Worcester County, Massachusetts - Chapter with an unread heading (no. 87 of those read), 1889

The Civil War

Sirth Massachusetis Ifigliitfnt - ll'or Mcetiiign - Tweiily-ji/lli lieijiiiiettt - Fifteenth, Tweulii-fii-M, Tlnitij-/ouyth, Foity-eecoiid - Action of thi Town - Other Solfliers - Expenditures - Casualtien - Close of the War.

News ol' the attack on Fort Sumter reached Leicester on Saturday, April 13, 18G1, and occasioned the most intense excitement. Then first the people comprehended the fact that the war had begun. Young men at once declared their intention to respond to the first call for soldiers, and men too old for service avowed their readiness to make any sacrifice required for the preservation of the Union. From that day to the cluse of the war the town of Leicester loyally and liberally accepted all the demands of the government upon it for money and for men. The call of President Lincoln for 75,000 volunteers met here the same prompt answer which it received throughout the loyal North.

Leicester had a special interest in the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment, the first to march from the State and to receive the baptism of blood. Its commander. Col. Edward F. Jones, was a native of Leicester, as was also Joseph Waldo Denny, lieutenant in the Worcester Light Infantry. They had been pupils together in Leicester Academy. There were other Leicester men in the regiment.

There were sixteen Leicester men in the Third Battalion of Rifles, which left Worcester on the 20th of April. Their names were: Henry H. Bowman, Bramley A. Bottomly, Michael Collins, John P. Crimmins, Jacob H. Gibson, George W. Hatch, John Kirk, Joseph Laverty, Martin Leonard, Randall H. Mann, John McDonald, John Moriarty, J. Dawson Robinson, Emerson Stone, Jesse S. Scott and William B. White. Church Howe and Myron J. Newton enlisted in the Sixth Regiment.

The battalion was stationed at Fort McHenry, and returned on the 2d day of August, and was received with great joy. Several of these men reenlisted, and their records are given in connection with the regiments which they joined. The evening before the departure of the Third Battalion for the seat of war, news of the attack on the Sixth Regiment had been received, and had deepened the agitation. That day the national flag, before seldom seen except on government buildings, and sometimes on the Fourth of July, was thrown to the breeze on the flag-staflf on the Common. The war was the allabsorbing subject of thought, conversation, discourse and prayer on the following day, which was the Sabbath.

town-hall a historic building, and in which the fervent patriotism of the people of Leicester found earnest and eloquent expression, as in the days of the Revolution it had done in the old "First Meeting-House." On the 2i3th forty or fifty of the young men of the town commenced military drill in the town-hall, under the instruction of John M. Studley, of Worcester. A town -meeting was held the 4th of May, and .I^SOO was rased and appropriated, and a committee was authorized to borrow .f.5000 if necessary. A bounty of $10 a month, in addition to government pay, was offered to volunteers, and uniforms, guns and equipments were to be furnished if necessary. The women were equally patriotic and efficient. Their first meeting for work was in the town-hall, May 18th, where, in response to notices from the pulpit the day before, they assembled, to the number of about sixty, and with four or five sewingmachines and many busy hands, made garments for the Third Battalion of Rifles. On the 15th, at ^ o'clock on a pleasant May day, a beautiful flag was raised over the Centre School-house, with music by the band and addresses by the School Committee - Dr. Pliny Earle, Dr. John Murdock and Rev. A. H. Coolidge. Flags were also flying in diflerent parts of the town. Says one, writing at the time, " The war feeling seems to absorb every other thought, and the subject of religion seems secondary to patriotism, which now occupies the mind notonly of the private individual, but the pulpit and the press."

There had not been for a generation such a revulsion of feeling as was occasioned in town by the exaggerated tidings of the disaster of Bull Run. Men turned pale, and abandoning all hope of easy victory, nerved themselves for the long struggle, which was not to be ended until many of our own citizens had laid down their lives for tlieir country.

In the early autumn of ISdl the Twenty-fifth Massachusetts Regiment was formed, with a larger number of men from Leicester than any other three years' regiment. In it were many representatives of the families in town, and it was followed in all its eventful and honorable career with the special solicitude and interest of the people.

The national fast, appointed by President Lincoln for September 26th, on account of the perilous and gloomy condition of the country, was a memorable occasion in Leicester. Services were held in the First Church. The attendance was large, and the congregation deeply affected. The recruits for the Twenty-fifth Regiment were to leave for camp that day, and this fact added to the impressiveness of the occasion.

In this regiment were Corp. Augustus Adams, in ten engagements, taken prisoner at Drury's Bluff", died at Florence, S. C; Charles M. Ball, arm broken at Cold Harbor, killed at Petersburg; Corporal James Brady, Edwin Y. Brown, William Carson, David B. Collier, in six engagements; Isaac Creed, in eight engager24 ments, three wounds at Cold Harbor ; Otis Cutting, wounded at Drury's Bluif ; William Eddy, wounded at Petersburg ; William Fernley, taken prisoner at Drury's BluH', died at Andersonville; Owen Finnegan, in several engagements, wounded at Arrowfield Church; Horace L. Fisk; James S. Foster, died at Newbern ; Levander M. Gould, died at Newbern ; James Gehegan, wounded at Arrowfield Church, in ten engagements; John Galooly, died at Charlotte, N. C; David Gotha, in seven engagements ; George W. Gould, killed at Cold Harbor ; Edward R. Graton, wounded at Roanoke Island and died of the wounds. He was saved from instant death by his prayer-book, the ball stopping at the verse,

Braman Grout, in two battles ; George L. Grout, in two battles ; Thomas Grooves, died at Newbern ; William Henshaw, Patrick W. Hannagan, wounded at Cold Harbor; Albert S. Hurd, killed at Cold Harbor, in most of the battles of the regiment ; George E. Kent, wounded at Roanoke Island, died at Newbern ; Hugh Kenney, in three engagements, wounded at Arrowfield Church ; Peter Kenney, wounded at Arrowfield Church and at Cold Harbor ; William H. Kenney, killed at Cold Harbor ; Sergeant John Kirk, in most of the battles of the regiment, taken prisoner at Drury's Bluff; Eugene D. Lacount, wounded and taken prisoner at Drury's Bluff; Michael Leonard, wounded at Drury's Bluff; John McMannis, wounded at Drury's Bluff; Corporal Randall Mann, killed at the battle of Roanoke Island; John McLaughlin, in ten battles, wounded at Cold Harbor; Lyman Moulton, killed at Cold Harbor ; Ezra Reed, Albert Stockdale, wounded at Arrowfield Church and at Petersburg ; First Sergeant Emerson Stone, lost an arm at Drury's Bluff, passed as captain of United States Colored Ti'oops just as the war came to an end ; Sergeant H. A. White, wounded in the foot at Drury's Bluff, in the battles of his regiment till his discharge in the summer of 1864. The Twenty-fifth Regiment formed a part of the Burnside Expedition in North Carolina, and remained in that State till 1864, when it was united with the Array of the James, serving in Virginia before Richmond and Petersburg. After suttering severely and becoming reduced to a mere skeleton, it returned to North Carolina, and being recruited, participated in the closing scenes of the war under General Sherman. It will be noticed that the casualties of Leicester men in this regiment were especially numerous at Cold Harbor. Of the charge, in which the Twenty-fifth Regiment bore the brunt, Gen. Horace Porter writes in the Centuri/, of June, 1888 : " Perhaps the most striking case of desperate and deliberate courage which the history of modern warfare has furnished was witnessed at Cold Harbor. The men had been repeatedly repulsed in assaulting earthworks, had each time lost heavily, and had become impressed with the conviction that such attacks meant certain death. One evening after a dangerous assault had been ordered for daylight the next morning, I noticed in passing along the line that many of the men had taken ofl' their coats and seemed engaged in mending rents in the back. Upon closer examination I found that they were calmly writing their names and home addresses on slips of paper and pinning these slips upon th(i backs of their coats, so that their dead bodies might be recognized upon the field and their fate made known to their friends at home. Never was there a more gallant assault than that made by those men the next day, though their act of the night before bore painful proof that they had entered upon their work without a hope of surviving. Such courage is more than heroic, it is sublime." Of this charge Gen. P. D. Bowles, who had command of the Confederate line, wrote, "The regiment that made this gallant charge was the Twenty-fifth Massachusetts. This we learned from the twenty-odd officers and men who fell down among the dead and wounded at the first fire. Not since the charge of the six hundred at Balaklava has a more heroic act been performed."

During the summer the Fifteenth and Twentyfirst Massachusetts Regiments were enlisted. In the Fifteenth were from Leicester, W. H. Bergen, Simeon E. Ball, who died in the service at Poolesville, Md.; Henry Carpenter, in all the engagements from Ball's Blufl', in which the Fifteenth suffered so severely, to Gettysburg, in both of which battles he was severely wounded ; H. R. Dawson transferred to the Twentieth; Chas. W. Clifford; the three Davis brothers. Freeman wounded at Ball's Blufi', reinlisted in the Fifty-seventh Regiment and killed in the battle of the Wilderness ; William M. who returned from Libby prison and died; Alfred W., who died from wounds at the battle of Antietam ; Charles A. Gleason, who was taken prisoner at Antietam and again in the AVilderness, and who was in Libby prison, Andersonville and Milan, where he died; Charles H. Gough, killed at Ball's Blurt', the first Leicester soldier who lost his life in the service ; Maj. Church Howe, first in the Sixth Regimen t and then in the Fifteenth, in thirteen battles; lieutenant quartermaster in the Fifteenth Regiment, provost marshal at Harper's Ferry, and senior aide-de-camp to Major-General Sedgwick; Peter McGee; Sergeant John A. Richardson transferred to the Twentieth Regiment ; Samuel Slater ; Corporal Charles W. Wood in eighteen engagements, taken prisoner at Gettysburg and again at Petersburg, confined at Andersonville, Milan, Savannah, Albany and Thomasville. These men were, with few exceptions, sharers in the hardships, the battles and the sufferings of this historic regiment.

In the Twenty-fir.st Regiment were James Bell, who, in the battle of Chantilly, becomingseparated from his regiment and finding himself surrounded by the enemy, continued to fight single-handed and was shot. Horatio N. Barrows in five battles, wounded at An- tietam ; Edgar C. Felton, also in the Thirty -sixth and Fifty-sixth ; Thomas Hurst, killed at Newbern ; John Hopkins, transferred to the Thirty-sixth and to the Fifty-sixth; James Lackey, also in the Thirty-sixth and Fifty-sixth, died of wounds received in the Wilderness; Barney McNulty, also in the Thirty-sixth and Fifty-sixth; Wm. McGrath, transferred to United States Cavalry; Jesse S. Scott, musician, also in the Fifty-seventh ; Frank H. Southwick, wounded at Antietam; Wm. W. Scott, afterward asst. quartermaster at Chattanooga; Edgar Salisbury, wagoner.

John Graham was in the Signal Corps and also the First Frontier Cavalry. Jerome Bottomly,artificerand Andrew Crossley were in Co. C, Battalion United States Engineers' Troops, enlisting in the autumn of 1861, and serving three years. The company was recruited by Captain (afterwards Major-General) James B. ,"\Ic- Pherson, its first commander. They were engaged in all the varied duties of military engineers, laying out roads, fortifications and defences of various kinds, and especially in building pontoon bridges, often in the face of the enemy. They assisted in building one across the Chickahominy and another over the James, each two thousand feet in length. They often acted as inftintry. The names of seventeen battles of the Rebellion are inscribed on their colors.

In the summer of 1862 the Thirty-fourth Regiment was organized. Leicester contributed to it the following men : Edwin N. Adams, transferred to the Twenty-fourth Regiment ; Henry H. Bowman, first in Third Battalion RiHes, in seven engagements ; Alexander Benway, John A. Barr, Joseph R. Brooks, Frederick S. Blodgett ; Corporal Henry Converse in nine engagements ; Timothy P. Griffin, principal musician ; Edwin Holden in sixteen engagements, wounded at Fisher's Hill ; Edwin Hoyle, wounded and a prisoner six months at Andersonville; Lincoln L. Johnson died at Harrisonburg, Va. ; Sergeant Alfred James in eight engagements, wounded at Fisher's Hill ; Franklin B. King, Lieut. Ira E. Lackey, Matthew Malloy, Corporal Rufus H. Newton, in sixteen battles, wounded at Winchester, and severely at Petersburg; Frank Pollard, Michael Rice, in fifteen engagements, wounded at Petersburg ; Corporal James Rawdon, died of wounds; Lieutenant Walter W. Scott in ten engagements ; John Shean, Henry Southwick, Corporal Henry E. Williams, wounded in the battle of Piedmont, a minie-ball passing through the left arm, through the body, and lodging in the right arm, captured and taken to Libby prison. John Sherman, James Sherman, Owen Smith, also as Leicester soldiers, Joseph P. Morse, from Worcester, and Norris Morse, of Spencer. The regiment left Worcester August 15, 1862. It served principally in the Shenandoah Valley, under Generals Sigel, Hunter and Sheridan, until March, 1865, when it formed a part of the Army of the James until the surrender of Richmond. Some of these men were with Sheriden at the time of his famous

" ride." They participated in the various forced marches, raids, skirmishes and battles of that heroic commander, as well as in the later battles of the war. The duties of the town officers during this and succeeding years were very arduous and perplexing. No pains were spared to fill each new order for men. In July, 1862, the town was called upon for forty-five men as its quota of the three hundred thousand called for by the President. In anticipation of the order a meeting of the citizens was held in the Town Hall ou the evening of the 14th day of July. It was a rainy night, but the attendance was large, and stirring addresses were made by'the clergymen and several other citizens of the town. It was voted expedient to pay liberal bounties, and the selectmen were requested to open a recruiting oflSce and call a legal meeting forthwith. The next day a guarantee subscription of 81,000 for bounties was secured. On the 22d a company of thirty-two Spencer volunteers passed through town, escorted by the Spencer and Leicester fire companies and the Leicester Cornet Band. They halted a few minutes before the cottage of the venerable Dr. Nelson, who briefly addressed them. The town-meeting was held on the 26th of the same month, and it was unanimously voted to pay a bounty of $100 to all volunteers who had already enlisted or who should enlist under this call ; that an additional bounty of $50 be paid to all who should remain in the service longer than one .vear ; and an extra bounty of $25 to any who should enlist before the next Monday, at 9 o'clock, P.M. The meeting was adjourned to the evening, when patriotic addresses were made by .several gentlemen. On the 28th a mass-meeting was held, but the process of filling the quota was difficult and slow. It was not completed when another call was issued for three hundred thousand men, to serve nine months. The town was ordered to furnish sixty men. On the evening of the 18th of August another war-meeting was held in the Town Hall. It was large, and proved to be the most stirring and eventful of those remarkable assemblies. John D. Cogswell, chairman of the Board of Selectmen, presided. Addresses were made by various prominent citizens. The chairman, in a few earnest words, urged all who could to enlist at once, and then placed his own name at the head of the list. Sixteen came forward at once, in the words of the Worcester Spy, "amidst the cheers and enthusiasm of the large number of ladies and gentlemen, who remained to a late hour." Among the number was the Rev. William F. Lacount, pastor of the Methodist Church in Cherry Valley. The quota was filled in a few days by volunteers. "Among them," as was truthfully stated in the Spy . " were the present and former chairmen of the Board of Selectmen, and many of the enterprising young men from the best families of the village. The industrious mechanic left a prosperous business, the minister his people, the collegiate his college class, and the husband and father the comforts and pleasures of home to unite in putting down speedilj' this wiclced and savage rebellion." Before August 30th tifty had volunteered, all but four of whom became members of a company recruited from Spencer, North Brookfield and Leicester, of which John D. Cogswell was captain, and T. M. Duncan, of North Brookfield, and Lyman A. Powers, of Spencer, lieutenants. On September 18 the company thus formed came together in the Town Hall, where the Leicester ladies served a collation, long remembered by these men in the subsequent days of army rations. Addresses were made by citizens and officers of the c(jmpany, which was conveyed to its camp on the Agricultural Grounds in Worcester, preceded by the band, and escorted by the Union Fire Company. It was finally assigned, as Company F, to the Forty-second Massachusetts Regiment. They sailed on the ith of December under sealed orders. After a long, stormy and perilous voyage, they reached New Orleans the 29th of December, where they served under General Banks. They were in no battles, but were engaged in arduous guard and picket duty.

They were mustered out of service August 20, 1863. A public reception had been arranged for them on their return, and tables were set in the Town Hall, but they were so much worn by their hardships in the malarial regions of New Orleans and so many were ill that the purpose was abandoned.

In this regiment were thirty-eight men from Leicester, - Albert M. Adams (who afterward enlisted in the Second Iowa Cavalry ; was captured in Tennessee by Hood's army December 17, IS'U, while on a charge; taken on foot to Meridian, five hundred and ninety miles, through mud, and over frozen ground, the last half of the way barefoot ; thence in stock care to Andersonville, thence to Macon, Ga., thence to Albany, Ga., thence on foot to Thoniasville, Ga., thence by rail to Baleluin, Fla., thence on foot to Jacksonville, " arriving under the Star Spangled Banner April 29, 18(55 "), George Adams, Sergeant Bramley A. Bottomly, Corporal Charles B. Brown, Henry Bisco, Moses Bagley, Captain John D. Cogswell, Albert W. Cargell, Corporal James H. Croome, Clark K. Denny, Lewis W. Gates, George D. Hatch, Edward W. Hubbard, Henry E. Holbrook, William H. Haven, Charles S. Knight, John Craft, Rev. William F. Lacount (pastor of Cherry Valley M. E. Church, who acted a part of the time as chaplain and the rest as hospital nurse), Franklin JI. Lamb (musician), Charles M. Marsh, Horatio P. Marshall, Peter McArdle, George Morgan, Albert S. Marsh, George Mann, Thomas Nolan, jVIartin Procter, Thomas H. Robinson, George M. Roberts (afterward lieutenant in the Sixtieth Regiment), William C. Sprague, Charles Sanderson, William .1. Sprague, Corporal George L. Stone, Thomas S. Snow, Orderly Sergeant Josepli A. Titus, (afterward lieutenant in the Sixtieth Regiment), Charles H. Warren, Corporal Charles H. Woodcock, Eli Wrigglesworth (also in the Twenty-ninth Regiment), Albert M. Goulding, Warren E. Howard and John F. Kibler (first in the Fifty-first Regiment), enlisted in the Forty-second Regiment, in its second term of service for one hundred days.

July 13, 1863, fifty-two men were drafted from Leicester. Some of them paid the commutation fee of three hundred dollars or furnished substitutes, while others were, for various reasons, exempted, so that it is believed that none of them entered the service. This was a time of unusual excitement. The riots in New York and threatening demonstrations in other places encouraged resistance and awakened apprehensions. Wliatever of disloyal feeling existed in town then found expression in protests and the encouragement of discontent. Information was received of threats to gain possession of the enrollment list, or burn the office where it was kept. The office was consequently guarded several nights by armed men, and the town, to some extent, patrolled. The danger may have been exaggerated, but the facts illustrate the feverish condition of the public mind at this time.

In November, 1863, the Rev. Mr. Coolidge received leave of absence from his church, and spent about two months with the Army of the Potomac, in the service of the Christian Commission. In all the years of the war the women vied with the men in loyal service. Every call for help met a prompt response, and there were many meetings for sewing and the ])reparation of hospital supplies, while the children made " comfort bags," furnished with sewing materials, for the convenience of the soldiers. In all this work, Mrs. Billings Swan, whose great regret was that she had not sons who were able to go to the war, was a conspicuous leader.

Mrs. Nelson, wife of the senior pastor of the First Congregational Church, although seventy-live years of age, labored unremittingly, and encouraged others to do the same. She knit one hundred pairs of stockings for the soldiers, and enclosed a note in the hundredth pair to the soldier who should receive it, to which she received an answer.

On the 21st and 22d of February, 1865, a fair was held in the Town Hall. Governor Emory Washburn was president, and made an opening address. The amount realized was $2636.07, which was equally divided between the Sanitary and Christian Commissions and the Freedmen's Aid Society.

In the Massachusetts Fifty-seveuih Regiment were James Ackley, wounded at Spotsylvania, first serving in the navy, under Admiral Farragut on the Mii^sissippi River, at the capture of New Orleans ; William H. Anthony, shot at the North Anna, and killed by a charge of grape while being carried from the field ; Freeman Davis, first in Fifteenth (wounded at Bull's Bluff), killed in the Wilderness ; Oliver Gosler, died of wounds near Petersburg; Phineas L. Holbrook, wounded at North Anna; Edward A. Hawes, Emerson B. Lacount, musician ; Patrick H. Mann- vllle, enlisted at fifteen years of age, killed at the battle of North Anna ; Henry C. Maloney,died in the service ; Joseph B. Winch, Sergeant Horace S. Pike, wounded at Petersburg ; Jesse S. Scott, principal musician ; Charles W. Gleason.

Hiram Streeter was also a member of this regiment. When friends endeavored to dissuade him from leaving his wife and young children, he said: "I have decided that it is my duty to defend my country, if I die in so doing.'' He enlisted, and after participating in the battles of the Wilderness and North Anna, was killed by a minie ball, before Petersburg, June 17, 1864.

In the Sixtieth Massachusetts Regiment, one hundred days' men, stationed at Indianapolis, were Corporal Alonzo W. Bond, Francis A. Bond, Aaron T. Cutler, Lewis R. Dowse, William Graham, John T. Gough, Lieutenant George R. Roberts, Lieutenant Joseph A. Titus, Heury L. Watson and Alphonso Woodcock.

In the Second Regiment was Edwards D. Farr, wounded in the foot at Cedar Mountain, twenty-four hours on the battle-field ; came from it on crutches made with a pen-knife ; died of the wound in the Massachusetts General Hospital, where he had suffered amputation. In the Tenth were Silas Bercume, wounded at Fair Oaks, re-enlisted in the First Connecticut Cavalry, taken prisoner at Ashland, in Libby Prison, Andersonville, Savannah and Milan ; James E. Bacon, William Conway, who died in the service. In the Eleventh was George McDonald, missing after battle in the Wilderne.ss.

In the Twelfth were the brothers Charles B. Frisbee (in fifteen battles, wounded at Antietam) and Albert Frisbee (in all the engagements of the regiment till taken prisoner at Gettysburg, in prison at Belle Lsle, Libby and Andersonville, where he died. Their brother, William, was in an Ohio regiment, and was wounded in Georgia. Lovell P. Winch was in the Thirteenth ; John Denny, in the Nineteenth; Henry R. Dawson, in the Twentieth. John Lord was in the Twenty-second, killed at the battle of Chickahominy. Lieutenant John Minor was in the Twentyeighth ; also Jesse Pollard, who was wounded in the second battle of Bull Run, and also at Secessionville, S. C. Eli Wrigglesworth was in the Twenty-ninth. In the Thirtieth were Sergt. Aaron Bowman (in all the battles of the regiment till his death at Baton Rouge, La.), Henry S. Thayer (who died at New Orleans), and James H. Whitney (who died in Mississippi). Captain Thomas Burt was in the Thirty-first ; also in a Connecticut regiment ; assistant provost marshal at New Orleans. Alexander H. Fairbanks and George E. Sibley were in the Sixty-first, and James H. Knight in the Sixty-second.

George Armitage was in the First Cavalry ; Henry J. Biggs in the Second Cavalry, also John Trim, Lewis Gosler, Dennis S. Quinn. In the Third Cavalry, John Crogan, Eugene Eschman ; in the Fourth

Cavalry, David Dawson, bugler; Thomas Doyle, first in the Fifty-first Infantry, died of wounds at Magnolia, Florida; in the First Frontier Cavalry, Rodney W. Greenleaf

In the Second Heavy Artillery, James Flannigan, Andrew Stowe, who died at Andersonville, and Charles L. Cummings, also in the Fifty-first Infantry; in the Third Heavy Artillery, John Crogan.

In addition to those named are the following men who enlisted in the quotas of other places - in what regiments is not known : Dexter Austin, John Brooks, Andrew Clark, John Darling, Charles Fay, Michael Fritz, Patrick Henry, E. Hastings, James Morgan, John L. O'Brien, Owen Rice and Hugh Hopkins.

In addition to those who enlisted from town were men who were purchased as recruits from other places. Some of these are known to have done good service ; of others little is known. In the Second Heavy Artillery were William Henry Harrison, James Lowell, Edward McKay, John McDonald, Walter Stone. In the Second Massachusetts Regiment were Richard Lynch, John Mailer and Edward Shandley, In the Veteran Reserve Corps, Oliver Santum and Corporal Edward Kendall. In addition to these were Patrick Dowd, of the Fifty -sixth ; Alexander H. Fairbanks, of the Sixty-first ; Samuel Slater, of the Fifteenth and Twentieth; James Scott, of the Fifty-eighth; James Smith, of the Twenty-seventh ; Rodney W. Greenlief, of the First Battalion, Frontier Cavalry, William H. McGregor, also of First Battalion, Frontier Cavalry, and Corporal George H. Lancaster, of the Third Heavy Artillery.

Eleven of the recruits are recorded as deserters. Their names are omitted from the roll of honor. With all the pains taken to make the list of soldiers complete, there are doubtless inevitable omissions.

The highest rank to which a soldier attained in the service is given in the lists. Some enlisted for other towns. The number of battles in which a soldier

As nearly as can be ascertained, the town furnished three hundred and twenty men for the war, of whom two hundred and forty-eight were in three years' regiments. Six were commissioned officers. Dr. John N. Murdock and T. E. Woodcock furnished substitutes. The military expenses of the town were $42,- 653.28, of which $12,383 were, however, for State aid. A league of enrolled men was organized in the summer of 1864, which raised $4,400 for the purchase of recruits, and $2,960 were raised by citizens not liable to a draft.

Considerable sums were also raised for the Sanitary and Christian Commissions. Throughout the entire war the women were untiring in their interest and labors for the relief of the suffering soldiers.

The names of Leicester men are on the rolls of twenty-eight Massachusetts regiments, and others enlisted in other States and in the regular army. At least thirty-three died in the service ; eleven were in Rebel prisons, of whom seven died. The sons of Leicester were in over a hundred battles.

The premature announcement of General Lee's surrender occasioned such a thrill of joy as had not been experienced since the close of the Revolutionary War. The bells were rung, cannons were fired, and responses were heard from surrounding town.'. News of the actual surrender arrived on the morning of the 10th of April, and was followed by the firing of cannon and the ringing of bells, and in the evening by the playing of the band and a general illumination. The terrible revulsion came on the loth, with the tidings of the assassination of President Lincoln. The feeling here, as elsewhere, was intense ; every other interest was forgotten, business was suspended, the bells were tolled during the afternoon, and ministers laid aside their preparation for the next day, unable on that memorable Sabbath to speak uj5on any other theme thaa that which alone interested the people. On the day of the funeral the bells were tolled and services, attended by people from all parts of town, were held in the First Church. " It was a large, sad audience."

During the morning service," on the 14th of May, a message was brought to the church containing the news of Jefferson Davis' capture, and the welcome fact was announced from the pulpit.