ble, and prevents the highest devotion to the regiment. There has consequently resulted a fraternal spirit and an absence of ill feeling among the veterans of the Sixteenth which is a source of lasting gratification. It was, therefore, easy for them to adopt, if I may so speak, these companies of Third District men who were recruited for and were naturally by location of the Seventeenth-to fight, work, and suffer with them, and share the honors they so dearly. bought.

There has ever been a feeling of grateful appreciation among the members of the Sixteenth toward the Third District men who were their compatriots and comrades. Time, indeed, has made some almost forget the connection of those brave men with the Seventeenth. The records do not usually distinguish them, and therefore it is well that we should remember that their meritorious services reflected honor upon their district and showed of what stuff Colonel Kent's regiment was made. At least three fourths of the men in my company were from the Third District, many of them neighbors and friends, for, although I enlisted in Antrim, my parents resided in Newport during the war. I can therefore speak from close personal acquaintance. Our captain, Daniel Buffum of Swanzey, was one of them, and he died for his country at New Orleans. A list of those who suffered and who died would be a roster of the company, and other personal mention is therefore omitted.

There is among the survivors much pride in the fact that they were from the old Third District. In conversation with them it always comes out that they enlisted for the Seventeenth, and they are still loyal to the old district and to Colonel Kent, while lacking nothing in appreciation of the qualities of the late Colonel Pike. And with this loyalty is mingled regret that the Seventeenth could not have gone to the front in its entirety, following its proper leaders and under its own regimental flag. Then its history would

have been unified, not scattered, and honors won by its members individually would have been credited to the proper organization and district.

It is not for me, and I do not deem it to lie within the scope of this chapter, to go beyond the commonest facts, often recited, in regard to the connection of the Third District men with the Sixteenth, to look for causes, reasons, or

motives why the state should have dismembered the Seventeenth, however much it added strength to the others. It is no slight thing to separate men from the officers who have recruited and trained them, and to leave the officers without the opportunity to lead their men forth to their expected duty in the field of patriotic service. We may say it was expedient, yet, nevertheless, it savors of injustice. I have spoken of the connection of the Third District companies with the

Sixteenth as "adoption," and I have done so advisedly. The feeling which a colonel holds toward his men ("boys," he always calls them) is a paternal one, surely, and the loss of them falls little short of bereavement.

But this personal sacrifice was bravely and patriotically borne. The Sixteenth, rank and file, has honored them and their colonel with a full appreciation of the merits of their cause. It has watched, hoping at last to see the gov

ernment officially place Colonel Kent in his proper position upon the military rolls of the nation.

No better men came to the regiment than those from the old Third Congressional District. Companies A and F were almost entirely, and Company I largely, composed of them. They were justly proud of their section of the state, as they well might have been, for it is said that for some years previous to its losing its identity, the Third Congressional District had the smallest per cent. of illiteracy of any in the United States. These men, rank and file, were good soldiers. They bore the hardships, privations, sufferings, and sacrifices that came to them with great fortitude and patience. The regiment, during its brief term of service, lost by disease at least twenty per cent. of its men, and this percentage was largely increased in the weeks immediately following its discharge. The history of no other New Hampshire regiment furnishes a parallel with this. There was no time during the last two months of service that the regiment could have mustered fifty men fit for even light duty. The death-rate was appalling. At the expiration of its term of service some of the sickest were sent home by water, and the balance were furnished transportation by boat up the Mississippi river to Cairo, Ill., thence by rail to Concord. Sickness and death followed the regiment along its homeward journey. The graves of the poor fellows are scattered from New Orleans to Concord. The history of the Sixteenth is a pathetic one; it passed, indeed, through the valley of the shadow of death, and with a fortitude and uncomplaining devotion that is a tender memory in the heart of every survivor of this regiment.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC: SEVENTEENTH MEN AS COMRADES.

BY GENERAL ALBERT S. TWITCHELL,

DEPARTMENT COMMANDER, G. A. R.

There is no part of the history of New Hampshire more interesting or more valuable, or that should be preserved with greater care, than that of its organizations in the Civil War, in which the state took such a prominent and honorable part; and the writing of these histories now, where they have not already been written, is a most commendable work, and is held with delight, not only by every living member of these organizations, but by all our people, who recognize the valor and patriotism which prompted the enlistment into the service of our country when brave men were needed to preserve our national unity and honor.

These histories are becoming even more and more valuable with advancing time, and no public, or even private, library in the state will be complete until it can place upon its list the record of every state organization, which stood to its credit as defenders of our common country, when treason and rebellion sought its overthrow, and the same will be true of those now engaged in the Spanish war, as it was true of our part in the struggle for our independence, when at Bennington and Bunker Hill, and on other bloody fields, New Hampshire furnished its full share of heroes, the records of whose deeds is emblazoned upon historic pages, and is as monumental of heroism as are its granite hills, of

its landscape grandeur and beauty. That every true soldier who enlisted in our memorable Civil War did not see active service in the field was not in any way due to his want of courage or valor, for that was fully proved when, in the midst of war, he signed the rolls which made him a soldier of the republic; he was then under orders; he ceased to be free to act for himself, and could only go where duty called and his commanding officers dictated. The same was true also of companies and regiments of men under the strict discipline of war, and while some were in the thickest of the fight, others, as brave and true, were standing at "attention" or "resting on arms," as ready as they to obey any call to battle. tysburg, Antietam, the Wilderness, and other bloody battlefields, had their heroes called into

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action by the circumstances surrounding their

service, but no one can say that there was not a true enlisted soldier in all the service, either upon land or sea, who would not have as promptly faced the enemy and yielded up his life, if need be, had he been privileged to be in those contests.

New Hampshire had one regiment which, owing to circumstances beyond its control, was not, as a regiment, called to the front, but which for months was in camp, while men originally assigned it were ordered to other