Читать книгу The Third Massachusetts Regiment Volunteer Militia in the War of the Rebellion, 1861-1863 - John Gray Gammons - Страница 3

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To pick up the thread after it has been dropped; to supply the missing link after forty years; to step into the shoes of a dead comrade are things to be desired only by a conceited egotist, yet all these things were forced upon me by a unanimous vote of the Third Regimental Association at their annual meeting at Dighton Rock, in August, 1904.

The Rev. Charles Snow, the Association’s first choice (and no one was better fitted than he to write the history of the Third Regiment), having been its chaplain and therefore acquainted with all the facts in the history of the field and staff officers, as also with that of nearly all of the line officers, both before and after the war, was the man of all the officers in the regiment to compile the Regimental History and publish the same. Moreover, he was retired from active service and considered it a privilege rather than a duty to recall the past and again live over the days with the “boys in blue” with whom he had marched and suffered; but God had decreed otherwise, and so Chaplain Snow was called to the great camping ground above. He died at Taunton, Mass., Nov. 28, 1903, at the ripe age of seventy-four years.

Chaplain Snow had gathered much material and many facts relating to the outlines of the history of the regiment; he had written many letters and had chronicled their answers; yet at the time of his death only the history of Company A had been written. Several of the comrades appointed to write the history of their companies considered themselves incompetent for the task, and those who have written their company history had to be encouraged to finish their “course with joy.” Hundreds, if not thousands, of letters had to be written by the compiler and the writers of company histories, and in some instances it required all the elasticity of patience in waiting for an answer. But why wonder when we call to mind the many years since the close of the war, and the scattered condition of the young men who composed the rank and file of the Third Regiment. Some of them are treading the snows of Alaska and the ice flows of Point Barrows; some are bringing gold and silver from the mountains of Idaho, and oil from the valleys of Montana; some are in France, England, China, and many have answered the last roll call. Long, patient, and persistent has been the efforts of the writers of this history, to give to the comrades a book worthy to be placed in the libraries of every city and town in Massachusetts, and to be read by every surviving comrade and his descendants to the end of time.

No one claims that the history is complete; no doubt there are many interesting facts written in diaries lying dust-covered, which would add great interest could they be found; much valuable history was long ago committed to the fire in house-cleaning time as worthless. Yet notwithstanding all these things your Committee believe that they have given as full and complete a history as could be written at this late date, and with the conscious belief that they have done their duty to the best of their ability, they submit this volume to the comrades of the Third Regiment, their friends, and posterity.

“The cost of peace, Oh! who can tell its worth.

The prosperity of a united South and North,

The stain of slavery from the Old Flag gone,

The Nation living happy, united, strong.”

The compiler wishes to make mention of the great assistance rendered by Col. S. P. Richmond, Capt. William Mason, Lieutenant Lyle and Lieutenant Wilber, George A. Grant, Morton V. Bonney, and the writers of company histories, and corrected rosters up to date. We more than thank all for their work of patriotic effort with the one desire to serve the members of the Third Regiment, who served in the same from 1861 to 1863, and many of the same regiment who served in the various regiments and unattached companies until the close of the Rebellion. The aim of the compiler has been to make each chapter complete in its narrative and historical record, without referring to other chapters.

The Compiler,

Rev. Dr. John Gray Gammons.