THE regiment was saved. Furthermore, it was actually, if not legally, in
the service of the United States. But there yet remained certain complex
processes which had to be gone through with before the "U.S.V." should
supplant the "M.V.M." By a pleasant legal fiction, it had to be assumed
that the militia regiment which had set out for Fort Warren had been
lost somewhere _en route_, and that it had become imperatively necessary
to raise a new regiment to take its place in the volunteer service. All
this, of course, was but the most utter rubbish—and rubbish which under
easily supposable conditions might prove dangerous—yet the obsolete
militia laws which Congress has left upon the statute books, unaltered
for nearly a century, made its observance necessary. General Dalton
therefore (Special Orders, No. 45, 29th April) gravely issued
instructions for the formation of the new regiment, though oddly enough
he neglected the matter of making inquiries as to what had become of the
old one. These instructions were brief and to the point: "Colonel
Charles Pfaff, having been designated to command a volunteer regiment of
heavy artillery, under the call of the President of the United States,
will cause the enrolment of such officers and men as may volunteer in
such regiment, and will cause to be prepared the necessary papers for
muster into service of such volunteers, by Major Carle A. Woodruff,
commanding at Fort Warren."
This order meant two things for the officers of the First. It required a
final and most careful revision of the battery rolls, and a last
searching scrutiny by the medical officers of the physical condition of
the rank and file. Of these two requirements, the first was by far the
most important. Had the regiment been formed in line, and the order been
given for volunteers to step to the front, there can be no question that
the command would have responded to the last man. But it was exactly
this sort of thing that the officers wished to avoid. The regiment was
about to enter upon a two-years' term of service, and its officers felt
it their duty to discourage the enlistment of all whose families or
dependents would suffer undue hardship should that term prove necessary.
It was felt that any public call for volunteers would place men in false
positions—as such procedure actually did in many States—and it was
decided quietly to inquire into the merits of each individual case,
refusing such men as could not show that their entry into the service
would not work material injury either to themselves or to others. By
adhering to this rule, the regiment lost a small percentage of the
strength with which it went out, but the drain was easily made good by
draft from the eager recruits who had been left behind. Better still,
the men rejected for these reasons were enabled to retain their
self-respect, and they left for their homes with the sympathy and
good-will of their late comrades.
The task of the two medical officers was a trying one. Day after day
they labored at the monotonous physical examinations, until they
practically became worn out. Including recruits drafted to fill the
vacant places made by rejections for business and family reasons or
physical deficiencies, they were obliged to pass upon the qualifications
of nearly nine hundred officers and men. It should be recorded, to the
credit of the battery commanders as recruiting officers, that rejections
for physical causes were few and far between, the rigid examination
finding but one officer and fifteen men—a surprisingly small
number—unfit for duty. General sympathy was felt for those sent away by
the surgeons, for without exception they were men whose desire to go out
with the regiment was of the keenest.
But during all the uncertainty as to the final disposition of the
regiment, as well as while the work of transferring it from the militia
to the volunteer service was in progress, the garrison duty for which it
had been so hastily summoned was not neglected for a moment. On the 27th
of April, the day after the command reported at the fort, the batteries
had been assigned to their fighting-stations, and steady drill at the
guns had begun. The drill was no light matter; excluding the ceremonies
of guard-mounting and evening parade, the regimental order called for
four hours and a half daily of solid work at the heavy guns, and that
work was performed with an energy never shown at the annual tours of
instruction in time of peace. On the many days when weather conditions
kept the men from the parapets, schools of instruction were held in
quarters, for the study of guard duty, of army regulations, and other
matters of the sort. By April 30th, the regimental signal corps, made up
of twelve non-commissioned officers and thirty-six privates, under the
signal officer with an assistant, had been fully organized, and was
steadily employed in wig-wagging. On May 1st, the light regimental guard
mounted during the first few days of the tour was replaced by a strong
guard of two officers with fifty-seven non-commissioned officers and
privates. From these, details were made for the patrol-boat crews, and
reliefs were furnished for the chain of posts by which the island was
surrounded.
With the assignment to gun-stations, the organization of the garrison on
a fighting-basis stood completed. The two regular batteries—"C"
(Schenck's) and "M" (Richmond's)—were stationed at the 10-inch,
breech-loading, disappearing rifles mounted in Bastion B and in the
Ravelin Battery; with them, for purposes of instruction, and to furnish
reliefs if required, were four batteries of the volunteers, "A"
(Bordman's), "C" (Nutter's), "I" (Williamson's), and "L" (Whiting's). To
the 8-inch converted rifles on the eastern face of the fort, commanding
the main ship channel, were assigned four more batteries of the First,
"B" (Lombard's), "F" (Danforth's), "K" (Howes'), and "M" (Braley's). The
15-inch Rodman guns, mounted in barbette on Bastion A, were manned by
"G" (Chick's) and "H" (Pratt's) Batteries. "E" Battery (Gibbs') was told
off for the 8-inch converted rifles in the casemate battery of Bastion
A, while "D" Battery (Frothingham's) was assigned to the machine-gun
section, made up of Hotchkiss and Gatling guns.
Variety in artillery work certainly was not lacking, for the men of the
regiment found themselves called upon to handle every type of ordnance,
from the ponderous modern rifle, on its complex mount, to the spiteful
Gatling, destined to spit its fire at prowling torpedo-boats or chance
landing parties. Nor was the drill in the manual of the piece all that
was required: attention had to be given to magazine-work, mechanical
manœuvres, and the use of cordage, while range and position finding were
not neglected. "K" and "L" Batteries also obtained a chance to
demonstrate their knowledge of the use of garrison-gin and sling-cart by
moving from the fort to the pier certain spare 8-inch converted rifles,
for shipment to other points on the coast—a task which they performed
promptly and with credit to their earlier training in the handling of
heavy weights. Infantry drill was not entirely neglected, and daily
marching manœuvres and setting-up exercises were relied upon to keep the
men in form, while steadiness under arms was taught at each evening
parade.
Meanwhile progress in the preparations for the muster of the regiment
into the service of the United States had not been delayed. Colonel H.
E. Converse, A.Q.M.G., assisted by Colonel F. B. Stevens, A.D.C., had
been on duty at the post, representing the State in the final settlement
of property accountability on the part of the battery commanders, and as
the result of their labors the title to the arms and equipments of the
regiment was passed to the general Government. The physical examinations
had been concluded, and recruits had been received for all vacancies.
Muster-rolls and all other papers were ready on Saturday, May 7th, and
on the evening of that day Colonel Pfaff reported his command as
prepared for the mustering-in ceremony. It was first proposed to have
this take place on Sunday, but on second thought it was considered
better to defer it until the following day—which, as it proved, resulted
in giving to "K" Company, of the Second Massachusetts Infantry, the
honor of being the first command in the State to complete its actual
muster.
[Illustration: