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قراءة كتاب History of the Second Massachusetts Regiment of Infantry: A prisoner's diary A paper read at the officers' reunion in Boston, May 11, 1877

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History of the Second Massachusetts Regiment of Infantry: A prisoner's diary
A paper read at the officers' reunion in Boston, May 11, 1877

History of the Second Massachusetts Regiment of Infantry: A prisoner's diary A paper read at the officers' reunion in Boston, May 11, 1877

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
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HISTORY

OF THE

SECOND MASSACHUSETTS REGIMENT OF INFANTRY.

A PRISONER’S DIARY.

A PAPER READ AT THE OFFICERS’ REUNION IN BOSTON,
MAY 11, 1877,

BY

SAMUEL M. QUINCY,

CAPTAIN SECOND MASSACHUSETTS REGIMENT OF INFANTRY.
BREVET BRIGADIER GENERAL VOLUNTEERS.

BOSTON:
George H. Ellis, Printer, 141 Franklin Street.
1882.

PRIVATELY PRINTED FOR THE ASSOCIATION.

A PRISONER’S DIARY.

The committee’s announcement, that on this evening there would be read by me a paper relating to the history of the regiment, I fear may have awakened false expectations. But it was suggested that a little personal history of my own experiences, from the moment when that terrific flank fire caused the regiment to leave me for dead on the field of Cedar Mountain to the moment when, three months later, I again came under the stars and stripes at Aiken’s Landing, would interest former comrades for a short time to-night. It is safe to say, perhaps, that our regiment passed through every possible experience of the war. In all the various scenes of suffering and endurance, both physical and mental, which the war could offer, the Second Massachusetts was represented; and in that view, perhaps, the personal adventures of those who, while separated from the corps, always considered its membership the highest of honors, may be considered as forming part of the general history of the regiment itself.

I was fortunate enough to find in my blouse pocket, after acute physical suffering had in a measure given place to the prisoner’s worst enemy, the leaden vacuity of ennui, a little duodecimo almanac and diary for 1862, with half a lead pencil. With these, by dint of fine writing, I succeeded in keeping a sort of journal of daily events, with my reflections thereupon, during the whole period of my captivity, the last entry being comprised in the words, “A free man at Willard’s.” From this journal, I shall make copious extracts, believing that words then written will reproduce the situation better than any subsequent description from memory.

At about 2 P.M. on the 8th of August, the long roll was beaten in the camp of the Second Massachusetts, at Little Washington. As has often happened, we fell in only to fall out again with the news that it only meant get ready to march; and in fact it was nearly five before we were off. The heat during the first hour or two of the march was severe, but the latter part was by moonlight and very pleasant. Still, I find it recorded that some unfortunate and unseasoned recruits, who had just joined us from home with knapsacks heavy with five times what they really needed, were utterly played out before the sun was down. And here I take up the narration as I find it in the little book referred to, with an occasional interpolation and explanation which will be marked as such in brackets.

August 14, 1862.—One week to-day since the fight. Let us attempt a résumé. On arriving at Culpeper, Friday night, after a moonlight march which about played out the unfortunate recruits with their heavy knapsacks, we lay down in a field, Stephen and I cracking my provision box, which had come on with the blankets. [This was Lieutenant Stephen Perkins of Company A with whom I had become intimate, and who shared with me a great and innocent passion for tea. Whichever of us was known to possess a supply of the article was sure of a visit from the other at his camp fire after a march. Before separating that night, I remember he said to me, “Sam, we shall see more fighting soon: I feel it; there is a battle in the air.” There was, indeed, and it ended the battle of life for him.] We then slept on the moor, to the sound of freshly arriving troops and wagons. In the morning, we find an army around us. After a breakfast at the sound of the triangle [for by this unmilitary instrument did Johnson, our caterer, call the officers’ mess to meals], under the sun, we fall in and take arms, but have hardly done so when we stack them again and proceed to stake out ground for a camp. But this is just done and tents beginning to rise when Sherman, of Pope’s staff, rushes by to head-quarters at a rate which “spared not for spoiling of his steed,” and which caused us to hold our hands in expectation for a moment; and, sure enough, in two minutes we were again in line, and this time off under a blazing sun, though for once without our knapsacks. Through Culpeper and about six or seven miles further in a fiery furnace hotter even than that of Shadrach & Co. Near the front, heard a little firing. Sergeant Parsons fell with sun-stroke. Left two recruits with him and pushed on for the right, where at last, panting and half dead, we got into a wood where we stacked arms and fell down behind them. The half hour of breeze and shade which ensued made men of us once more, so that when my company was ordered to skirmish we were actually able to do it. The firing of artillery commenced at about 3 P.M., as I should judge, pretty heavy and well-sustained. Ned Abbott’s company and mine were ordered to report forward, and deployed our skirmishers on the garden fence, with reserves behind; and there, for a couple of hours, we watched the swayings of the artillery fight, timing the explosion of the heavy shells, and watching the varying intervals between the shots of the rebel batteries. At last, as the sun seemed not more than an hour high, and just as Ned Abbott, lying by my side in the rear of our skirmishers, had expressed his disbelief in the fight’s coming off that afternoon, an orderly, followed by Pitman of Banks’ staff, came up to where Gordon was sitting on his horse near us, watching the field through his glass; and it seemed, for the first time, that something was going wrong. I was near enough to hear that he wanted a regiment of Gordon’s brigade to report, as I understood it, to Banks at the centre. “You must take him your regiment, then,” said Gordon to Colonel Andrews. Abbott and I jumped to our feet, and were ordered to rally our men on the battalion; and hardly, panting and breathless, had we resumed our places in line when the regiment advanced by the right of companies to the front, until we had cleared the garden, and then by company into line.

Then commenced the furious and incessant roll and crash of musketry, leaving, as Copeland expressed it, no interval in which a single other shot could have been inserted. We plunged over the ditch and crashed through a wood, out of which came Crane of the Third Wisconsin, covered with blood, and reeling in his saddle, until after about a quarter of a mile we came to a fence with a wheat-field beyond. In this, a brigade of rebels were in line, but what they were firing at we couldn’t see. We opened fire and then were ordered to cease—why, I don’t know, as I could see no one between us and them. But, as their line advanced, we soon re-opened fire, as the converging storm of balls hailed upon us.

How long this lasted, I could not tell. Their red flags advanced, but large gaps were opening in their lines. Finally, the bullets seemed to come from all sides at once. Pattison, my lieutenant, shouted in my ear that Cary was down, and he had been ordered to take his company; and he left. Then the red flags seemed close upon the fence, and it seemed to me that the right had fallen back; and I started across the little gap in the fence to see. Yes, the right had gone;

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