War diary and letters of Stephen Minot Weld, 1861-1865.

Preface

Thinking over my life, it has often occurred to me that my children and their descendants might find it of interest to know something about the life of their ancestor who fought in the Civil War, just as I myself would give a great deal if I had some story of my ancestors in the Revolution. Accordingly I have gathered together from my diary, which I kept during a greater portion of the War, — some of which I lost, which made it, of course, unavailable, — also from letters written home to my father and mother and sisters, facts which will interest my children. I have added to it a brief account of the genealogyof the family so far as it is known, also some facts in my father's life, and some in my own life not connected with the War.

Altogether my life has been a varied and interesting one, full of happiness and full of sorrow. Perhaps no fuller than the lives of hundreds of other people; still I give the account to my children for what it is worth, and hope they will be repaid for the trouble of reading it. I have left out a great many portions of my letters, as I realize now that my ideas then were often \er>- fault\- and wide of the mark, and that conclusions that I arrived at then are hardly worth printing now. My children reading the war diary must remember that I was only twenty years old when I went into the \\'ar, that I had graduated from Har\-ard when I was eighteen, and was still vers* young, and must make allowances for opinions expressed in my letters as being those of a very young man, — almost a boy.

ILLUSTRATIONS

General Stephen M. Weld, (photogravure) . Frontispiece

From a painting by Wm. W. Churchill (1890), in the Armory of the First Corps Cadets, Boston.

General Stephen M. Weld, (photogravure) . . Frontispiece

From the painting (1912) by Milton Lockwood.

Ninth Army Corps Badge, First Division . . . Title

My Father, Stephen M. Weld 4

Residence of my Father, Stephen M. Weld, Jamaica Plain,

burned about 1 845 10

Exhibition Part given me in College . , . .18 Fortress Monroe ........ 30

Order appointing me on Staff of General Wright . 40

Second Lieutenant, Stephen M. Weld, Jr., January, 1862 46

Lieutenant Charles J. Mills 50

General McClellan at Yorktown, 1862 ... 72

Letter from General Reynolds ..... 84 Order appointing Court to rehear the General Porter

Case 86

My Narrow Escape (June 15, 1862) . . . .115

General Fitz John Porter and Staff, Westover, Va., July

16, 1862 120

Headquarters, Fifth Army Corps, Harrison's Landing,

James River, 1862 124

Second Bull Run; Portion of Field (Aug. 31, 1862) . 134 Headquarters, Fifth Army Corps, Antietam . . .138

From a photograph.

Headquarters, Fifth Army Corps, Antietam .

From an engraving.

The Battle-field of Antietam .....

Leave of Absence after General Porter's Trial and Con VICTION

138 140 xii ILLUSTRATIONS

Permission to visit Philadelphia . . . . .156

Letter of General Porter to me just after his Conviction 156 Copy of General Order Number 7 in regard to the Engineer Brigade . . . . . . . .178

Copy of my Letter resigning as A. D. C. from Benham's

Staff 198

Pass given me when leaving Headquarters . . .216 Letter from General Howard to General Reynolds . 226 Letter from General Reynolds to General Howard . 228 Order from General Seth Williams to General Reynolds 228 Pass given to take General Reynolds's Body to Philadelphia .......... 234

General Meade's Aides . 242

Letter from Kingsbury, General Reynolds's and afterwards General Newton's Adjutant-General . . 256 Copy of Letter assigning Colonel Griswold to command the Regiment ......... 256

A Letter from a Mother allowing her minor Son to enlist . . . . . . . . 258

Major Jarves, Colonel Griswold, and myself in 1864 . 262

Brevet Brigadier General S. E. Chamberlain . . 270

Group of Officers at Annapolis ..... 274

Captain Hiram S. Shurtleff . . . . . . 278

Letter of Colonel Charles E. Griswold .... 280

Colonel Charles E. Griswold commanding the 56TH Mass.

Order received at Nye River when in command of the

Dress-Parade of the 56TH Mass. Volunteers . . . 306

Buglers and Band, 56TH Mass. Volunteers . . . 324

Earthworks before Petersburg (July, 1864) . . . 332

Non-commissioned Staff, 56TH Mass. Volunteers . . 340

Non-commissioned Staff, 56TH Mass. Volunteers . . 348

Line of Battle, 56TH Mass. Volunteers .... 352

ILLUSTRATIONS xiii

Jail, Columbia, South Carolina . . . . Rear of the Jail and Yard .....

Room in Jail where Naval Officers were confined

Town Hall, Columbia, South Carolina, next Door to Jail 358

358 358 358

Sale Note of my Watch, in Columbia, South Carolina Draft on my Father while in Jail ....

Confederate Ten Dollar Bill ....

Confederate One Hundred Dollar Bill Headquarters, 56TH Mass. Volunteers, Alexandria Field and Staff, 56TH Mass. Volunteers Officers of the 56TH Mass. Volunteers . Special Order announcing my Exchange . Commissary Sergeant and Quarters

First Sergeants, 56TH Mass. Volunteers, at Regimental Post-Office ........

Colors and Color Rank, 56TH Mass. Volunteers . Letter from Governor Andrew inviting me to his Inauguration ..........

Invitation to Lunch with General Humphreys and Staff 404 Copy of Order appointing me Commander of the Brigade 404 Portion of Letter from General Fitz John Porter . 404

Letter from General Griffin 404

Letter from General Burnside ..... 404

Letter inviting me to Dinner with Governor Andrew and THE Cadets ......... 404

Mrs. Stephen M. Weld, my first Wife (Eloise Rodman), and myself about 1869 ....... 408

Mrs. Stephen M. Weld (S. Edith Waterbury), my second Wife 408

WAR DIARY AND LETTERS OF STEPHEN M. WELD

WAR DIARY AND LETTERS OF STEPHEN M. WELD

Chapter I Introductory — The Weld Family — College Life

I WISH that during my lifetime, at least, this book should be kept strictly private. There are many remarks about people who are perhaps now living, or whose near relatives may be living, which I should omit if the book were to be made public property by publishing it. Furthermore, there are several laudatory letters which it is right and proper and very pleasant to have my descendants read, but which it would be in exceedingly bad taste for me to publish or give out in any book for general circulation. After I am dead it will be no matter who sees it — perhaps no one will care about reading it.

I think to my grandchildren particularly, and to their children, it may be interesting to read of what will be to them the earlier times of the Republic; and it may help them to realize how important it is for them to support the form of government which their ancestors fought so hard to keep alive and to sustain in time of trouble. I am going to give a short sketch of my life before the War, and also some of the, to me, most important matters that had a bearing on the making or marring of my life up to the time of my seventy-first year. On my last birthday, the fourth of January, 19 12, I was seventy years old.

As being of interest to my descendants, I propose to insert here an article written by the Reverend Andrew

P. Peabody, Plummer Professor at Harvard, and a classmate of my father's, and printed by him in his volume, Harvard Graduates Whom I Have Known.^

STEPHEN MINOT WELD

If the members of my class had been asked at any time who of the class was more beloved than any other, I suppose that every one of them would have answered, "Stephen Weld." I do not mean that he was popular, in the vulgar sense of that term. He had none of the traits, arts, or ways by which one wins that title. He united, to a degree which I have seldom or never known beside, the simplicity of a child, the exuberant mirthfulness of an untamed boy, and the thoroughly formed manliness of spirit which could resist evil, surmount obstacles, and make a hopeful beginning of a vigorous life work. I doubt whether the Faculty loved him; and yet such a person as he would be a prime favorite with the present Faculty, so entirely has the pervading spirit of the college regime been revolutionized. He was full of fun and frolic, and no one enjoyed as he did a practical joke, when it could do no harm. His laugh was joy-giving, and I seem to hear it as I write. Though not irregular in attendance on college exercises, I doubt whether he studied much till his Senior year. Yet it was perfectly well understood that he all along had possessed the capacity and taste which he then began to show, and which were sure to make him an excellent scholar whenever he gave his mind to the work. We all recognized in him not only good-nature and goodfellowship, but a thorough nobleness of spirit and character, inborn and inbred. We should have gone to him to take the lead on any gay or festive occasion; but we should have gone to him equally for sympathy under adverse circumstances, or for help which could be rendered only with labor and sacrifice.

Stephen Minot Weld was born in Boston in 1806. His father,

1 Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1890.

MY FATHER: STEPHEN M. WELD

William Gordon Weld, was an enterprising and for many years a successful ship-master and ship-owner, and distinguished himself by defeating some Algerine pirates who attacked him, and capturing two of their vessels. Subsequently, in our War of 18 12, a vessel of his, under his own command, with a valuable cargo and a large amount of specie, was captured by a British frigate off Boston harbor. He had become, by the standard of the times, a rich man, but was so no longer. Several years before this loss, he had removed to Lancaster, and there Stephen was fitted for college, in the school of which I have already spoken. He must have commenced his preparations under the tuition of George B. Emerson.

He entered college at sixteen years of age, without the initial experience of the outside world which a boy gets by attending school away from home. He came with exuberant spirits, with a proclivity for play rather than for work, and with a mirthprovoking power that made him a favorite with the least industrious of his class, while his ingenuousness, his moral purity, and his keen sense of honor won the esteem and afifection of those of the opposite type. His father died at the close of his Junior year. From that time he evidently thought more of the future and of his responsibilities in and for it than he had before. He became more studious, and his college work in the Senior year was in every respect creditable. He determined to be a teacher, and felt the necessity of first being a learner. During that and the following year, if my memory serves me aright, he reviewed with care the studies required for admission to college.

On graduating, Mr. Weld was employed for one year as an assistant teacher in the long-estabhshed boarding-school of Mr. Greene, at Jamaica Plain. In the following year he opened a similar school in the immediate neighborhood of Mr. Greene's. His mother joined him in the enterprise, taking charge of the housekeeping, and performing her full part in making for the boys under their united care not only a comfortable home, but one on which they always looked back with pleasure and gratitude. She had several younger children to be educated. Of her older sons, William F. Weld was already in business, yet with no more than the remote prospect of the wealth which he afterward obtained, and he did everything in his power to eke out her slender income; forming habits of personal self-denial which lasted for life, in thus meeting the calls of filial duty. As Stephen prospered, he of course came to share in this work with his brother ; for there never was a time when for him the chief happiness of possessing was not the privilege of bestowing. His school grew rapidly in numbers and in reputation, and it is hardly too much to say that its reputation was national ; for pupils came to it from every part of the country, and even from Cuba, Mexico, and Yucatan. It continued in undiminished success, till at the end of thirty years Mr. Weld thought himself entitled to the only rest which a man ever ought to seek — a change of work.

In this case the change was not rest. In 1858 Mr. Weld was chosen president of the Metropolitan Railroad Company, then in its infancy; but he suffered so severely from overwork in the complicated affairs of the company, that he felt compelled to resign the office in the following year. The only political offices which he ever held were as a member of the Executive Council under Governors Clifford and Emory Washburn, and as presidential elector in 1864.

During the War of the Rebellion Mr. Weld was second to no one in the country's service, giving time, money, counsel, and effort unsparingly, and always with a sound discretion that largely enhanced the value of whatever he gave or did. He was recognized by the citizens of West Roxbury as foremost in patriotic devotion among those at home or in the field, the living or the dead. Had he been a younger man, I know that he would have enlisted for active duty, and it was in his spirit and under his strong encouragement, that his eldest son, bearing his name (H. U. i860), entered the army, in which he held an important command with distinguished honor.

Mr. Weld was for nine years, and at the time of his death, one of the Overseers of the College, and among all its alumni there was not one more devoted to its best interests. Shortly before the War, I forget in what year, he had a class supper at his house, and invited his brother, WilHam F. Weld, to meet us, for the purpose of enlisting him in some enterprise for the benefit of the College. What that enterprise should be, was the subject of the evening's talk. The result was that Mr. Weld determined to erect a building, which should at once meet the actual need of a new dormitory and yield a fair interest on its value as an investment. In accordance with this purpose, he procured plans and estimates, and would have gone on with the building had not the War intervened. When the project was renewed, Stephen was no longer living, and Weld Hall is his brother's tribute to his memory.

Mr. Weld was generous and kind, not only in special channels of beneficence, but in every form and way. He never lost an opportunity of doing good, and no man could have been more ingenious and inventive than he was in discovering and creating such opportunities. It was said that in Jamaica Plain there could not be found an individual who had not in some way been indebted to him for good offices-, and none that needed pecuniary help by loan or gift that had not received it from him. He died in 1867, after a short and painful illness, during which he was fully aware of its inevitably fatal issue, which he met with entire calmness and resignation. I was one of the officiating clergy at his funeral. The large church was crowded; and of the many occasions of the kind that I have witnessed, I have never seen one at which there were such tokens of profound sorrow in the entire assembly. The whole community were in mourning for a man who had been every one's friend, and whom every one had loved.

A few anecdotes which I used to hear from my father about his youth may not come in amiss here. When he lived at Lancaster he had to go some two miles every day to school, winter and summer. In doing so he had to cross the Nashua River, and as there was no bridge, he and his brothers crossed in an old boat. He used to tell me that often he had to break the Ice to get the boat across. What a contrast this is to the case of children nowadays, who are provided with transportation by the cities or towns in which they Hve, if they happen to be any distance from school, — in my opinion a poor and miserable way of bringing up children to meet the hard times and trials of life.

The following sketch of the Weld family is largely taken from the Historical and Genealogical Register, of April, 1891.

The family of Weld dates back to 1352, William Weld, High Sheriff of London. The New England branch came from Suffolk, the home of Governor Winthrop.

In 1632 Captain Joseph Weld, with his brother, the Reverend Thomas Weld, being "Puritans of the Puritans," came to New England for freedom; not penniless adventurers, with nothing to lose and everything to gain, but leaving behind home, comfort, prosperity and assured position, for conscience' sake.

Captain Joseph Weld settled in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and became a freeman in the colony, which made him a grant of several hundred acres, now West Roxbury Park and Arnold Arboretum. My grandfather lived in what is now known as the Peters House, opposite the Bussey Institute. This estate was the family home for nearly two hundred years.

Being well trained in arms. Captain Joseph was a valuable aid to Governor Winthrop in military affairs, and served in numerous fights with the Indians. His death was a great loss to the colony, and is mentioned by Winthrop. Savage stated that he was the richest man in the colony, at the time of his death, and was one of the first donors to Harvard College, of which his brother

Thomas was of the first Board of Overseers. My father also served for nine years as an overseer, and I too had the honor to be a member of the Board for about twenty-five years.

Stephen Minot Weld, my father, was born In Boston, in 1806. His grandfather, Eleazer Weld, was a judge, also a colonel in the Revolutionary War, and Paymaster of Washington's army at Cambridge in 1777 and 1778.

His father, William Gordon Weld, was intended for the bar, but became a ship-owner, loaded his own ship and sailed her to foreign ports. It was he, who, while commanding his armed ship, the Jason, in 1802, off Tunis, beat off an Algerine pirate vessel and recaptured two American brigs with their crews. In July, 18 12, returning in the ship Mary, with a valuable cargo of wine and Spanish silver dollars from Spain, not knowing that war had been declared, he ran into Boston Harbor, right into the jaws of the British frigate Spartan, 38 guns, was captured, and his vessel, crew and cargo sent to Halifax, and condemned. But the commander, Brenton, being an old friend, allowed him to escape without imprisonment, but almost penniless, to his home. In 1798 he married Hannah Minot, daughter of James Clarke Minot, a wellknown merchant of Boston.

The family losses during the Revolution, and the death of Colonel Weld, necessitated the sale of the old homestead in Roxbury, in order that the property might be divided among his brothers and sisters.

My father married Sarah B. Balch, daughter of Joseph Balch, in June, 1838. My mother died in 1854. My father married again, in 1856. His second wife was Georgianna Hallett. I remember going with them on a journey to the White Mountains. One of the guides at the hotel took us to a waterfall but little known, which lo WAR DIARY AND LETTERS OF

Father christened Georgianna Falls. About five years ago, I heard some people just back from the mountains speaking of going to some beautiful falls called Georgianna Falls — but "such an ugly name!" they said.

I was born on the fourth day of January, 1842, in Jamaica Plain, on the place where my sister's house now stands. The house in which I was born was burned, some time, I think, in February, 1845.^ This fire is one of the first things that I can remember. The weather was intensely cold, below zero, as I was afterwards informed; looking out of the nursery window, I saw the pupils of my father's school come running out of the school-house, on the other side of the yard, shouting, "Fire!" My mother, and my cousin, Miss Doubleday, had been speaking of the soot falling down the fire-place, and it seems that the chimney had caught fire and set fire to the roof. In almost no time, the house was in flames. I remember I was wrapped up in a blanket and taken over to the house across the way, which my father owned.

Another thing that I recall is the Mexican War, — hearing my parents discuss it, and being taken in town to see the "Flying Artillery" coming back from the war. I expected to see guns with wings, instead of which I was much disappointed to see cannon drawn at a slow pace by horses.

I was early sent to a Miss Baker's school, which stood on the right-hand side of the road leading to Boston, about a quarter of a mile from Hogg's Bridge and a mile and a half from my home. I tramped to and fro every day to this school, when about five years old. I well remember that once, when a small child, I lost my hat, having neglected to hang it up in its proper place. My mother

^ I have lately found a print of the house in which I was born, and which was burned, a reproduction of which is printed on the opposite page.

STEPHEN M. WELD ii

made me wear my sister's bonnet to school as a warning against untidy conduct. It made such an impression on me that I have never forgotten it.

I then went to school to Miss Jane Lane, a second cousin of my father's, and a most excellent teacher and splendid woman. I used to be very obstinate, and I am afraid that my misdemeanors had the effect of making her pass many a weary hour after school, keeping me in by way of punishment.^

From there I went to Father's school. I was intensely fond of home and disliked exceedingly the row and turmoil that necessarily accompanied a boarding-school for boys. My father told me that if I did not behave myself in his school he would send me off to some other boarding-school, which certainly resulted in making me behave as well as I could. My father at that time came into school for about an hour every day and heard the classes in Latin and Greek. I think I never knew in all my experience a teacher who could impart to his pupils such knowledge as he had so easily as he could. He made a dull study most interesting, and many quotations from Virgil and the old classic writers were implanted in my memory by his tact in teaching.

I was prepared for college at quite an early age, too early indeed to get the full benefit from the studies there. I entered in the summer of 1856, when I was fourteen and a half years old, without conditions, and became a

1 Every winter Mr. Papanti came to Father's school and gave lessons in dancing. After the lessons were over a party was always given. At one of these parties, somewhere about 1849, I was chasing Joseph Joy, one of the pupils at the school, when I fell and struck my teeth on the side of a mahogany chair. I knocked out a tooth and left the imprint of two or three others on the side of the chair, which my sister still owns and shows with much pride. My mother picked the tooth up and put it back. It remained in place till I was sixty-five years old, when it got tired and came out for a rest. The dentist still has it and shows it as a wonderful case.

member of the famous class of i860, often called the "War Class" of Harvard. I did not touch a drop of wine or liquor all through my college career until about a month before I graduated, nor did I smoke until then. I was up to a great deal of mischief, but got through all right and took my degree in i860, graduating, I believe, number 28 in a class of 108.

A description of the life at Harvard while I was there may be interesting. We got up to prayers the first year at six o'clock in the morning in summer, and seven in winter. We were allowed ten absences, or "cuts," during the term ; ten more got us a private admonition and a deduction of 32 marks from our ranking marks, and twenty a public admonition. More than that subjected us to severe discipline and possibly suspension or rustication.

I remember going over for my examination. I had only just gone from a jacket into a coat, and felt very uncomfortable and green. We were all put in a big room, I think in University, and orally examined in every study that we had to pass. I remember some of the answers were most curious. One of the boys was asked who the Heraclidae were. He answered, "The seven wise men of Greece." The examination was largely a matter of luck. If you could keep your wits together and show any sort of knowledge of the subject on which you were being examined, you got through. Either Latin or Greek was compulsory during the whole course.^ Mathematics, I think, we had to take for only two years, the Freshman and Sophomore. Recitations were oral, supplemented at the end of the term by a written examination.

The annual football fight between the Freshmen and

^ I consider that the training one's mind and intellect get from the study of Latin and Greek cannot be surpassed in any way, and I regret exceedingly the tendency of modern times to abandon the study of these subjects.

Sophomores took place the first Monday night, at the beginning of the term. Our class won, a most unusual experience, and we were very much elated by the victory. The ball was simply put between the tw^o classes, then some one kicked it, and then it was a rough-and-tumble fight, fisticuff^s, kicking of shins, and shoving and pushing. A favorite amusement of the Sophomores was to get a Freshman standing on the doorsteps and duck him with a glass of water from the window above. Then, too, their windows were broken at night.

I was saved a great deal of this by rooming with my half-uncle, Mr. Francis V. Balch. He was two or three years older than I and in the class ahead of me, 1859. It must have been an awful nuisance to him to have a young Freshman in his room, with his friends coming in and interrupting him at all times. Balch was a great student, and at the head of his class, and was very kind to me. He was my mother's half-brother. The first year we roomed in Hollis 4, the second year I roomed in the same entry, Hollis 5. The third year I roomed in Stoughton 6, with George S. Osborne. The fourth year I roomed with Tom Sherwin in Holworthy 7.

My chum, George Osborne, got caught In an unfortunate scrape. I had gone to bed, feeling tired, when my cousin, George W. Weld, and Osborne came to me and wanted me to screw In one of the tutors, named Pearce. The plan was to take a hinge and screw one part to the bottom and the other to the sill of the door, so that in the morning when Pearce started to come out, he would find himself locked In and unable to attend prayers, and so could not mark us for our absence. I refused to get up, so Osborne and my cousin set ofif . They got the hinge fastened all right to the bottom of the door, but Pearce was on the lookout and heard them, He waited until they got pretty well along on the work, then opened the door. Osborne got down the stairs first, followed by my cousin George, with Pearce close on their heels. When George Weld got to the bottom of the flight, he grabbed the banister and swung under the stairs, but Osborne ran out. It happened to be snowing that night very heavily. Osborne plunged into a snow-drift and stuck there, and Pearce jumped on him. They had a row and a good deal of scuffling, and in it Pearce, who wore a red wig, lost it. It got lost in the snow and was never found until the next spring. Accordingly Pearce in the morning had to appear at prayers without any wig. Poor Osborne was expelled and it was only after a great many years that he got his degree. George Weld escaped by his quick wit in swinging under the stairs.

The whole spirit between the Faculty and the students was one of war. We looked on the Faculty as our oppressors, and we were — a great many of us — up to every devilment that we could think of, to trouble and bother them. A very different state of affairs I am glad to say now prevails. The College then was more in the nature of a boarding-school. There were about four hundred undergraduates, where now there are some four or five thousand.