Some Whitefield men who served in the Civil War liked the southern climate so well they never returned. Many others died of disease or fell in battle. Some deserted.
In paying tribute to all men and women who have lost their lives in war, the gathering at the Whitefield Historical Society’s annual Memorial Day observance was offered a glimpse of the war’s impact on this northern Lincoln County town 150 years ago.
Pat Parks, reading from the college term paper she wrote in 1994, said every time President Lincoln sent out the call for men, there was a town meeting. These meetings “centered around the amount to be paid as a bounty to those enlisting and the amount to be paid to soldiers’ families,” she said. Bounties encouraged enlistment to meet the quota each town had to fill, and it appears that between 128 and 172 Whitefield men, from what was essentially a farming community, answered the call.
In 1862, recruiter Jeremiah Wheeler, himself exempt from serving because of age and physical disability, enlisted as a private, inspiring others to follow his example and fill the town’s quota.
Archivist Marie Sacks, pointing out that “war always has a human face,” introduced society president Bill McKeen, who read from a transcribed interview with local Civil War researcher Arthur “Buzzy” Gould. Attempting to determine how many Whitefield men went to war, Gould happened upon a list of 82 Civil War veterans compiled in 1906 by Lore Ford, then discovered the state adjutant general’s report that cited 172. Whitefield’s 1884 town report lists 117.
Eventually, Gould could confirm only 128, while believing that the state’s number is probably correct.
Abraham Preble, of the East River Road, recruited a number of Whitefield men to form Company F within the 21st Maine Regiment. These troops traveled by rail from Bath, “an arduous two-week journey,” to headquarters in Washington D.C., Gould writes. The 21st, numbering 1100 men, was sent to Baton Rouge, La., with Preble in charge of Company F as first lieutenant.
They had signed up, out of patriotic fervor, for nine months, and at the end of that time more than half had died from malaria and other diseases. Gould found that “this was the story of the many regiments that went south.” They didn’t know anything about the climate and environment they were entering, nor did their officers.
When the draft was instituted in 1862, the desertion rate soared. For a three-year enlistment term the state paid a $400 bounty in silver dollars. But it was easy to enlist in a Maine regiment, collect the money, desert, and next day join the 15th Massachusetts and receive another $400. “These boys turned it into a money-making thing,” Gould writes.
At the same time, he adds, “If you were as ill-trained, ill-fed and ill-equipped as the poor soldier of 1863, you would have deserted, too.” Some soldiers went into battle not knowing how to load a musket and some of the officers “were less than desirable.”
In tracking down the discrepancy in numbers, and wanting to prove which men were actually living in Whitefield when they enlisted, Gould went to talk to bachelor blacksmith Calvin Place, who used to live on the Mills Road. This visit turned his research around.
Gould saw a framed photograph on the wall of a Civil War veteran holding a musket. Place said it was his great-grandfather, William Place. It turns out that Gould had no listing of him because the soldier had served as one of the original first U.S. sharpshooters with the regular U.S. Army, and Maine would have no record of that.
Gould developed a list of Whitefield men killed in the war, indicating where they mustered into service, with what outfit, and when they died. “Some of these men excelled, some of them deserted, and I found that some of them you really wouldn’t want to know much about them.”
Lore Ford III read this list, which included men as young as 18 and single, and as old as 44 and married. Some were killed in action, some died in hospitals of disease or wounds. John A. Erskine, 18, was captured and died in a North Carolina prison.
Presenting another perspective, Mike Shaw read a letter from Henry Wheeler, a musician with the 17th Maine Regiment, dated Aug. 12, 1864, to his friend Dan Longfellow back home: “You ought to be here with us a little while, to wake up in the night and hear the bullets and shells whistling over your head.”
Referring to the draft, Wheeler asks, “Ain’t the boys getting worried about it? The best thing they can do is to enlist for one year. I am in tip top health, enjoy myself first rate, have a hard march once in a while for exercise.”
Among items displayed were a Civil War era token coin and a plaque signed by Maine Gov. Joshua Chamberlain commemorating Alden Boynton, the grandfather of Albert Boynton. The plaque thanks the senior Boynton “for your honorable part as a volunteer from the State of Maine in the service of the United States in suppressing the rebellion and thereby maintaining the integrity of the Union.”
An accompanying photograph shows the military man astride his white mount, Samantha, in full cavalry regalia, armed with a seven-shot carbine, a sword and pistol.
Albert Boynton, who was four years old when his grandfather died, said, “He used to take us piggy back. He was 16 when he [enlisted]. He was a big boy who passed for 17,” and he later fought in the Indian wars in Kansas.
The photo shows a GAR emblem on his hat indicating the role Alden Boynton played in establishing the Grand Army of the Republic Hall, which is Arlington Grange today.
Providing the invocation and benediction was Rev. Judith Robbins. Speaking for the board of selectmen, Sue McKeen read the annual proclamation, and string musicians Alex and Sarah Smith played the national anthem, “Ashokan Farewell” and the Civil War period song, “Lorena.”
The historical society presented the high school students a certificate of appreciation for the many years they have performed for the Memorial Day observance. Ken Marden and Glenn Angell conducted the flag ceremony, and middle school student Hannah Burns played “Taps” at the conclusion.
