WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
Memories of the Civil War cover

Memories of the Civil War

Chapter 14: Chapter XIII. RE-ENLISTED.
By Henry B. James
Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

History - AmericanHistory - Warfare

About This Book

The author recounts his Civil War service from enlistment through mustering out, describing recruitment, camp life, marches, and frontline engagements such as Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg. He intersperses diary extracts and letters to convey daily routines, discipline, camaraderie, and the strain of long campaigns. Episodes include arrest, re-enlistment, furloughs, wounds, and reflections on comrades lost. The narrative balances tactical movement and personal observation to show the physical hardships and moral weight of soldiering during the conflict.

Chapter XIII.
RE-ENLISTED.

Two years have passed; those gallant men
Have kept the oath that they made then.
On many a field their valor’s shone,
On many a field their bones are strewn;
They’ve bravely fought and still shall fight,
For Union, and the cause of right!
Till rebel hosts shall yield the way,
To Union arms, and Union sway.
J. B. C.
The die is cast! Come life or death,
My Country! I will faithful be,
Until o’er all thy wide domain,
Shall wave the banner of the free.
L. M. J.

It was at Liberty that most of the members of the 32nd Massachusetts re-enlisted for three years more. I was not the first to re-enlist; I knew now what a soldier’s life really was. I realized that my father knew what he was talking about, when he told me that it was no holiday picnic, and that the men of the South were as brave as those of the North, and that it would take years instead of months to conquer them, as so many thought when the war began. I had endured two years of hardships and dangers, and longed for a peaceful life with those I loved at home. I knew my dear old father would be grieved, were I to again enlist.

I fought it all out alone on picket, that cold long night, went back to camp, and with fingers almost too stiff with cold to hold the pen, signed my name to the paper that bound me to the service of my country for “Three years more, or until the close of the war.”

Yes, I had made up my mind, that come what would, I would see it out! My country needed me; dire disaster had overtaken it, dark and gloomy was the situation, and now more than ever, were needed strong and willing hands to defend it; and so I would do my duty, and leave the rest to God.

And now, looking back over the long years since that day, I can truly say, I have never regretted my decision. The terrible year that followed would have been included in my first term of enlistment of three years, and so I did not serve quite a year longer than I would have done, if I had not re-enlisted. Many a poor fellow who felt that three years was enough, and that he could not endure such a life any longer than that, and consequently did not re-enlist, lost his life in the battle summer that followed. But none could foresee the future, and the close of the war looked to us in the field, as a long way ahead.

So many of the regiment re-enlisted that we were given 30 days furlough, and allowed to go home as a regiment. We had previously had re-enforcements from time to time, so that there were 340 who re-enlisted, and started for home, arriving in Fall River by the New York boat, on January 17th, 1864.