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By Paul Chouinard, Pres­i­dent of the Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

 

April marks the begin­ning of the sesqui­cen­ten­ni­al obser­vance of the out­set of the Civ­il War with the fir­ing on Fort Sumter in Charleston Har­bor, April 12, 1861. For the next four years the Danville His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety will reprint excerpts of arti­cles pub­lished in the North Star from 1861 to 1865 focus­ing on Danville’s involve­ment in the Civ­il War.

“Going To See The Ele­phant” was an expres­sion used by enlis­tees in the Union Army describ­ing the expe­ri­ence of coun­try boys going off to war where they would expe­ri­ence life in ways they could not have imagined.

Under the lead­er­ship of Gov­er­nor Eras­tus Fair­banks, Ver­mont respond­ed quick­ly to the call for men to join the Union forces. Dur­ing the Civ­il War, Ver­mont con­tributed more per capi­ta from its trea­sury and from its pop­u­la­tion of young men to the con­flict than any oth­er state in the Union. Danville’s finan­cial com­mit­ment of approx­i­mate­ly $36,000. to the war effort , as well as the num­ber of its enlist­ments was extraordinary.

In 1861, Danville had a pop­u­la­tion of about 2,500 con­sist­ing of about 350 men between the ages of 18 and 45. Out of this pool of men, from 1861 to 1865 Danville fur­nished 245 enlist­ments con­sist­ing of 194 dif­fer­ent men. The bal­ance was account­ed for by re-enlist­ments. By the end of the war, Danville had lost a total of 35 men. Twelve of those who lost their lives were killed in bat­tle and the rest died from expo­sure, star­va­tion, or sickness.