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The Thirty-Ninth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers, 1862-1865

Chapter 13: COMPANY H.
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About This Book

The narrative follows a volunteer regiment from its organization through training, marches, combat, and duty, documenting engagements in the eastern theater and episodes of capture and imprisonment. Company-level sketches, officers' reports, and veterans' recollections reconstruct daily camp life, battle actions, maneuvers, and periods of garrison and picket duty. The volume intersperses firsthand diaries and letters with a campaign chronology and includes appendices containing rosters, officers' lists, casualty returns, and veterans' association records, offering both readable accounts of soldiering and a reference resource for descendants and historians.

COMPANY H.

Dorchester.

Early action was taken in Dorchester towards raising the town's quota of one hundred and thirty-seven men. On the 15th of July, the citizens convened at the town hall with James H. Upham, moderator, and they started proceedings by the singing of patriotic songs. It was voted to pay all recruits one hundred dollars, and to borrow fourteen thousand dollars for such purpose. The selectmen were empowered to carry out the expressed will of the meeting and the same board was directed to see to the securing of enlistments, by the appointment of a "suitable person" to raise a military company as a part of the town's quota. The Hall had been plentifully bedecked with flags, some one hundred in number, among them there being one that had been borne in the Revolution. Besides, there were curios and relics to excite the curiosity and patriotism of all beholders, the display being the work of Frederick F. Hassam, who received the enthusiastic thanks of the meeting for his thoughtfulness and action. On the 19th there was a great meeting on Meeting House Hill, with artillery company firing sixty-eight guns and the Hon. Marshall P. Wilder presiding; of the event the Boston Journal says: "Shoulder Arms! Forward, March!" The Company left Dorchester Wednesday, August 13, receiving a parting salute from Captain Harris' Battery; in Boston there was a short parade with refreshments, 1.30 p. m., at John Preston's chocolate establishment on State Street. A hearty escort was given by the selectmen, many citizens, and Fire Engine Company Number 5, and all kept step to music afforded by a brass band. From Boston, cars on the Boston and Maine Railroad bore the men, one hundred and thirty-seven in number, to Lynnfield. Captain, Charles N. Hunt; first lieutenant, Robert Rhodes; second lieutenant, Robert Williams.