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INTRODUCTION.

UNM OF
OR

The history of the Seventeenth Regiment of New Hampshire Volunteers in the War of 1862, waged to maintain the union of the United States, has been duly written by competent hands and is now presented to the public in this volume.

It is true that circumstances prevented the regiment, as a formal military body under Colonel Henry O. Kent, its organizer and commander, from leaving the state and entering the great conflict of arms.

But the actual service and proven valor of the volunteers for the Seventeenth Regiment performed in other organizations on many of the famous battlefields of the war, and the ardent aspirations, untiring labors, and patriotic patience of Colonel Kent could not be justly left without commemoration, by a faithful special narration, to take its place in the line of those histories of New Hampshire's military organizations which are now approaching completion. The briefest possible statement concerning the Seventeenth Regiment may lead those who glance at this introduction to look at the whole narrative.

When President Lincoln on August 4, 1862, called for 300,ooo additional volunteers, New Hampshire's quota required three regiments, and it was determined, as was then thought, wisely, to raise one regiment in each of the three congressional districts. Field officers were accordingly appointed, HENRY O. KENT of Lancaster being selected to aid in raising the Seventeenth within the Third District and to be its commander, and he was commissioned as colonel of the regiment on October 23, 1862.

Naturally enough, as soon appeared, volunteering proceeded unequally in the three districts and when it came to be understood by the state authorities that haste was desired by the president, it was decided to disregard the original plan and to

complete the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Regiments by transferring to them men and companies from the Third District, and these two regiments left the state, the Fifteenth, November 13, and the Sixteenth, November 23, 1862, carrying with them the larger portion of the volunteers from the Third District, notably six companies from Bath, Canaan, Fitzwilliam, Lebanon, Plymouth, and Swanzey, and their vicinities.

This radical change of plan was a grievous disappointment to Colonel Kent and to the people of the Third District, but it was by no means intended to be a permanent blow and as it finally proved to be the destruction of the Seventeenth Regiment as an organization. Every possible effort was therefore made to complete it by securing volunteers from all parts of the state. The regiment with its depleted numbers went into camp at Concord on November 19, 1862, and remained there until April 16, 1863, while untiring exertions were made to fill its ranks. But events, military and political, now well known and not necessary to be here recited, had happened which had made the raising of more troops by volunteering exceedingly difficult and at last impossible; although one company and part of another, making 125 men, were added to the regiment from the two other districts towards the success of whose regiments the Third District had contributed so much, bringing the total number of volunteers whose history connects itself with the Seventeenth up to 916-more than the number required to authorize the mustering by the United States of a colonel. Therefore, at last the earnest struggle to actually fill up the the regiment, secure the mustering of its colonel by the United States, and to send it to the front was reluctantly abandoned; and on the date last named Colonel Kent for the last time paraded his command, transferred its volunteers to the Second New Hampshire Regiment then at Concord to receive them, and the Seventeenth Regiment no longer existed as a formal organization.

The facts thus concisely stated are graphically narrated in a remarkable paper prepared by direction of Governor Nathaniel S. Berry and signed by him on the 16th day of February, 1892, when he was ninety-five years of age, which was the foundation

of the report made on April 7th, 1892, from the military committee by Senator Redfield Proctor, which caused the passage of the special act of congress of July 21, 1892, providing for the formal recognition of Colonel Kent as the colonel of the regiment.

In view of these facts so authenticated, it will be universally agreed by the people of New Hampshire that his excellency, Governor Ramsdell, acted justly and wisely in approving under the statute of the state giving to him due authority, the publication as a distinct volume of the history of the Seventeenth Regiment. The interesting struggle not to allow the regiment to be given up as one of New Hampshire's volunteer organizations, carried on when the cause of the Union was growing precarious, when northern hearts were failing from fear, and when the dreaded forcible draft was approaching, could not properly be omitted as a formal history in the archives of the state;—even if its earnest volunteers had been discharged and had never gone to the front.

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'They also serve who only stand and wait." In the just narratives of the achievements of armies and navies those who strove to reach the forefront of battle but through circumstances beyond their control did not actually receive the baptism of fire are as much entitled to have their zeal and their merits formally recorded as are those who were the most conspicuous heroes under the storm of shot and shell. The same qualities which prevail in those who do not happen to come under fire make up the mettle and inspire the irresistible rush of the warriors whose actual combats secure fame to the army and navy, or give victory to the nation for which all have offered to suffer and die if need thus be.

But the record of the Seventeenth Regiment is not one of good will without brave deeds. The men who enlisted for that organization went to the war under other commands and their good service reflects credit upon the original organization and the final organizations with which they were connected. In this volume told by faithful eye witnesses may be found the stories which show how they conducted themselves as members of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Regiments and in the ranks of the

famous Second Regiment of New Hampshire Volunteers. No higher encomium could be pronounced upon new recruits than that contained in the General Order, No. 14, of September 22, 1863, issued by Col. E. L. Bailey of the Second Regiment to the "Soldiers of the Seventeen New Hampshire Volunteers" on their discharge from service which in the face of the whole army declared to them that in their "occupancy of the most exposed positions during that terrible contest" [Gettysburg] they "stood firmly shoulder to shoulder with the familiars of fifteen battles fighting as valiantly."

Thus it appears that like most of New Hampshire's 33,000 soldiers whose labors, sufferings, perils or deaths, through the greatest war of modern times, helped to preserve the national union and to free a race from chattel slavery, the men of the Seventeenth New Hampshire Regiment proved themselves worthy of their birthright as American citizens and earned for themselves the tender remembrance and eternal gratitude of their fellow countrymen and of their descendants to the latest generation.

My personal relations to Col. Henry O. Kent, never broken or strained by any vicissitudes of politics, have led me to write this introduction to the history of the regiment of which he was the principal promoter, and of which he was the actual commander, appointed by Governor Berry, recognized by the national government, and in due time, to resolve a doubt, declared to have been its colonel in the military service of the United States, by a special act of congress which it was impossible to refuse to pass after an examination of the statement of Governor Berry, before mentioned.

In the legislature of 1862 Mr. Kent and I became exceedingly intimate. I witnessed his patriotism, his industry and his youthful zeal, as chairman of the house committee on military affairs, for the prosecution of the war for the Union and for every measure intended to promote the efficiency of the New Hampshire troops. He had from boyhood tended towards a military life, doubtless from his early connection with the noted

Norwich Military University, and when upon the adjournment of the legislature, he decided to enter the army I anticipated for him success and renown; and as his constant friend I fully joined in feeling the disappointment which came to him from the abandonment in the spring of 1863 of the regimental organization in which all his hopes and aspirations had centered; after which abandonment, however, I concluded and so advised him that under all the circumstances he ought not further to pursue his determination to enter the military service.

On the whole Colonel Kent's retrospect of life may be without serious regrets. His military aspirations and efforts were creditable. His civil career has been upright and honorable. He has been self-denying in every relation of life. It came to my knowledge that President Cleveland and Secretary Lamont desired to have him accept the post of assistant secretary of war but he made the sacrifice of declining on account of the immediate pressure of imperative family duties which he was determined to fulfill in the completest measure. Of such selfdenial as this he has always been capable, and those who know his whole life and we, his nearest friends, feel that not the least of the reasons why he should be held in high regard by the people of New Hampshire is his unselfish and self-sacrificing devotion to the duties which he undertook in connection with the Seventeenth Regiment, whose unpretentious history is now submitted to the public judgment.

It remains to speak briefly of the responsible author of this history who has given so much time and effort to its preparation and publication. CHARLES NELSON KENT was a student of Harvard Law school, admitted to the bar in Boston, and later in 1868 in New York city, where he went to lead a busy life as a member of the advertising and publishing firm of George P. Rowell & Company, until at the end of about thirty years, in December, 1897, he retired from active business. When the war of 1861 broke out he was a cadet at Norwich University, but gave up his studies in order to become first lieutenant of Company C of the Seventeenth Regiment. After its

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