to the melancholy scenes attending it. “If I had known that,” said Decatur! Alas, how many duels might have been averted if the parties had come together and heard in a personal interview reasons and explanations. Yes, and in the broader field of national honor if nations had sent their representatives to discuss dispassionately their complaints and differences, how many thousands of lives might have been saved and how many millions of treasure.
After returning from a visit to the Massachusetts troops at the front I was kept busy during the summer of 1861, enlisting men in Plymouth, and Kingston and other neighboring towns. I was several times in Washington on business in the war and navy departments. Simon Cameron was secretary of war from the 4th of March, 1861, until January, 1862, when he was succeeded by Edwin M. Stanton. I have nothing of interest to say concerning the former, but later I shall tell a story of my interview with the latter in October, 1862. The secretary of the Navy was Gideon Welles of Connecticut, but Gustavus Vasa Fox, the assistant secretary, was really the right hand of the department. Mr. Fox I had known for many years, my acquaintance beginning when a midshipman he came, I think in 1838, to Plymouth in the practice brig Apprentice, commanded by Lieut. Moore, and anchoring in beach channel, remained over a Sunday and attended church. He was a remarkable man, thought by some to be the strongest man connected with the administration during the war. He was born in Saugus, Massachusetts, June 13, 1821, and was appointed midshipman January 12, 1838. In 1856 he resigned with the rank of first lieutenant, and was appointed agent of the Bay State Mills in Lawrence. In March, 1861, he was sent by President Lincoln to Charleston to confer with Major Anderson about sending him aid at Fort Sumter, and was soon appointed assistant secretary of the Navy. To him was due the plan for the capture of New Orleans, and the selection of Farragut for the command in which he distinguished himself. His sound judgment and earnest advice led to the construction of the Monitor, and he established and perfected the blockade. After the war he was assigned to the duty of carrying the ram Miantonomah to the Baltic, which had been sold to the Russian government, and he was at the same time made a bearer of despatches conveying the congratulations of our government to Emperor Alexander 2nd, on his escape from assassination on the 16th of April, 1866. The Miantonomah was the first iron-clad to cross the ocean, and Capt. Fox reported her a comfortable craft, which instead of pitching and rolling in heavy weather, took the seas across her deck, and remained comparatively on an even keel. On his return home he was appointed manager of the Middlesex Mills in Lowell, and died in New York, October 29, 1883. In my communications with him, concerning appointments in the service, I never failed to receive a favorable response. I was the more careful therefore in making requests. In one instance I recommended a man for ensign, and hearing something soon after leading me to doubt his competency. I immediately wrote to Mr. Fox withdrawing my recommendation, and the applicant now dead, failed to receive an appointment. Sometimes at a later period of the war I was often asked to intercede in behalf of some soldier for a furlough. I remember the case of an officer, now dead, who was quite successful in obtaining furloughs on his own account, and who was in the habit while at home of criticising the conduct of the war. On one of his visits an old lady said, “lah, that —— is home again—this is the curiousest war that ever I see, if they don’t like the percedings they come home.” In quoting the quaint remark of the old lady I do not intend to suggest any doubt of the fidelity of a brave and efficient officer who probably had good and sufficient reasons for his furloughs.
The Standish Guards returned home after their three months’ service, on the 23d of July, and were received at the railroad station by the Home Guard, and in the evening at a festival in Davis hall. The officers of the company chosen after their arrival at Fortress Monroe, were Charles C. Doten, captain, and Otis Rogers and Wm. B. Alexander first and 2nd lieutenants, respectively. Lemuel Bradford, 2nd, who went out with the company as 4th lieutenant, was not permitted to be mustered, as only two lieutenants were allowed to each company. I have always understood that four lieutenants were mustered in the companies of the 5th, 6th, and 8th Massachusetts Regiments in and about Washington, where for some unknown reason a different rule prevailed.
In August, 1861, a second three years’ company was recruited by Capt. Joseph W. Collingwood to be attached as Co. H. to the 18th Massachusetts Regiment. All the men of this company were enlisted in the recruiting office established by the Plymouth Selectmen. Thirteen Plymouth men were enlisted in Co. H, and eight in other companies of the 18th Regiment. The Regiment was mustered into service August 24, and on the 26th left Readville, where they had been in camp, for Washington, joining the army of the Potomac at Hall’s Hill near that city.
In September, 1861, Capt. Wm. B. Alexander was authorized to raise a company to be attached as Co. E to the 23d Regiment, and ninety-seven men were enlisted at the Plymouth office, of whom sixty were Plymouth men. This company, with Wm. B. Alexander, Capt., and Otis Rogers, and Thomas B. Atwood, respectively, first and second lieutenants, went into camp at Lynfield, and November 11 left for Annapolis. Three other Plymouth men later joined Co. E as recruits, and three Plymouth men joined other companies in the 23d regiment.
In December, 1861, Lieutenant Josiah C. Fuller aided in recruiting Company E for the first Battalion of Massachusetts, which was finally recognized as the 32d Regiment, and twenty men were enlisted in Plymouth. Twenty more were enlisted for Company F, and four more for other companies in the same regiment, and three recruits were added later to Company E. This regiment was organized for garrison duty at Fort Warren in Boston harbor with Josiah C. Fuller, Capt. of Company E, and Edward F. Phinney second lieutenant of Company F, and May 20, 1862, left for Washington.
On the 7th of July, 1862, an order was issued at headquarters, stating that Massachusetts had been called on for fifteen thousand men, of which number Plymouth was required to furnish sixty. The Governor asked me to raise two companies to be designated as Companies D and G in the 38th Regiment, and to select officers for them. I first enlisted men for Company D, and soon filled its ranks with thirty men from Plymouth, and the remainder from neighboring towns. I first recommended Chas. H. Drew for captain, Cephas Washburn and Albert Mason, first and second lieutenants, respectively. Charles H. Drew was then first lieutenant in Company H, 18th Regiment, and the war department refused to muster him out to enable him to receive his commission. I then filled, the ranks of Company G with thirty-one from Plymouth, and the remainder from neighboring towns, and recommended Charles C. Doten for captain and George B. Russell, second lieutenant. The town’s quota was completed by one enlistment for the 13th Regiment, one for the 20th and one for the 35th. The 38th Regiment went into camp at Lynfield, and September 24, 1862, left for Baltimore, where it went into camp near the city and left November 9th in the steamer Baltic for Ship island. I went with the Plymouth companies to Lynfield and spent a week with them under canvas to aid in making requisitions for equipments, and looking generally after the comfort of the men. My classmate, Wm. Logan Rodman of New Bedford, was commissioned Major of the Regiment, and later before it left, lieutenant colonel. When the commission as lieutenant colonel was offered to him he asked my advice about accepting it, as he knew nothing about military matters, but he was finally commissioned, and in the absence of Col. Ingraham, went to Baltimore in command of the regiment. Poor fellow, he was killed at the siege of Port Hudson in May, 1863. He was lying down with his command behind logs, and lifting his head was instantly killed by a rebel sharpshooter. During my stay at the Lynfield Camp, I for the first time was christened with a high military title. Patrick Maguire of Company D was found one night outside the camp somewhat under the influence of liquor, and carried to the guard house. When asked what regiment he belonged to he said, “by gorrah, I don’t belong to no regiment at all, I belong to Davis’s brigade.”
In August, 1862, a call was made for 300,000 nine months’ men, of which the quota of Plymouth was thirty-seven. Every organized militia company in the 3d Regiment was authorized to recruit up to the standard, but as it would be impossible to fill the Standish Guards and the Carver and Plympton companies, it was agreed that the three companies should recruit together as Company B, the letter of the Standish Guards, under a Carver Captain, and with a first lieutenant from the Guards, and a second lieutenant from the Plympton company. Under this arrangement Thos. B. Griffith was made captain; Charles A. S. Perkins of Plymouth, first lieutenant, and Wm. S. Briggs of Middleboro, second lieutenant. Thirty men enlisted in Plymouth, including John Morissey, who was appointed Major. The regiment went into camp at Lakeville, and October 22, 1862, sailed from Boston in the steamships Merrimac and Mississippi for Newbern, North Carolina. Twelve other nine months’ men were enlisted in Plymouth for the 4th, 6th, 44th, 45th and 50th Regiments. Thirty-five of the nine months’ men received a bounty of one hundred dollars in accordance with a vote of the town.