Worcester County, Massachusetts - Chapter 107, 1889

The Sl.Weholders' Rebei,I,Ion

The news of Sumter taken came to Shrewsbury Saturday, April 12, 1861. Before the people of this town will feel such another shock as this news gave them, generations will come and go. Somehow or other the people of this town, until they heard this news, "had never really believed that the slaveholders actually meant war. When, on the morning of the 19th of April, 1775, the post-rider |ust from Lexington Common, on his foaming steed, dashed through Shrew.sbury and rallied her minute-men to arms, it was just what everybody expected, - just what the minute-men were for. But when the news of Sumter came to town there were no minute-men listening for rallying cry to arms. Nevertheless, as soon as the news was duly authenticated, the people of Shrewsbury were just as resolved on what to do as their fathers had been eighty-six years before. And such a perfectly unanimous determination as there was ! When one looked in his neighbor's face he saw^ fight in his eye before he had time to speak. And Shrewsbury, in tills respect, probably did not much differ from other towns. But there is an aspect in which this town seems to me quite unique - different from other towns. In all the other towns that I know of, somebody, taking advantage of the war spirit so suddenly awakened, started round with an enlistment paper to raise a company and be captain of it. Here patriotic spirit was wholly unalloyed with any taint of self-seeking or personal ambition. Plenty of volunteers there were already to enlist as soon as they could find out how to do it and meet somebody willing to be an officer and take command of them.

May 2, 1861, was held in Shrewsbury a war-meeting, first of many. At this and subsequent meetings held during the four years of the war, money was appropriated to pay volunteers for drilling, to pay for uniforms, to support the families of volunteers, to pay bounties, to bring home the bodies of deceased soldiers, to refund money contributed by citizens for bounties, and for like purposes to the amount of about twenty-lwo thousand dollars. According to the "Record of our Soldiers," kept by the town clerk of Shrewsbury, pursuant to an act of the General Court of 1863 (ch. 65), this town furnished one hundred and forty-seven volunteers. No man was drafted in Shrewsbury during the war, the quotas demanded of the town being filled even before they were demanded, and at the close of the war it was found that the town had furnished twenty men above its requirement. The one hundred and forty-seven volunteers of Shrewsbury enlisted, a few in this regiment and a few in that, the earliest in the Thirteenth Massachusetts. They and their deeds are credited to companies raised in other towns and cities, largely to so-called Worcester companies, and the services of our soldiers reflect honor on our neighbors of Worcester and other places.

If the Shrewsbury volunteers had organized themselves into two companies and named six of their members for commissions as line oflicers, and one or two more for field or staff commissions, and insisted that they would only enter a regiment with these organizations and commissions, they would have done just what others did, and would have been gladly received and their requirements granted. Our soldiers might not have accomplished any more towards putting down the Rebellion then they did, and the town of Shrewsbury might not be entitled to any more credit or honor on their account than it now is. But what with the exploits of these companies, and their officers, and their promotions, and their record in published reports, letters and official documents, the writer of this history would have found better mate-

The early officers of the volunteers were mostly taken from the militia. Shrewsbury had no militia company. In 1861, as was natural, a little knowledge of the tactics, such as militia officers were supposed to have, was immensely overestimated. If one could say "Shoulder armsl" with the militia accent, he was accepted as a proper commander to lead a thousand men to an assault upon artillery. It was doubtless from an overestimate of the mystery of the tactics that none of the Shrewsbury volunteers sought positions as officers.' The writer himself, being a native of Shrewsbury, and though not, in 1861, a resident of the town, having inborn in him much of the native modesty of Shrewsbury men, declined a commission as captain. On entering the service in a lower rank, finding the army full of brigadiers not fit for second lieutenants, he plainly saw that he had been too modest. The real difference between the officers and men of the volunteer army of the War of the Rebellion was far less than has been commonly supposed. In 1861 two major-generals were wanted from Massachusetts, and two noted politicians, both Presidential aspirants, were appointed. They had both figured in the militia, and practiced the militia accent for the manual of arms at the dress parade of militia musters. Such was their preparation to cope with Lee and Jackson. When the President was looking for two men to trust with the fate of his country and the lives of his countrymen, he had much better have looked over those one hundred and forty-seven men from Shrewsbury and made his selection from them than to have looked where and selected what he did. I don't believe that Lee would have bottled one of them up with a great army at Bermuda Hundred, nor that Stonewall would have caught another napping and sent him skedaddling, pell-mell, helter-skelter, head over heels, panic-stricken, out of the Shenandoah Valley, nor that one would have been the hero of both Big Bethel and Fort Fisher, nor that the other would have both planned and executed the Red River campaign.

Twenty-nine soldiers of Shrewsbury gave their lives for their country in the War of the Rebellion, to whose memory the town has erected an enduring monument, with their names inscribed thereon, on the Common fronting close upon the public thoroughfare.

Several natives of Shrewsbury were officers of-rank in the War of the Rebellion, and their services for their country reflect lustre on their native town, though their residence was elsewhere.

1 Since this statement, which was based upon examination of the publislted rolls of Massachusetts Volunteers, was in priut I have learned that Will am E. Shaw, of Shrewsbury, served as a second lieutenant in the First North Carolina Volunteers, otherwise called the Thirty-sixth United States Colored Troops, Colonel Edward Beecher.

Mr. Edward A. Pratt, late of this town, was born here in 1827. A practicing lawyer in the city of Kew York in 1861, he laid aside his practice to recruit a regiment and had it all ready for muster in June. As colonel of this regiment, which was the Thirtyfirst New York Volunteers, he was commissioned June 20th to rank as of May 21st. With his command he took part in the first battle of Bull Run ; with it also he served in the Peninsula campaign of 18G2and participated in the Seven Days' Fight before Richmond. At the battle of Gaines' Mills he was severely wounded. He was promoted brigadier-general September 13, 1862. General Pratt studied law in Worcester in the office of the late Judge Henry Chapin, was admitted to the bar in this county in 1853 and practiced his profession in Worcester till about a year before the war, when he removed to New York city. He has been for many years and still is a justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York.

John Baker Wyman, of Chicago, 111., son of the late Seth Wyman, of Shrewsbury, was born here November 18, 1816. He had been engaged in railroad business for several years and was, at the breaking out of the Rebellion, superintendent of the Illinois Central Railway Company. With the Chicago Light Guard, a military organization of which he was commander, as the nucleus, in the spring of 1861 he recruited the Thirteenth Illinois Infantry and was mustered into the United States service with that regiment as its colonel May 24th of that year. After a series of the most gallant and meritorious services he was killed at the siege of Vicksburg.

Charles Edward Hapgood, born in Shrewsbury, December 11, 1830, and son of Captain Joab Hapgood, was at the breaking out of the war engaged in mercantile business at Amherst, N. H. He recruited a company for the Fifth New Hampshire Volunteers, and was mustered into service with it October 12, 1861. He served with his regiment till October 14, 1 864, when, on account of severe wounds, he resigned, having been promoted lieutenant-colonel, December 14, 1862, and colonel July 3, 1864. The Fifth New Hampshire was one of the famous regiments of the army of the Potomac and did distinguished service. Its first commander, Colonel Cross, was killed at Gettysburg July 1, 1864.

Dr. Henry Putnam Stearns, son of the late Asa Stearns, and born in Shrewsbury in 1827, entered the service of the United States April 18, 1861, as surgeon of the First Connecticut volunteers, a three months regiment, and was mustered out August 1st of the same year, when he was appointed surgeon of volunteers and ordered to report to General Grant in the Department of the West. The next spring he was assigned to duty as Medical Director of the Right Wing of the Array of the Tennessee, was afterwards Inspector of Army Hospitals at St. Louis, also medical director of the general hospitals of the Northern Army of the Mississippi. He was afterwards in the same position at Nashville, Tenn., where he remained till the close of war when (August, 1865,) he was mustered out of service with rank of brevet lieutenant-colonel. Dr. Stearns graduated at Yale College in the class of 1853, studied his profession in the medical schools of Harvard and Yale, and also at Edinburg, Scotland, and received his degree as M.D. at Yale in 1855; practiced medicine in Marlborough, Mass., till 1860 when he removed to Hartford, Conn., where, with the exception of the period he was in the United States service, he practiced till January, 1874, when he wax appointed superintendent of the Hartford Retreat for the Insane, which position he still holds. He has also been lecturer on insanity in the medical department of Yale College since 1877.

Charles Grosvenor Ward, who was the son of the venerable Thomas W. Ward, Esq., and born in Shrewsbury December 30, 1829; was mustered into the service of the LTnited States September 2, 1861, as second lieutenant in the Twenty-fourth Massachusetts Volunteers, the favorite regiment of the city of Boston, where he had resided for some years previous. He was promoted first lieutenant June 27, 1863, and assigned to duty as adjutant of his regiment. After participating unharmed in sixteen of the great battles of the war and without having ever received any promotions at all commensurate with his long and meritorious service, he was killed in the battle of Drury's Bluff May 11, 1864. His name is on the soldiers' monument.

All the above, except Colonel Wyman, were about the writer's age and companions of his youth, and he takes pride in this opportunity for brief memorial here of their honorable and patriotic services. He will leave to others to recount his own humble eflbrts to save his country. He cannot claim to reflect honor upon his native town by high rank or great exploits, and it would be presumptuous to name himself in a list of natives of Shrewsbury who performed distinguished service.'