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HARTLAND IN THE CIVIL WAR

Fifth Installment, January, 2014

by Les Motschman

The  War  Becomes  a  Crusade

The fourth Hartland Historical Society Civil War newsletter of last June ended with the Battle of Gettysburg July 1, 2, and 3, 1863. In this issue, I will wrap up descriptions of the “nine months” men’s service, and recognize Hartland men who joined the army in the second half of 1863. As after Gettysburg there were no major battles in 1863 where Hartland men would have served, I will take the opportunity to describe how after two years of hard fighting, the war changed in some aspects. Lastly, I received interesting responses from four HHS members regarding their family members’ involvement in the war.

The 40 or so Hartland men who enlisted for nine months in the fall of 1862 after President Lincoln called for 300,000 volunteers were mustered out of the Army in the summer of 1863. Most of the Hartland men joined the 12^th Vermont Infantry Regiment, the first of the five Vermont regiments to make up the 5,000-man Vermont 2^nd Brigade. The 12th was the first to form up at Brattleboro, the first to leave for Virginia, and thus the first to come home. Its members were mustered out of the army at Brattleboro on July 14, 1863. Seven Hartland men joined the 16th Regiment, which was the last of the five to form. They were mustered out August 10, 1863.

In a talk I attended, Howard Coffin said that the 2^nd Vermont Brigade, whose term of enlistment was nearly over, was detailed to bury the dead at Gettysburg. Soon after Gettysburg, the enactment of a new draft led to demonstrations and riots in many locations throughout the North, including Irish quarry workers in West Rutland. The New York City riots were the worst, where there was extensive property damage and 250 killed or seriously wounded. Some of the returning Vermonters volunteered to go to New York, but they were not sent. Instead, seasoned combat troops from the Army of the Potomac, including Vermont’s 1^st Infantry Brigade, and presumably some Hartland men were sent north to quell the rioting. Unlike the police, they did not hesitate to fire into the rioting mobs. Some soldiers who survived Gettysburg and the fierce fighting in Funkstown with Lee’s retreating army were killed in New York City.

It’s not surprising that many of the men who enlisted early in the war, mostly motivated by patriotism, looked down on the “nine months”  men, who enlisted for such a short term and for such big money. The three-year men in Vermont’s 1^st Infantry Brigade, who went from one great battle to another, referred to the men of the 2nd Brigade who spent most of their short service in camp as “Nine Monthings hatched from two hundred dollar bounty eggs.”  Colonel Farnham, a 2^nd Brigade Commander, thought the “nine months” strategy to fill the ranks a terrible waste and bad for overall morale. Just as the Brigade was ready for fighting, it was disbanded and sent home.

Certainly the heroics of the 13^th, 14^th and 16^th regiments at Gettysburg earned the “nine months” men a measure of respect. All the men who volunteered did what was asked of them, and those thrown into the thick of battle performed bravely. None of the “nine months”  men from Hartland died in combat, but several young men died of disease. From my perspective 150 years later, I’m inclined to believe that many of the Hartland men of the 12^th and 16^th were quite proud of their service. The war was probably the most memorable event of their lives. I have a list of 50 Civil War veterans buried in Hartland (many left town after the war), and I have visited about half of their graves. The young men who died early in camp were usually sent home and buried in the family plot.

What is telling is how many gravestones of men who died when elderly feature their unit right under their names. Sometimes that is all that is on the stone, other than birth and death dates. Many of these men died decades after their service, yet this small piece of their life from when they were young is prominent on their gravestones.

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                                   Gravestones of two brothers who died a month apart, Plains
Example from Village Cemetery:     Cemetery (Austin was in the 4th Vermont Regiment):

            John F. Colston             J. P. Hutchinison        Austin Hutchinson       
Musician Co. B 12th Reg. VT. Vols.          7th VT Inf.       Died at Camp Griffin, VA
               1841–1921                  d. Mar 20, 1862          d. Feb 4, 1862

The Emancipation Proclamation

January 1, 1863

The overall title of this installment (The War Becomes a Crusade) comes from Howland Atwood’s 1963 Hartland in the Civil War, where he dedicates only a few paragraphs to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Lonnie Bunch, Director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History, said on NPR’s Tell Me More program in early January 2013 that the Emancipation Proclamation is one of the most misunderstood documents in American history. Most people think it freed the slaves, when in fact slavery ended when the 13^th Amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865. The Emancipation Proclamation began the process of emancipation when the Federal government said that slavery is wrong and it must end. Bunch said Lincoln realized that he could impact the South by taking away its workers, encouraging them to come North to work or maybe even join the Union Army. It would also add a moral tinge to the war. It’s clear that Lincoln felt that if he could end the war and restore the Union without ending slavery, that would be all right with him. The war had been going on for two years, and it wasn’t going well for the Union. Lincoln knew he had to do something bold, but he waited until the Union victory at Antietam so he could speak with more authority. For Lincoln it was an evolving situation. As soon as the war broke out, hundreds and then thousands of African-Americans fled to the Union lines. This put pressure on the North to say what it was going to do with all these people.

When he was asked, “How was the Emancipation Proclamation received?” Bunch replied, “In a variety of ways.” European nations such as England and France saw that it put a stamp of moral authority on the war. While such countries depended on the cotton that slaves produced, they decided not to recognize the Confederacy. Of course,

the abolitionists and the free black community really supported it and felt it was the beginning of the end of slavery.

Even so, many in the North asked, “Why is Lincoln making the war about slavery?” That notion didn’t go over well in the Northern Army, and many soldiers let it be known they didn’t join up to free the slaves.

Howard Coffin, in Nine Months to Gettysburg, writes that despite Vermont’s history of abolitionism, despite its 1777 Constitution as the first to outlaw slavery, and despite its role in the Underground Railroad, many of the men who fought held racial attitudes not much different from those of their Southern counterparts. What is clear, though, is that a profound reverence for the Union is what spurred many men to join the Army.

A Boston Globe article at the time of the 150^th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation noted that before the war slaves comprised the largest single financial asset in the United States. Some considered the freeing of the slaves the greatest confiscation ever of private property by the Federal government.

The November 30, 2012, Vermont Humanities Council weekly “Civil War News” noted that President Lincoln for years had favored the colonization of free blacks outside the United States. By the time of the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln was referring to slaves as Americans of African descent and asserting that objections to colored people remaining in the country were malicious.

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The  54^th Massachusetts  Infantry  Regiment

President Lincoln made emancipation a tactic and a goal of the war, and with it opened the military to black soldiers. Massachusetts soon became the first to call for the raising of black regiments. Frederick Douglass, a leading black activist of the time, threw himself into the effort, urging African American men throughout the country to come to Boston to join up. Hundreds did, free and fugitive alike. Of course the units would have to be segregated because even in the North most white soldiers would not serve alongside blacks. Then, the problem became who would lead them. Governor John Andrew, an abolitionist, asked 25-year-old Robert Gould Shaw, the son of a wealthy abolitionist who lived on Beacon Hill, if he would take command of the 54^th. Shaw, who had been in the Army since the start of the war, reluctantly accepted, and started training the regiment. In April 1863, he was promoted to Colonel and married his sweetheart. On May 28, 1863, the Regiment marched through Boston to the cheers of a massive crowd to board ships to Hilton Head, South Carolina.

The 54^th fought well in limited action, so when an attack on Fort Wagner was planned, it was given the honor of leading the assault. Moving across open beach, the 54^th came under heavy fire. Colonel Shaw sprang to the front and led his men as they charged. As he waved them on, he was shot through the heart. Despite the valor the 54^th displayed, its assault was repulsed, and nearly half of the men were killed or wounded. Disregarding custom, the Confederates stripped Shaw’s body and threw it into a mass grave with his men. When commanders later offered to make an effort to recover the body, Shaw’s father replied that that would not be necessary, as his son would have preferred to rest with his men.

The 54^th is famous. In 1883 a Boston committee commissioned sculptor Augustus St. Gaudens to create a memorial for Boston Common. It was to be complete in six months, but it took him fourteen years, and it’s a magnificent work. The 1989 film, “Glory,” tells the story of Colonel Shaw and the men of the 54^th. Most of the information for my piece comes from the Boston African-American National Historic Site on Beacon Street, near the memorial and across the street from the Hooker entrance to the Massachusetts State House.

Note: The Shaw/54^th Memorial is across from the State House on the highest corner of Boston Common. Having attended college on Beacon Hill and visited the city at least a dozen times a year in the ensuing 47 years, I have stopped to look at the Shaw Memorial dozens of times. I did not know the story behind it until the film, “Glory”, and then I thought the memorial showed the unit marching into battle. A year after starting this project, I went to the small museum in the Fairmont Hotel on Battery Wharf where a recruiting poster for “Colored Men of African Descent” caught my eye. The text under the poster described the memorial as depicting the 54^th passing in review in front of the State House, headed for Battery Wharf to board ships for South Carolina. I thought after all those years that I finally really understood what the Shaw Memorial is all about. On a subsequent trip to Boston, I visited the memorial with the knowledge that it showed the 54^th passing in front of that very spot. Then I realized the men are shown marching west on Beacon Street instead of east down to the waterfront.

I talked at length with Gregory Schwarz of the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site. He has written a book about the Shaw/54^th Memorial. He said the original plan was for the memorial to be across the street on the State House grounds. This would explain why it appears backwards to me, except that Gregory Schwarz said Saint-Gaudens was aware of the change when he started the project. A picture taken at the 1897 dedication ceremony shows veterans of the 54^th in formation marching east in front of the memorial in the opposite direction of what is depicted in the sculpture. In any case, you can see a bronze casting of the Memorial that was done in 1997 for the site in nearby Cornish, New Hampshire.

I hope Hartland Historical Society readers enjoyed reading about the 54^th Massachusetts and the Shaw Memorial. I am sure some of you wondered what that has to do with Hartland in the Civil War. Readers will probably be as surprised as I was to learn that Hartland is credited with sending three men to the 54^th. Austin Hazard, Sylvester Mero and Henry Parks were mustered in on January 22, 1864, so they would not have been involved in the events described above. They served until August 1865, a few months after the war ended. Hazard was a butcher and

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thirty-two years old when he enlisted. Nineteen-year-old Mero was listed as a farmer and as having been born in Woodstock. Less is known about Parks and he is not on the Vermont in the Civil War roster for Hartland, but his name is in the March 1864 Hartland Town Report. These three ‘volunteers’ were among thirty-six who received $500 bounties that year. It is not always easy to determine from the roster who was from Hartland as men often enlisted in neighboring towns or even traveled to towns desperate to fill their quota and offering higher bounties. [The recruiting posters for the 54^th in Boston were offering $100 bounties.] The three enlistees in the 54^th may have been part of a black community that existed in Woodstock. The Vermont in the Civil War website indicates that there were over seven hundred African Americans living in Vermont in 1860. One hundred and forty-nine served in the Union Army.

Men credited to Hartland who enlisted in late 1863 or early 1864 by unit

After serving two years in the 6^th Vt. Regiment, Perry Lamphere re-enlisted 12/15/1863 and died of disease      1/1/1864.

The  Gettysburg  Address

November 19, 1863

The short speech President Lincoln gave at the dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg is well known and regarded as one of the most important moments in American history. There is no need to report on it here, except as it relates to the theme of this installment. In the speech, Lincoln articulated why, because of the war’s terrible cost and suffering, it was then important to strive to create a better and freer nation than had existed before the war.

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From  Hartland  Historical  Society  Newsletter  Readers

We received a nice letter and copies of family “treasures” from Marion Rodgers Howard of Florida. She makes a claim that I doubt few could match. Marion remembers meeting her Civil War veteran grandfather! In her words, “I wonder how many living adults can call a Civil War veteran ‘Grandpa’? My Grandpa, William Wallace Rodgers, died in 1926. I was born to his oldest son Walter Rodgers in 1923. I remember Grandpa at our family Thanksgiving in Temple, N.H., in 1926 slightly before his death.”

Marion sent along a 1911 picture of 14 members of the Rodgers family, including her father and grandfather. She also sent two good pictures of Civil War camps. Unfortunately, they are not identified. A very old picture of her great-uncle Charlie was of special interest to me. I described in the second installment of Hartland in the Civil War that his tombstone in the Weed Cemetery caught my attention soon after we moved to Weed Road nearly 40 years ago. The stone indicated that Charles Rodgers was with the 12^th Regiment Vermont Volunteers and that he died at the age of 18. I didn’t know he died of disease in a Virginia camp after only one month in the Army until I started this project. I never dreamed that I would someday know what the young man looked like.

The Rodgers brothers lived near the “Cream Pot,” as did their cousins Augustine and Daniel, and all were in Co. B of the 12^th Infantry Regiment. Howland Atwood writes that William returned to the farm after the war and lived there many years. William is buried in the Village Cemetery. Augustine, the same age as Charlie, died in the 1890s and is buried in the Weed Cemetery. Daniel at 22 was the oldest of the four when they enlisted. He lived the longest. My records indicate that before he died in 1931 at the age of 91, and he probably was the last living Civil War veteran from Hartland. Daniel is buried in Morrisville.

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Carol McArthur Rumrill supplied information about her and Deana McArthur Dana’s great-grandfather, Johnson Ames McArthur. He was living in Vershire when he enlisted in the 15^th Vermont Infantry at age 22. His service as a “nine months” man was from October 22, 1862, to August 5, 1863. Howard Coffin in Nine Months to Gettysburg writes that the role of the 15^th in the Gettysburg Campaign was similar to that of the 12^th, which included most of the Hartland “nine months” men.

In late June 1863, General George Stannard was leading the five regiments of the 2^nd Vermont Brigade from the Virginia camps north to Pennsylvania. After a week-long march, they reached Pennsylvania where a commander ordered General Stannard to post two of his regiments to guard the Corps’ wagon trains. The 12^th and 15^th stayed with the wagons while the 13^th, 14^th, and 16^th continued on to the battlefield. Later in the day, Major General Daniel Sickles, commanding the Third Corps, which was also heading north, came upon the Vermonters and thought there were too many fine-looking soldiers guarding the wagon train. He brashly ordered the 15^th to join his command and proceed to Gettysburg. Reportedly, the men gave a rousing cheer when they learned they would be joining the battle. The 15^th joined the other Second Brigade regiments very early on the second day of battle. Just in time for break- fast, supply wagons had moved to the front line under the cover of darkness to feed the men they knew to be short of rations. Two companies were ordered to guard the ammunition wagons at Rock Creek Church,  2-½ miles away. The rest of the 15^th marched over 20 miles back to Westminster, Maryland, to join the 12^th Regiment guarding the Corps’ wagon trains, made up of hundreds of wagons and hundreds of cattle.

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After the war, Johnson McArthur settled in Hartland, moving to the brick house on the Quechee Road where George and Carol Little have lived for many years. Mr. McArthur died in 1902 and is buried in the Village Cemetery. McArthur Brook runs through the former McArthur farm under the Quechee Road, Route 5, I-91, and the railroad to fall over Bish Bash Falls and into the Connecticut River.

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Hartland Historical Society Board Member Diane Bibby gave me a newspaper death notice describing her great-great uncle’s life.  It is titled “Big Pete Aubrey’s Death.”

Mr. Aubrey was born in Rouse’s Point, New York, of French descent, his grandfather having come to this country before the Revolution. His ancestors were all fighters in various   wars. He learned the blacksmith’s trade, which he pursued in Rouse’s Point and later Malone. He married in 1851 when he was 18 years old. When the Civil War broke out, he enlisted in Co. G of the 98^th New York. Aubrey went through the Peninsula Campaign, taking part in the battles at Williamsburg and Yorktown, where he was slightly wounded in the head by buckshot. Then came Fair Oaks, Chickahominy, Seven Pines, Malvern Hill, and the Seven Days fight. When his term of enlistment was up, he returned home to his trade. In 1863 he moved to Springfield, Massachusetts, where he obtained government work. In October he again enlisted, joining Co. G of the 2^nd Regiment Heavy Artillery. The company was first stationed in Norfolk, Virginia, and then sent to Fort William on the Roanoke River in North Carolina. The fort was attacked by 30,000 rebels on April 17, 1864. For three days the rebels were held at bay, but on the 20^th the Union troops were obliged to surrender. They were put aboard a freight train, packed into the cars like cattle, and taken to Andersonville prison camp in Georgia.

Mr. Aubrey was a strong, robust, hardy man when he went to war, but he was so weakened by the privation he suffered in prison that he was not able to work or accomplish much after the war. He got by on a pension of only $16 a month, despite what he had offered his country. He was too little appreciated or honored in life, given that service. He was a member of the Grand Army Post and Anderson Survivors Association. Leaving a wife and nine children, he died on January 6, 1897.

Les’s note: In his book, Civil War, Bruce Catton writes that early in the war there were few prisoner-of-war camps. Both sides paroled prisoners or just swapped equal numbers of men. This arrangement ended after the Emancipation Act, which encouraged slaves to run away to the North where they would be put to work or enlisted in the Union Army. The Confederacy did not recognize runaway slaves as Union soldiers. Both sides established POW camps where conditions were generally terrible. Andersonville was the most notorious; one in three died there from disease or malnutrition. Many survivors were plagued with poor health the rest of their lives.

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Hartland Historical Society Webmaster, Brad Hadley of South Berwick, Maine, initially indicated he didn’t have any Hartland ancestors in the Civil War, even though there are many Hadleys buried in Hartland. (He said his ancestors had a way of avoiding such things.) After checking the Civil War records in the National Archives, however, he found the file of James Hadley, who was born in Hartland in 1834 and joined the 3^rd Regiment of Vermont Volunteers on June 1, 1861, to be mustered in on July 16.  He had been living in West Windsor prior to 1860 and he is credited to Windsor. He was the son of Wells G. Hadley, who lived near the upper end of Weed Road.   He was Brad’s great-great uncle.

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James Hadley went to Camp Lyon across the Potomac from Washington. His unit then went to Langley, Virginia, for the winter, where many soldiers fell ill. James died in a Georgetown hospital on March 20, 1862, just days before the 3^rd Regiment sailed for Fortress Monroe to prepare for the Peninsula Campaign. James Hadley’s name appears on his parents’ gravestone in the Hartland Village Cemetery, but it’s not clear if his body was shipped here. He could have been buried in a mass grave at Georgetown.

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I welcome any accounts of Civil War veterans in your families and will continue to devote a separate section in the newsletters to them. Send info to Les Motschman, 193 Weed Road, Windsor, VT  05089 (or to susanmaple@juno.com.)

Special thanks to Pat Richardson for her excellent editing, greatly improving my writing and to Susan for her contributions in the typing, layout and finished product of these installments.

Les Motschman

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HARTLAND  IN  THE  CIVIL  WAR

Sixth Installment, May, 2014

By Les Motschman

In the last installment of this series, I concluded the discussion of Hartland men who served as “nine-months men” in the 2^nd Vermont Infantry Brigade. The brigade was made up of five 1,000-man regiments. Most Hartland men were in the 12^th Vermont Infantry Regiment, but some were in the 16^th. When the nine-months’ term of enlistment was up, these regiments were disbanded.

It is time now to turn our attention back to what Hartland men were doing in the regiments that made up the 1^st Vermont Infantry Brigade, also known as the “Old Brigade.” In the first installment of Hartland in the Civil War, I described the formation of the first six regiments of the brigade. The first brigade was made up of active town militia members, under a long-standing law limited to three months’ Federal service. These men were quickly sent to Virginia, but when they returned after three months the regiment was disbanded.

Then the law was changed, and regiments two through six were made up mostly of volunteers who enlisted for three years. Men in these regiments went to camp in Virginia. In the spring of 1862 they participated in the Peninsula Campaign, a failed attempt to capture the Confederate capital, Richmond. As these 1^st brigade regiments were ongoing entities, they needed a continuing supply of new recruits to replace soldiers who were either killed or wounded in battle or who died or were disabled by disease.

The 1^st Vermont Infantry Brigade was the only brigade in the Army of the Potomac made up of men from a single state. It was not the policy of the government to brigade regiments of one state together. The thought was that if a particular unit suffered heavy losses, it would be best if the casualties were not concentrated in one geographic area. Also, it was supposed that a brigade made up of regiments from different states would benefit from positive rivalries when each regiment wanted to prove it was the best. I have been introducing Hartland men as they joined a regiment and noted when men died of disease or were discharged with a disability. In the last installment, I named thirty-six men who enlisted from Hartland. Over half joined the 6^th Vermont Infantry Regiment.

At this point in the War 150 years ago, twelve Hartland men had died of disease or service-related causes. Fifteen were discharged with disabilities. No one had been killed in action, unless one counts Hartland native Charles Ballou who was killed at Fredericksburg with the 5^th New Hampshire Infantry Regiment. That will soon change.

The  Overland  Campaign

The Darkest Days of the War for Hartland Families

The 1st Vermont Brigade spent the winter of 1863-1864 at Brandy Station in Northern Virginia. The weather was generally fine. The health of the troops was good. Picket duty was light, and the drilling not severe. The main topic of discussion in camp was whether or not to re-enlist. The government offered bounties and furloughs to veterans who had served two years or more. More than 1,000 men re-enlisted for three years or the duration of the war. Throughout that winter, an increasing number of rebel deserters came into camp. The Union troops were encouraged by the reports of a shortage of rations and supplies in the Confederate camps.

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The armies, which had grappled for nearly three years, would soon go at it again in what would become the bloodiest struggle of the war. President Lincoln had finally found the commander he’d been looking for, when General U. S. Grant took command of the Army of the Potomac in early March. Soon after Grant arrived at Brandy Station, he made it known that he would be leading the Army from the field, not from some remote headquarters. The troops knew that he meant business, and would push them hard. His reputation from successful campaigns on the western front indicated he would not back down if persevering could lead to success.  Grant might not foolishly send his men to slaughter, but he was not afraid to take casualties if there were a chance of causing greater pain to Confederate forces. While his tactics would eventually win the war, Vermonters in the 1^st Brigade would pay a steep price. For the first time Hartland families started to receive an alarming number of notices of men wounded or killed in battle.

On the third of May, General Grant took the initiative and moved the Army of the Potomac across the Rapidan River. They proceeded to what is known as The Wilderness, an area of scrub trees and tangled vines where General Hooker had been defeated a year earlier. Two earlier attempts to reach Richmond by the overland route had failed.

General Grant did not want to fight in The Wilderness, and he was trying to move the army through it on two parallel roads. General Lee very much wanted to engage the Union Army in the vast thicket of The Wilderness. The poor visibility and difficulty of movement would somewhat offset the Union’s advantage in its superior size. The Confederate Army was advancing toward the Federals on two roads three miles apart that would intersect the roads traveled by the Union Army at right angles. Lee’s plan was to attack the strung-out Union Army in its middle, and drive what he could not destroy or capture back across the Rapidan River as he had a year before. The 100,000-man Army of the Potomac could not move any faster than the thousands of wagons that made up the supply train trailing it. The two huge armies were about to collide in the middle of The Wilderness, and the 1^st Vermont Brigade was posted at a critical intersection.

In his book The Battered Stars, Howard Coffin writes that the deadliest day in the history of the State of Vermont began at home-and in the fields and tangled woods of Northern Virginia-with a brilliant sunrise on a warm and beautiful spring morning. In West Windsor on May 5, 1864, Jabez Hammond pronounced the day warm and pleasant and passed it plowing with a pair of oxen. In the war zone, the Vermonters serving under General George Washington Getty were massed near the Old Wilderness Tavern awaiting orders. When the high command realized that the vital intersection of the Orange Plank Road and Brock Road was largely undefended against A. P. Hill’s advancing Confederate corps, Getty was ordered to take a division of just three brigades there to support the cavalry that was already falling back, and to hold the crossroads at all cost.

Getty’s division, which included nearly 3,000 Vermonters, was to hold the intersection until General Hancock could get there with his second corps and bolster its defense. Getty’s men piled up logs and fencing to create a defensive position in case of attack. General Hancock, riding ahead of his men, found Getty and reassured him that help was on the way. Unfortunately, from his vantage point on a knoll near the Wilderness Tavern, an impatient Ulysses Grant feared an imminent assault on the crossroads and ordered Getty to go forward and attack without waiting for help. The Vermonters were the first to move and entered the forest, thick with small trees, dense underbrush, and tangling vines. The men made slow, steady progress and no skirmishers were met-they had withdrawn. Suddenly the forest in front of them exploded all along the line in an intense volley of muskets. The rifle balls cut through the brush, and many men were hit two or three times before they fell. Hundreds of men fell in that first volley, but those still able quickly returned fire.

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The battle was on and it lasted for hours. Getty ordered the Vermonters back to the defensive works they had created earlier. This was a far safer position from which to battle the advancing Confederate forces at least until Hancock’s men arrived as reinforcements. As the thicket filled with smoke, the enemy was mostly unseen. The new arrivals thought they were on the front of the battle line, so when their men started to fall they opened fire, shooting some of the Vermonters in front of them. The surviving men of the 1^st Vermont Brigade quickly moved through Hancock’s troops to the rear.

After a night spent trying to recover the wounded from the dense thicket, both armies attacked at first light on May 6^th. The Vermont Brigade advanced directly down the Orange Plank Road and again engaged A. P. Hills’ Confederate corps. On this day the Vermonters were part of a 25,000-man Federal assault led by General Hancock that pushed the rebels a mile down the road nearly to Lee’s headquarters. The Union forces moved over the battleground where they had fought on the fifth. Their dead comrades still lay there.

The fighting was at least as intense as the day before, but the Vermont Brigade caught a break-they were at the rear of the assault. Then fresh Confederate troops arrived, and Lee ordered a counter-attack that drove Hancock’s men back. The Vermonters had taken a defensive position behind logs piled up the day before by the rebels. As Hancock’s troops streamed by in retreat, the Vermonters found themselves at the point of a “V” where they had to repel attack after attack by the rebels. The logs provided good protection, though, and casualties were only a quarter of the previous day’s.

The Blue and the Gray grappled all day. Grant kept pouring men into the battle. Thousands of men fell. Neither side won; the fighting just stopped. The Vermont Brigade was only one of thirty-two infantry brigades at the Wilderness, yet it suffered 10 percent of the casualties.

Previous commanders of the Army of the Potomac would have withdrawn for the men to get some rest and be resupplied. With more than 10,000 casualties, the wounded needed tending to, and the dead to be buried. Grant ordered his army to move to the open countryside around Spotsylvania Court House. He knew Lee would perceive this move as a threat to Richmond, forcing him to rally his battered army and engage the Federals again much sooner than he would prefer. By May 8^th, the opposing armies, which had moved along parallel roads, were creating defensive works by digging trenches and piling up logs. The four-mile Confederate line took the shape of an inverted “V.” On May 10^th the Vermont Brigade participated in a bayonet charge against the line. They took the enemy’s position and held it for hours, but for lack of support they were called back. May 12^th saw some of the bloodiest fighting of the war at what became known as the “Bloody Angle.” For sixteen hours on that foggy, rainy day, thousands of Federal troops including the Vermont 3^rd and 6^th Regiments assaulted the rebel breastworks at the apex of the inverted “V.”

Grant intended to fight it out at Spotsylvania, figuring Lee’s losses would cause him to surrender or withdraw and open the way toward Richmond. But Confederate reinforcements kept arriving, causing Grant to decide to move south on May 20^th. By June 1 the Union force was digging in at Cold Harbor. Since the start of the Wilderness campaign, Union losses had nearly equaled Lee’s total force, but replacements kept arriving. The First Artillery, 11th Vermont Regiment, had joined the Vermont Brigade. At 1,500 men, it was the largest Vermont regiment. The total number of men fit for duty in the Brigade’s original five regiments was down to only 1,200.

Grant wanted to try to finish off the Confederate Army in a massive attack before the rebels could get too well established on their line, but his generals convinced him the troops were just too exhausted and

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needed to be resupplied before an attack could be mounted. Grant relented and postponed his move one day, a decision he always regretted. By June 3^rd thousands more rebel troops had arrived, and the trenches had been deepened. The massive Union assault lasted less than an hour before Grant called it off.

There were several thousand Union casualties. The 3^rd Vermont Regiment, on the frontline of the assault, lost one-third of its remaining force. The 10^th Vermont Regiment was at Cold Harbor where it suffered more casualties than in all its previous engagements. The 6^th Vermont Regiment was engaged for twelve days in sporadic fighting.

You may remember from a previous installment that a Major Crandall of the Sixth, home on leave a year before Cold Harbor, told a friend how exhilarating it was to serve in battle under General Sedgwick at Fredericksburg. Crandall was killed at Cold Harbor by a rebel sharpshooter. Sedgwick had already been killed at Spotsylvania by a sharpshooter.

In 2006, this 8-foot long, 17-ton monument of Barre granite was placed on the Wilderness Battlefield where Vermonters fought. Camel’s Hump is replicated on the top. The inscription reads

“The Vermont Brigade – In these woods, during the battle of The Wilderness on May 5 and 6, 1864, Vermont’s ‘Old Brigade’ suffered 1,234 casualties while defending the Brock Road
and Orange Plank Road intersection”

Howard Coffin was instrumental in lobbying for preservation of this portion of The Wilderness
and for memorialization of the Vermonters who fought there.

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The fighting continues through the summer and fall, but I will end this installment’s narrative with the death on the battlefield of Captain Oliver Cushman, whom I consider Hartland’s most noteworthy soldier. I’ve mentioned before that the Cushmans were a well-to-do family that lived on what is now known as the Hoisington Farm. The Cushman family in America goes all the way back to Plymouth Plantation. Holmes Cushman came to Hartland after the Revolutionary War. He had four grandsons and one great-grandson in the Civil War. Oliver Cushman left Dartmouth to join the 1^st Regiment of Vermont Cavalry as it was being organized in 1861.

In the spring of 1864, the 1^st Vermont Cavalry was operating so close to Richmond that they could see its light in the night sky. When not fighting, the Cavalry was often employed in destroying railroads and bridges. One night, moving down a road they encountered artillery shells buried in the road with trip wires that a horse’s hooves would trigger. They forced rebel prisoners to crawl along the roadway searching for more. The pace slowed, but a dozen more shells were found. In late May they were embroiled in a series of sharp engagements in what was a prelude to the grinding clashes between the main forces at Cold Harbor. On May 31 Captain Cushman’s squadron was assigned to destroy a pair of railroad viaducts. The trestle-supported bridges were burned down. The next couple of days were quiet and the troops rested. June 3 would be forever remembered for a catastrophic loss of life. General Grant ordered an all-out offensive at Cold Harbor, and 7,000 Union troops fell in less than an hour. The 1^st Vermont Cavalry was on the extreme left flank of the attack at a place called Hawe’s Shop. The Vermonters moved across level ground and came up against Fitz Lee’s troops entrenched in rifle pits. They engaged the rebels from a prone firing position. Colonel Addison Preston from Danville crawled to the front to reconnoiter. After he made his observations and he turned to go back, he inexplicitly rose to his feet. Colonel Preston was instantly shot and killed. Seconds later Captain Cushman was fatally wounded. Gone at the age of twenty-three he, like Preston, was universally mourned by the men of the 1^st Vermont Cavalry. Some believe the disfiguring facial wound he received at Gettysburg left him careless about his personal safety. He was considered one of the finest young men in the regiment, known for his valor and leadership.  He is buried in the Village Cemetery. Both the HHS museum and the Vermont State Museum next to the Vermont State House display a framed memorial to Captain Cushman and his Company.

Les’s note:  To learn about the Overland Campaign, I have relied on Howland Atwood’s HHS work of  fifty years ago and Howard Coffin’s 2002 book The Battered Stars. I also have what was Coffin’s primary source: Vermont in the Civil War by Vermont’s official Civil War historian, George Grenville Benedict. This two-volume 1,200-page work was published in 1886. HHS member Sandra Palmer recently purchased the set and graciously loaned it to me for this project. I found the 1^st Vermont Cavalry’s regimental history in the Vermont Historical Society’s library in Barre.

Thanks again to Pat Richardson for her helpful editing and Susan Motschman for the typing and layout.

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Hartland  Casualties

Spring, 1864

Churchill, David         3rdregt.        WDD     5/6/64

Cleveland, Charles C.    6th             KIA     5/18/64

Cushman, Clarence        1st VT CAV      MWIA    5/5/64

Cushman, Oliver T.       1st VT CAV      KIA     6/3/64

Cutler, John A.          1st VLAB        DD      6/9/64

Dana, Judah W.           3rd regt.       WDD     5/5/64

Davis, Hiram             3rd regt.       POW     6/15/64

Durphey, Harry           6th regt.       MWIA    5/5/64

Durphey, William H.      6th regt.       WDD     5/5/64

Fairbanks, Charles D.   U. S. Sharpshooters   WDD   5/31/64

Green, Peter             3rd regt.       WDD     5/5/64

Hadlock, Ira A.          6th regt.       WDD     5/5/64

Huntley, Stephen S.      6th regt.       WDD     5/5/64

Hutchinson, Ira E.       10th regt.      MWIA    6/3/64

Lafayette, Moses M.      5th regt.       KIA     5/12/64

Leonard, Edgar H.        11th regt.      MWIA    6/23/64

Leonard, Thomas F.       3rd regt.       WDD     7/10/63, 5/6/64 and 5/12/64

Mayo, Joseph             5th regt.       WDD     5/5/64

Rickard, Benjamin F.     6th regt.       WDD     5/5/64

Sabine, John             3rd regt.       KIA     5/5/64

Sargent, Horace          6th regt.       WDD     5/5/64

Sartwell, George E.      6th regt.       WDD     5/10/64

Spaulding, Elisha H.     11th regt.      POW     6/23/64

Temple, John J.          17th regt.      WDD     5/6/64

Thompson, Eldridge       3rd regt.       WDD     5/14/64

Tilden, Henry            6th regt.       KIA     5/5/64

Of the thirty-six men who enlisted at Hartland in late 1863 or early 1864, half became casualties in the spring of 1864.

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From a Hartland Historical Society Newsletter Reader

Since the last installment, I received only one submission from a HHS member concerning their Civil War ancestor. Donald Whelpley from Naperville, Illinois wrote a long letter full of interesting information pertaining to his great-grandfather Cyrus Ransom Bagley. Cyrus was born in Hartland on December 20, 1847 to Perkins Bagley and Mary Rodgers. His grandfather Thomas Bagley settled in town around 1788 and two or three generations later there were numerous Bagleys living in town. Thomas was known for having seven grandsons serve in the Civil War, six of them from Hartland. Cyrus enlisted as a “nine months” man in August, 1862, a few months before his fifteenth birthday-well shy of the required age of eighteen. Like most Hartland men, he was assigned to Co. B of the 12^th Vt. Inf. Reg.

Mr. Whelpley provides some details about relationships among some of the men in Co. B. Since Cyrus’s mother is a Rodgers, he is no doubt related to the two sets of Rodgers brothers from the Cream Pot area. After the “nine-months” men return home in the summer of 1863, James Sleeper marries Ferdinand Fallon’s sister Mary. A year later, sixteen-year-old Cyrus marries James’s sister Jennie Sleeper; and two weeks later, James and Cyrus are mustered into the 1^st Vermont Cavalry. Winter was spent in camp, but by early spring the cavalry was active as the war was moving to a conclusion. Richmond had fallen and General Grant was determined that General Lee not be allowed to reform his army as he had done before. The 1^st Vermont Cavalry was serving under General George A. Custer’s command, and they took part in the running battle across Virginia trying to corner General Lee. At Appomattox Station they were engaged in a battle to capture the Confederate supply train. Cyrus Bagley was shot in the left shoulder on what was essentially the last day of the war, as General Lee surrendered the next day. Cyrus spent six weeks in a Baltimore hospital. The shoulder bothered Cyrus the rest of his life.

When Cyrus’s first child was born in 1869, he named him George Custer Bagley. Cyrus died in 1911 and he and Jennie are buried in the Village Cemetery. His father, Perkins Bagley, was a veteran of the War of 1812 and is buried in the Gallup Cemetery on Weed Road. His grandfather, Thomas Bagley, was a veteran of the American Revolutionary War and is buried in the Weed Cemetery (He married a Weed.).

In his latest book, Something Abides, Discovering the Civil War in Today’s Vermont, Howard Coffin mentions that Cyrus Bagley lived in the old house on the Brownsville Road, about half-way between Weed Road and Jenneville Road.

Mr. Whelpley sent along a family photo of thirteen Bagleys and Whelpleys. Based on the birthdates of the young children, Mr. Whelpley dates the picture from 1907. After reading about Cyrus going to war at fifteen, marrying and returning to the war at age sixteen, it is interesting to see a picture of him as an old man. Mr.Whelpley said the family didn’t know where the picture was taken, but it was clear to me that the house in the background is the brick house on the corner of Route 5 and Martinsville Road (Lamb schoolhouse). My grandparents and my mother lived there in the 1940’s. In the photo, the family is gathered in the yard of the house across Route 5 on the corner of Rice Road. Not long after the picture was taken, the Whelpleys moved to Wisconsin and later to Illinois.

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Miscellaneous Items Concerning the War and Other Observations

Early 1864

In the last installment, I wrote at length about the 54^th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment (Colored) and the memorial dedicated to that unit created by Augustus Saint Gaudens.  On my next trip to Boston, I hoped to find a firsthand account of the Regiment’s day in Boston before it boarded ships to go off to war in South Carolina. Reliving my college days, I spent an afternoon at the Boston Public Library looking at The Boston Post newspapers on microfilm. The main thing I learned was that the 54^th arrived in Boston by train. I assumed an infantry regiment would have traveled the few miles from its training ground west of the city on foot. The regiment marched from the depot to the Common along streets lined with cheering crowds. They halted on Beacon Street in front of the State House, where the monument now stands depicting the soldiers passing that very spot. Thousands of people were on the Common where the regiment was reviewed by Governor Andrew. At conclusion, they marched down State Street to Battery Wharf.

A roll of microfilm contains months of newspapers. I scanned papers from February through June of 1864. The Boston Post was eight pages. The front page was covered with mostly small business ads offering goods or services and a lengthy editorial type piece, usually with a patriotic theme. Inside were columns devoted to news of the war with daily dispatches from Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and New Orleans. The following excerpts caught my eye. Many are from a daily column with the heading “Dispatches and Rumors.”

• 2/1/1864 A Company of soldiers were on the way from Washington to Alexandria atop freight cars when Sgt. James Hamilton of Vermont got on top of the cars to tell the men to lie down. Hamilton himself was struck and killed instantly.
• The daily Marine Journal reported on the arrivals and departures of numerous ships. It also reported “disasters” and the whereabouts of whalers. In December several New Bedford whalers were in Honolulu transferring hundreds of barrels of oil to a ship that would take it to the mainland.
• 2/7/1864 Some people doubt the draft, but a suspected call from the President before the 4^th of July will make thousands of our noisiest war orators finger their pocketbooks or write checks to procure their exemption.
• 4/22/1864 Army of the Potomac – Last week $130,000 was stolen between Aquia Creek and Washington. The money was in separate packages and belonged to the soldiers who were forwarding it to their families. A number of paymasters have arrived recently and an immense amount of money has been sent home by the men.
• 4/23/1864 Soldiers in the vicinity of Corinth, Mississippi are marrying the females thereabouts with the limitation added to the contract “while the war lasts.”
• 4/24/1864 The Richmond papers laugh at Gen. Hooker’s observation balloons and so do Union Army officers.
• 4/29/1864 When Gen. Butler was at Fortress Monroe, he was puzzled to discover how men got so outrageously and regularly drunk. It was observed that the men seemed to always hold their guns up straight. Upon examination, it was found that every gun barrel was filled with whiskey.

Les Motschman

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HARTLAND IN THE CIVIL WAR

(Second Installment, Jan. 2013)

by Les Motschman

This is the second installment of my attempt to follow Hartland men serving in the Civil War 150 years ago. As I explained in the first installment, this effort is based largely on Howland Atwood’s 1963 “Hartland in the Civil War.” He assembled a roster of Hartland men who served and described where their units were during the war. I also use several other sources, including information sent in by newsletter subscribers. I welcome personal information about your ancestors who served, as I want to make the connection to modern-day people who are living here or maybe grew up here. As you will read, I’ve so far made connections with some of today’s Hartland families, including the Bowers, Davis, French, Hatch, Howland, Lobdell, Tessier, and White families.

My first installment was concerned with the five regiments that made up the 1st Vermont Brigade, also known as the Old Vermont Brigade, including 17 volunteers from Hartland. [A brigade typically consisted of five one-thousand-man regiments.] This issue is concerned primarily with the formation of the 2^nd Vermont Brigade, made up of Regiments 12 through 17. There were no Hartland men in the 13th, 14^th, or 15^th Regiments so I’ll write mostly about the 12^th and 16^th.

In the second half of 1862, over 70 men from Hartland entered the Army. Hartland men weren’t involved in much fighting in the fall of 1862, but the recruiting and filling the ranks of the 2^nd Vermont Brigade so quickly is an interesting story in itself.  This issue concludes with the massive battle at Fredericksburg, Virginia, in December 1862 between the Army of Northern Virginia led by General Robert E. Lee and the Army of the Potomac under new commander General Ambrose Burnside.

First, I want to recognize a few Hartland men who enlisted in Vermont regiments that were not part of the 1^st or 2^nd Brigades.  Most, but not all, Hartland men served in Virginia.  Henry H. Hastings enlisted in the 7^th Regiment in February 1862 and served for five years. The 7^th Vermont sailed from New York City to the Gulf of Mexico. New Orleans remained under Federal control throughout the war, but the Confederates controlled the fortifications on the bluffs at Vicksburg, Mississippi, which prevented the Union from using the river to move men and supplies to the Western Front of the war. The 7^th participated in the Siege of Vicksburg in the summer of 1862, which was a series of failed attempts to take Vicksburg.

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It was also at Baton Rouge when it was attacked by rebel forces trying to retake that part of the river. By the end of the year, the 7^th removed to Pensacola, Florida. James Hutchinson also enlisted in the 7^th in February 1862, but within a few weeks he died of disease. He is buried in the Plains Cemetery. Alonzo Martin joined the 7^th in February 1862 from Woodstock and was discharged with a disability in June 1863. He represented the second of three generations to run a shop just across the Martinsville bridge.

On September 1, 1862, five Hartland men joined the 10^th Vermont Regiment as three-year men. They were George Colby, Charles E. Colston, Charles D. Humphrey, Ira E. Hutchinson, and Seneca Young. On the same day, Edgar H. Leonard joined the 11^th Vermont.

A few names were omitted in the first installment of September 2012. George C. Chase was with the 3^rd Vermont Regiment during the Peninsula Campaign.  Mr. Atwood did not mention Chase but includes him on the roster. Chase was discharged with a disability on July 29, 1862. David Wright was with the 6^th Vermont Regiment during the Peninsula Campaign.

The First Regiment of Vermont Cavalry

In the first issue I mentioned that two members of the First Regiment of the Vermont Cavalry died in October 1862. This unit was organized in the fall of 1861 in Burlington. It set out for Washington on December 14, 1861, in 153 railroad cars. Mr. Atwood writes that such a grand cavalcade from Vermont was probably never seen before or since.

The first Hartland men in this unit were Oliver T. Cushman, Henry Holt, John Jelerson, Allen P. Messer, Benjamin F. Rogers, George Rumrill, and John H. Willard. Others joined in the ensuing years, including Clarence Cushman in September 1862. The twenty-year-old Oliver Cushman, a member of the Dartmouth class of 1863, enlisted as a sergeant (he would eventually be promoted to captain).  His brother Clarence enlisted when he turned eighteen.

Early in the war, Union cavalry were mainly used for reconnaissance duty, checking the terrain and conditions ahead of the infantry. They were also employed as messengers as they had the only means of rapid transit. The Confederates used the cavalry as raiders from the start of the war. They would dash in through the Union picket lines, raid supplies, and be gone before anyone could stop them.

Bruce Catton, in his book Civil War, writes that “for the first half of the war Southern cavalry was far superior to the Federals. Jeb Stuart’s troopers could have taught circus riders tricks. Not until 1863 was the Union cavalry able to meet Stuart on anything like even terms. Most Southern recruits came from rural areas and were used to horses. The legends of chivalry were powerful, so it seemed much more knightly and gallant to go off to war on horseback than in the infantry. The Confederate trooper rode to war on his own horse often of blooded stock. There were plenty of farm boys in the Federal armies, but they did not come from horseback country; most horses on Northern farms were draft animals.  Being well aware that it’s a lot of work to care for a horse, the Northern country boy generally enlisted in the infantry.”

The 1^st Vermont Cavalry is credited with 75 engagements, mostly skirmishes, often with the opposing cavalry. Of the eight Hartland men in the 1st Vermont Cavalry in 1862, Messer was discharged with a disability May 22; Holt and Rogers died of disease on October 30, Rogers after release from a prisoner of war camp, and Rumrill was wounded August 29, presumably at the Battle of Second Bull Run and discharged with a disability on November 20. It must have been hard service, because without giving too much away, I will tell you that the other four men had very bad experiences before the war ended.

Two Hartland men from the 3^rd Vermont Infantry Regiment transferred to the U.S. 5^th Cavalry on October 30, 1862. George H. Barrows had just enlisted; Fred Blaisdell had joined in July 1861 and experienced the Peninsula Campaign and the Maryland Campaign.

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Lincoln calls for 300,000 volunteers

After General George McClellan’s disastrous Peninsula Campaign with its high losses, and recognizing the need for more men in the Western Theater of the War, President Abraham Lincoln in 1862 asked the Union states for another 300,000 volunteers. Enthusiasm for the war had radically changed from a year earlier when men had flocked to enlist. Initially it was thought that the North with its larger population and far superior industrial base would be able to put down the rebellion of the mostly agrarian South rather quickly. Indeed, as is the case in any war, many young men rush to volunteer not wanting to miss out on what might be the adventure of their lives. After the first few months of fighting, it was clear that victory would come only at a great cost of men and matériel and might take years.

By mid-1862 the casualty lists published in local newspapers were growing, and crippled veterans had returned     home with tales of the horrors of war. Coffins were arriving as well, mostly of soldiers who succumbed to disease. Those who died in a large battle were more apt to be buried where they fell or in a cemetery created on the battlefield. Of the four Hartland men who had died by this time 150 years ago, three-Holt, Hutchinson, and Vaughan-are buried in Hartland cemeteries. Benjamin Rogers is buried in Washington, D.C.

Just as enthusiasm for the war was waning, the need for more men was growing. Vermont had finished raising the 10^th and 11^th regiments with three-year enlistees, and the militias were depleted. Lincoln asked the states to raise the troops because the Federal government did not have authority to draft men into service. On July 17, 1862, Congress passed a “Militia Law” declaring that all able-bodied men between the ages of 18 and 45 were legally part of the militia. The law empowered the President to call the militia into Federal service for nine months. The War Department realized that most men with families and a farm or business were not eager to enlist for three years; thus, the creation of “Nine Months Men.”

Some of my information about the recruitment and deployment of Vermont’s 2^nd Brigade comes from Howard Coffin’s book Nine Months to Gettysburg. Coffin calls his native Woodstock the “Pentagon of Vermont” in that Vermont’s war effort was run by Vermont’s Adjutant General, Peter Washburn, from a building on The Green. Washburn was a Woodstock native and a lawyer, and had led 500 Vermont troops of the 1^st Regiment during the Peninsula Campaign.  Vermont’s quota was 4,898 men, and the Adjutant General’s office worked day and night to get the quotas out to all town officers, as it was their responsibility to furnish the men requested.

The Vermont Humanities Council’s weekly Civil War newsletter of September 7, 2012, notes countless town recruiting meetings held across the North. It describes a meeting in Windsor as being large and enthusiastic, packing the Town Hall while a large crowd gathered outside, vainly trying to learn of the success within. The Windsor Coronet Band enlivened the meeting with patriotic music. Patriotic speeches were made, and a number of citizens encouraged enlistments by generous donations. The men came forward, the quota was filled, and the meeting adjourned amid enthusiastic cheers.

As almost all the men enlisting were volunteers, I had assumed they were marching off to war to do their patriotic duty to try to save the Union. The U.S. Army paid them $12 to $14 a month. It wasn’t until I started this project that I saw the term “bounties.” It seems that towns appropriated money at Town Meetings to pay the men who enlisted. I attended a talk Howard Coffin gave last Fall about “Nine Months Men.” He told me bounties ranged from $50 to $1,000. Towns competed for recruits; most men would sign up in the town they lived in, but some would enlist in neighboring towns, especially if that town was paying higher bounties. Coffin said $300 was a typical bounty, but as the war wore on and still more troops were needed, men could receive two or three times that if towns were having trouble meeting their quotas. To put these dollars into perspective, a laborer at that time made a dollar a day, and Coffin said one could buy a farm for a thousand dollars.

I asked Hartland Town Clerk Clyde Jenne if we have minutes for Town Meetings in the 1860s. He said no, but I should look at the Town Reports. The February 1863 Hartland Town Report is only eight pages; all the soldiers are listed by name, grouped by how much bounty they were paid. The Nine Months Men received $100. For some

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reason, men who enlisted for three years got only $50. Total orders drawn by the Selectmen that year amounted to about $6,200, and nearly $5,000 of that was to pay bounties. $3,100 was borrowed to pay the bounties. Clyde said the town went deeply into debt during the Civil War and did not finish paying off the debt until decades later.

Following is a list of men who enlisted in the fall of 1862. Members of the 12^th and 16^th were mostly Nine Months Men. The men who enlisted in the 1^st Brigade regiments were generally three-year men. Men whose names are marked by asterisks (*) enlisted in nearby towns but were born and/or buried in Hartland.

The men who enlisted in the 2^nd Vermont Brigade were transported by trains to Brattleboro where they were marched to a high plateau a mile from the station that was becoming Camp Lincoln. The 4^th and 8^th Vermont Regiments had already camped at Brattleboro on their way to war. With the large influx of new recruits coming, the early arrivals, including the 12th, were put to work building more barracks. In Nine Months to Gettysburg, Howard Coffin says the men were drilled hard but adjusted to camp life and were able to relax some in the evening and on weekends.

Coffin makes great use of personal first-hand accounts from the soldiers’ letters home.  He notes that our Private Benjamin Hatch of the 12^th was troubled by soldier morality. The thirty-five-year-old Hatch was one of the older recruits. He wrote to his wife in Hartland: “Is as much as 20 playing cards and gambling every night….Last night I went along the line of camps, some were gambling, some were swearing, some were dancing and everything else you can think of.”

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On October 7, 1862, the 12^th Regiment was the first to leave Vermont for Washington. Since Coffin says most of the men had never been even to Massachusetts, it must have been interesting for them to see hundreds of miles of countryside and stop in the country’s major cities of New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and then end up in sight of the Capitol. Like the soldiers in the 1^st Brigade a year earlier, the 12^th marched through Washington and camped at the fortifications near the Potomac. Within a few days they crossed the Potomac and marched to Camp Vermont where they would spend the winter.

Camp life consisted of drill, readying the shelters for winter and picket duty. Each day a portion of the men were marched out of camp to take up positions on the miles-long outer defense line of Washington. Coffin reports that when the soldiers had a day with no duty, many went to see the sights of Washington or visited Mount Vernon. Private Hatch wrote, “If we can go a little ways from our camp, we can look down into Alexandria and onto Washington and see the shipping on the Potomac. For miles it is quite a scenery.”

Reports are that some of the men suffered from the October heat in Virginia, but winter arrived early that year. Soon cold, rain, and snow were making life miserable in the camp. The many letters exchanged between the soldiers and their families back home confirm that more snow fell that winter on Camp Vermont than on the real Vermont. As usual for the camps, sickness among the soldiers was widespread.

Eighteen-year-old Charles Rodgers died of disease on November 3, 1862, just one month after mustering into the Army at Brattleboro. He was one of four young Rodgers from Cream Pot Road to enlist in the 12^th Regiment that fall. I don’t claim descent from any of the Hartland Civil War veterans, but Charles seems like a neighbor. I visited his grave soon after moving to Weed Road over 35 years ago. For a long time, I didn’t know how long he had served or how he died. He is buried in Weed Cemetery next to his parents.

Reuben Lamphear died of disease on December 7, 1862. He is buried in the Plains Cemetery.

Howland Atwood’s notebook includes a collection of newspaper clippings from 1963 Rutland Heralds. It was running “100 years ago” columns. One states that, “The mortality rate in our armies in 1862 was 67.6 deaths per 1,000 men. Disease accounted for 50.4, wounds and injuries 17.2.”

Thanksgiving was celebrated heartily in the camps. President Lincoln declared it a national holiday in 1863, but celebrating on the last Thursday in November was already a well-established tradition. The Vermont Humanities Council newsletter describes that week in Camp Vermont through letters home from a member of the 12^th Regiment who had been a machinist at the gun factory in Windsor. They were working on their “houses” built of stone, wood and canvas:

We have been very busy all day on our house. Two or three more days of good weather and we can move in. Thanksgiving has really begun here in this company. There arrived here tonight from West Windsor and other places one barrel and many boxes the size of boot boxes, you may guess there was something for everybody. The boys in this tent got a large quantity, so I guess I shall have something for Thanksgiving, as they are very generous. I will name a few things that came to friends. There was a half of cheese, four or five pounds of butter, about 2 gal. of applesauce, a baked chicken, a lot of cakes, about three pints of butternut meats, six pounds of maple sugar, a few chestnuts and a number of little things too numerous to mention. As far as I have heard, it all came through without hurting the least thing.

[I remember being amazed many years ago reading about a mother in Vermont roasting a turkey and the father boxing it up with some other things and taking it to the depot. The son in camp in Virginia received it two or three days later in good shape. The railroad didn’t come to Hartland until 1849. The building boom continued through the 1850s, and by the time the war started in 1861 the railroad system was pretty well established, so people, goods, and mail could travel much faster than just a of couple decades earlier.]

Christmas seems to have been observed in a more somber manner. The men had the day off except for essential duty, but they weren’t feasting or celebrating.

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First Fredericksburg, Virginia, December 13, 1862

According to the Vermont Humanities Council newsletter, President Lincoln waited until the day after the 1862 mid-term elections to relieve General McClellan as Commander of the Army of the Potomac, timing the removal so as to not alienate Democrats. General McClellan said, “They have made a great mistake,” and ran against Lincoln two years later. General Ambrose Burnside reluctantly accepted command of the Army from Lincoln. General Burnside promptly submitted a plan for a direct move on Fredericksburg, and then south to Richmond. It was important to occupy the heights above the town before General Lee’s army arrived. The bridge across the Rappahannock River had been destroyed, so pontoon equipment was immediately ordered to be brought from Harper’s Ferry where it was being used. The river could have been forded, but Burnside was afraid the water might rise and separate his 120,000 soldiers. By the time the bridge was ready, General Lee was waiting on the heights with 113,000 men. Fredericksburg was now nothing but a trap.

The Union army was divided into three divisions led by Generals Edwin “Bull” Sumner, Joseph Hooker, and William Franklin. The Vermonters in the 1^st Vermont Brigade (Regiments 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6) were under the command of General Franklin, whose division was on the left of the battle line. Cold weather arrived long before the pontoons did, bringing rain, snow, and general discomfort. Burnside waited and Lee watched. The Confederates were on the western hills known as Marye’s Heights, where their guns commanded the flat land below as well as the town.

On December 11, 1862, the Union army started to cross the river. Franklin’s troops found little opposition, but General Sumner’s division on the right had a difficult crossing. Rebel sharpshooters mowed down the bridge builders.

In heavy fog on the morning of December 13^th, Burnside’s assault commenced. The three divisions groped through the fog across the road and railroad tracks along the river. When the fog lifted, the Confederates saw waving flags and the gleam of tens of thousands of bayonets. J.E.B. Stuart’s artillery poured heavy fire into the Union left flank. The Union batteries across the river joined the battle, silencing the Confederate fire. Under cover of their own guns, Franklin’s army heaved forward into woods at their front, only to meet short-range small arms fire from Southern infantry embedded in the thicket. The whole Union force was pushed back onto the plain. All afternoon the fighting raged back and forth, and the day ended with the Union and Confederate positions the same as at the beginning.

General Sumner’s division on the right had it even worse. As those men moved up the open land below Marye’s Heights, the Confederate guns there opened fire. At 200 yards the Confederate infantry opened fire from the sunken road and stone wall, and three Federal brigades in succession melted away. The Confederates were four deep behind that wall. Still more men were sent up the hill. Hooker’s division was ordered into action. Burnside was adamant: “That height must be carried this evening.”

It never was. Fourteen gallant attacks were made that day. Thank God Franklin was beyond Burnside’s reach. Between the hostile lines, 12,500 fallen Union soldiers lay dead or wounded in a succession of ghastly windrows, 6,000 of them in front of Marye’s Hill. Lee’s losses were about 5,300 in all. One brigade left behind 545 men in the frozen mud. The wounded lay for up to 48 hours in the freezing cold. Some burned to death where cannons set fire to long grass.

[The description of the battle is from Atwood’s notebook. He relies mainly on The Compact History of the Civil War to provide a narrative of the War where Vermonters were present.]

It was at Fredericksburg that General Lee, watching his troops wreak havoc on the Union Army, uttered this famous line: “It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it.”

Fredericksburg may have been the worst Union defeat of the war, but apparently no Hartland men were seriously hurt. Of course by my estimate they represented only two dozen of the 120,000-strong army. William Petrie of the 4^th Regiment was discharged with a disability January 31, 1863, so it’s possible he was wounded there. At least one

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Hartland native was killed during the battle. Twenty-eight year-old Charles Ballou was living in Claremont when he joined the 5^th NH Infantry in October 1861. Ballou was a 1^st Lieutenant by the time of Fredericksburg, so he may very well have died leading his men up the slope in front of the sunken road. Hartland resident, Greg Chase, a re-enactor for the 5^th NH, says the regiment was in one of the early attacks toward the road and came as close to reaching it as any unit, but took heavy casualties and was beaten back.

The new troops of the 2^nd Vermont Brigade were not at Fredericksburg, but they could hear the battle forty miles away. Soon they were starting to get reports of the terrible slaughter and defeat. This was met with a sense of dismay and disgust at the handling of the battle. As word spread, this was the reaction throughout the army and the North. General Burnside became known as “The Butcher of Fredericksburg.”

Incredibly, Burnside wanted to attack the next day, but his shocked and almost mutinous corps commanders talked him out of it. He was halted by President Lincoln’s firm order to take no action without informing him. Burnside blamed his generals for the failure. Franklin was replaced by General John Sedgwick after the battle. On January 25, 1863, Major General Joseph Hooker relieved Burnside as Commander of the Army of the Potomac.

The term “sideburns” comes from his last name.

Addendum

On a political note, after our long electioneering year of 2012, when some have said the country is more divided than at any time since the Civil War, and the President and Congress seem unable to accomplish anything, it was interesting to read political writer George Will’s last column of the year.

He wrote:

In 1862, the grim year of Shiloh [Antietam] and Fredericksburg, Congress would have been forgiven for concentrating only on preventing national dismemberment. Instead, while defiantly continuing construction of the Capitol dome, Congress continued nation building. It passed the Pacific Railroad Act [which led to the completion of the Trans-continental Railroad in 1869]. It passed the Morrill Act [named for Vermont Senator Justin Morrill] to build land-grant colleges emphasizing agriculture.

Most important, Congress passed the Homestead Act, which Will describes as the “first comprehensive immigration law.” The act was intended to attract immigrants from abroad who would put down roots. For this purpose it provided all the requirements for citizenship. For $18 in fees, a homesteader was entitled to 160 acres in the Great

Plains [then known as the Great American Desert]. After they farmed the land for five years, it would become theirs, and they could become citizens. The land was sparsely inhabited, mainly by Native Americans; and with so many citizens fighting, an Illinois congressman proclaimed that “noncitizens were needed to go upon these wild lands to increase the nation’s wealth.”

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Family Connections

I surmise that the hundred men on the rosters must have hundreds of descendants born in Hartland. I will note some of the connections to families living in town now or within the last couple of decades. Mr. Atwood mentions several descendants of veterans, but his list ends a couple of generations ago. Some of you have provided me with your family connections to Civil War veterans and I hope you continue to do so.

• First note that Horace Bradley, who was the first to go to the war from Hartland and served three months with the 1^st Vermont Regiment as part of the militia call-up, re-enlisted in the 12^th Vermont Regiment.
• James H. Bowers enlisted from West Windsor. He was in Company A 12^th Regiment with many of the Hartland men. His son Albert Bowers moved to Hartland. James H. Bowers’ grandson, Jimmy Bowers, Jimmy’s son Eric, and grandson Scott all live in Hartland.
• John Colston was Company B musician, and in later years a well-known fiddler at dances. He was Hial Lobdell’s and Marion Lobdell White’s grandfather, so many of the Whites living in town are descendants (Tom, Dick, Bob, and Paul White, and Jean White Rugg and Nancy White Dow, and their families), plus Jan Lobdell Hewes.
• Ozro and Oscar Davis were twins; great-granddaughter Connie Tessier is probably their best-known descendant still living in town. The Crowells and Stillsons trace their lineage to Oscar.
• Ferdinand Fallon is an ancestor of the Frenches who lived in town when I was young. Mike French is a current resident.
• Benjamin Hatch was Lillian (Hatch) Marcotte’s and Arthur Hatch’s grandfather. Marjorie (Hatch) Royce is also related.
• The Marcy brothers were great uncles of Russ Perry who had a large family living in town.
• Augustine and Daniel Rodgers were brothers, and Brad Hadley (Hartland Historical Society Webmaster) has a family connection to them.
• George Spear was great-grandfather to Emily (Spear) Devlin and Elizabeth (Spear) Graham, who still own the family farm. Judy Howland is also a Spear descendant.

Thanks to my wife Susan for her contributions in the typing, layout and finished product of this project.

We are fortunate that Pat Richardson is editing my work.  Her expertise in this field greatly improves the readability of the final version.

Les Motschman

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A  Note  From  Carol

A big thank you to Les for doing the research and to Les and Susan for putting together this newsletter. The work that they are doing is of huge value in understanding Hartland’s role in the Civil War.

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Reprinted from the January 2013 Hartland Historical Society Newsletter. Page breaks and numbers were preserved to assist in references to specific pages of this document.

HARTLAND IN THE CIVIL WAR

By Les Motschman

Introduction

Most of you know that America is marking the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, fought 150 years ago, 1861–1865. Many Americans have been interested in learning about the Civil War ever since it was fought. It touched just about every person in this country at that time; if you had ancestors living here in the mid 1800s, you probably have some family connection to the War.

Perhaps we are still interested in learning about the Civil War because it was such a large-scale conflict fought entirely on American soil and pitted Americans against Americans. The scale of destruction and the number of casualties is something we cannot relate to today, but it is still possible to visit many well-preserved battlefields, mainly in the South and especially Virginia. Indeed, there is such a treasure of information about each action and who served where that it’s possible you can know where your ancestor was 150 years ago and go there yourself.

The Civil War has interested me since its centennial was commemorated in the early 1960s, much like the 150^th is being recognized today. When I was in my early teens, events that happened 100 years before seemed like ancient history. Now, fifty years later, 100 years doesn’t seem like such a long time.

My plan is to contribute an article to each HHS newsletter for the duration of the sesquicentennial. I will write about where Hartland men were serving and also what was happening on the home front. This is possible because the HHS has a thick notebook entitled “Hartland in the Civil War,” compiled by the Hartland historian Howland Atwood (1918–2010). He completed the book in October 1963, presumably motivated by the Civil War’s Centennial. The notebook includes detailed lists of Hartland men and when they served with a particular regiment. Also included is some general Civil War history of battles they participated in, but not much in the way of personal stories.

To make this project more interesting, I hope HHS members will submit information about their ancestors’ experiences (letters home, diaries, family history). I recognize many 20^th century Hartland names on the rosters, such as Allen, Bowers, Durphey, Martin, Rogers, Rumrill, and Spear. I would appreciate any help in establishing any connection between the men on the rosters and latter-day Hartland residents. Mr. Atwood footnotes his sources and provides fifteen sources in a bibliography. His main source seems to be The Complete History of the Civil War, published in 1960 by Hawthorne Books, Inc. I will not cite Mr. Atwood’s references, but those interested can find the notebook in the HHS collection. When I personally provide information, such as to connect soldiers with modern-day places or people, I will add that info italicized in brackets. To track events, I will also use “The Civil War Book of Days,” a weekly newsletter published by the Vermont Humanities Council that commemorates what happened each week 150 years ago (vermonthumanities.org).

Since the Civil War started in April 1861, it had been going on for a year and a half by this time 150 years ago. I will use this issue of the newsletter to catch us up to September 1862.

In 1861, the United States Army consisted of fewer than 20,000 officers and men in widely scattered companies. The “militia,” 3 million strong on paper, was in fact a huge, unorganized mob. The President could call it to duty, providing the various state governors complied. A 1795 law limited service to three months.

Vermont, of course, promptly rallied to the cause. In a proclamation, Governor Erastus Fairbanks called the State Legislature to convene on April 23, 1861. On the first day of the session, the legislature appropriated an unprecedented sum of $1 million for war purposes. The First Regiment of Vermont Volunteers consisted of militia companies from several towns, including Woodstock. Hartland’s first Civil War soldier was 29-year-old Horace Bradley, who joined the Woodstock company. He was brought up on Densmore Hill near the Woodstock town line [probably the Norman Williams place]. The First Vermont trained in Rutland for a few days, and then left for Fortress Monroe near Hampton, Virginia.

The first objective of the Army was to secure the nation’s capital, just across the Potomac from the rebel state of Virginia. Several Hartland men joined the Third Vermont Regiment in the early summer of 1861. The Third Regiment arrived in Washington on July 26, 1861, marched six miles up the Potomac and laid out Camp Lyon to protect a bridge, a reservoir, and other waterworks. Charles Allen, Roderick Bagley, Fred Blaisdell, Andrew Kezen, Thomas F. Leonard, and Zing Walker were with the Third at that time. The regiment was reviewed at Camp Lyon by President Abraham Lincoln. Several Cabinet members and top Union Generals Winfield Scott and George B. McClellan were also present.

Back in Vermont, the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Regiments were assembling. In late September 1861, these new recruits arrived in Virginia to join the Third Regiment at its new camp across the Potomac from Camp Lyon. Hartland men in the Fourth were Gideon Bennett, Charles H. Cleveland, James French, William Petrie, and Orlando Vaughan. Thomas Kneen of Woodstock came with the Sixth [after the war he owned the farm on Hartland Hill now owned by Andy Stewart].

In October 1861, the men marched four miles into enemy territory and established their winter quarters near Langley, VA. There was very little fighting during the winter months when the men mostly trained, but typhoid, diphtheria, measles, mumps, and all manner of sickness plagued the men all winter and took a heavy toll. Orlando Vaughan died of disease December 2, 1861.

THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN

Once enough troops had arrived in Washington to defend the capital, the Union Army could mount a massive offensive assault on the Confederate capital at Richmond. Richmond is only ninety miles south of Washington, but the plan was to attack from the sea, moving up the peninsula formed by the York and James rivers.

On March 10, 1862, the five regiments, which were known as the “Old Vermont Brigade,” abandoned camp and marched to Alexandria. Two weeks later, they sailed down the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay to Fortress Monroe at the end of the peninsula.

If you’re wondering, there was a Second Regiment. Formed soon after the First, it was the first three-year regiment raised in Vermont and it formed a brigade with regiments from Maine. There were no Hartland men in the Second, although there were four “substitutes” for Hartland men—apparently out-of-town men were hired by Hartland men to go in their place. Three deserted, and the fourth was taken prisoner.

While the Federals were massing at the end of the peninsula, the Confederates were moving down from Richmond and building strong fortifications to hold back the expected Federal onslaught. When the army advanced up the peninsula on April 4^th, General McClellan seemed surprised to be confronted by such formidable entrenchments and ordered a complete halt. Actually, many of the cannon turned out to be black-painted logs. When it was finally decided to try to break and turn the Confederate line, Vermont’s Third Regiment was chosen to lead the daring assault.

The attack was a success. The enemy line was broken, and the Union Army could have advanced; but no reinforcements were sent to follow the Vermonters’ brave attack. After holding their position for an hour, the Vermonters were called back. Of the nearly 200 men who attacked, nearly half were killed or wounded, although apparently no one from Hartland was seriously hurt. What might have been the start of a brilliant campaign for the North and an early cessation of hostilities became known as the Siege of Yorktown. The drive up the peninsula was stalled for a month as soon as it started.

The Green Mountain Men engaged the Confederates in fierce fighting on two more occasions while near Yorktown. Both times, General McClellan ordered the men back into the Union lines. These frustrating results were typical of his management of the Army. The magnificent Army of the Potomac, as it was known, was McClellan’s creation. He was popular with his men and an able strategist, but his hesitancies and tendencies to overestimate the opposing forces were eventually his undoing. The advance of the 100,000-strong Union Army was held back by 15,000 Confederates. Meanwhile, the Confederacy steadily increased its forces, no doubt prolonging the war.

While General McClellan overestimated the strength of the Confederates, General Joseph E. Johnston, the Commander of Confederate forces, knew he was vastly outnumbered. General Johnston received permission from Confederate President Jefferson Davis to withdraw to Richmond. When General McClellan learned that the Confederates had left, he ordered an immediate pursuit. The Army of the Potomac caught up to the rear guard of the Confederates near Williamsburg on May 5, 1862, and General Johnston ordered a counterattack. The Third Regiment was active in repelling the Confederate attack. It experienced hard service at Williamsburg and in the Seven Days Battles that followed.

The Seven Days Battles lasted from June 26 to July 2, 1862, consisting of a series of actions as the Union Army of the Potomac pursued the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, so named by General Robert E. Lee, who took command after General Johnston was seriously wounded. All five Vermont regiments, of course, participated in the pursuit; but with both armies moving up the peninsula, on some days one regiment might be in the thick of the battle while others were holding the Union line but not directly engaged. The exception was the Sixth Regiment, which was constantly in front. White Oak Swamp was the worst fighting as men fought in water up to their waist. After nearly two days of battle, a truce was called so both sides could retrieve the dead and wounded.

The Battle of Malvern Hill ended the Seven Days Battles and the Peninsula Campaign. It was a clear-cut Union success and might have been hailed as a great victory, save for one thing. General McClellan ordered his victorious army to retreat down the peninsula, leaving the field to the astonished Confederates. Some of the Vermont units had come within ten miles of Richmond.

THE MARYLAND CAMPAIGN OF 1862

After the Peninsula Campaign, the Vermont Brigade remained in Virginia for nearly two months without engaging the enemy. By the last week of August, it was on the move again. General Lee had secured Richmond and was moving his army north. The large battle of Second Bull Run was fought at Manassas August 26^th and 27^th. The Vermont Brigade was marching nearby and heard the fighting but was not engaged. Encouraged by a decisive Southern victory at Manassas, General Lee moved to invade the north.

On September 14, the five Vermont regiments, along with 18,000 other Union troops under the command of General William B. Franklin, encountered Confederates near Harper’s Ferry and the march was stalled.

[Note: Although I haven’t mentioned the formation of any Vermont regiments beyond the Sixth, men were enlisting throughout 1862; I will describe their service in later installments. Mr. Atwood does note that James Fallan and Daniel Patch of the Ninth Vermont were at Harper’s Ferry. They entered the army in July. Patch deserted but eventually returned to his unit and was discharged with a disability November 21, 1862.]

BATTLE OF ANTIETAM, MARYLAND, SEPTEMBER 17, 1862

Antietam was the bloodiest day of the Civil War. The two massive armies came together in a dawn-to-dusk battle in which 24,000 men fell; 4,800 died that day, and many more died later of their wounds. Thousands of bodies lay in lines as they had fought; bodies lay in the Sunken Road five feet deep. The Vermont Brigade came late to Antietam and was put with the reserve troops. Although it was under fire, the Vermont Brigade must have missed the worst fighting, for no casualties have been noted for Hartland men at that battle.

After the battle, General Lee withdrew his battered army south across the Potomac and awaited General McClellan’s attack. It never came. True to form, General McClellan did not pursue, even though he had two fresh corps, including the Vermonters. Thus, yet another opportunity to crush the rebel army and end the war was missed.

The Vermont Brigade spent October 1862 resting at camp in Hagerstown, Maryland. On November 7^th, General McClellan was replaced by General Ambrose Burnside.

SUMMARY

To recap, 11 of the 14 Hartland men in the Vermont Brigade fought their way up the peninsula, skirted the major battle of Second Bull Run, engaged the rebels in Maryland and were at bloody Antietam, yet remained unscathed. Horace Bradley’s three-month enlistment was up after the Peninsula Campaign, so he returned home. Orlando Vaughan died of disease before any action. Charles Cleveland was discharged with a disability on December 27, 1861.

There were other Hartland men fighting in the war in regiments I haven’t introduced yet and who died in 1862. Two men from the First Vermont Cavalry died of disease on October 30, 1862. Henry Holt and Benjamin Rogers joined the Cavalry in November 1861. Rogers was taken prisoner May 24, 1862, while in the Shenandoah Valley. He was released September 13, 1862 and died a month and a half later. Many more Hartland men entered the army in 1862. Their service is the subject of the next installment.

Reprinted from the Fall 2012 Hartland Historical Society Newsletter.