"O fool--fool--o-h block-head!"
"Be jabers," said Finn, looking after the Major, but taking care he
was not heard by that officer,--"ye're the first man that ever called
me so far out of my name that I didn't lay on the broad of his back!"
There were four other Massachusetts regiments in the department,
viz:--the 23d, 24th, 25th, and 27th.
The 23d regiment, Col. Kurtz, was recruited in Lynnfield, which
place it left for Annapolis, Md., on the 11th of November, 1861,
and reached there on the 16th; and on January 6th, 1862, embarked
upon transports as a portion of Gen. Burnside's Expedition to North
Carolina.
The regiment, after encountering the fearful storms off Hatteras, was
among the first to land on Roanoke Island, and in the engagements
which followed bore a conspicuous and honorable part. It then
accompanied the expedition up the Neuse, and took an active part in
the battle of Newbern (March 14th, 1862), where it lost ten killed
(including its Lieut. Colonel, Merritt) and forty-one wounded.
The 23d afterwards did picket duty, and took part in nearly all the
expeditions into the interior and along the sea-coast.
On May 7th, the 23d relieved the 25th Mass. regiment doing provost
duty in Newbern, where it continued until Nov. 20th, when it was in
turn relieved by the 17th.
In January, the 23d formed part of the expedition to South Carolina,
but did nothing, owing to a misunderstanding between Gens. Foster and
Hunter, and returned, in April to North Carolina, and encamped at a
place called Carolina City, near Morehead City.
Later it was transferred to Norfolk, and, I believe, is at present in
that portion of the department.
The 23d bears the reputation of being a good regiment, and stands
high on the roll of honor. Success to the old 23d.
The 24th Mass. regiment, Col. Stevenson, was recruited at Readville,
and formed part of the Burnside expedition to North Carolina, and
in the battles of Roanoke Island and Newbern, acted a conspicuous
and noble part. This regiment, in common with others, had its share
of marching on expeditions and doing picket duty (in which it had
several sanguinary engagements with the enemy, who were invariably
defeated). It accompanied Gen. Foster to South Carolina, where it
has added fresh laurels to its name, as well as in Florida, where it
remained until April last. The 24th is a splendid regiment. It is now
in the army of the Potomac, and has shared in the triumphs which have
at length rewarded that long-suffering but noble and brave army--that
has at length came 'out of the wilderness.'
The 25th regiment, Col. Upton, was raised in the western part of
the State, and left Camp Lincoln, Worcester, to join Burnside, and
take part in his expedition. Little need be said, save that this
regiment has inscribed on its banners such names as 'Roanoke Island,'
'Newbern,' 'Kinston,' 'Whitehall,' 'Goldsboro,' &c., &c. This
regiment did the first provost duty in North Carolina. The 25th has
taken part--together with the 23d and 27th--in the late brilliant
advance of Gen. Butler on Richmond, where it has come in for its
share of glory and hard knocks.
The 27th, Col. Lee, was also raised in the western part of the
State, and left Springfield Jan. 6th, and joined Burnside's troops
at Annapolis, Md. The 27th shared in all the battles, marches, and
picket-skirmishes in North Carolina. In fact, the history of one
of these regiments is the history of the whole. All, alike, have a
glorious record, and have earned the same by the hardest kind of
fighting, marching and suffering.
In October, the first of the nine months regiments began to arrive.
The 44th was, I believe, the first of these--a fine-looking body of
men; but seeming more like a regiment of officers than soldiers.
Their style of dress, though about the same as the 'regulation,'
varied in being of a much finer texture, and containing, at least,
two more buttons on the tails of their dress coats than the
regulation allowed to privates. (Orders were issued during our stay
in the city to cut off the extra buttons, and much ill-feeling was
created by the remorseless cur-_tail_-ment practiced by the men
of the Seventeenth towards their fellow-soldiers of the 44th.)
Some of the men, too, seemed to possess a consciousness of their
superiority, induced, no doubt, by their fancied higher social
standing at home, and passed the poor three-years men with the same
patronizing and patrician air, their eye-glasses clasped upon their
noses in the same manner, as when strutting amid their fathers'
workmen in Massachusetts, or when promenading the thoroughfares, and
ogling the girls (beg pardon, young ladies) at home. It is true they
were civil, and mostly well-behaved young men; but their civility,
though well intended, was bestowed with a hauteur which had an
opposite effect, and left rankling in the minds of their less favored
comrades (all soldiers are comrades) a feeling of envy and, perhaps,
disgust. Undoubtedly, there were men in this regiment of a very
high order of intellect; but there was a class among them composed
of puny clerks and school-boys, whose notions of the world and what
constituted a man were about as crude as those of any apron-string
hero could be; and it was the influence of this class operating as
the representative of that better and really respectable one whose
good sense kept it in the background, which caused this regiment to
be unjustly criticised and hated--and by none more than its co-nine
months comrades of other organizations. To show how prejudice will
jump at conclusions, it was confidently predicted they would never
stand fire; but they did stand fire bravely, and acted in many
respects in a most creditable manner for so new an organization. A
story went the rounds, and which may not be true, to this effect:--On
the Tarboro expedition, the 44th were in the advance, when the
cavalry, after waking up the rebs, and finding them in large force
ahead, fell back, and their lieutenant (Mix), seeing no one taking
the necessary steps in such an emergency, rode up to the captain of
an advance company of the 44th, and said:
"Deploy your men, captain; the rebs are close upon us!"