The 16th Vermont Leaves Home

Charles Aikens enlisted in Company G, from Barnard, on September 4, 1862. Charles and his compatriots spent most of September learning how to march and practicing military maneuvers. On October 9, they left Barnard for Brattleboro, Vermont.

There were five nine-month Vermont regiments, the 12^th, 13^th, 14^th, 15^th and 16^th. Company G was in the 16th regiment, commanded by Wheelock Veasey.   All five trained together at Camp Lincoln in Brattleboro.  Once they got to Camp Lincoln, the troops received their weapons and uniforms.  Howard Coffin, in his book “Nine Months to Gettysburg” quotes Private George Benedict, of the 14^th regiment. “The overcoats, knapsacks, belts, cartridge boxes and haversacks were distributed yesterday morning, completing our equipment. The whole form an amount of harness which strikes the unsophisticated recruit with a slight feeling of dismay.”

Another soldier wrote home that it was difficult to find uniforms to fit. “The Government did not have in mind the stalwart Yankee boys of the Green Mountain State when giving out the contract for manufacture of army clothing, for a number could not find dress coats large enough, or trousers long enough.” The young men of Vermont were well fed compared to young men from other states. The topic of food comes up time and time again in Coffin's book. The further south our boys went, the more they complained about the food.

The 16^th Vermont was officially mustered into the United States Army on October 23^rd. There was quite a bit of controversy among the recruits regarding their nine months. Some felt that their nine months should have started the day they signed up, especially in light of the fact that they had spent most of September drilling and learning maneuvers rather than their regular jobs. All agreed that at the very least, their term of service should have started when they left Barnard and arrived in Brattleboro. But no, their nine months started when they were officially mustered in.

The 16^th left Vermont in the very early morning of October 24^th, on steam trains headed south. I grew up in Northfield, Massachusetts, on west side of the Connecticut River. The railroad tracks pass directly in back of my house, which was built in 1843. As I researched this story, I realized that Charles and the rest of the 16^th Vermont traveled right by my house, which was only 19 years old at that time. Howard Coffin describes townspeople coming out of their houses and waving handkerchiefs at the passing soldiers, who waved back. I wondered if the people who lived in my house did the same thing. The house is very near the track.

As the soldiers traveled south, they stopped in Springfield, Massachusetts and Hartford, Connecticut, where they were treated to lunches including good coffee, cake and fruit. Apparently the treats there included more than food. Coffin quotes Roswell Farnham, a commander of the 12^th regiment, saying, “We had some trouble with the boys, there were so many girls about. Some of them were rather loose in their manners but their free and easy style suited many.” 

 

                                                                                                                              Roswell Farnum, from Bradford

 

 Also in Coffin's book, a drummer boy relates his conversation with the girls from Hartford. “You have done nobly, but not quite as well as the girls from Springfield.” When the Hartford girls asked where they had  fallen short the boy replied, “They kissed us.” The Hartford girls replied, “We will not be beaten by Springfield,” and the rest is left to the reader's imagination. One would hope that Charles Aiken wasn't kissing the girls along the way, seeing as how he had left a wife at home. With the average age of the Vermont recruit being 22, Aiken was somewhat older at 29.

By the time they got to Springfield, Massachusetts, the vast majority of the Vermont recruits were farther away from home than they had ever been before. We have no way of knowing how far away from home Charles Aikens had traveled before he joined the Union Army, but almost certainly not as far away as Springfield, Massachusetts.

South of Springfield, the soldiers' experience was not as warm and welcoming as it had been in New England. They spent the night in New York City, and were served soup that the Vermont boys thought was better suited to be fed to the hogs. This type of soup was probably standard fare for young men living in New York City at that time. Our boys were used to much better food at the dinner tables of their farmhouse homes in Vermont.

The 16^th Vermont arrived in Washington, DC at the end of October. All of the Vermont regiments were brigaded together. Lieutenant Colonel Charles Cummings, of the 16^th Vermont, tells his wife in a letter home that he can see the dome of the Capitol building, a mile from his tent. At first, the soldiers' tents were so small they didn't even keep the rain off, but the men quickly got busy enlarging the tents with anything they could buy or find, and furnishing them the same way. In several days, they had done wonders, most of them even managing to rig up stoves for their tents.

Immediately after they had managed to improvise decent quarters, the 16^th Vermont received orders to move further south. In an hour and a half, according to Lieutenant Colonel Charles Cummings, they packed up their gear and began marching. After a march of 10 miles, they reached Alexandria, Virginia, where they would spend most of the winter. With their arrival in Alexandria, they were officially in enemy territory.

 

A word about my sources: I highly recommend Howard Coffin's "Nine Months to Gettysburg". It is the best Civil War book I've read.  It's highly readable, with plenty of human interest stories.  Coffin includes stories of the loved ones the soldiers left behind, and quotes letters and diaries.  You really get attached to the characters in the book. Absolutley riveting reading.

 

If you are willing to spend some time looking, you can find lots of letters and diaries from Civil War soldiers online.  Vermont has done a great job of preserving and posting primary sources,  much more so than other states. Charles Aikens and Charles Cummings were in the 16th Vermont.  Roswell Farnum, from Bradford, was Lieutenant Colonel in the 12th regiment.  The 12th and 16th were together during the beginning part of the 9 months.  The 12th Vermont had companies from West Windsor, Tunbridge, Bradford, and Woodstock. I would like to stick to just quotes from the 16th Vermont, but I don't have access to enough of them to use.