The bloody whirlwind that was September of 1862 gave way to a relatively quiet month of October.
It was as if the gore of Antietam, the bloodiest day in American history, on Sept. 17th, and President Lincoln following up with the Emancipation Proclamation five days later had stopped the Civil War in the East by these spectacular military and political events. The major battles this month would be fought in the Western theater at Perryville, Ky., and Corinth, Miss.
The front page of The Republican on Oct. 1st touted ads for marble or granite monuments and whitewood or black walnut caskets. The last camp to send soldiers to the war in Springfield was filling up as part of Lincoln’s call for 300,000 fresh troops.
The yet-to-be implemented draft, announced in August, was again postponed until Oct. 15th.
Trains passed through Springfield almost daily with regiments from throughout New England. The soldiers of the 13th Vermont Infantry filled 29 cars as they made a brief stop in the city for refreshments and cheers from the locals.
On Oct. 2nd, the Westfield and Holyoke companies marched into Camp Banks accompanied by their fellow townspeople, a Holyoke brass band and the Westfield fire brigade. That brought the population to 890 men at the Boston Road encampment that stretched over many acres near present day Pine Point.
“Milton Bradley has executed a capital lithographic view of Camp Banks. Central to the picture, and over all, as a guardian spirit, is a likeness of the noble general whose name the camp bears. All the boys will be pleased with this sketch of their first encampment,” wrote The Republican.
Besides the picture of the camp graced by former governor N.P. Banks, Bradley’s litho machines were busy turning out games that were small enough to be carried by soldiers to help pass the boring hours of camp life that he had witnessed in Springfield. He sold them by the thousands at a dollar apiece.
On Oct. 2nd, The Republican ran an article describing the design of the Medal of Honor recently authorized by Congress. At least 15 of these would be credited to Civil War soldiers and sailors from Western Massachusetts. One, of the six credited to Springfield, would be a sergeant of the 46th Regiment preparing for the war at Camp Banks.
Western Massachusetts fighting men were scattered all over the map, some with Gen. Benjamin Butler in New Orleans, others in North Carolina, Texas, Florida, South Carolina, and Virginia. The Republican had several correspondents with these various units, many of whom wrote under pen names to protect themselves from officers they might criticize. The most famous was Dunn Browne, a soldier whose first dispatch from Bolivar Heights, near Harper’s Ferry, Va., was sent on Sept. 8, 1862, to be followed by 89 more as the war progressed.
He had written dozens of travel pieces during the 1850’s for The Republican under the same Dunn Browne pseudonym. Republican editor Samuel Bowles compiled them into a book. That same humorous slant continued during the war as he poked fun at himself and did not spare his superiors.
In one of his October dispatches he wrote: “The grand army of the Potomac, I am happy to inform you, anxious Republican, is safe (and so are its enemies).” Browne took aim at Major Gen. George B. McClellan whom he described as a master of inactivity.
It was an observation shared by the man Browne referred to as “that tall president.” Abraham Lincoln’s face-to-face meeting and nearly continuous call for action on McClellan’s part were ignored by the general. He would last the month, barely.
Springfield was preparing for another invasion of sorts in the second week of October when nearly 8,000 faithful would attend the 52nd annual convention of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. The Oct. 7th-10th session would tax the city’s resources already stretched thin by hordes of new workers at the armory and other war oriented industries not to mention the nearly 1,000 soldiers in camp.
A young Mllton BradleyThe four-day conference turned out to be a great success, save for the pickpockets that worked the crowded halls and auditoriums and unseasonably warm temperatures near 90 degrees. Extra trains and greatly reduced fares help get the crowds in and out of the city.
At the same time the missionaries were meeting in Springfield, Massachusetts Democrats were convening at Worcester and crafting a series of resolves attacking the policies of President Lincoln.
First among them was that they “deeply regreted” that Lincoln declared the Emancipation Proclamation on Sept. 22, 1862. They resolved the proclamation was “in the name of civilized humanity” unconstitutional, inexpedient and unjustifiable on the grounds of military necessity.
They also attacked the president on his suspension of certain “constitutional right” such as writ of habeus corpus and trial by jury. They also “resolved” that McClellan should be allowed to keep his command without interference.
On the suspension of habeus corpus, The Republican was quick to point out that Gen. Andrew Jackson, patron saint of Democrats, did the same thing in New Orleans, but Democrats took the opposite view in 1844 when a measure was proposed to refund a fine imposed on Jackson.
On Oct. 11th, The Republican reported another arson fire had broken out in downtown Springfield. Several businesses, a paint shop and saloon were destroyed in the most recent of several suspicious blazes. The city fathers were already running ads in the paper offering a $500 reward for the arrest and conviction of those responsible for a fire in the Union Block back in August.
While McClellan and his army were dormant, the readers of The Republican learned on Oct. 13th of the daring Confederate cavalry raid deep into Pennsylvania by Jeb Stuart. The rebels captured tons of supplies and 800 horses. The newspaper recounted one instance where the rebels halted a funeral procession and took the horses attached to the hearse.
On that same day it was reported that several of the original officers of the 10th Massachusetts, the first regiment from Springfield to leave for the war, had been placed under arrest and faced court martial for protesting the choice of Capt. Dexter Parker to be their new major. Parker, a former state representative, was seen as a politically connected outsider, although he was a veteran of previous battles. The bickering went on for weeks.
Back in Springfield military discipline was also an issue and stringent orders in relation to deserters were published which called for policing the camps and empowering local authorities to arrest suspected deserters. The Republican wrote the following on one incident that deals with the desertion problem and points out the anger felt towards the English who at this time were aiding the Confederates:
“Two scamps named James Hayden and Francis Leonard, Englishmen by birth, who were previously employed at the factories in Indian Orchard, were arrested as deserters in this city by Officer Shaw. They have enlisted under various aliases in this state and Connecticut and after getting the bounty deserted.”
The newspaper went on to recount how they spent most of their ill gotten gains “having a good time.” The article concluded, “This getting the bounty from the government and then deserting, is the meanest of all mean things. But what better could we expect from Englishmen.”
As the month drew to a close activities at Camp Banks were stepped up. The soldiers now knew they would be sent to join with local 27th and other Massachusetts regiments in North Carolina. More than $5,000 in bounty money had been distributed, special trains had been put on for visitors to say their good-byes and Gov. John Andrews had reviewed the troops.
The men of the 46th were issued new uniforms and overcoats. The uniforms were fine, but the coats were a disaster and turned out to be another example of profit gouging.
“The overcoats furnished to our new regiments are absolutely worthless, and it is an outrage upon the soldiers to force them to take them,” wrote The Republican. “They come from Pennsylvania contractors, whose fraud upon the government have been indecent and monstrous since the war commenced.”
Meanwhile, an ad in the newspaper by the Haynes Company of downtown Springfield was seeking seamstresses and tailors to work on an order for 16,000 coats. Previously the city-based Brigham Co. had turned out thousands of coats with only two being returned.
On Oct. 30th, The Republican described in great detail that the Ames manufacturing company of Chicopee had completed an elegant presentation sword intended as a gift from the 21st regiment to Gen. Jesse Reno.
Gen. Jesse RenoThe sword would be presented to the general’s widow. He had been killed in September at the Battle of South Mountain.
In 2001, a Maine auction house sold the Reno sword for $109,000, setting a record for an Ames sword.
Close-up of the hilt of Gen. Reno's swords made by Ames Co. of ChicopeeTwo competing newspaper ads sought agents to sell a couple of newly minted books – “History of the Civil War in America” by J.T. Headley, and “Abbott’s History of the Civil War in America.”
They may have been jumping the gun. There was much more history to be made.
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