Hearts Touched by Fire

by Harold Holzer

  THE NEW YORK SEVENTH MARCHING DOWN BROADWAY, APRIL 19, 1861.

  On our arrival in Boston we were marched through the streets—the first march of any consequence we had taken with our knapsacks and equipments. Our dress consisted of a belt about the body, which held a cartridge-box and bayonet, a cross-belt, also a haversack and tin drinking-cup, a canteen, and, last but not least, the knapsack strapped to the back. The straps ran over, around, and about one, in confusion most perplexing to our unsophisticated shoulders, the knapsack constantly giving the wearer the feeling that he was being pulled over backward. My canteen banged against my bayonet, both tin cup and bayonet badly interfered with the butt of my musket, while my cartridge-box and haversack were constantly flopping up and down—the whole jangling like loose harness and chains on a runaway horse. As we marched into Boston Common, I involuntarily cast my eye about for a bench. But for a former experience in offering advice, I should have proposed to the captain to “chip in” and hire a team to carry our equipments. Such was my first experience in war harness. Afterward, with hardened muscles, rendered athletic by long marches and invigorated by hardships, I could look back upon those days and smile, while carrying a knapsack as lightly as my heart. That morning my heart was as heavy as my knapsack. At last the welcome orders came: “Prepare to open ranks! Rear, open order, march! Right dress! Front! Order arms! Fix bayonets! Stack arms! Unsling knapsacks! In place, rest!”

  FEDERAL HILL, BALTIMORE. FROM A SKETCH MADE ON THE DAY OF THE OCCUPATION BY GENERAL BUTLER.

  On the 27th of April, 1861, General B. F. Butler was assigned to the command of the Department of Annapolis, which did not include Baltimore. On the 5th of May, with two regiments and a battery of artillery, he moved from Washington to the Relay House, on the Baltimore and Ohio Railway, 7 miles from Baltimore, at the junction of the Washington branch. He fortified this position, and on the 13th entered Baltimore and occupied and fortified Federal Hill, overlooking the harbor and commanding the city. On the 15th he was followed in command of the Department by General George Cadwalader, who was succeeded on the 11th of June by General N. P. Banks, who administered the Department until succeeded by General John A. Dix, July 23d, 1861. On the 22d of May General Butler assumed command at Fort Monroe, Va.

  The tendency of raw soldiers at first is to overload themselves. On the first long march the reaction sets in, and the recruit goes to the opposite extreme, not carrying enough, and thereby becoming dependent upon his comrades. Old soldiers preserve a happy medium. I have seen a new regiment start out with a lot of indescribable material, including sheet-iron stoves, and come back after a long march covered with more mud than baggage, stripped of everything except blankets, haversacks, canteens, muskets, and cartridge-boxes.

  During that afternoon in Boston, after marching and countermarching, or, as one of our farmer-boy recruits expressed it, after “hawing and geeing” about the streets, we were sent to Fort Independence for the night for safe-keeping. A company of regulars held the fort, and the guards walked their post with an uprightness that was astonishing. Our first impression of them was that there was a needless amount of “wheel about and turn about, and walk just so,” and of saluting, and presenting arms. We were all marched to our quarters within the fort, where we unslung our knapsacks. After the first day’s struggle with a knapsack, the general verdict was, “got too much of it.” At supper-time we were marched to the dining-barracks, where our bill of fare was beefsteak, coffee, wheat bread, and potatoes, but not a sign of milk or butter. It struck me as queer when I heard that the army was never provided with butter and milk.

  The next day we started for Washington, by rail. We marched through New York’s crowded streets without awakening the enthusiasm we thought our due; for we had read of the exciting scenes attending the departure of the New York 7th for Washington, on the day the 6th Massachusetts was mobbed in Baltimore, and also of the march of the 12th Massachusetts down Broadway on the 24th of July, when the regiment sang the then new and always thrilling lyric, “John Brown’s Body.” The following morning we took breakfast in Philadelphia, where we were attended by matrons and maidens, who waited upon us with thoughtful tenderness, as if they had been our own mothers and sweethearts instead of strangers. They feasted us and then filled our haversacks. God bless them! If we did not quite appreciate them then, we did afterward. After embarking on the cars at Philadelphia, the waving of handkerchiefs was less and less noticeable along the route. We arrived in Baltimore late at night; Union troops now controlled the city, and we marched through its deserted streets unmolested. On our arrival at Washington the next morning, we were marched to barracks, dignified by the name of “Soldiers’ Retreat,” where each man received a half loaf of “soft-tack,” as we had already begun to call wheat bread, with a piece of “salt junk,” about as big and tough as the heel of my government shoe, and a quart of coffee,—which constituted our breakfast. Our first day in Washington was spent in shaving, washing, polishing our brasses and buttons, and cleaning-up for inspection. A day or two later we moved to quarters not far from the armory, looking out on the broad Potomac, within sight of Long Bridge and the city of Alexandria.

  Here and there the sound of a gun broke the serenity, but otherwise the quiet seemed inconsistent with the war preparations going on around us. In the distance, across the wide river, we could see the steeples and towers of the city of Alexandria, while up stream, on the right, was the Long Bridge. Here and there was to be seen the moving panorama of armed men, as a regiment crossed the bridge; a flash of sunlight on the polished muskets revealed them to the eye; while the white-topped army baggage-wagons filed over in constant procession, looking like sections of whitewashed fence in motion. The overgrown country village of that period, called Washington, can be described in a few words. There were wide streets stretching out from a common center like a spider’s web. The Capitol, with its unfinished dome; the Patent Office, the Treasury, and the other public buildings, were in marked and classic contrast with the dilapidated, tumble-down, shabby look of the average homes, stores, groceries, and groggeries, which increased in shabbiness and dirty dilapidation as they approached the suburbs. The climate of Washington was genial, but in the winter months the mud was fearful. I have drilled in it, marched in it, and run from the provost-guard in it, and I think I appreciate it from actual and familiar knowledge. In the lower quarter of the city there was not a piece of sidewalk. Even Pennsylvania Avenue, with its side-walks, was extremely dirty; and the cavalcade of teams, artillery caissons, and baggage-wagons, with their heavy wheels, stirred the mud into a stiff batter for the pedestrian.

  PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, WASHINGTON. FROM A SKETCH MADE IN 1861.

  Officers in tinsel and gold lace were so thick on Pennsylvania Avenue that it was a severe trial for a private to walk there. The salute exacted by officers, of bringing the hand to the visor of the cap, extending the arm to its full length, and then letting it drop by the side, was tiresome when followed up with the industry required by this horde. Perhaps I exaggerate, but in a half-hour’s walk on the avenue I think I have saluted two hundred officers. Brigadier-generals were more numerous there than I ever knew them to be at the front. These officers, many of whom won their positions by political wire-pulling at Washington, we privates thought the great bane of the war; they ought to have been sent to the front rank of battle, to serve as privates until they had learned the duties of a soldier. Mingled with these gaudy, useless officers were citizens in search of fat contracts, privates, “non-com’s” and officers whose uniforms were well worn and faded, showing that they were from encampments and active service. Occasionally a regiment passed through the streets, on the way to camp; all surged up and down wide Pennsylvania Avenue.

  The soldiers of this period were eager to collect mementoes of the war. One of my acquaintances in another regiment made sketches of the different camps he had visited around Washington, including “Brightwood” and Camp Cameron; the latter he termed “a nursery f
or brigadier-generals.” Another friend hoarded specimens of official signatures and passes issued in Washington, conspicuous among which was a pass with the well-known John-Hancock-like signature of Drake De Kay.

  Before enlisting, and while on a visit to a neighboring town, I was one evening at the village store, when the talk turned upon the duration of the war. Jim Tinkham, the clerk of the grocery store, announced his belief in a sixty days’ war. I modestly asked him for more time. The older ones agreed with Jim and argued, as was common at that time, that the Government would soon blockade all the rebel ports and starve them out. Tinkham proposed to wager a supper for those present, if the rebels did not surrender before snow came that year. I accepted. Neither of us put up any money, and in the excitement of the weeks which followed I had forgotten the wager. During my first week in Washington, whom should I meet but Jim Tinkham, the apostle of the sixty-day theory. He was brown with sunburn, and clad in a rusty uniform which showed service in the field. He was a veteran, for he had been at the battle of Bull Run. He confidentially declared that after getting the order to retreat at that battle, he should not have stopped short of Boston if he had not been halted by a soldier with a musket, after crossing Long Bridge.

  THE SEVENTH NEW YORK AT CAMP CAMERON, WASHINGTON.

  * * *

  1 Mr. Seward, speaking in New York two days after the secession of South Carolina, said: “Sixty days’ more suns will give you a much brighter and more cheerful atmosphere.”

  2 The monthly pay of Union privates was: cavalry $12, artillery and infantry $11; from August 6th, 1861, $13 for all arms, and from May 1st, 1864, $16. Confederate privates received: in the cavalry and light batteries $12; in the artillery and infantry $11; increased June 9th, 1864, to $19 and $18 per month for a period of one year from that date.—EDITORS.

  3 January 18th, 1861, three days after he had entered on his duties as Secretary of the Treasury to President Buchanan, General Dix sent W. Hemphill Jones, chief clerk of one of the Treasury bureaus, to the South, for the purpose of saving the revenue-cutters at New Orleans, Mobile, and Galveston. January 29th, Mr. Jones telegraphed from New Orleans that the captain of the revenue-cutter McClelland refused to obey the Secretary’s orders. It was seven in the evening when the dispatch was received. Immediately, Secretary Dix wrote the following reply: “Treasury Department, January 29, 1861. Tell Lieutenant Caldwell to arrest Captain Breshwood, assume command of the cutter, and obey the order I gave through you. If Captain Breshwood, after arrest, undertakes to interfere with the command of the cutter, tell Lieutenant Caldwell to consider him as a mutineer, and treat him accordingly. If any one attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot. JOHN A. DIX, Secretary of the Treasury.”—EDITORS.

  4 Concerning this encounter Colonel Edward F. Jones, of the 6th Massachusetts, says in his report:

  “After leaving Philadelphia I received intimation that our passage through the city of Baltimore would be resisted. I caused ammunition to be distributed and arms loaded, and went personally through the cars, and issued the following order, viz, ‘The regiment will march through Baltimore in column of sections, arms at will. You will undoubtedly be insulted, abused, and perhaps assaulted, to which you must pay no attention whatever, but march with your faces square to the front and pay no attention to the mob, even if they throw stones, bricks, or other missiles; but if you are fired upon and any one of you is hit, your officers will order you to fire. Do not fire into any promiscuous crowds, but select any man whom you may see aiming at you, and be sure you drop him.’ Reaching Baltimore, horses were attached the instant that the locomotive was detached, and the cars were driven at a rapid pace across the city. After the cars containing seven companies had reached the Washington depot the track behind them was barricaded, and the cars containing … the following companies, viz., Company C, of Lowell, Captain Follansbee; Company D, of Lowell, Captain Hart; Company J, of Lawrence, Captain Pickering; and Company L, of Stoneham, Captain Dike, were vacated, and they proceeded but a short distance before they were furiously attacked by a shower of missiles, which came faster as they advanced. They increased their steps to double-quick, which seemed to infuriate the mob, as it evidently impressed the mob with the idea that the soldiers dared not fire or had no ammunition, and pistol-shots were numerously fired into the ranks, and one soldier fell dead. The order ‘Fire’ was given, and it was executed. In consequence, several of the mob fell, and the soldiers again advanced hastily. The mayor of Baltimore placed himself at the head of the column beside Captain Follansbee, and proceeded with them a short distance.”

  The Hon. George William Brown, then mayor of Baltimore, in his volume entitled “Baltimore and the 19th of April, 1861,” thus describes the march of the soldiers after he joined the column:

  “They were firing wildly, sometimes backward, over their shoulders. So rapid was the march that they could not stop to take aim. The mob, which was not very large, as it seemed to me, was pursuing with shouts and stones, and, I think, an occasional pistol-shot. The uproar was furious. I ran at once to the head of the column, some persons in the crowd shouting, ‘Here comes the mayor.’ I shook hands with the officer in command, Captain Follansbee, saying, as I did so, ‘I am the mayor of Baltimore.’ The captain greeted me cordially. I at once objected to the double-quick, which was immediately stopped. I placed myself by his side, and marched with him. He said, ‘We have been attacked without provocation,’ or words to that effect. I replied, ‘You must defend yourselves.’ I expected that he would face his men to the rear, and, after giving warning, would fire if necessary. But I said no more, for I immediately felt that, as mayor of the city, it was not my province to volunteer such advice. Once before in my life I had taken part in opposing a formidable riot, and had learned by experience that the safest and most humane manner of quelling a mob is to meet it at the beginning with armed resistance. The column continued its march. There was neither concert of action nor organization among the rioters. They were armed only with such stones or missiles as they could pick up, and a few pistols. My presence for a short time had some effect, but very soon the attack was renewed with greater violence. The mob grew bolder. Stones flew thick and fast. Rioters rushed at the soldiers and attempted to snatch their muskets, and at least on two occasions succeeded. With one of these muskets a soldier was killed. Men fell on both sides. A young lawyer, then and now known as a quiet citizen, seized a flag of one of the companies and nearly tore it from its staff. He was shot through the thigh, and was carried home apparently a dying man, but he survived to enter the army of the Confederacy, where he rose to the rank of captain, and he afterward returned to Baltimore, where he still lives. The soldiers fired at will. There was no firing by platoons, and I heard no order given to fire. I remember that at the corner of South street several citizens standing in a group fell, either killed or wounded. It was impossible for the troops to discriminate between the rioters and the by-standers, but the latter seemed to suffer most.… Marshal Kane, with about fifty policemen (as I then supposed, but I have since ascertained that, in fact, there were not so many), came at a run from the direction of the Camden street station, and throwing themselves in the rear of the troops, they formed a line in front of the mob, and with drawn revolvers kept it back. This was between Light and Charles streets. Marshal Kane’s voice shouted, ‘Keep back, men, or I shoot!’ This movement, which I saw myself, was gallantly executed, and was perfectly successful. The mob recoiled like water from a rock. One of the leading rioters, then a young man, now a peaceful merchant, tried, as he has himself told me, to pass the line, but the marshal seized him, and vowed he would shoot if the attempt was made. This nearly ended the fight, and the column passed on under the protection of the police, without serious molestation, to Camden station.”

  Sumner H. Needham, of Lawrence, Addison O. Whitney and Luther C. Ladd, of Lowell, and Charles A. Taylor were the killed, and thirty-six of their comrades were wounded. Twelve citizens were killed, and an
unknown number were wounded. Col. Jones continues:

  “As the men went into the cars I caused the blinds to the cars to be closed, and took every precaution to prevent any shadow of offense to the people of Baltimore; but still the stones flew thick and fast into the train, and it was with the utmost difficulty that I could prevent the troops from leaving the cars and revenging the death of their comrades.… On reaching Washington we were quartered at the Capitol, in the Senate Chamber.”

  This regiment, the 6th Massachusetts, were the first armed troops to reach Washington in response to the call of the President.

  The 27th Pennsylvania Regiment (unarmed) arrived at Baltimore by the same train as the Massachusetts troops. It was attacked by a mob and obliged to remain at the President street station, from which point it was sent back the same day in the direction of Philadelphia. The same night, by order of the Board of Police Commissioners, with the concurrence of Governor Hicks and Mayor Brown, the railways from the north were obstructed, so that the 8th Massachusetts, with General B. F. Butler, and the 7th New York were compelled to go to Annapolis by water and march thence to Washington. —EDITORS.

  5 It is said by one of the “Monticello Guards,” that most of its members started for Bull Run with a trunk and an abundant supply of fine linen shirts.—EDITORS.