Blog in Real Time - Prologue - Post #1

Friday, April 12, 1861

FORT SUMTER FIRED UPON AND REPLIES, WAR BEGINS!
(From the Civil War Day by Day by E.B. Long & Barbara Long)
(abridged - B.F.)


     At 11 P.M. the night of April 11 Gen. [P.G.T.] Beauregard's messengers returned to Maj. [Robert] Anderson at Fort Sumter, prompted by the telegram of Confederate Sec. of War [Leroy Pope] Walker expressing a wish to avoid firing if Anderson would state time at which, due to lack of supplies, he would have to evacuate.  They reached Fort Sumter at 12:45 A.M., April 12, and at 3:13 A.M. received Anderson's reply.  The major said he would evacuate on the fifteenth at noon if he did not receive additional supplies or further orders from his government.  Anderson added that he would not fire unless fired upon.  These terms were obviously unsatisfactory to the Confederates as it was common knowledge supplies and possibly reinforcements were coming, probably along with further orders.  The officers had to refuse Anderson's proposal and notified him in writing that Confederate batteries would open in an hour's time.  They proceeded to Fort Johnson, arriving at 4 A.M.

     At 4:30 A.M. the signal shot was fired from the post of Capt. George S. James at Fort Johnson, with other batteries opening according to previous orders.  Capt. James gave the order and, probably, one Henry S. Farley actually fired the signal shot that arched in the night sky over Charleston Harbor.

     .....For a while, until near 7 A.M. the forty-eight guns of Fort Sumter were silent, and then some of them replied, manned by eighty-five officers and men and some of the forty-three workmen employed at the fort.  Opposing the Federal garrison were well over four thousand Confederates and seventy or more guns.  ...All day the Confederate bombardment was constant and heavy.

     ...For the Confederates it was said a thrill went through the city of Charleston - the issue had been met.  Crowds of people watched from the battery and many others perched on rooftops for a better view.  ...Out at sea the vessels of the Federal relieving fleet could be seen.  Would they attempt to come in?

The Following is from "The  History of Westborough, Massachusetts," By H.P. DeForest & E.C. Bates, 1891.  From the chapter "The Civil War."  It presents the view of events from a Massachusetts perspective.  Westborough would raise a rifle company in response to President Lincoln's call for troops.  The rifle company mustered into Federal Service as Co. K, 13th M.V.I.

     The story of the growth and development of Westborough now turns from matters strictly local to her humble, though loyal and earnest, share in suppressing a great rebellion.  At the outbreak of the war the town had increased to a population of about three thousand.  Agriculture was still the main occupation of her people, though the manufacture of sleighs, and of boots and shoes, was to some extent carried on.  It was a quiet village. The busy hum of machinery was little heard, and the era of "modern improvements" in buildings, highways, sidewalks, and the rest had not yet begun.  But while the people of Westborough were quietly attentive to their various local interests, - their farms and shops, churches and schools, - stirring events were occurring in the great world outside.  The cloud of Secession, which had been lowering over the country for nearly half a century, was growing blacker and more threatening.  Slavery was the cause of the disturbance.  As long as the cherished institution of the South had been confined to its original boundaries, the indulgent North had made little protest.  But with the rapid growth of the South in industrial importance and wealth, - following Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton-gin, which made cotton "king," and slave labor profitable, -  the extension of slavery became the question of the day;  and the extension of slavery into new territory aroused vigorous opposition.  The solution of the troublesome question was delayed for a while by a series of humiliating compromises ; but the increasing power of the slaveholders made each demand more bold, and more dangerous to grant.  A sectional war was inevitable.  The pecuniary interests of the South were too great to be voluntarily surrendered, and the moral judgement of the North could never sanction the growth of slavery as a national institution.  The weak and vacillating administration of President Buchanan gave the South an opportunity to prepare for the approaching conflict.  Arms and ammunition were sent to Southern forts ; ships of war were despatched to distant parts of the world ; the army was weakened and scattered ; in fact, before the grand crisis arrived, every possible means had been taken to make secession an easier talk.

     In the Presidential election of 1860 the Republican party presented as its candidate Abraham Lincoln, and pledged itself to oppose the further encroachment of slavery.  The Democratic party, which was more friendly toward the system, became hopelessly divided. The more moderate Democrats nominated Stephen A. Douglas, while John C. Breckenridge represented the extreme slavery sentiment of the South.  In the midst of the excitement, a party favoring conciliation and compromise nominated John Bell.  On the 6th of November, Abraham Lincoln was elected President.  His election was hailed with joy in the North, and with bitterness and rage throughout the South.  The Slave States had boldly threatened that they would secede from the Union in case of Lincoln's election, and it was soon seen that their threats were more than idle bluster.  On the 20th of December South Carolina passed her ordinance of secession ; and before the inauguration of President Lincoln, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas had followed her example.

     The first act of open hostility took place on January 9, 1861, when the steamer "Star of the West," bearing supplies to the Federal garrison, was fired upon off Charleston harbor.  On April 12, Fort Sumter, which was garrisoned by eighty men under Captain Anderson, was bombarded by South Carolina troops.  Two days later - Sunday, April 14 - the fort surrendered.  The next morning came President Lincoln's famous call for seventy-five thousand men for three month's service.

Blog in Real Time - Coming Up

  
     Tomorrow, April 12, I plan to start my experiment, 'blog in real time.'

     This morning I prepared 9 posts which run through April.  The idea is to post a news item, from the perspective of a '13th Mass.' soldier on the date it happened, - only 150 years later.  The early posts however, will be somewhat summative of events because of the nature of the source material.

     They are culled from the regimental history, "Three Years in the Army," by Charles E. Davis, jr. (1894, Estes & Lauriat) & "The History of Westborough, Massachusetts," by H.P. DeForest and E.C. Bates, (1891), and deal with the organization of the various rifle companies that became the '13th Mass.'

    I have tried to arrange the posts close to important corresponding dates.   They provide an accurate description of the prevailing sentiments and activities in Massachusetts at the outbreak of hostilities.

     The posts will come fast and furious for the month of April, drop off noticeably for May, and then resume with regularity from June forward.  I simply don't have much material for May.

     Right now, I can't say how long I will be able to continue the experiment, due to other obligations, but let's see how it goes.

     Happy Reading !

  

The Circulars, Part II

  
    In August last year, I wrote a bit about the beginnings of the 13th Regiment Association Circulars, an annual publication issued to members of the regiment, published between the years 1888 - 1922.  There are over 1,000 pages of printed materials; a great resource on the '13th Mass.'  I'd like to continue that narrative and describe the growth of content that took place between 1895 and 1910.

     After 1895 some former soldiers became regular contributors to the Circulars.   Charles Bingham of Co. C, and Clarence Bell, of Co. D, both submitted original poems, relating to some aspect of service in the 13th during the war.  The poems were read at the re-union dinners and later published in the next year's Circular as part of the description of festivities.  The poems are very long, but here's an example of a shorter one from 1895, by Charles Bingham.

(Portrait of an unknown soldier in the gray uniform of the 4th Battalion.)

THE BLUE AND THE GRAY

[These lines were suggested by the uniforms worn in 1861 by a military organization of Boston, known as the "Fourth Battalion of Rifles, M.V.M.," and to which they are appropriately dedicated.]

Tis a subject somewhat mouldy -

"Blue and Gray;"

But I'll give a newer version,

As I hope, for your diversion,

Though you question my assertion,

As you may.

In the days of sixty-one

We wore Gray.

We were youthful then, and slender,

And our hearts were young and tender,

And we "mashed" the female gender

Every day.

We were "dandy jim" militia

In those days;

With our uniforms so nobby,

And battalion drill our hobby,

Our behavior wasn't "snobby" -

More's the praise !

But we wore another shade

In sixty-two;

Then in uniforms so "stunning,"

With our rifles, went "a-gunning,"

And we didn't look so "cunning"

In the Blue.

Again in sixty-three we wore 

The Gray ;

And our dormant ire arouses,

For in our shirts and trousers

And in our "canvas houses"

Thick they lay !

This brought another change

To the Blue;

But now 'twas only mental,

Though the cause was accidental,

We were rather sentimental

On review.

But no more shall we appear

In war's array.

Let our children tell the story

How we fought and bled for glory,

While we now, with heads so hoary,

Wear the Gray !

     The poems appear regularly through 1901.  During this period Bingham also penned "How We Joined the Army, The Story of a Raw Recruit."  This was the story of his journey to the front in August, 1862 as one of the early batches of recruits to join the regiment in the field just after the battle of Cedar Mountain.  Clarence Bell, along with his poems, wrote two noteworthy pieces, "Some Camp Followers of the 13th," and "A Hot Time in Winchester."  These were humorous remembrances of some of the former slaves, "contraband," that attached themselves to the unit as servants for the officers and enlisted men, and silly anecdotes from the advance to Winchester in March, 1862.

     Association Secretary, and author of the Regimental History, Charles Davis, always filled things out with items of interest to the membership.  In 1896 & 1897 he printed corrections to the regimental roster. The next year he reported on the participation of the regiment's delegation at the dedication of the Massachusetts Monument at Antietam.  He told his own war story anonymously in Circular #12, "An Episode of the Civil War."  This was re-told  with added detail years later, when Davis felt less embarrassed writing about himself.  (The more detailed story, "From Manassas to Boston," is on the '2nd Bull Run' page of my website.)  In Circular 14 Davis wrote "Drafting for Recruits."  He presents a look into how the draft was conducted in 1863 & 1864, at the Third Massachusetts District where he was chief clerk.  Davis's contributions continued through the entire run of the Circulars.

     In 1902, (Circular #15) George Jepson of Co. A, became a regular contributor of articles for the next 9 years.  His articles were written for the newspapers and re-printed in the Circulars.  They are generally over-long treatments on major campaigns or key players of the war.  His subjects include, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, Generals Hooker, Reynolds, Grant and Lee, and President Lincoln. The reader's reward for plowing through Jepson's ponderous prose, is getting to the priceless gems of personal reminiscences, trivial as he called them, yet fascinating for their association with great events.

     Jepson played chess with Ely Parker of General Grant's staff in 1864.  While standing sentinel at a New Year's Bash, he blurted out that he wished to shake hands with the President, as Mr. Lincoln and General Wadsworth crossed the thresh-hold.   He tells the story of '13th Mass' Color Bearer Roland Morris, who was shot dead at Gettysburg.  He tells how Lt. J. A. Howe saved the colors from capture in that same fight.  And, he describes vividly, Private N. M. Putnam's ordeal with the company wash-basin while skirmishing at Fredericksburg.  Jepson's articles are always a good reference for personal anecdotes and character sketches from the annals of the 13th.  Between Jepson and Davis the Circulars flourished between 1902 - 1911.  Others were inspired to try their hand at authorship and some of the most gripping tales from the regiment were published in this span.  These include George Henry Hill's "Reminiscences from the Sands of Time," Major Elliot Clark Pierce's humorous "Midnight Ride," and John S. Fay's, "Libby Prison."

     Hill tells of his capture at the Wilderness and internment at Andersonville. He and two comrades escaped from a Rebel train en-route to another prison.  Pierce's article relates how he imagined himself as Paul Revere, while on a midnight ride between Sharpsburg and Sandy Hook, Md. to deliver some routine dispatches to General N. P.  Banks, very early in the war.  Fay writes of his loss of two limbs when struck by a rebel shell that killed two others. He and Surgeon Allston Whitney were eventually captured at their field hospital and sent to Libby Prison in  Richmond.

     The great material would keep coming in future years, but I'll write more on that later.  For now, I leave you with Private Nathaniel M. Putnam at Fredericksburg,  as told by his Company A comrade, George Jepson.

     "The rebel sharp-shooters had ensconced themselves among the limbs of the opposite trees, and were popping away at us and picking off the officers in the line of battle behind.  Our own rifles were hot with constant firing, and every tree that sheltered a "Johnny" was made the billet of many a bullet. What execution our shooting did, as a whole, it was hard to tell.  We now and then saw a rebel slide down from his cover and limp away ; but it was at  least equally effective, if not more so, that that of the enemy, for as we lay at the regulation distance of five paces apart the intervening ground was literally peppered with hostile lead, but up to a certain period not one of us had received a scratch.

     My immediate neighbor on the left was N. M. Putnam. (pictured) "Put," as he was familiarly called, was the model of a soldier ; one of those men of sturdy New England build, morally and physically, always ready for any duty, and who could never acquire, apparently the first principles of the art of shirking, whether it was that of the most disagreeable police duty or the more dangerous one of keeping his file in the face of bursting shell and a storm of leaden hail ; presenting, moreover, the rare example of an old soldier who never drank a drop of intoxicating liquor, never smoked or chewed tobacco, was absolutely insensible to the fascinations of poker, loo, or seven-up, and was never known to indulge in even the mildest and most innocuous cuss word.

     It happened, on this of all days, to be "Put's" turn to carry the mess wash-basin, a new and glittering affair recently bought of the sutler.

     We all had our knapsacks on, and as we lay on our bellies - firing in that position, turning sideways to load - it might have been thought that such an object, slung on the back of a knapsack, would afford a first-class mark for a Southern rifleman.

     We noticed, indeed, but without divining the cause, that the shots were coming a little thicker and faster about the particular spot where we lay, until a "Bucktail" - one of the famous Pennsylvania regiment, so named because they had adopted the device of wearing a buck's tail on their caps - who was next to us on the right, sang out: 

     "Tell that cuss to take that damn tin pan off'm his back !"

     I passed the warning to "Put" just at the moment when there came the sharp pish of a bullet, accompanied by a slight tintinnabulation - I am sure that must be the right word for it - and "Put" hastily tore off the basin.  Such a comical look of stupefied consternation came over his face as he held up the bright object and exhibited a jagged hole completely through it, that we who beheld it fairly yelled with laughter.  The next instant, with a frantic gesture, "Put" threw the thing from him, and it rolled with many a grotesque gyration down the slope almost to the rebel lines.  That was close shooting, and we Northern veterans have good reason not to deny the abilities of "our friends the enemy" in that line. We all remember the characteristic story of the Northern traveler who witnessed the Kentucky lad shoot a squirrel dead with his pea-bore rifle and who began to blubber on examining his prize.  "What's the matter, my boy"  Why do you cry?"  "Pap will give me a lickin' 'cause I didn't shoot the varmint through the head!"

     But now a sudden commotion in the rear, and the sound of our bugle to fall back, told that our long, harassing, and nerve-wearing duty was finished."

Sandy Hook, August 1861; Revisited

     I decided to retro-fit one of my earlier web pages and chose the 'Sandy Hook' page to start.  ("History > 1861 > Sandy Hook").  The idea is to update my earlier web pages with css code, to match the current page designs.  The Sandy Hook page was short, and I thought I could finish it over a weekend. But with new material to be added it proved to be more challenging.

     The regt. camped at Sandy Hook, MD for about a week, Aug. 24 - Sept. 3rd 1861.  As the page stood, the most noteworthy event in camp during this week at Sandy Hook was the arrival of state issued uniform coats and hats.  For most of the men, the apparel didn't fit, and regimental historian Charles E. Davis, jr. had fun describing the results,

"the person who selected the sizes was under the impression that every man from Massachusetts had a head like Daniel Webster"

      In contrast to the quiet at Sandy Hook, there was a lot of shooting  going on up river at Harper's Ferry where companies K & I were posted.  There were two alarms of note; one on Aug. 24th, the day the regt. arrived, the other on September 2nd.  The new material describes these 'engagements' with divergent terms.

     One man wrote of the former, it was a "fruitless alarm," while another said "we kept up a fire all night."  Inconsistencies appear in descriptions of the latter engagement too.  So, who was more accurate in their reporting?  That's when I noticed subtle attitudes in the soldiers' letters that corresponded to the company they belonged to. (as in Co. B, Co. I or Co. K)

     There was a jealous rivalry going on between the Boston Companies and the other companies during the first year or so of service and the letters subtly reflect this.  A Company K man, reporting from the Maryland side of the Potomac, opposite Harper's Ferry, describes events in a pretty straight forward manner. -- The captain commanding, spotted some rebel cavalry in the town, and called for re-enforcements from the ranks camped at Sandy Hook a mile and 1/2 away.   The writer called the affair a "fruitless alarm."  But one of the re-enforcements, a Co. B man, (from Boston) adds a bit more excitement when describing the event,

"we all rushed out pell-mell... to the rescue of our comrades.. They kept up a fire all night, but no one else was hurt on our side."

    The tone of these last comments can be attributed to the excitement of the soldiers on both sides early in the war.  The regt. had only been out 3 weeks, and they were eager to enter the fray.  But could there also be a touch of bragging in the letter, as the boys from Boston, "rush to the rescue of our comrades." The two companies at the ferry were from the so called 'country towns' of Marlboro and Westboro.  

     If there was a fire kept up all night, the boys were probably shooting at phantoms as evidence suggests this was indeed a 'false alarm.'   And the boys of the 13th were a bit 'trigger happy' at this time.

"The gallant 13th kept up a constant fire on the few inhabitants of Harper's Ferry, suspecting or affecting to suspect them of being rebels." 

     So wrote Harper's Ferry Historian Joseph Barry.

     There was another more serious skirmish on Sept. 2nd which is called "Beller's Mill" although no official reports were made of the engagement.   Both sides claimed to have killed several of the enemy.    Again the accounts of the event are somewhat sketchy.  Evidence suggests Co. I & K were attacked by elements of Turner Ashby's cavalry, when they ventured a couple miles into Virginia, to confiscate supplies at a mill.   Only one man in the 13th was wounded, George Brown, of Co. I.  Turner Ashby wrote in a letter to the Conf. Adj. Gen'ls office in September,

"I had occasional skirmishes with the enemy in this vicinity, ...having only 1 man wounded, and he doing well.  I have killed several of them each time." 

         In contrast, Joseph Barry wrote about this engagement,

"a rebel soldier named Jones was killed near the graveyard, a bullet having penetrated through the palm of his hand and then into his stomach."

     The rivalry between companies becomes evident again when a Company I man describes the event to a friend in the hometown of Marlboro,  

"The 4th Battalion (from Boston) are not used any better than the other companies, and, perhaps, not as well as Co. I, which undoubtedly stands at the head of the Regiment as the best company."

     The web page is better now.  I added more letters, found and added Turner Ashby's letter regarding his activities at this time, [from the Official Records], and discovered traces of the subtle friction between companies beginning to show up in these early letters home.  One other quote in particular stood out, from a soldier's letter to his mother.  I added the quote to the footer at the bottom of the page.  (The old page designs  don't have a footer).

"The Colonel says we will all be home in three months."

Here's the new link:
Camp at Sandy Hook

An Experiment - Feedback welcomed

While preparing another blog post for this site, (which I'm juggling with my website) and lamenting the lack of posts lately, an idea occurred to me.

We are nearing the 150th Anniversary of the formation of the 13th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment.  Militia groups began forming in April and May, 1861.  In June, the original 5 rifle companies reported to Fort Independence, Boston Harbor.  They mustered into federal service as the 13th Mass. in July.

 With all the soldiers' letters I have, I could 'blog' the war in real time.   That is, I could post a letter from the rank and file of the '13th Mass.' on the date which it was actually written, -- only 150 years later.

If successful, I could probably keep this up until September 2012, at which time the amount of letters might drop off somewhat significantly. (But it has the potential to go on longer).  I thought the idea was sound.  
 
My website contains many of these materials already, but it might be interesting to follow them along in 'real time.'  Of course, I would include materials not on the website, and continue with other regular blog posts.

Those of you who happen to read this, leave a comment and let me know what you think!

The 13th Mass., at 2nd Bull Run

There's a new web page up at my website.  The page contains 13th Mass., soldiers' letters and memoirs of their experiences at the 2nd Battle of Bull Run.  I've had some of these materials for a long time, and I always wanted to share them with a wider audience.  This is a milestone for my site.  This is the point in the history of the regiment where many original recruits left, one way or another.  Second Bull Run was the first major engagement for the unit.  Forty men were killed, about 200 wounded.  About five hundred went into the fight.

Here's whats on the page.

An overlong introduction  but there are maps! - apologies ahead of time.  Then the source material.

1. Excerpts from the regimental history by Charles E. Davis, (with pictures & maps!).
2. A short piece on Major Jacob Parker Gould who was the senior regimental officer on the field.
3. Westboro Transcript (hometown newspaper).  A letter from Capt. Hovey, Co. K listing casualties.
4. Sergeant Austin Stearns account of the action.  (with pictures !)  Stearns memoirs have been around since the mid 1970's, so its a well referenced source, but he provides a good overall description of the chaos on the field.
5. Letter of Lt. Charles B. Fox to his father.  (Co's I & K) Fox expresses his discouragement in the conduct of the war, and the difficulty of service.
6. Letter of Lyman Low, Co. B.  Low's long account of the battle was published in the 13th Regt. Association Circulars in 1911, but I don't think many historians have seen it.  The Circulars are over 1,000 pages of material, and the letter does not reference 2nd Bull Run in the title.  He describes the death and wounding of several comrades and the chaos at the stone bridge.
7. Letter of Capt. Joseph Cary, Co. B, of his companies losses in the engagement.  From the Boston Herald. (previously available on the defunct website "Letters of the Civil War.")
8. The Three Ponies of Company B.  A story of the death of Charles Mills, and Albert Curtis, on the battlefield; from the regimental history, followed by a brief (1915) letter of their 3rd comrade, Michael Ayers. (with pictures).
9. Letter of John B. Noyes, Co. B.  Another long descriptive letter from John Noyes describing the campaign, and what he saw on the battlefield. (with pictures and maps!).
10. Letter of George Henry Hill, Co. B.  Un published letter shared with me by a family descendant.  Hill describes the experience of being under fire in the heat of battle. (with picture).
11. Roxbury City Gazette (hometown newspaper).  The regular correspondent for the 13th Mass, from Roxbury describes the companies experiences in the campaign.  (Previously posted on the defunct website, "Letters of the Civil War." )(picture of Lt. Colburn).
12. Two letters of James Ramsey, Co. E.  Shared with me by descendants.  Ramsey was taken prisoner on the battlefield and describes his treatment at the field hospital.  He compares this with the shabby treatment he gets later in Washington, D.C. (picture  of James included).
13. Sam Webster's account of the battle.  Another well known source from the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA. (with pictures).
14. George F. D. Paine's well known story from the 13th Regt. Association Circulars, "How I Left Bull Run Battlefield."  Paine's narrative is so gripping it is quoted on the brigade's historical marker at Manassas National Battlefield Park. (with pictures).
15. Letter of John B. Noyes.  A second letter, written from a hospital, well after the battle, when Noyes was recuperating from wounds received at Antietam.  He criticizes the conduct of several specific 13th Mass officers in the engagement. He was mad ! (pictures of the rascals included).
16. Charles E. Davis, Jr.'s horrific account of his experience in the battle; lying wounded on the field for a week; and then receiving  worse than lousy treatment from one of the surgeons at Carver Hospital in Washington DC.  It goes on from there too...  Davis went on to write the regimental history of the 13th Mass.  (with pictures!)
17. List of men killed during this campaign.

Here's the link:   http://13thmass.org/1862/second_bull_run.html

Looking Forward

     I thought hard for a topic to post in December for the Christmas and New Year’s Holiday, but nothing came to mind.  Last year I posted on Private John B. Noyes’s pleasant holiday experiences in Hancock, Maryland during the winter of 1861-62.   In mid-December fellow blogger and author, James Schmidt, linked to this post from his own blog, which I highly recommend.   http://civilwarmed.blogspot.com/

     A new post referencing Christmas in 1862 would have been pretty grim, considering it followed the disastrous battle of Fredericksburg. 

On that day in 1862, Private Sam Webster of Co. D wrote;

 “Our Christmas Dinner is half broiled beef and hard bread.” 

      That was all he mentioned of Christmas.  Private Noyes, was home in Boston recovering from wounds received at Antietam, so I have no letters from him to reference.  He probably had a happy Christmas.   Warren Freeman of Company A, wrote a letter to his father 'from the field' on Christmas Day, but didn’t mention Christmas at all; 

“I was sick some days before we left Brook’s Station, but marched with the regiment the first day, and on the second day rode in an ambulance on account of the swelling of my lower limbs.  When we arrived at Fredericksburg the sick were put in a barn near the river; here we found some corn-stalks and made our-selves tolerably comfortable on them, with the addition of our blankets; but about midnight, after the battle, we were turned out of the barn into the field, as the barn was wanted for the badly wounded.  We kept our cornstalks, however, and lay on the frozen ground two nights and one day.  The field was covered all over with wounded men groaning and calling for water; some attempted to crawl on their bellies to the river side for a drop of water to relieve their thirst.  In the course of two days, these wounded men were carried away and we were put in the barn again; here we suffered terribly from the cold, as we had no way to warm ourselves.”

 These passages don’t exactly jump out and  say, “MERRY CHRISTMAS !”

     I was still immersed in the battle of 2^nd Bull Run, and didn’t wish to post on that subject for the holiday, so I ended up waiting until January to post something new.

     This year, being the 150^th anniversary of the war, the subject is receiving more attention than usual in different media outlets. I’m hoping the added attention will draw some more interest to my blog and website during these anniversary years.  I’m very excited about posting the latest page to the website, which consists entirely of 13^th Mass. soldiers’ letters and recollections of what they experienced August 30^th, 1862 at the 2^nd Battle of Bull Run;  their first major engagement.  The text for the page is finished, but it will take a short while to add the maps and images which I want to accompany the narrative.  I think of my website as a sort of ‘illustrated history’ of the regiment.  To me at least, finding appropriate pictures and portraits to go with the text is one of the more satisfying tasks in building the website.

     To try and drum up a little bit of interest, here’s a pre-view of what’s coming. 

     Private Lyman Low, Co. B:

"The little knoll or rise of ground opposite our center and right was quickly chosen by a few of our men as a position of advantage, but they speedily retired, for the place proved to be untenable. I believe all were wounded.  I well recollect that Albert Morse was among them, and particularly do I remember the scowl on his face as he fell and viewed his wounds.  At another point I observed Lieut. Thomas J. Little (afterwards captain in the Massachusetts Heavy Artillery) as he suddenly turned to the rear, with hands covering his mouth and chin, from which blood was copiously flowing.  Among the very first to fall was a comrade directly in front of me.  I saw a piece of his scalp drop from the back of his head; he went down in a heap, and as his face came into view it showed that the fatal bullet had entered the center of his forehead. He was bathed in blood, which rose high from his wound, falling back over his face.  I was never able to ascertain who it was, though I have always thought it might have been Fred Williams, who was killed in the battle, and stood beside me when the fighting began."

     Private George F. D. Paine, Co. A:

"Our boys dropped like tenpins before an expert player.  Ten feet to my left the tall sergeant of Company F sank down in a heap, shot squarely through the head. I saw the brain ooze out.  My left hand mate whirled, shot through the shoulder. F. went down with a bullet through the face.  S. was swearing "like mad," shot through the thigh.  A man I did not recognize dropped just in front.  I heard the bullets chug into his body; it seemed half a dozen struck him.  I shall never forget the look on his face as he turned over and died."

From Private Charles E. Davis, Jr. :

"The surgeon who first examined my wounds made them construct a frame over the bed and cover it with gauze, to keep the flies out. The second one, with no particular purpose in view, lifted a corner of the gauze and let in upon me no end of flies, whereupon I called him some kind of a fool and he remonstrated at my use of profanity and gave me a lecture, saying he would see me again on this subject, but took no pains to adjust the gauze or rid me of the flies.  He made no examination of my wounds, nor showed any interest in me until the following morning when he came to announce that I must have my arm taken off in order to save my life.  I told him I would see him damned first before I would submit to such an operation.

     "Very well," said he, "if you won't allow us to do anything to save your life, you had better prepare to die."

     It seems that this man had "experienced" religion and was baptized about six weeks before, the only effect of which was the removal of any solicitude he may have felt, as a physician, in the saving of life.  Perhaps the baptismal water was stale.  I had felt something moving under my shoulders and made complaint, but he said it was nonsense and suggested to the nurse that my mind was giving way.  This made me excited and that seemed to confirm his opinion.  I quieted down and then he was sure I was insane.  In the meantime I could plainly feel the movement under my shoulders.  It is a fearful thing to be thought insane, and each remark you make considered confirmation.  It was a terrible moment to me.  At last I shouted, "For God's sake, will no one lift me up and see."  The man on the next bed called another, and they lifted me into a sitting position, pulled down a sheet and blanket, uncovering a nest of young rats, whereupon the doctor and nurse walked away, showing no interest in the result."

      That's all for now, hope to write more soon.  Best wishes to all for a healthy and prosperous new year.