I want your help.

If any one out there has any information on Camp Cameron / Camp Day I would love to see it.
The camp was open from June, 1861 until Jan. 1863.
The organizations that I know went through the camp are the 1st Mass. Infantry (June 13-June 15, 1861), 11th Infantry (June 15-June 24, 1861), 16th Infantry (June 25-Aug. 17, 1861), 9th Regimental Band (July 3-July 18+, 1861), 1st Light Battery (Aug. 27-Oct. 3, 1861), 26th Infantry (Aug. 28-Sep. 23, 1861), 19th Regimental Band (Sep. 17?-Sep. 23, 1861), 28th Infantry (Aug. 28, 1861-Jan. 11, 1862), 32nd Infantry CO. E (Dec. 13-Dec. 29, 1861), 29th Infantry CO. H (Jan. ?-Jan. 13, 1862), 1st Heavy Infantry CO. L (Feb. 19-MAR. 22), Disabled Soldiers, May16-?, 1862), 38th Infantry CO's A, B, & F (Aug. 4-Aug. 26, 1862). There may be more. Also during the final months of the camp began recruiting and training men for regiments already in the field. So, during this period men from most existing regiments of Infantry, Artillery and sharpshooting would have gone through Camp Cameron. If you have any diaries, letters,artifacts or images dealing with the camp it would be of great interest to me. I have delivered one lecture on the history of the camp and I have been blogging.  I will continue to do this. If I use your material I will give you credit. If you have material that you do not wish published I understand that. I would still love to see it though. Any new information could help me understand other information.
My interest also extends to the short lived Camp Ellsworth on Fresh Pond in Cambridge. The companies that made up the above regiments were recruited in local towns and then sent to the camp. If you have information on a group or individual recruit before they went to Cameron that would also be of great interest.

Thank you,


DAN SULLIVAN

Some Changes Come to Camp Cameron

In April of 1862 Lt. Col. Hannibal Day was named General Superintendent of Recruiting Services for Massachusetts and in June he was named Military Commander of the Greater Boston Area. With this, Camp Cameron came under his authority. (1)
By June the purpose of the camp had changed. The main purpose for the camp was no longer the recruiting and training of new regiments. It now served as the camp for recruiting replacement soldiers for regiments already in the field. (2)
This new relationship was not an easy one. Gov. Andrews office and Day did not get along. In the words of Adjutant-General Schouler, Day was "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 abherence 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." This was "making recruiting almost an impossibility." Schouler goes on to state that towns received "repulses" & "Vexations" from Day. (3)
In August the name of the Camp was changed to Camp Day. (4)

(1) Special Orders No. 131, War Department, June 11, 1862, NARA.
(2) Boston Evening Transcript, June 10, 1862, pg 4 & History of Massachusetts in the Civil War, Schouler, William, pg 340, E. P. Dutton, 1868, Boston
(3)  History of Massachusetts in the Civil War, Schouler, William, pg 425 & 426, E. P. Dutton, 1868, Boston
(4)    Cambridge Chronicle, Letters from J. W. W., Co A, 38^th Reg. M.V. Aug. 21, 1862


DAN SULLIVAN