Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Update on the Camp Cameron Flagstaff

As I stated in an earlier post when the camp closed the Flagstaff was moved to the town of West Cambridge. (Now Arlington, MA) This was about a mile west of the camp.
Here is a little info of its history in the camp. The pole was given to the camp by the United States and was 130 feet tall.(1) It constisted of two pieces. On the official flag raising ceremony speeches were made by R. H. Dana Jr. Esq, US District Attorney and former Gov. Washburn. The 16th Regiment performed a dress parade in front of a crowd of about a thousand spectators, after which each soldier receive pay of $3.60. The regimental band played Bonny Doon, Hail Columbia and the Star Spangled Banner among others. Col. Clark and Lt. Col. Tileston were presented with revolvers after which the regiment received a state flag from Qt. Master Gen. Reed.  Gov. Andrew was supposed to be there also but could not make it. Dr. Bell spoke on his behalf.(2)
Below is a photo of the pole at its home on the cornor of Pleasant St. & Mass. Ave.(then Main St.) in Arlington. The photo was taken at some point between 1863-1867. The church in the background was the Orthodox Congregational. (3) As you can see the pole is nearly as tall as the church and disappears off the frame. A very tall flagstaff would most likely have a very large flag. Since you can not see the flag hanging down into the frame it is possible that the staff continues significantly off the frame.
(4)



(1) Boston Evening Transcript, June, 27, 1861, pg 4
(2) Boston Evening Transcript, June, 29, 1861, pg 4
(3) Arlington Past and Present, Parker, Charles Symmes, 1907, Pg 121
(4) Photo from Boston Athenæum

DAN SULLIVAN

Sunday, November 13, 2011

My lecture at the Somerville Museum on Veterans Day

I am here today to talk about Camp Cameron. It was a Civil War camp of rendezvous and instruction in Somerville and Cambridge, named in honor of Lincoln’s first Sec. of War, Simon Cameron.
This year marks the beginning of the 150th anniversary of both the American Civil War and Camp Cameron.
In 2000, three Somerville women, Carol Menkiti, Anita Goldner  and Kathleen Walcott did an exhibit for the Somerville Museum on the history of their street. In the course of their research, they found this possible photograph of the camp.
I grew up in North Cambridge, just two blocks from the camp and have had a lifelong interest in history but had never heard of the camp until my mid-teens. When the TV series Roots aired, my older brother began a family tree. Unlike 99% of the other people who started one that year Ed kept at it. As time permitted, he would go back to it. Sometimes after long breaks. From this, we found out that our great, great grandfather, Michael Driscoll, enlisted in the Massachusetts 28th at Camp Cameron. We also learned that he was the family member who bought the house we lived in. For years after this, I knew nothing more about the camp other than its name and that it once existed. In an area with early history, the Civil War history seems to have been forgotten. I often thought about researching it but kept putting it off.
Two events changed this. First, my wife came home for Vermont with a collection of late 1800’s letters from her grandparents. They had found them in the wall of the old farmhouse decades ago. The same family in Beverly MA had written several of the letters. This was not only close by but they contained many life events, weddings, death, home purchases etc…. things that could be researched. As I researched this family, I realized I could do this. The second event came soon after this. I came into the possession of my late brothers family history records. As I read them, my interest in Camp Cameron resurfaced. I began poking around Local History Rooms in libraries. This laid a good foundation. It soon became clear that I would have to find better sources. I began to send emails to local archives, Historical Societies, etc. I got a collection of generic responses to my generic questions or responses that told me even less than I had revealed I already knew. Several weeks later I got secon response from one of them, a person named Joe Keefe at the National Archive in Waltham. Saying something like “awhile ago you asked about Camp Cameron and Col. H. Day who you thought might be Hannibal Day. I was going through some documents the other day and found this attachment. It shows Hannibal Day in MA at that time. You really should come down here we have some really cool stuff.” I responded that I would as soon as my business schedule allowed. This really impressed me. As I said, many other people responded with little enthusiasm. I understand that they get many questions every day. This was weeks later and he not only remembered my question on seeing the name Hannibal Day but was able to remember who asked it and find my original email. Now that would have been great. I got caught up in the craziness of running a bookstore and could not do anything about it then. A few weeks later, I got another response. This time he found a document showing Hannibal Day in Massachusetts and being in charge of recruiting, with a Camp Cameron address. “You really should come down…” With this, I took the bait.

Camp Cameron Pre-History

As I started researching Camp Cameron, several bits of information did not seem right to me. They also seemed interconnected. I found references to the camp being fifty acres and one hundred and forty acres. I found that the land was known locally as Camp Day because the Day family once owned the land. I could not find the Day family on any plot map I looked at on any land that was within Camp Cameron. The camp was renamed Camp Day in its final months though. I found many contemporary letters, documents and books that referred to the camp, at that time, as “Camp Day, formerly Camp Cameron.” I found nothing, earlier, saying “Camp Cameron also known as Camp Day.” I did find one Cambridge Chronicle article about a fire near Camp Day. However, they never again referred to it in this way. One document seemed to state that the camp had two smaller fields in addition to the main camp. There is a map of the camp and one very detailed description of the camp giving by a recruit, from Somerville, and many other documents about the camp. Nothing else ever even hinted about the other fields. The document that referred to the other fields gave each a specific purpose. One for drill and one for target practice. The camp description I had stated the drill field in the main camp was “a fine one,” but maybe they later out grew it. Maybe the other fields were fifty acres. Still it did not seem right. I came up with many possibilities but they all seemed to be forced. Then I would find something else that would not completely disprove my theories but would resurface my doubts. I had a suspicion that would not go away that quick research on the camp, by others, was talking about two different things. The only thing I could think of was a militia muster field. The document that talked about the additional fields was a typed single page called “Old Times in North Cambridge.” John J. Henderson created it for his family. I went back to it and reread it. A line that I had dismissed popped out at me, “We boys had our own musters.” I had seen young boys playing army in response to watching the camp. I did the math and realized he was too old for that and was using the 1800’s “We boys” to refer to young men. “Follow me boys!” “My boys are up for a fight” were common ways to refer to soldiers. I did not find Mr. Henderson’s name in any of the regiments for which I had rolls. This put more weight on the Militia. Had the local Militia used the area in the past?  
Finally, I found a small paragraph in “Beyond the Neck” an architectural history of Somerville; it repeated the 50-acre stat but then went on to say, “Prior to the Civil War, annual musters were held at the camp.” Therefore, the North Cambridge/West Somerville had a military training history that pre-dated 1861. I believe the other two fields belonged to the militia. One of the fields used by the militia was at Meacham and Dover streets, the other at Beech & Elm.
The next bit of Camp Cameron pre-history deals with the early history of the Massachusetts First Infantry Regiment. The core of this three-year regiment was the Massachusetts First Militia. When the war began both sides believed that, the war would be short. Most likely only one real battle. Lincoln’s first call for troops was for only ninety days. When this proved inadequate new recruits where enlisted for up to three years. After its three-month duty, the First Militia began to reorganize itself. Much of the old regiment reenlisted into the U.S. Army and then began recruiting more men. At first, they were housed at Faneuil Hall. This was found to be too small and the urban environment not what they wanted for drill and target practice. There next home was the old Reed and Bartlett icehouse on Fresh Pond. This site was occupied on June 1st. At first, this seemed to be a good fit. Most of North Cambridge and East Arlington were originally wet land like the land on either side of rte. 2 is today. Old maps refer to it as the Great Swamp. The land around the pond is very flat and floods easily in the spring. Until it was raised up in, the 1980s the Lusitania soccer field was the most aptly named place in Cambridge. It spent a lot of its time under water. The wetness proved to be too “Unhealthy.” Another new home was needed.
Enter Gardner Greene Hubbard. Hubbard was an important businessperson in Cambridge. As private companies, he founded a gas company and a water works. The water company had a steam pump on Fresh Pond. This pump transported the water to a reservoir on a nearby hill and a gravity feed did the rest. Reservoir St. still remembers this time. He was also in the trolley business. Hubbard was a partial owner of the Chelsea RR, the Cambridge RR & the Union Horse RR. He had a daughter named Mabel, as a child Mabel contracted Scarlet fever and lost her hearing. At some later point, Hubbard learned of a local man who was having success teaching the deaf. Even with their ten-year difference in age, they fell in love and were married. This expanded Hubbard’s’ horizons. With all of his other endeavors, Hubbard’s specialty was as a patent lawyer. His new son in law would go on to file one of the most important patents of the 19th century, the telephone. Hubbard was on the original board of directors of Alexander Graham Bells Company, as well as the National Geographic Society.
He acquired farmland on the Cambridge/Somerville town line. It ran from Clarendon Ave to Shea St. It was leased to the state at six-month intervals. The Cambridge Chronicle states that the land was owned by the Union Horse RR, but it was a private venture by Hubbard. I have found letters from him stating he owned the land. The North West Cambridge Architecture book show a post war map with the camp that states part of the land was sold to the Union RR. Though it seems clear, he did it at least partially to benefit the RR and used RR resources to help build the camp. Camp Cameron was on the route of the Union Horse RR and could not hurt ridership.
On Sunday June 9, 1861, 200,000 FT of lumber was delivered to the site via the Union RR. Construction of 30 buildings began. Fifteen of which would be barracks. Luckily, for us we have a firsthand account of how the camp appeared when finished. This comes from Andrew J. Bennett of the Massachusetts First Light Battery and Somerville.


     “This was a Farm extending from the Old Lexington Pike, (now Broadway) which crosses Winter Hill and thence over the ridge in Somerville to Arlington, south to North Avenue (now Massachusetts Ave) in Cambridge, or to the old Pike that leads from Harvard Square in Old Cambridge to Arlington, and there unites with the road from Somerville, the southern half of the farm in Cambridge was a plateau of perhaps ten acres, extending back from the Cambridge road, and falling off quite abruptly to a meadow through which ran a little brook, a branch of the Alewife. (Tannery Brook) On the Northern border of this plateau, extending with intervals between them, clean across the plain, were barracks. About midway in the range of buildings, and between the two middle barracks in the range a road passed from the Cambridge road, north dividing the plain in two, and crossing the little brook and the sloping field beyond, which was in Somerville… Between the barracks and the Cambridge road was the drill ground, and a fine one it was.”

     “Near the south bank of the little brook, and to the east of the bridle-road, was the Commissary and Quarter Masters Department building, and to its left and rear, if you were looking south, were our stables. North of the brook and well up the slope to the west of the bridle-road, were the headquarters of the battery.”

According to the book Hardtack & Coffee, the barracks had a long “Bowling alley” shape, “having the entrance at one end, a broad aisle running through the centre, and a double row of bunks, one above the other, on either side. They each held one hundred men or one company. This book also states that the barracks at Camp Cameron were of the same style as those at Camp Meigs in Readville. (Photo#2) Thomas Kirwin’s description of life in the camp is as follows, “truly it was a heterogeneous compound representing nearly every race of people in Europe, and plentifully sprinkled among them was a leaven of the whole smart, shrewd, intelligent, quick-eyed and quick-witted Americans and such a confusing babble as prevailed I have never heard before. Wrangling and swearing, drinking and eating, talking and laughing, ----all combined to give me no very agreeable foretaste of what I had to expect in my new vocation. I noticed others, new, like myself, to such scenes, who seemed mentally dumb founded, or unconsciously comparing the quiet routine of the life they led at home to the new one they had assumed, and, no doubt, to the great advantage of the former and the dislike of the latter. “Obviously things were different back home. 

Very quickly, buildings were erected near the camp to sell refreshments to the troops. As always, Suttlers follow army camps. Most sources, even contemporary sources, mention Camp Cameron as a replacement for Camp Ellsworth. This may be true, but it seems evident that it was planned before Ellsworth. Maybe not for the First though. The First occupied Ellsworth on the first of June. I have found a letter from Hubbard to Washington stating the six-month lease on the property ended on Nov. 24. Doing the math that would put its start date at May 24, one week before Ellsworth was occupied. It is possible that Ellsworth was never meant to be permanent. The beginning of the war saw many temporary camps.
Routine may have varied from regiment to regiment but here are a few views from recruits at the camp. J.W.W. (Joseph W. Welch) of CO A in the 38th had this to say about life at Camp Cameron. “Two or three hours drill per day is the extent of our labor” and a little guard duty. When off duty the time is occupied by the boys in various ways, such as singing, ball playing, reading etc…” Robert Goldwaite mentions letter writing and visits from friends and family also helped pass the time.
The recruits’ new life was not comfortable. Uniforms and blankets were made of “coarse wool” and fit poorly. Their bunks were very crowded and made of hard boards. Blankets were often in short supply.
A recruit’s stay in a camp of rendezvous and instruction was not a long one during the Civil War. Generally, a regiment would be sent to the front soon after they reached full strength. Still, the stay could be a tough one, due to the fact that the camps were so close to the community. “They were in sight of home in many cases, yet outside of its comforts.”
As with society as a whole Camp Cameron suffered with anti-Irish prejudice. Charles Harvey Brewster complained about the “wild Irish” on more than one occasion. On another, a candidate for a commission in the 28th Regiment commented on his qualifications because “the Irish however ignorant respect a man who is intellectually their superior.”
Camp Cameron had no fence around it. This led to both easy desertions  and what was known as “French Leaves.” This was the practice of sneaking out of camp at night and returning without permission. This practice was often over looked by guards.
The medical care seemed to be wanting at times. J. T. G. Nichols the acting Surgeon had this to say on Sept. 4, 1862. “The accommodations for the sick at this depot are very imperfect. Arrangements are now being made to supply this defect.” Charles Harvey Brewster who had been sent back from the front to work at recruiting went to the doctor and was told he had nothing for him.
Another problem caused by the camp was noise and property damage. Local farmers complained about theft and the damage to their crops. Having recently tasted my first hardtack, the Civil War’s most common food, I have a greater understanding why soldiers so often stole from local farmers. The effects of having army recruits around were not entirely bad though. On at least one occasion, troops from the camp helped to put out a fire in the area.
Construction was fast. Enough barracks were finished for the First Infantry to move in on June 13, 1861. Their stay was not long. On the 14th they received orders to proceed to the seat of the war and they left on the next day. At 4:30 P.M., the regiment left with ninety wagons. They marched through the streets of Cambridge for Boston Common and then to the Providence RR Depot. As they passed through Cambridge, they were met spectators who waited for over an hour to see the recruits. Engine #2 of the Cambridge fire department was also out and gave them a salute. This became a ritual. When the regiments marched to Boston, it became a spectator event. Speeches would be made, sometime at multiple stops. It was a hot day and as they wore their gray overcoats, many men succumbed to the heat. The effects of the heat were made worse by the fact that the raw recruits often put far too much in their packs. Reaching the Boston Common they formed on the Parade Grounds, which had been roped off. The crowd of friends and relatives broke through the ropes to embrace their loved ones. When it came time for the First to leave for the depot only about two-thirds of them regained order, the rest simply followed in the crowd. A train of seventeen passenger and four baggage cars left Boston at nine o’clock at night.
Regiments came and went in quick succession after this.
The 11th, 16th, 1st Light Battery & 26th. Staying at the camp from anywhere between 2 and 83 days.
On the June 28, Governor Andrew visited the camp for the official flag raising ceremony. A few of the notable locals to go through Camp Cameron where Arthur Bukminster Fuller, Chaplin of the 16th. He was the brother of Margaret Fuller the noted transcendentalist and grandfather of Richard Buckminster Fuller the architect.
The captain of the First Light Battery was Josiah Porter, the son of the owner of the then famous Porter’s Hotel in Cambridge.

The Twenty-Eighth Regiment
Sep. 22, 1861-Jan. 11, 1862 (111 days)

This group would set the record of spending 111 days in the camp. 
Thomas Francis Meagher, of NY, began recruiting for The Irish Brigade. He wanted an Irish regiment from Ma. Therefore, he approached Gov. Andrew. At the same time, two local Irish businessmen also approached Andrew about the Irish Brigade. These where Patrick Donahue, the owner & editor of the Pilot, the most important Irish newspaper in the U.S. and B.S. Trainor, the editor of the Boston Irish Patriot. The biggest problem was Meagher was pushing for his friends in NY to be appointed to lead the new regiment and the locals wanted Boston Irish to lead the regiment. 
Also at this time Gen. Butler had been sent back to Lowell to recruit regiments from New England for a force he was to lead to the gulf coast.
During the Civil War, the federal government would send quotas to the governor of each state for troops to be raised. The governor would than pass these down to each town. It was important for each state to meet its quota. The power to appoint officers lay with the governors and then just like now politics played an important part in everything.
Butler had been given some authority to recruit regiments of his own but also needed a regiment from the state. Trying to please everybody Gov. Andrew tried something that  ended up  not quit pleasing anyone. He tried to create two Irish regiments at the same time. The Twenty Eighth & the Twenty Ninth. One would have Meaghers’ New Yorkers in command and one would have local Irishmen in command. One was to join the Irish Brigade and one was to go to Ship Island in Miss. with Butler.
Ben Butler had sold this idea of coming to NE to Lincoln because he was a Democrat. The war had been a Republican war, with Republican recruits. As a Democrat, he claimed he could appoint Democrat officers and the ignored democratic recruits would come in. This sounds good on paper. Butler would make a military career marked by assuming authority he did not have and this was no exception. He over reached his authority to recruit, at the expense of Gov. Andrews quotas, and he appointed officers that the Republican governor did not approve of. Andrew complained to Lincoln about Butler encroaching on his authority to recruit and appoint. Butler accused Andrew of being a traitor for claiming to have more authority than the president did.
The Twenty-Eighth & Twenty-Ninth were recruited in this environment. Both regiments fell behind schedule. The state never should have attempted to recruit two Irish regiments at the same time. As recruiting, lagged Gen. Butler now accused Gov. Andrew of intentionally sabotaging his regiment by trying to recruit two regiments at once.
The appointing of officers also failed. William Monteith of NY became Col. Of the 28th. The local candidates put forward to lead the 29th were beaten out by another New Yorker, Thomas Murphy of the NY 69th. The 28th went into camp at Cameron and the 29th went to Framingham. Soon after going into camp the two regiments received an inspection from Mass. Adjutant General William Schouler. What he found was disturbing.  Murphy was seldom in camp with the 29th and the camp was better off when he was away. When he learned that the Governor was not going to give him his commission, he promised to return to NY and have nothing more to do with the 29th. This was fine with the administration. His final act was to return to his camp and give a rousing speech, using language calculated to cause insubordination. This caused many to desert, most only temporarily. This was, luckily, the end of Matthew  Murphy in MA.
The demands of trying to recruit two Irish regiments at the same time came to a head. The governor’s office and the officers of both the 28th & 29th agreed to merge the two regiments into the 28th at Camp Cameron. This was a significant sacrifice for many of the officers, because by signing this document they knew it could lead to a demotion. They put the greater good ahead of their own. By Nov. 13, 1861, the fifteen partial companies from the two camps were consolidated into ten companies at Camp Cameron. Even with the consolidation, the 28th was only 80% full at this time. Recruiting continued.
On Jan. 11, 1862, the regiment proceeded to Ft. Columbus in NY for more training.

My great, great grandfather, Michael Driscoll was a member of this regiment. He was born of Irish immigrants in either 1826 or 1827. This was in the then British America, either in Nova Scotia or New Brunswick. By 1850, he had moved to Boston’s North End and married Hannah Smith. He first shows up in the Cambridge directories in 1859. Driscoll was a laborer by trade. At the age of 36, he enlisted in the 28th, CO F, leaving behind a wife and three small children. He would be gone for four years. In 1862, Robert E. Lee began his first invasion of the North. This was the Antietam campaign. In a strategy aimed at delaying the Union army, he sent troops to guard the mountain passes that lay between the two armies. One of these passes crossed South Mountain in MD. On Sept. 14, 1862, the Massachusetts 28th came in contact with the Confederate Army at South Mtn. Pvt. Driscoll received a gunshot wound to his right hand fracturing his thumb. He spent five months in a hospital in Fredrick City MD, though  the wound never healed properly, he rejoined his regiment sometime in the winter of 62/63. On June 16, 1863, he dropped out of a march near Dunfries Va. and was taken prisoner while straggling. He was held prisoner in Richmond until July 19th when he was paroled. Paroled prisoners were not allowed to rejoin their regiments until an equal number of prisoners of equal rank had been released by the other side. A return to the 28th did not occur until Oct. 15. He reenlisted in 1864, receiving a signing bounty of $325.00.
At the war’s end, he returned home. Owing to his wound, he would receive an Invalid Pension from the government. In 1884, he purchased the Reed St home in which I was born. Soon after this Michael Driscoll would pass away of cancer. He was buried in the North Cambridge Catholic Cemetery.

The 28th would be the last full regiment to be formed at Camp Cameron.

After this was Co. E of the 32nd, COH of the new 29th, CO L of the First Heavy Artillery and the the Eighth Light Battery. This battery was involved in a train derailment at Trenton NJ on its way to the front. Two men were killed and several were wounded. They also lost thirteen horses and much of their equipment.
At this same time, the purpose of the camp changed. In Jan. of 1862, Lt. Col. Hannibal Day was named the military commander of MA, in charge of recruiting. By July, Camp Cameron was no longer a camp recruiting new regiments. It was now the main camp for replacement recruits for regiments already in the field. In the middle of Aug., the name of the camp was officially changed to Camp Day. This might have been done to honor the old militia camp and the Day family. It could also have been done to honor the new boss. The name was changed because of Simon Cameron’s corruption scandals. When asked by Lincoln about Cameron, Congress man Thaddeus Stevens responded, "I don't think that he would steal a red hot stove". Cameron demanded a retractions. Stevens responded with, "I believe I told you he would not steal a red-hot stove. I will now take that back."
This was the busiest time in the history of the camp. Under the old system, a regiment would leave and the population of the camp would go to zero. It might be empty for a week or two. A new regiment would come in and would slowly be built back up. During this time, the number of recruits was constantly at 1000 to over 1500. Troops came in every day and were sent to the front every week.
In addition, at this time, three companies of new recruits were sent to Cameron. These were Co’s A, B & F of the 38th from Cambridge. This so overcrowded the camp that most of these men were furloughed every night so they could sleep in their own beds. 
Gov. Andrew’s office had little more love for Day than it did for Butler.
Adj. Gen. Schouler stated in his book, History of Mass. in the Civil War, that he would not say anything disparagingly of Day. He then went on to say, “He is an old officer of the army; but he does not understand our people, and is too aged to learn. He will do nothing that is not in the “regulations.” Cannot some discretionary power be given, or are we to “die daily” like St. Paul, by this adherence to the old rules, made when the army of the United States did not number as many men as the county of Middlesex has sent to this war. …It is this utter disregard of the rights and amenities of brave and patriotic men that is sapping to its roots the tree of patriotism, and making recruiting almost an impossibility. “ It was also claimed that many towns also had problems with Day.
Lt. Col. Day received permission from Washington, very early, to close the camp if he saw fit. The reason for this was the practice of bounty jumping. As it became harder to obtain new recruits, the government began paying bounties to recruits. Many men made a career out of collecting bounties, deserting, moving to a new town or state and reenlisting over and over again. Gardner Green Hubbard made an attempt to save his investment by offering to share the cost of building a fence around to barracks but this was never accepted. On Jan. 24, 1863, the recruits were moved to Ft. Independence. This was deemed a more secure post.

The legacy of the camp is not completely lost.
The map of the area is a history of the Civil War.

Camp St, Cameron Ave, Fair Oaks/Seven Pines, Glendale Ave, Malvern Ave, Yorktown St, Tannery Brook Row, Russell / Orchard, Hooker/Garrison, Reed.

A piece of the camp also still exists. I found a reference that stated that when the camp closed in Jan. of 1863 a committee from West Cambridge (now Arlington) took the flagstaff back to Arlington. It was placed at the corner of what is now Pleasant St. & Mass. Ave. PHOTO #3 In 1867, the town took possession of it and moved it across the street. At some point later, it was replaced. At this point James A. Bailey donated the gilded ball from atop the staff to the Arlington GAR Hall. The Gar was a Civil War veterans group. In 1912 Mrs. James A. Bailey Jr., his daughter in law, donated a block of wood from the pole to the Arlington Historical Society. Here it is. It is 4.5”x2.5”x1.5”
It is a small piece, but it gives me hope that other pieces of the pole and the camp may exist. I know that the ball that sat atop the staff was saved. This piece looks as if it was cut, had the screws inserted, re-cut and then had the screw reinserted. In addition, it is not round. It appears it was sliced and then cut into squares.

Close to 6000, men went through the camp during the regiment era and an unknown number during the replacement era. They fought in all the major battles in VA, along with the Carolina coast and the Gulf coast. Without these men and others like them who went through other camps throughout the north this country would not exist as we know it today.

DAN SULLIVAN

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Troubles for the 28th & my upcoming speech at the Somerville Museum

I will be giving a speech at the Somerville Museum in Somerville Ma on Veterans Day, 11/11/11. It will begin at 2:00 and the entry to the museum is $5.00. the location is 1 westwood rd, Somerville MA 02143, 617-666-9810. historicsomerville.org

Here is a small excerpt:


Thomas Francis Meagher, of NY, began recruiting for The Irish Brigade. He wanted an Irish regiment from Ma. Therefore, he approached Gov. Andrew. At the same time, two local Irish businessmen also approached Andrew about the Irish Brigade. These where Patrick Donahue, the owner & editor of the Pilot, the most important Irish newspaper in the U.S. and B.S. Trainor, the editor of the Boston Irish Patriot. The biggest problem was Meagher was pushing for his friends in NY to be appointed to lead the new regiment and the locals wanted Boston Irish to lead the regiment. 
Also at this time Gen. Butler had been sent back to Lowell to recruit regiments from New England for a force he was to lead to the gulf coast.
During the Civil War, the federal government would send quotas to the governor of each state for troops to be raised. The governor would than pass these down to each town. It was important for each state to meet its quota. The power to appoint officers lay with the governors and then just like now politics played an important part.
Butler was recruiting regiments of his own but also needed a regiment from the state. Trying to please everybody Gov. Andrew tried something that  ended up  not quit pleasing anyone. He tried to create two Irish regiments at the same time. The Twenty Eighth & the Twenty Ninth. One would have Meaghers’ New Yorkers in command and one would have local Irishmen in command. One would join the Irish Brigade and one would go to ship Island in Miss. with Butler. We all know what happens when you try to please everybody.
Ben Butler had sold this idea of coming to NE to Lincoln because he was a Democrat. The war had been a Republican war, with Republican recruits. As a Democrat, he claimed he could appoint Democrat officers and the ignored democratic recruits would come in. This sounds good on paper. Butler would make a military career marked by assuming authority he did not have and this was no exception. He over reached his authority to recruit, at the expense of Gov. Andrews quotas, and he appointed officers that the Republican governor did not approve of. Andrew complained to Lincoln about Butler encroaching on his authority to recruit and appoint. Butler accused Andrew of being a traitor for claiming he had more authority than the president did.
The Twenty-eighth & Twenty Ninth were recruited in this environment. Both regiments fell behind schedule. The state never should have attempted to recruit two Irish regiments at the same time. As recruiting, lagged Gen. Butler now accused Gov. Andrew of sabotaging his regiment by trying to recruit two regiments at once.
The appointing of officers also failed. William Monteith of NY became Col. Of the 28th. The local candidates put forward to lead the 29th were beaten out by another New Yorker, Matthew Murphy of the NY 69th. The 28th went into camp at Cameron and the 29th went to Framingham. Soon after going into camp the two regiments received an inspection from Mass. Adjutant General William Schouler. What he found was disturbing. First of all Thomas Murphy of NY had been sent instead of Matthew Murphy. Murphy was seldom in camp and the camp was better off when he was away. When he learned that the Governor was not going to give him his commission, he threatens to return to NY. This was fine with the administration. His final act was to return to his camp and give a rousing speech. This caused many to desert, most only temporarily. This was the end of Thomas Murphy in MA.
The demands of trying to recruit two Irish regiments at the same time came to a head. The governor’s office and the officers of both the 28th & 29th agreed to merge the two regiments into the 28th at Camp Cameron.
On Jan. 11th the regiment proceeded to Ft. Columbus in NY for more training.

DAN SULLIVAN