Born to Command

Addison W. Preston’s Call to Arms

By Mark R. Moore

Ver­mont Asso­ciate and archivist at the Danville VT His­tor­i­cal Society
Pre­ston in full dress uniform

How many times do we wish his­to­ry would come alive for us? The sweat of bod­ies and hors­es, the ting, clink and clang of accou­ter­ments , the deep glow and scent of bur­nished leather, shin­ing brass but­tons, the glint of bul­lion gold braid on sleeves and shoul­ders in the bright sun­light, pass­ing through a nat­ur­al arch­way of fra­grant lilac. Walt Whit­man put obser­va­tions like this into verse:

…the head of my cav­al­ry parad­ing on spir­it­ed horses,
With sabres drawn and glis­ten­ing, and car­bines by their thighs, (ah, my brave horsemen!
My hand­some tan-faced horse­men! what life, what joy and pride,
With all the per­ils were yours.)

This was undoubt­ed­ly the spir­it that then Cap­tain Addi­son Web­ster Pre­ston of Danville con­veyed to star­ry-eyed new enlis­tees as he recruit­ed them into Com­pa­ny D of the 1st Ver­mont Cav­al­ry in 1862. Here at the Danville His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety we have Addi­son Preston’s blue wool dress uni­form, his dress pants, his boots, car­tridge box, horse’s hal­ter, flask and McClel­lan saddle.

More impor­tant­ly, I think, we have a pho­to­graph of him at around the age of 33 that con­veys his image—his thin­ning hair is swept back, his mus­tache is fierce, his eyes are fiery and he grasps his sabre’s hilt as if ready to draw it and smite the enemy.

He was pro­mot­ed to Lt. Colonel by 1863 and com­mand­ed the entire 1st Ver­mont Cav­al­ry. Quot­ing from Joseph D. Col­lea, Jr’s book The First Ver­mont Cav­al­ry in the Civ­il War, upon his death the Ver­mont Record wrote, “Colonel Pre­ston was char­ac­ter­ized by quick­ness of per­cep­tion, thought and action which made him what he was as a sol­dier and an offi­cer. He nev­er found exact­ly his right place til he went into the army…Col. Pre­ston might not have achieved so sig­nal a suc­cess as he did in war. He was a born sol­dier, and found that out when the coun­try sound­ed the call to arms.”

But this does not mean he failed to attend to the needs of his men or their fam­i­lies. The record is replete with let­ters writ­ten by him to wid­ows and the Gov­ern­ment Pen­sion Board detail­ing a trooper’s last ill­ness or his hero­ism in bat­tle. His after-bat­tle reports are suc­cinct in con­trast to the dra­mat­ic accounts he sent back to the papers in Vermont.

His per­son­al let­ters to his younger broth­er, William Hen­ry Pre­ston (future Prin­ci­pal- 1867–1870- of Danville Acad­e­my), shows he also con­tin­ued to be atten­tive to mat­ters at home. In let­ters housed at the Kitchel Cen­ter, Fair­banks Muse­um, and tran­scribed by Lynn Bon­field, the read­er wit­ness­es his direct and com­mand­ing style.

Hen­ry

I have writ­ten to B. N Davis to day and I wish you to keep your eye out for Col Sawyer and also one Sgt Mitchel of Co D when he took home with him. Say to Esq Davis to look sharp for the Col. I fear he will try to injure me in Vt if you hear of it let me know. Are you going to teach this win­ter or study a profession?

How much did you make last fall…

Remem­ber Ener­gy is what can grow. I will write you often on this subject…

Addi­son”

You expect the younger broth­er to stand up, salute and say, “Yes, sir.” I say this as an old­er broth­er, of course, but how could Hen­ry have said “no” when one’s old­er broth­er is dis­play­ing hero­ics? Again, I quote from Collea’s book on what occurred at the Bat­tle of Ashby’s Gap on Sep­tem­ber 26, 1862:

Alone, Pre­ston left the impasse on the road [Union and Con­fed­er­ate troops were fac­ing each oth­er on a nar­row Vir­ginia road] cir­cled out into the field beyond the stone wall. Then he point­ed his charg­er at the bar­ri­er and urged him for­ward at full speed. Sud­den­ly and sur­pris­ing­ly to the troops on the oth­er side, horse and rid­er ‘leaped the stone fence into the road in front of his men, and, wav­ing his sabre and shout­ing to them to come on, dashed straight at the force in front of him.’..Not a sin­gle Ver­mont troop­er waivered as the gal­lant six­ty raised their sabres in uni­son, let out a whoop, and followed…their lead­ers at a gallop.”

A minie ball is not an attrac­tive sight–gray, blunt nosed, squat and, quite frankly, ugly. It was the hand-loaded .58 cal­iber pro­jec­tile of choice for the Civ­il War infantryman’s rifle. The effect of the soft lead as it entered into the body was to turn what would oth­er­wise be a minor wound into a bone-shat­ter­ing pre­cur­sor to limb loss. The whole expe­ri­ence became an anti­dote to noble illu­sions of glo­ry. Addi­son Preston’s daugh­ter, Williamet­ta, gave three of these bul­lets to the Danville His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety along with her father’s uni­forms and equipment.

It was a bul­let like these that pierced Addi­son Pre­ston at the Sec­ond Bat­tle of Hawes Shop on June 3, 1864. Recent­ly pro­mot­ed to full colonel (in fact the pro­mo­tion was lit­er­al­ly “in the mail”) a full skir­mish was tak­ing place.

Col­lea writes that Pre­ston went ahead of his troops, got off his horse and crawled for­ward to where the most advanced skir­mish­ers were fight­ing. After mak­ing his obser­va­tions, he inex­plic­a­bly rose to his feet and was imme­di­ate­ly struck by rebel bul­lets. The minie ball entered his left breast near his heart. It took three surges by Union troops to recov­er his body. Tak­en to a near­by stream, he soon expired.

Gen­er­al George Arm­strong Custer, who was admired by Pre­ston, saw the body being borne by his men, stopped and com­ment­ed, “There lies the best fight­ing colonel in the Cav­al­ry Corps.”

The colonel was returned home to Danville with many demon­stra­tions of hon­or by the peo­ple of the sur­round­ing towns. On his cas­ket lay the sabre and pis­tols he had cap­tured in hand-to-hand fight­ing with the Confederates.

Addi­son Pre­ston grave in Danville Green cemetery–photo by Paul Chouinard

On Sep­tem­ber 9, 1891, William Hen­ry Pre­ston presided at a Grand Army of the Repub­lic meet­ing of 50 mem­bers of old Com­pa­ny D of the 1st Ver­mont Cav­al­ry. A sur­prise was pre­sent­ed to each mem­ber by Addi­son Preston’s wid­ow, Juli­ette Pre­ston. It was the pho­to­graph of the deceased colonel.

In Feb­ru­ary 1919, Williamet­ta loaned Addison’s uni­form to the Fair­banks Muse­um. These items were recent­ly returned to Danville. In the archives and arti­facts of the Civ­il War, we can touch not only the glo­ry of vic­to­ry but the bloody real­i­ty of per­son­al loss.

Preston’s belong­ings were put on dis­play for Joseph Collea’s pre­sen­ta­tion at the Choate-Sias House this past April. The dis­play is still up and inter­est­ed peo­ple are encour­aged to vis­it dur­ing open hours—Tuesdays and Thurs­days, noon to 7:00.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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