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  PERSONAL NARRATIVES
  OF THE
  BATTLES OF THE REBELLION,

  BEING
  PAPERS READ BEFORE THE
  RHODE ISLAND SOLDIERS AND SAILORS
  HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

  No. 2.

              _"Quaeque ipse miserrima vidi,
  Et quorum pars magna fui."_


  PROVIDENCE:
  SIDNEY S. RIDER
  1878.



  Copyright by
  SIDNEY S. RIDER.
  1878.


  PRINTED BY PROVIDENCE PRESS COMPANY.




  THE RHODE ISLAND ARTILLERY
  AT THE
  FIRST BATTLE OF BULL RUN.


  BY
  J. ALBERT MONROE,
  (Late Lieutenant-Colonel First Rhode Island Light Artillery.)


  PROVIDENCE:
  SIDNEY S. RIDER.
  1878.



  Copyright by
  SIDNEY S. RIDER.
  1878.




THE RHODE ISLAND ARTILLERY AT THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL RUN.


When the first call for troops, to serve for the term of three months, was
made by President Lincoln, in 1861, for the purpose of suppressing the
rebellion, which had assumed most dangerous proportions to the National
Government, the Marine Artillery, of this city, responded cheerfully to
the call, and under the command of Captain Charles H. Tompkins, left
Providence, April eighteenth, for the seat of war.

The senior officer of the company, who remained at home, was Captain
William H. Parkhurst, then book-keeper at the Mechanics Bank on South Main
Street. Before the company was fairly away, I called upon him and
suggested the propriety of calling a meeting to organize a new company to
take the place of the one that had gone. The suggestion met his views, and
he at once published a notice that a meeting for the purpose would be held
that evening at the armory of the Marines, on Benefit Street. The meeting
was largely attended, and comprised among its numbers a great many of our
most intelligent and influential citizens. A large number of names were
enrolled that night as members of the new company, and arrangements were
made to have the armory open daily, for the purpose of obtaining
additional signatures to the roll of membership. In a few days some three
hundred names were obtained, and every man whose name was enrolled seemed
to take the greatest interest in having the work proceed.

By general consent, rather than by appointment or election, I assumed the
duty of conducting the drills and of reducing matters to a system. It was
supposed at the time that the force already called into the field,
consisting of seventy-five thousand men, would be amply sufficient to
effectually quell the disturbance that had arisen at the South, but there
appeared to be in the minds of all the men who gathered at the Marines'
Armory, a quiet determination to go to the assistance of those who had
already gone, should they appear to need aid. The call for men to serve
for the period of three years put a new phase upon matters. Those whose
private business was of such importance that absence from home that length
of time would injure the interests of others as well as their own,
withdrew, leaving more than a sufficient number to man a full battery.
From that time drilling of the men proceeded uninterruptedly both day and
night. A greater number than the capacity of the armory would admit of
drilling at one time, presented themselves daily. Many of the evenings
were spent in taking the men out on the streets and to vacant lots near
by, exercising them in marching drill. Through the influence of Governor
Sprague the company was furnished with a complete battery of twelve
pounder James guns, which arrived here some time in May, I think, and then
the drills became spirited in exercise in the manual of the piece,
mechanical maneuvres, as well as in marching.

About the first of June Lieutenant William H. Reynolds and First Sergeant
Thomas F. Vaughn of the three months battery, were appointed Captain and
First Lieutenant respectively, and J. Albert Monroe, John A. Tompkins and
William B. Weeden were appointed Second, Third and Fourth Lieutenants, and
they were so commissioned. The commissions should have been one captain,
two first lieutenants and two second lieutenants, but there was so little
knowledge of just the right way to do things at that time, that this error
occurred, and it was not until after the First Battle of Bull Run that it
was corrected.

On the sixth of June, 1861, the company was mustered into the United
States service by Colonel S. Loomis of the United States Army, for the
period of "three years unless sooner discharged," in a large room of a
building on Eddy street.

On the eighth of June, the regular business of soldier's life began by the
company going into camp on Dexter Training Ground. The time was occupied
in detachment and battery drills until the nineteenth of the month, when
the guns, carriages, and the horses also, if my memory serves me, were
embarked on the steamer Kill-von-Kull, at the Fox Point wharf. The steamer
landed at Elizabethport, New Jersey, where the battery and men were
transferred to cars. The train left Elizabethport about four o'clock in
the afternoon. The journey to Washington was a most tedious one.
Harrisburg was not reached until the next morning, and it was not until
the following morning that the train arrived in Washington.

Although the journey was a long one, and tiresome, many incidents
transpired to relieve the tedium of the trip. At Baltimore, which was
passed through in the evening, every man was on the _qui vive_, with
nerves strung to the tension, so great was the fear that an attack might
be made upon us. Every one who had a revolver carried it cocked. A
corporal, who is now a commissioned officer in the regular army, remarked
to me that he never was in such danger in his life, though nothing had
occurred to awaken a sense of danger, except that a small pebble was
thrown, probably by some boys, that hit one of the gun carriages on the
flat car, upon which he and I were riding. The next day rebel flags, in
imagination, were frequently discovered while passing through Maryland.

On our arrival at Washington, the morning of the twenty-second, we were
cordially greeted by Captain Tompkins of the three months battery, and he
and his men lent us every assistance in their power. The company went into
camp in Gale's woods, with the Second Regiment Rhode Island Infantry, and
adjoining were the camps of the three months organizations--the First
Regiment Rhode Island Detached Militia and the First Battery. The ground
occupied by the three months men was already known as "Camp Sprague;" the
ground occupied by the Second Battery and the Second Regiment was named
"Camp Clark," in honor of Bishop Thomas M. Clark, who had taken a great
interest in the raising and the organization of troops in Rhode Island.

Affairs went along more smoothly than could reasonably have been expected
from men just taken from the pursuits of civil life. Captain Reynolds,
with rare tact, won the confidence of all his men and officers. Section
and battery drills took place daily, in the morning, and the afternoons
were generally spent at standing gun drill.

On the ninth of July, while at section drill, a sad accident occurred, by
which Corporal Morse (Nathan T.) and private Bourne (William E.) lost
their lives, and private Freeman (Edward R.) was very seriously injured.
From some unaccountable cause the limber chest upon which they were
mounted exploded, almost instantly killing Morse and Bourne and severely
injuring Freeman. The remains of Morse and Bourne were escorted to the
depot by the company, and there was extended to them a marked tribute of
respect upon their arrival and burial at home.

On the sixteenth of July the battery left Camp Clark at half past one
o'clock in the morning, with the First and Second Rhode Island Regiments,
but it was broad daylight before the command got fairly away from the
vicinity of the camp. Under the lead of Colonel Ambrose E. Burnside, who
had command of the Second New Hampshire, Seventy-first New York, First and
Second Rhode Island Regiments and the battery, as a brigade, the company
marched over Long Bridge to a point about ten miles from Washington,
where the whole brigade bivouacked for the night. The next morning the
march was resumed at day-break, and Fairfax Court House was reached about
half past one in the afternoon. The battery was parked and the company
went into camp near the Court House, on the ground and near the residence
of a Mr. Stephenson, an English gentleman with a large and interesting
family, every member of which appeared to do their utmost to promote our
comfort. Early the next morning, Thursday the eighteenth, the advance
again began and continued with numerous delays until near night-fall, when
camp was established near Centreville, on the plantation of a Mr.
Utteback.

On the morning of Sunday the twenty-first the brigade broke camp and
commenced the march towards Manassas. The march was a tedious and lonely
one until daybreak. The morning broke as clear and lovely as any that ever
opened upon Virginia soil. In the early daylight it seemed to dawn upon
the minds of both officers and men, that they were there for a fixed
purpose, and that the actual business of their vocation was to commence.
Previously, nearly all had thought that upon the approach of the United
States troops, with their splendid equipment and the vast resources behind
them, the "rebel mob," as it was deemed, but which we afterwards learned
to respect as the rebel forces, would flee from their position and
disperse.

General Hunter's column, to which Colonel Burnside's brigade was attached,
was the right of the advancing line, and soon after sunrise the report of
heavy guns to the left told us that the work of the day had commenced.
Steadily, however, the column pushed on, but with frequent halts, until
Sudley Church was reached, where a short stop was made in the shade of the
thick foliage of the trees in the vicinity of the church. The battery was
following the Second Rhode Island, a portion of which were deployed as
skirmishers, and contrary to the custom of throwing them, the skirmishers,
well in advance, they moved directly on the flanks of the column. Suddenly
the outposts of the enemy opened fire, which, to our inexperienced ears,
sounded like the explosion of several bunches of fire crackers.
Immediately after came the order, "FORWARD YOUR BATTERY!" Although