Sleepers 10th Massachusetts Battery: The History of the 10th Massachusetts Battery of Light Artillery in the War of the Rebellion (eBook)

John D. Billings (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2018
Charles River Editors (Verlag)
978-1-63295-662-0 (ISBN)

Infos

Sleepers 10th chronicles the history of the unit during the Civil War.John D. Billings, a native of Canton, Massachusetts, also authored Hardtack and Coffee.

Textauszug

Chapter 1: August 12 to October 14, 1862.

   * Origin of the Battery

     — going into camp — incidents and experiences of life in home camp.

It was mid summer of 1862.

The disastrous failure of the Peninsular Campaign had shrouded the country in gloom. Thousands of the flower of the nation’s youth who, burning with the most ardent and unselfish patriotism had been marshalled in the ranks of the magnificent Army of the Potomac, had crossed another river never to return. It was one of the darkest periods in the history of the Civil War. A triumphant enemy was likely to be an aggressive one. The disaster must be repaired and that right speedily. Then it was that President Lincoln, cast down but not destroyed, issued his call for 300,000 more volunteers and under this call the following special order was issued from the State House in Boston:

   Special order no. 614.

   Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Headquarters, Boston, Aug. 12, 1862.

   Henry H. Granger is hereby authorized to raise a Battery of Light Artillery under U. S. Order No. 75, Battery to be full by 16th inst.

   The Captain will be designated hereafter.

   By command of His Excellency John A. Andrew, Governor and Commander-in-Chief.

   (Signed)

   Wm. Brown, Asst. Adjt. Gen’l.

The foregoing is a correct copy of the original order by which authority was given to recruit the Company afterwards known as the Tenth Massachusetts Battery.

In the Boston Journal of August 13, 1862, appeared the following notice:—

   Henry H. Granger has been authorized to raise a battery of light artillery to be filled by the 16th inst. As this is a popular arm of the service, there is no doubt of his ability to raise a company by the time specified.

So far as can be ascertained this is the first public notice of the company. In subsequent issues of the same paper occurred these notices:—

   Tenth Massachusetts Battery.

   [Aug. 14, 1862.]

   50 more men wanted for the Tenth massachusetts Battery. Apply immediately to 17 Old State House or 16 Howard Street.

   H. H. Granger, Recruiting Officer.

   [Aug. 18, 1862.]

   The 10th Massachusetts Battery recruiting by Lieut. H. H. Granger, is rapidly filling up, over 125 men having already enlisted. A splendid opportunity is here offered to those who wish to enlist in this popular arm of the service for three years.

   Tenth Massachusetts Battery.

   [Aug. 23, 1862.]

   The 10th Battery, H. H. Granger commanding, is full, and has been ordered into camp at Lynnfield to-day. They will leave Boston at 12 o’clock on the Boston and Maine R. R. J. Webb Adams of this city has been appointed Junior 1st Lieutenant.

   [Aug. 23, 1862.]

   The 10th Battery for three years service, recruited by Capt. Granger, left Boston for Camp Stanton at Lynnfield via Boston and Maine R. R., in the noon train to-day

As the above notices show, a recruiting office was opened at the Old State House, and also at 16 Howard Street, and but few days elapsed before the Company was recruited to the required standard of one hundred and fifty-six men. The readiness with which men rallied was undoubtedly due in large measure to the gentlemanly bearing and personal magnetism of the recruiting officer, Mr. Granger, whose many estimable qualities as a man won the affection of all who came in contact with him; and this regard, implanted thus early in the hearts of the men, continued unabated to the day of his death.

About thirty members of the Battery came from Worcester County, the home of Mr. Granger, thirty more from Charlestown, and the same number from Marblehead. The remainder were furnished by Boston and towns lying within a radius of twenty miles of it.

August 23 was the day fixed upon for the Company to go into camp. On the morning of that day, about a hundred men assembled at the Eastern Railway Station in Boston. At the command, ‘Fall in, Tenth!’ we formed line and went on board a train standing near to receive us, bound for Lynnfield, at that time one of the rendezvouses established for the reception of regiments and companies prior to their departure for the seat of war. This assemblage of men constituted the first tangible evidence that there existed such an organization as the Tenth Massachusetts Battery.

While sailors ers and seamen, blacksmiths and tailors, carpenters and teamsters, clerks fresh from the pen or yardstick, teachers, hard-handed laborers, policemen and restaurant keepers. All these, with men of various other callings, combined to make up a motley collection of tastes, interests and prejudices, such as war always assembles. But all these differences of calling and taste were to be sunk in a common unity of purpose and interest. Henceforth we should know each other as soldiers and soldiers only. While we were getting, acquainted the train moved on and in due time arrived at Lynnfield.

Here those whose duty it was to provide accommodations had nothing ready, thus giving us our first lesson in patient waiting, a lesson which soldiers have to learn early and practise long. There was the camp, it is true; but it was surrounded by sentries, armed with rusty muskets, whose valor we did not care to test by trespassing on their beat. While waiting outside the lines, a heavy shower came up, and we concluded, while hugging the lee side of contiguous buildings and becoming drenched to the skin, that we were having a fair initiation into the experiences of a soldier’s life. Sunshine again appearing, our prospects brightened materially. A company of one of the regiments in camp, going away on furlough, vacated its quarters for us. These consisted of two rows of tents, known interchangeably by the names of Sibley and Bell Tents; the former derived from the name of the inventor, the latter given from their resemblance to huge bells. They were pitched in two rows of six each, with a park between about four rods wide, at the head of which stood two wall tents occupied by the officers.

These tents, located by themselves near a pleasant piece of woods, formed a more inviting camp than had been anticipated, and we were not long in accommodating ourselves to them. Those who had been familiar with the culinary art took possession of the cook-house that stood near by, and in due time were dealing out tin dippers of black coffee and slices of bread, thus introducing us to the simple fare of army life.

Supper disposed of, we examined the interior of the tents. They were found to be supported by a central pole resting on an iron tripod. A plentiful supply of straw covered the ground. On this a dozen men in each stretched themselves, feet to the centre, and passed the first night, not in slumber, but in telling stories and shivering in the chill night air. The next day was the Sabbath, and camp life began in earnest. The guard, hemming us in on all sides, was at first rather chafing to free American citizens, but we accepted it as an annoyance inseparable from the service into which we had voluntarily entered. Some of us were detailed for guard around our own camp, while others went as supernumeraries to relieve the regular sentries at the central guard-house, and whiled away the hours in watching over certain wayward and drunken soldiers from the infantry near us, whose ambitious propensities to beat the guard over the head with a club, bite off the fingers of the corporal who remonstrated, and divers other offences against law and decency, had consigned them to confinement in the stall of an old stable, now dignified by the name of guard-house. So, in one way and another, we were inducted to our new employment. During the week our uniforms arrived, and with many jokes on the good clothes furnished us, we doffed the garb of civil life, and donning the uniform of light artillerymen, became genuine soldiers in appearance so far as uniformity of dress could make us so.

This pleasant camp, however, was not destined to be our home long. In a few days a portion of the troops encamped with us were ordered to the seat of war, and those remaining were to be removed to Boxford. So, packing up our effects and getting down to the station promptly at nine o’clock in the morning, according to orders, we were fairly seated in the cars by five o’clock in the afternoon, and under way at sundown. After several hours ride, during which the train had the singular faculty of going backwards as much as forwards, and standing still more than it did either, we were landed in Boxford about ten o’clock at night, to find the ground soaked with rain, and the beans that had been stewed for our supper by an advance guard, sour as vinegar. While some of the men were striving to make themselves comfortable for the remainder of the night in the cars, which had been left standing near the camp-ground, a voice came ringing through the train: ‘Any of Captain Garlic’s men here?’1 Again and yet again was it repeated in anxious tones at every door, although greeted with the jeers and execrations of the would-be slumberers within; but the captain with...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 22.3.2018
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik ► 20. Jahrhundert bis 1945
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Militärgeschichte
• Schlagworte: Cannon • Free • hardtack and coffee • joshua chamberlain • Maine • Stonewall • Union
• ISBN-10: 1-63295-662-4 / 1632956624
• ISBN-13: 978-1-63295-662-0 / 9781632956620