War papers of Frank B. Fay, with reminiscences of service in the camps and hospitals of the Army of the Potomac, 1861-1865

Contents

PAGE

Preface v

I. The Beginning of the War 1

Preface

Frank B. Fay was born in Southborough, Massachusetts, on the twenty -fourth of January, 1821, the eldest son of Francis B. and Nancy Brigham Fay, and died March twenty, 1904.

He had the ordinary school education, and entered active business in Boston at the beginning of his twenty-first year, as a member of the firm of Fay & Farwells, one of the largest commission houses in Boston at that time. He continued in this business successfully many years, commanding the respect and confidence of all who knew him. He retired with a moderate competency, entered into several special partnerships which were also successfully maintained, and which gave him leisure for the public service which he enjoyed and in which he won distinction.

There was another finer trait which became a passion within him as the years went on, namely, a desire to serve those about him who were in trouble, and his mind and his heart were alway open to them. He entered public life early, and won public confidence by the breadth of his views, his courage, good sense, and high character, and this confidence ripened into the love of multitudes of people through all the years of his service for them. Whether in the crises of public affairs or in the private perplexities and griefs of those who gave him their confidence, he always managed to get under the load to lighten it for them. In these unobtrusive ministries his

Vl PREFACE

nature grew rich in tenderness and sympathy, and he was the burden-bearer of many souls. This spirit became dominant in him as the years rolled on, and was the key-note of his career. It was inborn within him, coming by rightful inheritance from his father, the Honorable Francis B. Fay, whose whole life was rich and fruitful in good deeds, and from his mother also, who is still remembered for her inspiring helpfulness in all the ways of charity. When Fort Sumter was fired upon and the nation was in a blaze of war, Mr. Fay consecrated himself to the service of his country.

He was already endowed by years of experience and discipline for the work to which he then set his hand, and all his powers were readily at command for the emergencies of the conflict which soon came thick upon him. He began this service when the call for troops was made, and it did not end until the Confederate banners were furled in 1865 and the war ended.

He was Mayor of Chelsea, Massachusetts, at the time, and the men who went to the front were his especial care. This work soon took on large proportions, and included all who were in the service of their country, and it was continued with an unfaltering devotion and tenderness that made his presence a blessing on many a stricken field. He became widely known throughout the Army of the Potomac, and was welcomed everywhere. His sober gray dress, his tall spare form, his rather long hair, his kindly face, his generous plans for service, made him so marked a personality that the way was opened for him where civilians were not generally allowed to go. He was a privileged person, and it was a strong type of character that could win that distinction in the rough-and-

PREFACE Vll

tumble of army life, where, without rank, individuals were submerged in the mass, and were passed by and forgotten. But, although privileged, he never intruded and was never in the way, yet was always at hand in emergencies with his abundant stores and his wise and kindly ministry. He seemed to have an intuitive perception of the objective of a campaign and also of his own objective in that movement. With almost unfailing precision his ambulances were pushed to the point of greatest need, and his stores were often available before the medical wagons were brought up. He was a great administrator in these affairs, and had the rare gift of seeing the right thing to do at the right moment, and a swift power of execution which was always efficient and sure. It is this type of man whose career in the army we are now to follow.

The narrative is partly his own. It is wholly so, so far as its outline is concerned, but it had to be filled in and enriched from a mass of disconnected notes and memoranda that he left behind him, which illuminate the story, and also by a record of experiences that he shared with others, scenes in which he was a central figure, but which he had no disposition or time to describe.

It is our task to use such material as we have, to tell the story of his army life which has never been told even to those who were nearest to him, to make real his selfdevotion, his constancy, his chivalrous joy in work, and the treasures he himself gathered in his heroic ministrations. We shall then justly measure the service he rendered to his country.

CHAPTER I. The Beginning of the War

I have been asked to note some of my experiences with the army during the Civil War. I begin this narrative with some hesitation, but yield to the wishes of my family and my friends, who have made me feel that it is a duty to make at least an outline of a service which filled so large a place in my life in those years.

My experience was an unusual one. Probably no one not officially connected with the army was with it so much, especially for the purposes I had in view, which were to minister to the needs of soldiers, whatever their condition, sick or wounded or well. I ought to say in advance that for many reasons I felt that I was unfitted for such service. In the first place I was a man of peace. I never believed in war, and had refused to be even a fine member of a military company from conscientious motives. I had never seen a person die, had never seen a serious wound, and was sensitive to every form of suffering in others. Even the sight of a man with his arm in a sling gave me sympathetic pain, and I always felt that, if my fellow-citizens had known there was to be a war, they surely would not have chosen me as mayor of the city in December, 18G0. But, being in office in time of war, I accepted the trust, laying aside all personal considerations for my country's sake, and did what could be done on many fields to lighten the burdens of the people whom I had taken the oath to serve.

I remained in office after three elections, during 1801, 1802, and 1803, doing some work that I did not seem to

2 WAR PAPERS OF FRANK li. FAY

be especially culled upon to do as an official of the City Government, and then declined a fourth nomination, desiring uninterrupted service with the army in the held.

When in Aprii, 1861, it became evident that we were on the verge of war, it was known that the Chelsea Light Infantry was liable to be called into service, and the City Government was anxious that it should promptly respond; but Captain D. W. Bailey, then in command, had shown some hesitation about going. On the evening of the eighteenth of April I called him to the mayor's office, and said, "We must know at once if you will go." He frankly replied that he had a blank resignation in his pocket which lie proposed to fill out and send in the next day. But unfortunately, as it seemed, the call came on the morning of the nineteenth for the company to be ready to march at once. Without consulting any one, Captain Bailey went to the State House, and said his company could not be made ready to go. Governor Andrew disbanded it at once, and sent General Bullock with an express wagon to take their guns. The company had already gathered in the armory, and at the moment of the delivery of the guns Sumner Carruth, a lieutenant, offered to take command if a company could be enlisted, — stepped to the front and said, "Boys, will you follow me?" — and at nine o'clock that evening the recruited company marched to the State House. It became my duty and pleasure to tender the company to Governor Andrew, and I was authorized by the adjutant-general, as a justice of the peace, to swear them in, which was done in the Doric Hall Rotunda. In tendering them to the Governor, I alluded to the unfortunate events of the morning, hoping that the events of the afternoon would make amends. The Governor said he must forget that, as this was a new company, and this was probably the only one that was sworn into the service in the State House during the war.* It was too late for the company to join the marching force, and it was not until May twenty-three that it was sworn into the service of

* Captain Bailey volunteered later, and went into service with the nine months' troops.

THE BEGINNING OE THE WAR

the United States, becoming Company H of the : 1st Massachusetts regiment, the Erst company m the state sworn into the three years' service. Much in the mean thne h >een done by the City Government us well as Stii people, both men and women, to get the company ready and my heart and hands were necessarily full.

This Company H went to the front, and on Ihnrsday, JuW eigMeXat Blackburn's Ford at Bull Run was en- July uMi "" several were killed or wounded. On g l g ^tin 2 the t" by Tl If despatch in the BostonH,ralfFleft for the fonl that evening Senator Sumner had letters for me to General Mansfield, then m commTnd of the fortifications of Washington, to whom I applied or a pass to the battlefield, to recover the bod.es i the dead ancl to aid the wounded. His adjntantoeneral received me, and, after telling him the object of „w vtit^ ^exclaimed, "Angels and ministers of grace eiend us! and so you are going to ^vev'he bod.es oi dead soldiers!" But, as I was a suppliant, J said, vven, t you will remember that our citizens are not as amihar With death as you are, and cannot be expected to " plwte your feelings." At. the same time I presume he had never smelled powder in Ins hie, except at YVest Point The flattery pleased him, and he referred ine to General Mansfield in the next room. It appeared that Genera Mansfield's authority did not extend beyo^he fortifications, and 1 was referred to General Scottwho said "1 can give no passes to the front to-day -and he had good reasons for his refusal It was fortunate that IT application was denied, as I should have .raet the thing fragments of our army defeated at Bull LUiii, now in "mid retreat in utter demoralization from the battlefield^ I remained in Washington some days, helping the wounded, hunting up scattered men, and notifying Chelsea

° f Tnt w^!y°nrst experience among wounded soldiers. It S before me 'a rare opportunity or service though 1 did not then dream of the demands it wou d soonmake upon me or the scenes through which it would

^CHy^^s mayor I came into. somewhat

intimate relations with the soldiers and their families, and tried to make them feel that my interest was much more than an official one. I induced the men to pledge a portion of their pay to their families or for deposit in the savings bank against their return. Doubtless this action of mine led to my appointment in 18G2 as one of the Allotment Commissioners for Massachusetts and afterwards as United States Allotment Commissioner for colored troops. Through this Massachusetts commission more than three million dollars were sent to the state treasurer for the purposes named. But for this allotment, much of this money would have been wasted or lost in the service. Both these offices were without compensation.

My salary as mayor was four hundred dollars a year, and it is fair to say that in all my service during the war I paid my own expenses, keeping no account of them. They were all incident to my position and of great variety, and doubtless amounted to as many thousands as I received hundreds. It proved the best investment of my life, yielding an increasing income of satisfaction and comfort through the years and blessed memories to the end of my days. And what more could one ask than that?

It is to be noted here that Mr. Fay dismisses in a few words the service he rendered as one of the Allotment Commissioners of Massachusetts, but it is too important to be thus dismissed.

In looking over the mass of his war papers, dating back to 1861 at the time he was Mayor of Chelsea, we see his figure emerge and rise above those of his fellows in the great service to which at that time he devoted his life. It began with the enlisted men of his own city, and became widely extended to the soldiers of his own si ite and of other states, and was spread over four ye;.rs of war. It led him through all the campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, and never ceased, so long as there was a wounded

THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR 5

soldier anywhere who could be reached by his ministry. Hundreds of these papers have passed under examination. They touch a multitude of interests that cannot be catalogued, and were all collateral to the great stream of beneficence which flowed onward and outward from his office through the war. There seemed to be no movement or activity within the multifarious lines of service for the men of the city of Chelsea in which he did not have a part. Here are rosters of soldiers, recruiting papers, orders for money, pay-roll receipts, shipments of stores, requisitions for hospitals, calls for more troops, lists of inquiries about missing men, the unravelling of complications about soldiers' pay, correspondence with families about allotments of pay, appeals from fathers and mothers about wounded sons or sons killed in battle, appeals for efforts to effect exchanges of prisoners from heart-broken parents, lists of effects found upon soldiers killed in battle, the return of these effects to those at home, with endless memoranda relating to men who had disappeared from the ranks or from hospitals, lost forever to the dear ones at home. There is simply no end to the variety or to the detail of these tragic stories that filtered through his mind and heart in those heroic years. Mr. Fay was not simply a public servant who took upon himself the duties of a chief magistrate, but he was the friend and brother of all who came to him in trouble. His official responsibilities with the Commonwealth and the city were, as a matter of course, administered with business-like fidelity, but they did not end there. There were hundreds of families involved in these responsibilities, and he stood as their personal friend, ready to serve, all his resources being at command to lighten the burdens

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of those who had cheerfully given of their best for the service of their country.

In regard to the allotments of soldiers' pay, at the suggestion of President Lincoln the Congress passed an act on the twentieth of July, 1861, providing for an Allotment System for the benefit of all volunteers in the service of the United States, the same to be carried out by three commissioners from each state having volunteers. Frank B. Fay, Henry Edwards, and David Wilder, Jr., were appointed commissioners for Massachusetts in the month of February, 1862, and immediately began their work, visiting all the regiments of that state then in the field, and continuing the same service with the other regiments subsequently formed. The most direct and systematic plans were made. The commissioners arranged that the amounts allotted from the government pay-rolls should be sent to the treasurer of the Commonwealth, and by him to the treasurer of the city or town where the person resided to whom the allotment was made, who was to be notified, and then was to receive the amount. It was also arranged that, should the soldier so desire, the sum allotted or saved from the pay could remain to his credit in the hands of the state treasurer, to draw interest at five per cent. The system avoided the possibility of loss to the soldier, and relieved him of the expense of sending the money home, and made the state treasury a savings bank for those who desired it, the whole plan being executed solely for the advantage of the soldier.

The story of this service is briefly told here to show the absorbing character of his civic duties in connection with the war that Mr. Fay assumed in those strenuous years. There were sixty -one Massachusetts regiments of infantry,

THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR 7

five of cavalry, four regiments of heavy artillery, and sixteen batteries of light artillery,* and, scattered as they were over the vast field of operations, some idea may be formed of the prodigious amount of work that fell on these commissioners, who served without pay.

Governor Andrew, with his tender and large-hearted interest in this great scheme of relief for the families of enlisted men, gave every facility for the prompt and efficient work of this commission, of which Mayor Fay was the chairman. In fact, the Governor had much to do with the passage of the act providing for it, realizing the necessity of some provision for the dependent families of the men who had suddenly been called to leave their homes in defence of their country.

Circulars explaining the allotment act were prepared and mailed to the Massachusetts troops, as preliminary to personal visits to the regiments, each man being made acquainted with the plan and its advantages. The soldier was then left to make his own allotment of such part of his pay, if any, as he wished to have reserved. It will be seen that the task of carrying out this system was by no means a light one. Long journeys had to be made to distant armies and scattered camps, often on foot to almost inaccessible outposts. Whole companies were sometimes found to have been detached on active service, and at other times both officers and men were found to be indifferent to the plan and turned it down. There were also occasions when the entire army appeared to be on the eve of some great movement, or whole divisions had been advanced beyond reach or had

* Massachusetts contributed during the Civil War, for the army and navy, 159,105 men, and expended $27,705,109 in this service.

been sent to other departments of the service. Under these conditions the men could not be expected to give attention to such matters, and the work had to be abandoned. Then it often proved that the paymasters themselves were delayed in their disbursements, or errors were discovered in the pay-rolls, which involved delays in the payments and consequent privation to the men and their families, and also for months afterwards a mass of correspondence in straightening out these complications. All these and a multitude of other difficulties arose, which were met and overcome by these devoted commissioners, until forty-one regiments had been reached, and induced to take advantage of the system, which continued in operation until the end of the war. So well was this work done that three million dollars, as has been stated, were sent home by the Massachusetts soldiers, besides the amounts sent directly by the men themselves. It was a great public service, and was worked out by Mr. Fay and his associates with the enthusiasm and devotion which characterized all their army work.

CHAPTER II. The Monitor and the Merrimac and Other Experiences

In briefly considering the first campaign in Virginia,

we must go back to the first call for troops after the firing

upon Fort Sumter in 1861. The Confederate forces

from South Carolina and the Gulf states were rapidly

thrown into Virginia, while on the part of the North

forty or fifty regiments of three months' men were quickly

concentrated at Washington in defence of the capital.

General McDowell, a highly trained officer of the regular

army, was placed in command, and did what he could to

organize his forces and make them ready for the serious

work before them. They were raw troops, suddenly

brought together from civil pursuits, with no knowledge

of war, without discipline or organization, without a

staff or a commissariat, and without organized artillery.

It was simply an army in the making, but not yet made.

The hostile forces confronted each other on the line of

the Alexandria and Manassas railroad, and it was hardly

to be expected that they could long be in this position

without conflict. There was, moreover, great pressure

upon the government by an impatient Congress and

people for an immediate advance upon the enemy; and,

largely in obedience to this great public demand, the

battle of Bull Run followed on the twenty-first of July,

After a day of obstinate fighting with varying success, a part of tie Federal line was thrown back in disorder in the afternoon, when, apparently without reason, panic swept the field. The troops fled, one division after another gave way, organization was lost, army trains and artillery joined in the rout and blocked the roads, and almost the entire force in hideous disorder surged back into the streets of the capital. The Confederates, unaware of the extent of the disaster, having been on the edge of defeat repeatedly through the day, did not follow up their advantage, and were in fact in retreat themselves at the moment of the Federal rout. It was a hungry, disorganized mob that swept back into Washington, and there was no power anywhere to stem the tide. It was three months before confidence was restored.

About a week before this disaster General McClellan came into notice in a short but brilliant campaign in Western Virginia, where he was able to telegraph to Washington, as its result, the capture of a thousand prisoners with all the enemies' stores, baggage, and artillery, and the complete disruption of the hostile force. He sent his captured flags to Washington, and was then called there and placed in command, and given the task of the reorganization of the scattered fragments of McDowell's defeated army. It was a giant's task, and it went forward with tremendous vigor. The nation had sprung to arms, and all its resources were placed at the command of the government for the prosecution of the war.

General McClellan had not only to reorganize the army then existing, he had to create a new one from the raw

THE MONITOR AND THE MERR1MAC 11

material he had at hand; and, from the disspirited regiments and organizations unfitted to march or fight, he had at the end of three months a hundred thousand men trained and disciplined and deserving the name of the "Army of the Potomac." It was a great achievement, and, as Swinton says, "whatever may be written of McClellan's later career as a military commander, he yet challenges from all impartial minds the credit due to this mighty performance." He became the popular idol, and, as he went on with the reorganization of the army, confidence increased, and there seemed for a time to be no limit to the trust reposed in him as he made ready for the great contests that were to test his really untried abilities as a leader in great campaigns in the field.

By the middle of November the army was considered ready for an active campaign. General McClellan had already declared on assuming command that the war should be "short, sharp, and decisive," and this was the key-note on which public sentiment turned. But the late fall and early winter dragged along with the army inactive about Washington, when it was learned that the plans had been changed, and that there would be no movement until spring. He had at that time about a hundred and fifty thousand men under his command, two-thirds of whom might have been used to operate against his enemy, who still menaced the capital, flaunting their flags about Fairfax Court House within sight of Washington, and who were even erecting their batteries on the Virginia side of the Potomac, obstructing the navigation of that river. The patience of the nation was sorely tried. Its anxiety broke out at last in loud clamor for action, and this was the beginning of those

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embarrassments which marred the harmonious relations between the government and the commander of the army.

We do not need to go into General McClellan's reasons for this inaction. They have been elaborately stated in his memoirs, and were sufficient for him. But, as the campaign went on, it was seen by competent military critics that he was deficient in certain qualities of mind that were essential in dealing with large problems of war. This was well illustrated at the time by the remark of the president of a Western railroad where he had been employed as chief engineer, who said, before he assumed command of the army, that he would show the same qualities in that position that he did as an engineer. "No man can build a better bridge than McClellan, but the trouble with him is that he does not dare cross it when it is done, and this quality of his mind will be shown in any army he may command."

General McClellan's plans contemplated a campaign against Richmond with his base at Chesapeake Bay, and a portion of his army was transferred to the lower Peninsula during the month of March, 1862. Whether the movement would have been farther delayed but for the direct order of the President that it should begin is a question. A great fleet of transport boats was assembled, and 114,500 men, 14,000 animals, forty-four batteries of artillery, wagons, ambulances, pontoon trains, and the enormous equipage of the army were safely landed within the month. A European critic calls it the stride of a giant, and it was so.

General McClellan reached Fortress Monroe on the second of April, and a part of his army was put in motion for Yorktown on the York River, about sixty miles from Richmond, and siege operations were begun there. This siege was made necessary, as McClellan looked at it, by the withdrawal, by orders from Washington, of Mc- Dowell's corps of twenty-five thousand men, which was needed for the defence of the capital, but which was to have been used for a flanking movement against Yorktown. But Ropes, the military critic of this campaign, insists that McClellan could have forced the enemy to abandon Yorktown with the forces he had, and have saved the delays of the siege by pouring the thousands of men he had through the weak Confederate lines; and he adds that "one cannot help believing that greater enterprise and daring on the part of the commanding general would have been rewarded by a striking success." Moreover, the Confederates gained the advantage they desired by McClellan 's siege operations, namely, time to concentrate their forces for the active campaign that followed. We shall see how they used this advantage later.

Having now stated the situation of the Army of the Potomac up to April, 1862, let us leave our forces in front of Yorktown, and turn to Mr. Fay's personal story. He had remained at home for several months after the battle of Bull Run, absorbed in his civic duties, which were mainly those connected with the war, and it was not until March, 1862, that he returned to the army to continue his work as Allotment Commissioner.

While at Fortress Monroe on this visit, he witnessed that remarkable naval engagement between the Merrimac and the Monitor which made a new era in naval warfare. This conflict was also witnessed by Arthur B. Fuller, chaplain of the ICth Massachusetts regiment, who vividly describes it. We add also some account of the conflict from the Confederate side,* taken from reports and narratives of those who were on board the Merrimac when she moved down the James River on her career of destruction. These two accounts, condensed now into one narrative, give a vivid picture of this historic conflict.

On the fifteenth of March, 1862, a small fleet appeared in the James River, steaming down into Hampton Roads from Norfolk. It proved to be a convoy of a mysterious monster, half ship, half house, which had been rebuilt at the Norfolk Navy Yard, and was known as the Merrimac. She came down the river for battle, her objective being the wooden frigates Cumberland, Congress, Minnesota, and Roanoke, together with a fleet of gunboats, store-ships, and transports anchored in Hampton Roads. They were all at her mercy, and she was determined to work havoc among them and make her name remembered in naval history.

She came down with her stars and bars flying, and made for Newport News. As she approached with resistless force, with the black smoke streaming from her funnel and leaving a trail behind, the wooden ships in consternation cleared for action, the smaller craft getting closer in shore under the batteries or putting out to sea. The Merrimac was a formidable vessel, their first and only Confederate ironclad, and, so far as they knew, was the mistress of the seas.