Massachusetts in the rebellion. A record of the historical position of the commonwealth, and the services of the leading statesmen, the military, the colleges, and the people, in the civil war of 1861-65

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Preface

The historical position of Massachusetts, from her colonial days until now, is alone a sufficient reason for undertaking this work, offered to the public as a record of the part borne by the State in the suppression of the Great Rebellion.

There is another consideration, of some importance, wdiich was not overlooked. It must be from local records of the popular support of the General Government in the contest, mainly, that the future historian will gather his materials for authentic and complete annals of the conflict. While the author is not a son of Massachusetts, but of New York, he confesses to an enthusiastic admiration of the Bay State and of New England, strengthened by domestic ties whose genealogical lines run back to the '•Mayflower." He cannot be accused of the effort to parade the virtues and extol the deeds of the people of his native State ; a consideration which may entitle him to some confidence in the impartiality and truthfulness of design in preparing a narrative necessarily incomplete in many of its details.

To secure authentic materials, the request has been made, through the press and by correspondence, for information from officers and others upon the topics presented in these pages. In regard to the regiments and public men not heard from through officers and friends, the author was compelled to depend wholly upon the able reports of the Adjutant-General of the State, and such vi PREFACE.

reliable fragments as were found in books or in the periodical press.

This statement will explain, for the most part, the reason why the regimental histories differ much in length.

Where a narrative has been furnished by a competent hand, he has not felt at liberty very materially to alter it, excepting personal sketches, whose condensation, with that of other contributions to the work, was demanded by the Hmited space and accumulating material, which, as it has come to him, has been impartially used.

Unpleasant incidents in official relations and army experiences have not been introduced to any extent, because it was no part of the design of this volume to discuss questions of demerit and incapacity, but to give the record of substantial service and honorable achievement.

It was desired, and the effort accordingly made, to have portraits of all the general officers of Massachusetts ; but it was only partially successful.

The author was indebted for valuable aid, during absence from the State, to Samuel Burnham, Esq., who prepared the chapter on the poets in the war ; to Chaplain Quint for the sketch of the Second Regiment, and a statement of the position of the churches and clergy in the war ; to Rev. F. Hendricks of Philadelphia, Penn., who condensed several of the regimental histories from the Adjutant- General's reports ; to Gov. Andrew, Gen. Schouler, and his efficient clerk, Mr. Wilson, Senator Wilson and Representative Rice, Assistant Secretary Fox, of the Navy Department, and Mr. Saxton, chief clerk, for valuable documents and statements ; and to Count L. B. Schwabe for pen and pencil portraits of fallen heroes, from his national gallery, and many facts from his remarkable knowledge of the war-record of the State. For the sake of uniformity, extracts from official reports, where the authorship was not known, have nothing to mark them as quotations.

PREFACE. Vll

It is proper to state, that the selection of portraits of fallen heroes was governed by no personal partialities, but by circumstances beyond the author's control ; and was designed to represent different parts of the Commonwealth.

Errors doubtless will be discovered by the reader ; and these, it is hoped, will be communicated to the author through the publishers, for correction in future editions, so fiir as practicable.

The publishers have clearly done their part to make the volume acceptable to the people ; and it is committed to them in the hope that it wdll be.

p. c. H.

Boston, August, 1866.

Part I

HISTORICAL POSITION OF THE COMMONWEALTH AT THE COM- MENCEMENT OF THE CIVIL CONFLICT.

CHAPTER I. ACC0U:NT of the EAKLY history of MASSACHUSETTS .... 1

CHAPTER 11.

MASSACHUSETTS STATESMEN IN THE REBELLION 17

CHAPTER ni.

SENATORS SUMNER AND WILSON. — HON. EDWARD EVERETT ... 29

CHAPTER IV.

MASSACHUSETTS REPRESENTATIVES IN CONGRESS 64

CHAPTER V.

MASSACHUSETTS ABROAD 80

GENERAL OFFICERS FURNISHED BY MASSACHUSETTS, WHO SURVIVED

THE WAR 559 xii CONTENTS.

Part III. Massachusetts At Home

CHAPTER I. p^oK

PATRIOTIC PHILANTHROPY AND CHARITIES 667

CHAPTER 11.

SANITARY ASSOCIATIONS AND AID SOCIETIES 575

CHAPTER ni.

THE FREEDSIEN ; THE REFUGEES ; THE DESTITUTE SOUTH . . .682

CHAPTER IV.

THE MEDICAL SERVICE 588

CHAPTER V.

THE CHURCHES AND THE CLERGY IN THE WAR 696

CHAPTER VI.

THE COLLEGES IN THE WAR 6(H

CHAPTER Vn.

MASSACHUSETTS POETS AND THE WxVR . 607

CHAPTER Vni.

THE HEROIC DEAD, AND NATIONAL PORTRAIT-GALLERY .... 623

CHAPTER IX.

FALLEN HEROES , 629

CHAPTER X.

FALLEN HEROES — Continued 638

CHAPTER XI.

Appendix

BATTLES OF THE MASSACHUSETTS REGIMENTS, &0 651

MASSACHUSETTS IN THE EEBELLION.

PAET I.

HISTORICAL POSITION OF THE COMMONWEALTH AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE CIVIL CONFLICT.

Chapter I

This Country designed for Freedom. — The History of Massachusetts. — The Founders of the State. — Their Exile, first in Holland, then in America. — The Growth of the Colony. — The Progress of Free Principles. — Resistance to Oppressive Acts of the Mother-country. — The first Blood shed. — The Revolutionary Struggle. — Massachusetts in the Republic. — The Opening of the Great Rebellion.

GOD designed this country for free thought, and its highest expression in human society, — a republic. The history of Massachusetts is an imperishable record of this divine purpose, unfolding in national life and destiny. As, in a mountain-group, the beams of morning kindle first upon some solitary summit ; so the light of the sun of Liberty, rising on a new world, fell upon this ancient Commonwealth, and spread over the widening landscape. In the advancing day, the single form of evil, admitted into the colonies, without a dream of its continuance, much less of its expansion into a system of oppression, whose " barbarism" would shock the civilized world, has yielded its life amid throes that imperilled the life of the nation itself.

For a twofold reason, it is well to take a backward glance along the salient points of the history of Massachusetts, as introductory to her part in the late civil war. It will give, in her own progress and discipline, while educating the people at large for the triumphant vindication of nationality, and of the free principles that underlie its outward form through which we have just passed, a sufiicient answer to the unjust and repeated attacks, from certain quarters, upon New England. Wrote Hutchinson in 1674 : —

" Tlie Massachusetts Colony may be considered as the parent of all the other colonies of New England. There was no importation of planters from England to any part of the continent northward of Maryland, except to Massachusetts, for more than fifty years after the colony began. In the first two years, about twenty thousand souls had arrived in Massachusetts. Since then, it is supposed more have gone hence to England than have come thence hither. Massachusetts Bay, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, probably contain five hundred thousand souls ; a surprising increase of subjects of the British crown ! "

While it is not in accordance with the spirit of our institutions to raise the question of ancestral honor to that importance which it must always hold under the shadow of a throne, the Great Rebellion has forced upon us a just consideration and appreciation of our origin.

The leaders in the revolt, though few in number, led and forced into its battle-field multitudes who had nothuig to gain in the treasonable cause. In another part of tlie Republic was presented the spectacle of a free people paying their willing homage to government and law, and united by this single bond of loyalty running through all classes and conditions in life.

It can be clearly shown, in opposition to the aristocratic assertion at the South and across the Atlantic that the unanimity among the enemies of the national flag arose from their common origin and superior blood, that it was, in fact, the unnatural agreement to which tyranny brings a people in its degrading and lawless service ; and the long-denied, incomprehensible union of the North was the normal state of the millions s[)rung from the same English stock, and pervaded by that intelligent devotion to freedom which inhered in them from the beginning of their colonial existence.

Whittemore, in his " Cavalier Dismounted," has demonstrated by facts and figures " that very few of the early settlers of the Virginia and other Southern Atlantic colonies possessed any hereditary claim to the rank of gentlemen ; and even these were without the indispensable body of hereditary retainers, in whom a reverential submission was a matter of faith. In the true sense, in the signification yet attached to the word in Europe, they never did establish an ai'istocracy ; yet they founded an imitation which has yearly become more despicable. Instead of tenants, the new aristocrats peopled their lands with black slaves,

ORIGIN OF COLONIES NORTH AND SOUTH. 3

or "white convicts bound to thcin for a term of years. As a natural consequence, their aristocracy became composed, not of those who had hereditary rank, not of gentry in the English sense, but of all those who could invest capital in flesh and blood. In Virginia and the Carolinas, the slave-owners usurped the name of gentlemen : they had a sufficient intermixture of that class to serve as a screen, and there were none to question their claims. Tiie United States are essentially English to-day, despite the millions of foreigners which have been absorbed into the population. The tendency of its citizens has been toward a democracy, and yet not toward anarchy and lawlessness.

"When we inquire what controlling influence has impressed this form upon the national character, the enemies of the predominant sentiment instinctively sliow that it is New England ; not the comparatively limited New England of 1863, but the New- England stock and influence which has invigorated nearly every State of the Union. In their ignorance of the past, these revilers of New England have been blindly attacking a greater fact than they were aware of. Not only is nearly a third part of our native-born population tlie offspring of the New England of the Revolution, but, long before that time, the intermixture had commenced. New England, colonized by Englishmen, homogeneous in a remarkable degree, has been the only thoroughly pure nationality within our territories. The few stray Englishmen of education in the Southern Colonies, the much greater number of convicts, the increasing immigration of French, Irish, Scotch, and German settlers, have not only failed to overwhelm this compa(;t and thoroughly alive minority, but have been formed and moulded into shape by it. In protesting against New England, the Vallandighams and Coxes are only proving the nullity of ' expunging resolutions.' ' Can they make that not to be which has been?' Until they can recall the past, annihilate the past inhabitants of these States, and from stones raise up some other progenitors for the present generation, they cannot desti'oy the influence of New England."

For the confinnation of these views, we may feaiiessly point to the unquestioned annals of the Commonwealth.

In 1602, while Bartholomew Gosnold was making the first English voyage of discovery along the coast of Massachusetts, naming Cape Cod, and afterward visiting the mainland, delighted with the " fair fields," " fragrant flowers," " stately groves," " pleasant brooks," and " beauteous rivers ; " in the rural town of Scrooby, Nottinghamshire, and also in Gainesborough, " the choice and noble spirits who planted New England " were learning tlie lessons of truth and liberty under such teachers as Clifton and John Robinson.

And when, in the spring of 1604, James I. declared, at the opening of the first parliament, that " his mother-church was that of Rome, and that the Puritans were a sect insufferable in a well-governed commonwealth," the blow was struck whose great issue would be the founding of a republic.

Three months later, when the persecuting monarch demanded conformity or ejectment, upon no churches did the oppressive order fall with more severity than upon the Independents of Scrooby and Gainesborough.

Two years of suffering and thwarted attempts to seek the more friendly shores of Holland passed before the exiles were united in a land, to them a " new world," because of its. " uncouth language, different manners and customs, and strange fashions and attires." Among the Holland Pilgrims conspicuous in New England's early history was the scholarly and religious young Bradford, learning the art of silk-dyeing, although he had mastered the Hebrew, " because he would see with his own eyes the ancient oracles of God in their native beauty." Says the able and eloquent historian of Massachusetts, Barry, " Of other members of this Pilgrim Church, it is impossible, at the present day, to state with exactness how many were connected with this church, either in England or in Holland. No records have descended to ns from which a list of their names, or an account of their proceedings, can be authentically drawn ; and, for the want of such knowledge, it is as absurd as it is unnecessary to " forge ancient archives to stretch their lineage back, and to deduce it from the most illustrious houses. Their proudest pedigree is Massachusetts and Araericg,. Si monumentum qucEris circumspicey

Eight years' experience of toil and trial among a strange and uncongenial people convinced the Pilgrims that growth and freedom could not be secured in Holland ; while they also shrank from the danger of assimilation to their neighbors by long-continued association, and intermarriages which would not unfrequently occur, until their distinctive character as a people was lost. They cast their eyes upon the sea, determined to seek a home somewhere beyond its waters. The colonial lands of Virginia, which had for a dozen years been occupied, and Guiana, the El Dorado of the age, had each enthusiastic advocates ; but English asso-

THE PURITANS SAIL FOR AMERICA. 5

ciations and protection decided them " to live in a distinct body by themselves, under the general government of Virginia, and by their agents to sue his Majesty to grant them free liberty, and freedom of religion."

Three years later, in the year 1620, after prayers and tears, and counsel from Robinson worthy of the great crisis in their affairs, the exiles embarked for the English coast. " So they

LEFT THAT GOODLY AND PLEASANT CITY WHICH HAD BEEN THEIR EESTING-PLACE NEARLY TWELVE YEARS. BUT THEY KNEW THEY WERE PILGRIMS, AND LOOKED NOT MUCH ON THOSE THINGS, AND QUIETED THEIR SPIRITS."

The voyage of the "Mayflower" followed, and the landing of the Pilgrims on a desolate coast, with a compact in their hands, which contained the true principles of republican equality, — an instrument whose dignified and reverent assertion of rights has no parallel in the history of colonial settlements.

On Clark's Island, Dec. 10 (O.S.), the Pilgrims observed the first Christian Sabbath kept in Massachusetts ; and, the succeeding day, went to the mainland, where, stepping upon Forefathers' Rock, they opened the first act in the '^ great drama," whose last " brought freedom to a wide-spread republic."

Less than a decade of years had passed, when two great events in their formative influence upon New England occurred, — the founding of a new colony, as a distinct enterprise from that of the Pilgrims, with the speedy transfer of its charter from the company in England to the colony abroad, thus making them virtually one, and taking a decided step towards colonial self-government ; and the settlement at Shawmut, on account of its *' excellent spring," by Mr. Johnson, followed by Gov. Winthrop and others. These gifted and educated men who laid the foundation of Boston were not Separatists, but Churclnuen, who desired to escape from the corruptions at home, and, with their neighbors at Plymouth, " lay some good foundation for religion " iw the fresh, free air of the New World.

Mr. Johnson, and his wife Lady Arbella, left " a paradise of plenty and pleasure in the family of a noble earldom " for " a wilderness of wants ; " and John Winthrop, the Christian magistrate and gentleman, turned from the cherished associations which attend wealth and refinement to the same forest-home, leaving behind him his devoted and congenial companion. No loftier minds ever founded a city, a state, or an empire.

Their sympathy with the Independents at Plymouth in religious experience, and the passionate longing for freedom to work unhindered for God and mankind, drew them toward each other ; and under the moulding influence of the Puritan ministry, which stands unrivalled in mental and spiritual power, they soon blended their fortunes, and harmonized in civil and ecclesiastical polity.

The church and schoolhouse, however humble, marked every clearing along the radiating lines of pioneering encroachment upon the boundless wilderness.

The growing insecurity and danger of the colonies from Indian conspiracies, and the jealousies of the French and Dutch, led them, in 1643, to make another stride in the unconscious progress toward a national independence.

In the Preamble to the Articles of Confederation, they state, with the sublime calmness of a high and inflexible purpose, the law of a Union never to be dissolved : " We all came into these parts of America with one and the same end and aim ; viz., to advance the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to enjoy the liberties of the gospel in purity with peace." Then follows a summary of the causes ^hich led to the " consociation," and the Twelve Articles that bound together "The United Colonies of New England," which was the " model and prototype of the North- American Confederacy of 1774."

Just twenty eventful years of varied discussion of rights and privileges brought an open conflict of the colonists with trans- Atlantic intolerance. The king appointed four commissioners to hear and determine " all complaints and appeals in all causes and matters," civil and military, in the colonies, who, accompanied by four hundred and fifty regular soldiers with their officers, sailed for New England. Boston sent an eloquent and earnest protest against their interference ; and thwarted by the skilful and admirable management of her political leaders, whose plea first and last was the charter, the commissioners determined to test their authority against that of the colony. May 23, 1665, they ordered a merchant of Boston to appear the next day to answer to the charges of Thomas Deane and others. When the appointed hour on the 24th arrived, and the commissioners were prepared to proceed, a herald suddenly appeared, and with a trumpet-blast startled the royal representatives with the signal to listen to the governor's command, forbidding tiie people to aid or countenance them in their invasion of cliarter rights. The astonished commissioners, after a fruitless attempt

RESISTANCE TO THE TYRANNY OF ANDROS. 7

to revise the laws of the colony, and a furtlicr failure in their efforts in New Hampshire, which was then under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, at length returned to England, to which the scene of negotiation was transferred. The machinations of the enemies of Massachusetts were eventually so far successful, that, in 1683-4, its charter was annulled. In May, 1686, his Majesty's commission of Gov. Dudley to be his royal vicegerent was " published by beat of drum, and sound of trumpet," and then transmitted to the several towns. Becoming unpopular, he was supplanted before the close of the year by Sir Edmond Andros, a " poor knight of Guernsey," who, flaunting the tinselled insignia of the office of Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief of all New England, and attended by British troops, landed at Boston. His tyrannical hand was soon laid upon taxation, legislation, the press, and even upon matrimonial relations. To encourage the Church of England, and break down that of the colony, Andros sent for the key of the South Church, — a sanctuary which later became the very Temple of Liberty, echoing its purest eloquence, — that "prayers might be said there." This was soon after followed by a proposition to tax the people for the support of the Church of England. As these despotic acts were multiplied, the question was indignantly asked, " What people that had the spirits of Englishmen would endure this, — that when they had, at vast charges of their own, conquered a wilderness, and been in possession of their estates forty, nay, sixty years, that now a parcel of strangers, some of them indigent enough, must come and inherit all that the people now in New England, and their fathers before them, had labored for ? "

Increase Mather, the " great metropolitan clergyman of the country," who, Randolph said, was as " full of treason as an egg of meat," and the ministers of the colony generally, openly and boldly preached resistance to the oppression of their rulers. At this crisis, the Revolution of 1688 dethroned the Stuarts, and elevated to the throne the house of Hanover in the person of King William. This vindication of popular rights in the mother-country was almost simultaneous with the outbreak of exasperated feeling in the colony. April 18, 1689, at eight o'clock in the morning, Boston wore the aspect of unwonted agitation. It was reported that Andros would lire the town at one end, and Capt. George, of the English frigate " Rose," apply the torch at the other, and then both make good their escape. Soon the people were in arms, the very boys brandishing their clubs along the streets. At mid-day, a declaration was read from the balcony of the court-house, closing as follows : " We commit our cause unto the blessing of Him who hears the cry of the oppressed, and advise all our neighbors, for whom we have thus ventured ourselves, to join with us in prayers, and all just action for the defence of the land." A shout from the multitude rent the air; colors floated on Beacon Hill, the signals of the opening struggle ; and, in obedience to the summons, the citizens and soldiery of the country came streaming into Boston. Before night, twenty military companies were formed in the streets.

The next day, April 19, 1689, across Charlestown and Chelsea Ferries poured another throng, lieaded by a Lynn schoolmaster. The surrender of the castle was demanded, and reluctantly made with a storm of curses : that of the frigate soon followed. The government of Andros was then overthrown, and a council of safety and peace was organized on its ruins. The royal governor was arrested, and, to secure him against violence, placed under guard.

In 1692, King William erected a new government in the Pilgrim colonies, to be called the Province of Massachusetts Bay, and include Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Maine ; inaugurating a new era in the history of New England, whose growth had been steady in numbers, wealth, and liberality of sentiment, along with a deepening love of freedom, and purpose of resistance to oppression.

And, in our estimate of the character of these colonists, the question is not, indeed, " What were the errors of the past ? but Wliat were its aims ? " And while " industry, frugality, and exemplary integrity, were characteristics of the people," it was not possible " to stifle the conviction which had sprung up, that freedom was the inalienable right of man, not to be parted with on any account whatever."

In regard to the participation of the Massachusetts Colony in American slavery, it is enough to say, —

" Slavery in general was so repugnant to the principles of the Puritans, it was viewed with abhorrence ; and, fortunately for New England, it never reached the dignity of a fixed ' institution ' to be cherished forever."

The unhappy witchcraft delusion, of which some have spoken contemptuously, and others with unsparing denunciation, was only the outbreak of an epidemic infatuation, which had long prevailed with more frightful results in Old England, and which

REVOLUTIONARY SPEECH OF JAMES OTIS. 9

continued there long after the excitement and its tragedies had ceased in America.

Through all moral and political changes among the people in the province of Massachusetts Bay, their struggles against the arrogant claims of the mother-country gathered strength. The "irrepressible conflict" was eloquently set forth in the words of James Otis in the old town-house of Boston, February, 1761 : " I am determined to my dying day to oppose, with all the powers and faculties God has given me, all such instruments of slavery on the one hand, and villany on the other, as this writ of assistance is. I argue in favor of British liberties, at a time when we hear the greatest monarch upon earth declaring from his throne that he glories in the name of Briton, and that the privileges of his people are dearer to him than the most valuable prerogatives of his crown. I oppose the kind of power, the exercise of which, in former periods of English history, cost one King of England his head, and another his throne. Let the consequences be what they will, I am determined to proceed, and to the call of my country am ready to sacrifice estate, ease, health, applause, and even life. The patriot and the hero will ever do thus ; and, if brought to the trial, it will then be known how far I can reduce to practice principles which I know to be founded in truth."

John Adams declared that "American Independence was then and there born."

The first victim of the Revolutionary period was the lad Snider, twelve years of age, killed by a shot from the house of Richardson the " informer," fired into the indignant crowd the 22d of February, 1770. His funeral was attended by " all the friends of liberty ; " five hundred children walking in procession in front of the bier.

The Boston Massacre followed on the 5th of March ; and, of the three killed on the spot by British troops, Attucks the mulatto, and Caldwell the " stranger," were borne to their graves from Faneuil Hall.

The anniversary of the slaughter was observed with great solemnity upon its annual recurrence, fanning the rising flame of patriotism in the colonies.

In the Representatives' Chamber at Boston, Nov. 3, 1772, when the committee of correspondence was appointed, — who subsequently, through Samuel Adams and Joseph Warren, sent forth a statement of rights, and their violations, and, from the pen of

10 MASSACHUSETTS IN TUB REBELLION.

Benjamin Church, a letter to the several towns of the province, — the foundation was laid of the American Union.

The towns sent back in clear accents their readiness to stand by the committee and the proposed Union. As the uprising of the people increased in extent and ominous determination, " every eye was fixed upon Boston, once the seat of commerce and of plenty, and inhabited by an enterprising and hospitable people. The cause in which it suffered was regarded as the common cause of the country. A hostile fleet lay in its harbor ; hostile troops paraded its streets ; the tents of an army dotted its common ; cannon were planted in commanding positions ; its port was closed, its wharves were deserted, its commerce was paralyzed, its shops were shut, and many were reduced from affluence to poverty. Yet a resolute spirit inspired them still. The Sons of Liberty knew no despair; and the "Liberty Song," set to the tune of " Smile, Brittania," bade the citizens of the beleaguered town —

" Be not dismayed : Though tyrants now oppress, Though fleets and troops invade, You soon will have redress.

The resolution of the brave Will injured Massachusetts save."

Such was the progress made at the close of 1772 by the founders of New England. They believed not in the despotic centralization of power, but in its consolidation. Freedom was not to them license to throw off wholesome restraints, but both civil and ecclesiastical tyranny, substituting in its place fixed, strong, and compact government, — the foundation for ages of progress in every direction of human development, under the acknowledged and welcome sovereignty of God.

The cementing force in such representative authority was wmtual confidence. And this very trust in each other sprang not alone from similarity of religious views and unselfish feeling, but from the conscious posssession of self-government, — that resolute self-control which fitted every man to be a ruler in society, because he held all selfish, volcanic passions subordinate to the general good.

Such intelligent estimate of human relations and duty led to another sublime peculiarity of character in their administration of power, — the transfer of the sentiment we call loyalty, the mind's homage to divinely appointed authority, from personal

THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY. — LEXINGTON: 11

presence and external pageantry, to Icvw itself. It is true, the forefathers carried this supreme regard for the invisible soul of all just supremacy to the extreme of disdain for the tinsel of royal prerogatives and a mitred priesthood ; but there was still an intelligent appreciation of essential truth, tried in the fire of manifold and protracted persecution.

March 5, 1773, in his oration on the Boston Massacre, Benjamin Church predicted that some future Congress v^ould be the "glorious source of the salvation of America;" and, seven days later, Virginia, by her legislative resolves, advised a union of councils throughout the continent ; a measure urged with all the earnestness and eloquence of Samuel Adams, Then Philadelphia spoke in behalf of Pennsylvania, denouncing the duty on tea, and branding him who countenanced its importation " an enemy to his country,"