Transcriber’s Note: Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
THE OLD FIRST
[Illustration: OUR FIRST STATE CAMP, NEPONSET, 1849]
THE OLD FIRST
Massachusetts Coast Artillery
IN
War and Peace
By
FREDERICK MORSE CUTLER, B.D.
First Lieutenant, Chaplain
[Illustration]
THE PILGRIM PRESS
BOSTON CHICAGO
COPYRIGHT 1917
BY FREDERICK MORSE CUTLER
_First Edition, March 21, 1917_
_Second Edition, April 30, 1917_
THE PILGRIM PRESS
BOSTON
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Coast Artillery 1
II. 1784-1840 12
III. 1840-1861 31
IV. Responding to the President’s Call 46
V. The Fighting First 58
VI. 1866-1878 80
VII. The Old “Tiger” First 89
VIII. “The Cape” 112
IX. Since 1878 127
X. Finally 152
APPENDIX I. Genealogy of the Coast Artillery--The
Present Companies--Their Captains 157
APPENDIX II. Bibliography 174
INDEX 179
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Our First State Camp, Neponset, 1849 _Frontispiece_
OPPOSITE PAGE
The Train-Band, 1832. Why It Was Abolished? 26
Artillery in 1917 34
Artillery in 1784 34
Maj. Poore Pays His Bet 40
The South Armory, Boston 70
Fort Monroe in 1861 70
The Fusiliers About 1845 90
The Gray Uniform--The City Guards at Baltimore, 1844 96
The Author 144
Col. E. Dwight Fullerton 144
Col. George F. Quinby 144
Modern Battery 154
The Chaplain in Action, 1916 154
THE OLD FIRST
THE OLD FIRST
CHAPTER I
THE COAST ARTILLERY
When Chaplain Minot J. Savage first listened to the “March of the
First,” inspiration fired his soul; the music was repeating a message to
him. Was there something in the brazen voice of the horns, a magical
harmony of sound with sense; or was it merely the loyal Chaplain’s
imagination? At any rate this is what he heard:
“We’re brothers of all noble men,
Who wear our country’s blue,
We brothers find in any race,
Where men are brave and true.
But we’ve a pride in our own band,
And we are all agreed,
Whatever grand deeds others do,
The ‘Old First’ still shall lead.
So while our feet keep music time,
Our hearts are proudly beating
An echo to Man’s forward hope
That never knows retreating.”
And now, whenever “Adjutant’s call” sounds and the companies move into
line with the precision and rhythmic swing characteristic of
well-trained troops, they also hear the message which was written down
for them by the Chaplain many years ago, “The Old First still shall
lead.” They hear and believe.
Today it becomes the privilege of another Chaplain to set forth in this
little book the reasons why the Old First believes in itself. We shall
see how the present grows out of a long and noble past. Back in Civil
War times observers noted that the regiment was one to be proud of;
there was a large proportion of sensible, solid men who enlisted because
it seemed duty, whose patriotism was not silly or vulgar, but strong and
serious. Today likewise the Inspector General reports that the personnel
is unexcelled; only men of good character are enlisted; standards are
very high. And for the largest part the men are not in the service for
any personal profit to themselves--there is too little pay to make money
the attraction. They are soldiers at the sacrifice of their own leisure,
and often of their comfort. A modern National Guardsman is averse to
boasting or heroics--he is the most matter-of-fact citizen of all. But
surely the Chaplain will be pardoned for saying, what the Guardsman
would be most reluctant to claim, that in the old regiment patriotism is
not a matter of words, it is made up of deeds.
Massachusetts looks in large degree to the command for the coast defence
of Boston. America’s center of wealth and manufacturing, the
Commonwealth holds the key to the whole country. Within a radius of two
hundred miles from Boston is manufactured practically every kind of
supply and equipment; while New York, the world’s center of wealth and
finance, is only slightly more than two hundred miles away. To possess
Massachusetts would afford hostile invaders the best possible base; the
Coast Artillery is an essential factor in the defence of Massachusetts.
Coast artillery affords the most magnificent team-sport in the world.
Three officers and sixty-seven men work together in firing the
twelve-inch rifle, and each contributes something essential to the
success of the shot. Twelve inches is the bore of the rifled gun;
forty-two or more feet the length; $45,000 is the cost, and the carriage
represents an investment of $40,000 more. It is loaded with three
hundred twenty-five pounds of powder, and a projectile weighing more
than half a ton, costing upwards of $150, and sufficient in itself to
destroy a hostile warship. The target, the moving target, at which the
shot is fired, floats on the water at a distance of eight to sixteen
miles; and without the use of powerful glasses is all but invisible.
Range and direction (azimuth) are determined by a combination of most
delicate scientific observing instruments. Now the great gun swings
majestically into place. “Fire!” A concussion follows as if many
railroad trains were coupling--mighty, stunning. Then ensue seconds of
eager watching from the battery, but not many such; for the projectile
travels twice as fast as sound itself. Up spouts a column of sea water
beside the target. A _hit_. And this will be repeated once per minute
until the enemy is put out of action.
Camping, shooting, gymnastics, hiking, fencing, horseback-riding, and
even boating and aviation all enter into the training of the Coast
Artilleryman. Opportunity is given to learn much of mechanical,
electrical and engineering science.
On its lighter side military life includes balls, parades, dinners,
theater-parties, smokers, and the annual January athletic games. Once in
four years there is a trip to the inauguration at Washington; lesser
excursions occupy some of the intervening time. Most valuable of all are
the life-long friendships formed by men who stand side by side in the
service of the country. These endure and keep warm after all else is
forgotten.
The better soldier a man learns to be, the better citizen he makes
himself. Such training in team-work is of priceless value; this service
has become a passport to business success, and today there is no better
recommendation for employment. Civil Service commissioners recognize the
enhanced usefulness of the trained soldier by according him preference
in government appointments.
Six of the companies come from stations outside of Boston,--Brockton,
Cambridge, Chelsea, Fall River, New Bedford and Taunton being
represented. Even more truly than the Boston companies these
organizations offer advantages of the greatest value; each is the pride
of its own home city; each ranks amongst the leading social bodies in
its community; and the armories, all fine structures, are popular club
houses.
Altho it may be hard to “live up” to the responsibilities of a noble
ancestry and one is ever open to the unkind suggestion that his best is
like the potatoes, “under ground,” still it is not the fault of a man,
nor of an organization, if the record of the past contains worthy, and
even heroic, passages. Not only is the Coast Artillery the surviving
heir to most of Boston’s finest militia traditions and honors, but by
the consolidation of 1878 it also inherits the proud record of the Third
Regiment, the militia force of Pilgrim-land and the Cape. Even a more
modest organization than this would be excused for feeling thrills when
it remembers “auld lang syne”; and the gentle reader will peruse these
pages in vain if he fails to see why.
Some day the command will establish a military museum of its own, in
which to display its trophies and relics. Its battle-flags have mostly
passed out of its reach and are irrevocably in the possession of the
Commonwealth. When one visits the Hall of Flags and gazes reverently
upon the tattered silk banners of the 1st Infantry, five in number, the
3d Infantry, two of them, the 24th Infantry, two, the 42d Infantry and
the 43d and the 44th, two each, and in the Spanish War case the two
colors of the 1st Heavy Artillery, seventeen flags in all, one may
possibly remember that a Massachusetts Coast Artilleryman would be
whispering to himself, “Those are our battle-flags.” And there are many
other colors in the cases, under which members of the command fought
during the Civil War--those of the 4th, 5th, 6th, 13th, 29th Infantry
Regiments, and the 4th Heavy Artillery.
Indeed the sole battle-flag remaining from the Mexican War, that of the
1st Mass. Volunteer Infantry, may be claimed as a Coast Artillery
trophy, since it was given by those who had borne it into the custody of
the veterans who made up the National Guards, the 9th Co. of Coast
Artillery. The National Guards eventually surrendered this color to the
Commonwealth. No less a personage than Gen. Winfield Scott had been the
original donor of the flag.
In some unexplained manner, three colors carried by the 1st Infantry
during the Civil War escaped the State collector, and are preserved with
religious care at the South Armory. They are the American flag presented
by former Boston men who had “gone west” and there organized the
National Guard of San Francisco, a blue infantry color presented in 1863
by the City of Boston, and a white State flag retained to replace a lost
Commonwealth color presented by the people of Chelsea. As often as May
25 rolls around, veterans of the regiment bear these flags, together
with the present National colors of the command, to the hall where the
anniversary dinner is held; and under the sacred silken folds the
white-haired warriors renew the memories of Fredericksburg and
Chancellorsville, of Gettysburg and Spotsylvania, while they smack their
lips over something more savory than the hard-tack and muddy coffee of
bygone days. Last winter these same veterans reviewed the Corps in the
South Armory. As they came marching on the floor under their tattered
battle-flags amid deafening cheers from hundreds of onlookers, strong
men could hardly choke back their tears.
Post 23, G. A. R., of Boston, and Post 35 of Chelsea possess some 1st
Regiment relics.
Headquarters will contribute to the regimental museum the sleeve of Drum
Major James F. Clark’s coat, with its wonderful collection of
service-stripes indicative of forty-one years’ service. Sergeant Clark
died in office in 1910. There is also an old commission in a frame on
the Headquarters’ wall, that of George S. Newell as Colonel of the 1st
Reg., 1st Bri., 1st Div., dated May 11, 1839, signed by John P. Bigelow,
Secretary of the Commonwealth; and the warrant of Daniel Horatio Belknap
as Quartermaster Sergeant of the 1st Reg., 3d Bri., 1st Div., issued
July 20, 1824, by Col. Louis Lerow. Between 1831 and 1834 the Roxbury
Artillery had been temporarily attached to the 1st Reg., 1st Bri., but
in Colonel Newell’s day we had no connection at all with that
organization; the Fusiliers were a part of the 1st Reg., 3d Bri., in
1824, when Sergt. Belknap was in office.
Partly because it is the oldest company, and partly because it has
always been made up of men who “do things,” the 1st Company possesses by
far the finest collection of historical valuables of all the regiment.
Indeed fully one-half of the regimental museum is already collected, and
belongs to Capt. Joseph H. Hurney’s organization. In their room one sees
Capt. J. J. Spooner’s original commission signed in 1784 by Gov. John
Hancock, the first flag carried by the company--a flag with fourteen
stars, the complete parchment roll of members from the very beginning, a
drum which helped to keep up the company’s courage at Blackburn’s Ford
and Bull Run, specimen uniforms and arms showing the development of
military skill and taste during each period of the company’s history,
and a small cannon captured by Washington from the British at Yorktown
in 1781, and at Williamsburg in 1862 taken from the Confederates by a
company of ours.
Shooting, military and athletic trophies almost without number adorn the
walls of Headquarters and of each company room; but these can hardly be
included in a regimental museum. The 6th and 7th Companies hold Knox
trophies as proof of their preeminent excellence in artillery work, and
will doubtless resent any suggestion of contributing them to anyone
else; certainly other companies have been trying hard enough to get
this, and have not succeeded even for a single year. But the museum will
have the 2d Company’s original drum, dated 1798, and with it the first
flag. Their most valuable possession is a Stuart oil portrait of their
“patron saint,” George Washington. The same company also display a set
of ancient by-laws inherited from their predecessor, the Independent
Light Infantry, and perhaps also a set of their ancient breast-plates.
If more is demanded, members of the company will fill their lungs and
emit the old “tiger” yell or growl; and this is certain to prove
sufficient so far as the 2d Company is concerned. The 3d Company room
does not contain much of historical interest. Their proudest possession
is an entry on the records of the Governor’s Council dated May 11, 1787,
wherein it appears that a petition presented by Thomas Adams and
fifty-three others was granted, and that a military company, the
Independent Boston Fusiliers, was formally established in the eyes of
the law. On the following Fourth of July the Fusiliers received their
charter from Gov. James Bowdoin, while formed on the slope of Bunker
Hill, and forthwith regaled themselves as guests at the hospitable table
of Gov. (to be) John Hancock. Maj. James W. H. Myrick, Commander of the
Fusilier Veteran Association, is custodian of the original 3d Company
records.
We shall see that the Coast Artilleryman has reason for singing “The Old
First still shall lead”; but the historian faces a difficulty when he
essays to explain who the Coast Artillery are, anyway. Three different
regiments are consolidated in the present body--which was the original?
But see, what’s here! The regimental museum will solve even this vexed
problem of genealogy. A resolve by the General Court of Massachusetts,
duly engrossed and framed, together with an order of the Council
approved by Gov. John L. Bates on April 6, 1903, not only certifies that
the First Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Militia responded to the
call of the President of the United States in April, 1861, for troops to
suppress the rebellion, but also, and more importantly as concerning our
present difficulty, that the First Massachusetts Heavy Artillery are the
“successors” of the regiment of 1861. Blessings upon the head of the man
whose influence secured this legislative action! The historian may tread
fearlessly in full assurance that the Coast Artillery is the First
Infantry of Civil War fame, and that other ancestry is, if not
collateral, at least not in the principal line. A complete genealogy of
the command will be found elsewhere in this book.
One explanation is in order before proceeding. On April 25, 1842, the
companies were designated by letter; on Nov. 1, 1905, they ceased to be
designated by letter, and were numbered in order of charter-seniority.
Altho all company and regimental history between 1842 and 1905 was
recorded in terms of company letters, since 1905 the letters have
rapidly passed into oblivion; and today have become almost entirely
forgotten. For the purpose of interpreting the past in terms
intelligible to the present, it seems best to translate letters into
numerals--to speak, in other words, of the 1st Company rather than
Company or Battery D. And now, the prelude being finished and the
audience all having visited the museum, let the performance go forward.