Showing posts with label Edward N Hallowell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Edward N Hallowell. Show all posts

Saturday, February 16, 2019

George L. Stearns to Governor John A. Andrew, May 8, 1863


Mansion House, Buffalo, May 8, 1863

I have worked every day, Sunday included, for more than two months, and from fourteen to sixteen hours a day. I have filled the West with my agents. I have compelled the railroads to accept lower terms of transportation than the Government rates. I have filled a letter-book of five hundred pages, most of it closely written.

[Endorsement:]

This letter is respy. referred to Surgeon Genl. Dole with the request that he would confer with Surgeon Stone and Lt. Col. Hallowell. It is surprising, and not fair nor fit, that a man trying, as Mr. Stearns is, to serve the country at a risk should suffer thus by such disagreement of opinion.

John A. Andrew.

SOURCE: Preston Stearns, The Life and Public Services of George Luther Stearns, p. 292-3

Sunday, February 10, 2019

Sergeant Major Lewis H. Douglass to Frederick & Anna (Murray) Douglass, July 20, 1863

MORRIS ISLAND,
S[outh] C[arolina]
July 20th, 1863

MY DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER:

Wednesday July 8th, our regiment left St. Helena Island for Folly Island, arriving there the next day, and were then ordered to land on James Island, which we did.  On the upper end of James Island is a large rebel battery with 18 guns.  After landing we threw out pickets to within two miles of the rebel fortification.  We were permitted to do this in peace until last Thursday, 16th inst., when at four o’clock in the morning the rebels made an attack on our pickets, who were about 200 strong.  We were attacked by a force of about 900.  Our men fought like tigers; one sergeant killed five men by shooting and bayoneting.  The rebels were held in check by our few men long enough to allow the 10th Conn[ecticut]. to escape being surrounded and captured, for which we received the highest praise from all parties who knew of it.  This performance on our part earned for us the reputation of a fighting regiment.

Our loss in killed, wounded and missing was forty-five.  That night we took, according to our officers, one of the hardest marches on record, through woods and marsh.  The rebels we defeated and drove back in the morning.  They, however, were reinforced by 14,000 men, we having only half a dozen regiments.  So it was necessary for us to escape.

I cannot write in full, expecting every moment to be called into another fight.  Suffice it to say we are now on Morris Island.  Saturday night we made the most desperate charge of the war on Fort Wagner, losing in killed, wounded and missing in the assault, three hundred of our men.  The splendid 54th is cut to pieces.  All our officers with the exception of eight were either killed or wounded.  Col. [Robert Gould] Shaw is a prisoner and wounded.  Major [Edward N.] Hallowell is wounded in three places, Adj’t [Garth W.] James in two places.  Serg’t [Robert J.] Simmons is killed, Nat[haniel]. Hurley (from Rochester) is missing, and a host of others.

I had my sword sheath blown away while on the parapet of the Fort.  The grape and canister, shell and minnies swept us down like chaff, sill our men went on and on, and if we had been properly supported, we would have held the Fort, but the white troops could not be made to come up.  The consequence was we had to fall back, dodging shells and other missiles.

If I have another opportunity, I will write more fully.  Goodbye to all.  If I die tonight I will not die a coward.  Goodbye.

LEWIS

SOURCE: Donald Yacovone, Editor, Freedom's Journey: African American Voices of the Civil War, p. 108-9 which states this letter was published in Douglass’ Monthly, Rochester, New York, August 1863.

Thursday, April 6, 2017

Diary of John Hay: February 12, 1864


Received orders from the General to go to St. Augustine with despatches for Col. Osborne to move his force, except two companies, to Picolata. (Seymour asked last night for the 54th Mass. without delay. “One company is enough for St. Augustine.” “Cool for a subordinate,” said Q. A.) I went over to Halliwell and transferred my blasphemy business to him, and made ready at once to go to the Helen Getty. I concluded to go by way of Fernandina to get near my base of supplies. . . .

My first day's operations in Jacksonville were such as to give me great encouragement. I enrolled in all sixty names — some of them men of substance and influence. The fact that more than fifty per cent. of the prisoners of war were eager to desert and get out of the service shows how the spirit of the common people is broken. Everybody seemed tired of the war. Peace on any terms was what they wanted. They have no care for the political questions involved. Most of them had not read the oath, and when I insisted on their learning what it was, they would say listlessly: — “Yes, I guess I'll take it.” Some of the more intelligent cursed their politicians and especially South Carolina; but most looked hopefully to the prospect of having a government to protect them after the anarchy of the few years past. There was little of what might be called loyalty. But what I build my hopes on is the evident weariness of the war, and anxiety for peace.

SOURCES: Clara B. Hay, Letters of John Hay and Extracts from Diary, Volume 1, p. 166-7; Tyler Dennett, Editor, Lincoln and the Civil War in the diaries and letters of John Hay, p. 161-2; Michael Burlingame, Editor, Inside Lincoln's White House: The Complete Civil War Diary of John Hay, p. 162.

Friday, December 5, 2014

Captain Charles Russell Lowell to Henry Lee Higginson, February 15, 1863

Readville, Feb. 15, '63.

My Dear Henry, — I wrote you last a most “quaintly moral” letter.  . . . I think public opinion here is getting stouter, more efforts are making to educate the great unthinking. Good editorials are reprinted and circulated gratis.1 A club is now forming in Boston, a Union Club, to support the Government, irrespective of party, started by Ward, Forbes, Norton, Amos Lawrence, etc., etc. This seems to me a very promising scheme. Clubs have in all trying times been great levers for moving events along. A similar club has already been started in Philadelphia under equally good auspices.

Our black regiment is likely to provoke discussion also, and in that way, if no other, to do good. Bob Shaw comes as Colonel, to arrive to-morrow, and Pen Hallowell as Lieutenant-Colonel (been here some days).2 I have no idea that they can get a full regiment in New England, but think they can get enough intelligent fellows here to make a cadre for one or more regiments to be raised down South. I do not know how much you may have thought upon the subject, and I may send you a few slips to show you how we feel. I am very much interested without being at all sanguine. I think it very good of Shaw (who is not at all a fanatic) to undertake the thing. The Governor will select, or let Shaw select, the best white officers he can find, letting it be understood that black men may be commissioned as soon as any are found who are superior to white officers who offer. The recruiting will be in good hands. In the Committee of consultation are Forbes and Lawrence;2 in New York, Frank Shaw; in Philadelphia, Hallowell's brother. You see this is likely to be a success, if any black regiment can be a success. If it fails, we shall all feel that tout notre possible has been done. If it fails, it will at least sink from under our feet the lurking notion that we need not be in a hurry about doing our prettiest, because we can always fall back upon the slaves, if the worst comes to the worst. You remember last September, upon somewhat the same ground, we agreed in approving the Proclamation, however ill-timed and idle it seemed to us. We shall knuckle down to our work the sooner for it. My first battalion (five companies, 325 strong) leave on Thursday for Fort Monroe. The battalion from California will be here in March. We have only about 175 more men to get here to reach a minimum. Now that Stoneman is Chief of Cavalry, I think I can get where I want to, so you can see me before the end of the summer.
_______________

1 The New England Loyal Publication Society had this origin: —

Mr. John M. Forbes kept an eye on the newspapers or other publications, irrespective of party, for any strong and sensible paragraph, speech, or article advocating a vigorous prosecution of the war. In the midst of all his important public and private works, he had these copied and multiplied and sent, at his expense, all over the country, especially to local newspapers. When the work became too serious an undertaking for one man, he formed the society, which became an important and efficient agency, during the last three years of the war, for the spreading of sound doctrines in politics and finance. Party and personal issues were excluded. Mr. Charles Eliot Norton took charge of the work as editor, and James B. Thayer, Esq., was the secretary. The Executive Committee were J. M. Forbes, President; William Endicott, Treasurer; C. E. Norton, J. B. Thayer, Edward Atkinson, Martin Brimmer, Rev. E. E. Hale, Henry B. Rogers, Professor W. B. Rogers, Samuel G. Ward.


2 Readville, near Boston, was then the principal camp of assembly and instruction, and the Second Massachusetts Cavalry and the Fifty-Fourth Infantry were camped side by side. The latter was the first coloured regiment that went to the war from New England. It was regarded as a dangerous and doubtful experiment, — by some persons as a wicked one. Part of the men were obtained in Massachusetts, but a great number of them from Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, by the energy and patriotism of Major George L. Stearns. Braving much hostile public opinion and ridicule, the field officers of the regiment, and many of the line, left white regiments to make the Fifty-Fourth a success.

The Colonel, Robert Gould Shaw, had served with credit in the Second Massachusetts Infantry; the Lieutenant-Colonel, Norwood Penrose Hallowell, a gallant fighter of Quaker stock, had already served in the Twentieth regiment, and later became Colonel of the Fifty-Fifth, while his brother Edward succeeded him as Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fifty-Fourth.

Major Higginson in his address, at the dedication of the Soldiers' Field, said of Robert Shaw: —

“I first saw him one evening in our first camp at Brook Farm — a beautiful, sunny-haired, blue-eyed boy, gay and droll and winning in his ways. In those early days of camp life, we fellows were a bit homesick, and longed for the company of girls . . . and I fell in love with this boy, and have not fallen out yet. He was of a very simple and manly nature — steadfast and affectionate, human to the last degree, without much ambition, except to do his plain duty. You should have seen Robert Shaw as he, with his chosen officers, led away from Boston his black men of the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts amid the cheers of his townsmen. Presently he took them up to the assault of Fort Wagner, and was buried with them there in the trench.”

3 Of the summer of 1862, Mr. Forbes wrote in his notes: —

“In that summer I had the satisfaction of getting up the Committee of a Hundred for promoting the use of blacks as soldiers, and acted as chairman of it.

“We raised, I think, about $100,000 by subscription among the most conservative Republicans.  . . . I was able to do something towards the choice of the right officers, as well as in raising the men.”

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 234-6, 414-5