All Hell Breaks Loose: Vermonters Get Down to the Business

By Gary Far­row, Mem­ber of the Danville VT His­tor­i­cal Society

One hun­dred and fifty years ago this month saw the Union reel­ing from the first major bat­tle of the Civ­il War; riot­ing over seces­sion­ists in New Eng­land; and a spate of activ­i­ty in Ver­mont and the North­east King­dom devot­ed to mar­shal­ing the troops.

The out­come of Bull Run, fought Sun­day July 21, shook every­one from their naive slum­ber. Gen­er­al McDowell’s 30,000 Union troops marched the 30 miles west of Wash­ing­ton DC to attack an equal num­ber of Con­fed­er­ate troops. Some gov­ern­ment dig­ni­taries decid­ed to make a day of it and go and see the bat­tle for themselves.

North Star, August 3, 1861

From the New York Times:

The bat­tle yes­ter­day was one of the most severe and san­guinary ever fought on this con­ti­nent, it end­ed in the fail­ure of Union troops to hold all the posi­tions they sought to car­ry …. and in their retreat to Cen­ter­ville where they have made a stand and where Gen. McDow­ell believes that they are able to main­tain themselves.”…

“… [A]bout a mile this side of Cen­ter­ville a stam­pede took place among team­sters and oth­ers which threw every­thing into con­fu­sion. Quite a num­ber of sen­a­tors and mem­bers of the House were present at the bat­tle. (It is now report­ed that one sen­a­tor and two mem­bers are prisoners.)”

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It has been spec­u­lat­ed by his­to­ri­ans that the fact that the Union men’s three-month enlist­ments were close to being up con­tributed to a lack of fight­ing will. Sub­se­quent enlist­ments were for three years. James McPher­son in his Civ­il War Book, Bat­tle Cry of Free­dom, sug­gest­ed Bull Run was a “Farewell to the Nine­ty Days War.”

The calls for enlist­ments rang through­out the month of August. From the Danville town his­to­ry, A Vil­lage in the Hills by Susan Clif­ford, “The first Danville men to go off to war enlist­ed with the Third, Fourth, and Sixth Reg­i­ments, which would lat­er become part of the famous Ver­mont Brigade, com­posed of the First through Sixth Reg­i­ments. R.W. Laird, a farmer and horse breed­er from West Danville, was the recruit­ing offi­cer for the Danville Com­pa­ny of the Fourth Reg­i­ment which was quar­tered in Danville before head­ing south.” A reg­i­ment is made up of a 1,000 men, a com­pa­ny 100.

Cur­rent Danville res­i­dent and Civ­il War reen­ac­tor, Dave Hare, tells the sto­ry of how the Third Reg­i­ment suf­fered its first casu­al­ty. Enlis­tees ren­dezvoused at the grounds of the Cale­do­nia Coun­ty Agri­cul­tur­al Soci­ety in St. Johns­bury for train­ing. The site is known as the “Old Fair­grounds” which is where the Com­fort Inn now stands.

As did all mil­i­tary units, the encamp­ment in St Johns­bury had a sut­ler which is a pri­vate mer­chant who sells food and oth­er pro­vi­sions to the troops. The men at Camp Bax­ter, named for the man who enlist­ed them, felt they were being gouged to such an extent that one night they broke into the sutler’s estab­lish­ment and stole provisions.

They were rep­ri­mand­ed and told that this was total­ly unac­cept­able and a guard was post­ed at the store. How­ev­er, men went back the sec­ond night and attempt­ed to ran­sack the sutler’s stocks again. Dur­ing the melee, a Sergeant John Ter­rell was shot and killed. It remains unclear to this day whether he was a loot­er or attempt­ing to restore the peace.

Mean­while, down coun­try, the social fab­ric was start­ing to unravel.

North Star, August 17

Riot at Con­cord, NH

Con­cord, NH Aug 8 — The office of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Stan­dard was com­plete­ly relieved of its con­tents this after­noon, by a mob com­posed of sol­diers of the returned 1st Reg­i­ment and of citizens,..[the] secesh (seces­sion­ists) pub­lished an arti­cle reflect­ing on the sol­diers. They demand­ed a retrac­tion, and the Palmers, the edi­tors and pro­pri­etors, shook pis­tols and axes out of the win­dows and dared the mob while city author­i­ties endeav­ored to quell the dis­tur­bance. The Palmers fired four shots, wound­ing two sol­diers. The office was imme­di­ate­ly gut­ted and the mate­ri­als burned in the street. The Palmers took refuge in the attic, but were final­ly found and car­ried to the police sta­tion, pro­tect­ed by police, though with great difficulty.

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The one con­stant here was that the war machine was ascendant.

 

North Star, August 17, 1861

Ver­mont Reg­i­ments — The St Albans Mes­sen­ger states that Col Stoughton’s reg­i­ment is to ren­dezvous at St Albans and the next which is to be a Zouave reg­i­ment will go to camp at St Johns­bury. It is fur­ther stat­ed that sev­er­al com­pa­nies, mak­ing more than one half of a reg­i­ment, have already offered themselves.

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A Zouave reg­i­ment was quite a sight to behold. Here is a descrip­tion from Bruce Catton’s Mr Lincoln’s Army, “[they wore] bright red bag­gy pants, white can­vas leg­gings, broad red sash at the waist, short blue jack­et, tas­seled red caps.” The orig­i­nal Zouaves were native North African troops serv­ing in the 1830’s.The Zou­vave regalia was also used in Crimea and Italy dur­ing the 1850’s.

North Star, August 24, 1861

The fol­low­ing sched­ule shows the num­ber of hors­es pur­chased by Gov. Fair­banks for the two Ver­mont Regiments.

116 hors­es, $11,534.50

…The hors­es are pro­nounced to be an excel­lent lot of good size, sound and well adapt­ed to the pur­pos­es for which they are pro­cured. If all of Gov. Fair­banks pur­chas­es have been as judi­cious as this seems to have been, we think he will be able to exhib­it a pret­ty clean record.

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More about Mr Laird.

North Star, August 24, 1861

Chance to Enlist — We learn that Capt. R.W. Laird of West Danville has list­ing orders to recruit a com­pa­ny of vol­un­teers. He already has sev­er­al names, and would be glad to get more imme­di­ate­ly. Full pay com­mences from the day of enlistment.

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And final­ly, Gov­er­nor Fair­banks’ rhetor­i­cal call to arms.

North Star, August 24, 1861

To the Cit­i­zens of Ver­mont Aug 20,1861

An emer­gency has arisen which demands active and prompt co-oper­a­tion of every lover of his coun­try, in efforts to raise and orga­nize troops for the aid and pro­tec­tion of the gen­er­al Government.

In view of dan­ger, an earnest call has been made…by direc­tion of the Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States for two Reg­i­ments, which under my gen­er­al order…are being enlist­ed request­ing that the troops may be for­ward­ed to Wash­ing­ton with the utmost dispatch.…

…I earnest­ly call upon the young men of the State to enroll their names at the sev­er­al recruit­ing sta­tions for the ser­vice of their country…

…[L]et it not be said that the Green Moun­tain State was the last to fly to the rescue.

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And fly they did.

For more pho­tos relat­ed to this arti­cle click here.