Chapter I.ENLISTMENT.
To Arms! To Arms! Our country calls for aid,Of faithful sons an offering must be made.From every hamlet in the loyal North,Her sturdy yeomen in their strength go forth;Mechanics, merchants, all professions too,Give up the arts of peace, another to pursue.Edwin Emery.
To Arms! To Arms! Our country calls for aid,Of faithful sons an offering must be made.From every hamlet in the loyal North,Her sturdy yeomen in their strength go forth;Mechanics, merchants, all professions too,Give up the arts of peace, another to pursue.Edwin Emery.
To Arms! To Arms! Our country calls for aid,Of faithful sons an offering must be made.From every hamlet in the loyal North,Her sturdy yeomen in their strength go forth;Mechanics, merchants, all professions too,Give up the arts of peace, another to pursue.
To Arms! To Arms! Our country calls for aid,
Of faithful sons an offering must be made.
From every hamlet in the loyal North,
Her sturdy yeomen in their strength go forth;
Mechanics, merchants, all professions too,
Give up the arts of peace, another to pursue.
Edwin Emery.
Edwin Emery.
I have often been asked to narrate my experience in the War of the Rebellion, and have as often refused, but now after the lapse of thirty three years since the close of that fearful struggle between brother men, I feel that perhaps it would be well, for the satisfaction of those who so earnestly desire it, to “Fight my battles over again.”
Mine was not an exceptional experience, only that of many a boy of ’61, but it maypartly answer the question so often asked: “What did the privates do?”
I have often wondered how it happened that I, born of quaker stock on my mother’s side (she was descended from the Kemptons, who were among the first settlers of our quaker city of New Bedford,) should have had such a natural leaning towards scenes of adventure and conflict. It may well have been that I inherited it from the paternal side of the house, for my father’s father, John James, was taken prisoner on board his ship during the War of 1812, and thrown into an English prison, and I have often, during my childhood, listened to his tales of warfare and bloodshed, and longed to be a man that I might fight and avenge the wrongs inflicted on my devoted country in its earlier days; and how I wished, as I read of the War of the Revolution, that I might have lived in those stirring days, and done my part in creating the American Nation.
Certainly it did not seem possible that occasion would ever arise when I should be one of the defenders of that great nation.
The attack on Fort Sumter, the shot that so stirred the loyal hearts of the men of the North, awakened in me an ardent desire to enlistand help avenge the insult to our country’s flag, but my father was so opposed to the idea that I reluctantly yielded to his authority until a few months later, during a visit to my brother in Woburn, Mass., I enlisted November 2nd 1861, just past my twentieth birthday, in Co. B, 1st Battalion, afterwards the 32nd Mass. Infantry. The company was raised by George L. Prescott, of Concord, Mass.
We were mustered into the United States service on November 27th, and on December 3rd were sent to Fort Warren, Boston harbor, to guard prisoners of war, among them being the confederate generals Buckner and Tilghman, Commodore Barron, Colonel Pegram, the confederate commissioners Mason and Slidell, the mayor and chief of police of Baltimore, and many others.
I remember an incident that may be of interest to which I was an eye-witness: General Buckner was walking on the parapet, under guard, when a foreign man of war was being saluted in accordance with military usage; a large 32 lb. gun was belching forth half minute salutes; as he drew near it, wrapped in deep thought, not seeming to notice what was takingplace the order came to fire just as he was abreast of the gun; he realized his danger and jumped forward just in time, for the next instant the gun was discharged, and the prisoner must have felt that it was indeed a narrow escape.
Many other interesting incidents connected with these celebrated prisoners occur to me, but they would make my story too long.
We were drilled in the art of war during all that winter, and under the strictest military discipline, the commander of the fort being that brave old martinet of the regular army, Colonel Justin E. Dimmock. My brother George also enlisted in the same company as myself and was with me at Fort Warren, but the hardships and exposures of that long cold winter and an attack of typhoid fever undermined his health to such an extent that he was discharged a short time before we left Fort Warren for the seat of war in the following May.
The hard and laborious life of the army seemed to agree with me, and from the day of my enlistment until the time I was wounded, more than three years later, my health was perfect, which was something to be thankful for, in the army.
I did not regret leaving my brother behind me for I felt that one son was enough for my father to spare for his country’s service; besides my brother had a wife and child, while I was young, with no mother to mourn for me, should I fall, and I felt that I could be spared better than those who had home ties, and that I could face hardships and dangers better than those who had families depending upon them. In short it seemed my duty and pleasure to go to the war.