Charles Harvey Brewster Massachusetts 10th Regiment

According to "When This Cruel War is Over" a collection of letters by Brewster, edited by David L. Blight, he was a member of the Massachusetts 10th Regiment from Northampton, Ma.  Brewster was sent to Camp Day to recruit replacements for his regiment. He was no happy about this. Between his poor health, his poor opinion of the state of the camp during this period and his desire to return to his regiment Brewster's letters do not paint a happy picture. The first letter Blight used from this period ( 9/1/1862) opens with "I am still at this dismal camp".  It also contains much of the strong anti-Irish feelings of the day. He talks about how he needs to speed up the farewells at the gate but "the Irishwomen make the most fuss bawling and yelling , +c". Another interesting incident in this letter relates how the Irish recruits from the 9th Reg. refused to proceed when ordered to the front until they received all their back pay and bounties but all the old "Yankee" recruits had no problem with this.  This and the mention of how the Irish do nothing but fight (he never mentions who they are fighting) shows Brewsters' low opinion of the Irish. What he does not bring up and most likely did not know is the Irish background. Why would an Irishman of this period go of to his possible death without collecting all his pay for his family. The Irish were a subjugated people, dominated by the English. Nothing in there experience would ever have led them to believe that a government would keep a promise.
The second letter in Blight's book (9/19/1862) states in an early sentence, "This is the dullest of all mortal places". This letter states that they had 116 recruits in camp, bounty jumping is a problem (Skeedadling) and he is stuck working in the camp so he can not open a recruiting office elsewhere.
I received a third letter from Historic Northampton in Northampton, MA. Here is the transcript of that letter:

                                                                                                                         Camp Day No Cambridge
                                                                                                                          Saturday August 30th / 62
Dear Mary
I received your note yesterday from Sing & Bliss(?). I should have written before and have felt bad that I could not, but of all my military experiences this camp rates the whole. there is no head nor tail to anything here. I reported here for duty the next morning after I left N. (Norhtampton?) and could get no information what was required of me nor any information about anything. I went back to Boston and went to see Lt. Col. Day, he sent me back here with instructions to report to Lt. Jordan the commander of the camp naming my duties to assist in preserving order, and especially to assist in keeping the recruits in camp, so I returned here again, and demanded quarters which Lt. Jordan said he would furnish me. I went to him four times that day, but could get nothing done, and so  until Monday. I came back mornings and went back nights until I got sick of it. Monday I was taken down with my providential diarrhea and it has continued until this time but I came out again day before yesterday and told Jordan that if  he had got any duty for me to do I wished he would set me about it he then told me he wanted me to take the whole charge of the camp as "Officer of the day", and I have acted in that capictity ever since. Though I am so sick that it does not seem as if I could stand up sometimes. I went to the Dr. of the Camp, for something to check the trouble, he said I must take some Brandy & Ginger, but he had none, nor anything else in the way of medical stores, but I asked if he could not reccommend something he had got, so he went out and got some powders and gave me, and told me to take one after every discharge, which would amount to about 20 times a day, but I can plainly see that the medical department is of a piece with everything else in this camp, without organization. I can not tell you half  in a letter, but I have not had until last night any place to sleep here, nor any place where I could write a letter, nor any place to eat here. I write this short letter to day hoping it will get to you to night, tommorrow if I can get time I will try and write you a longer letter. But this must answer for this time frame.
                                                                                  Your off brother
                                                                                   Charles.
P. S. love to Tom, Matthew & Mother.

The lack of both organization and medical supplies in the camp at this time is backed up by other sources. The Sep. 4, 1862 Boston Evening Transcript ran a article entitled "Affiars at Camp Cameron or Camp Day"
"We have just returned from Camp Cameron, and regret to say that the condition of affairs there calls loudly for some prompt and efficient action on the part of the officer who has the management of this encampment".  "desertions are frequent", "soldiers have an excellent opportunity, and many temptations, to desert".
The bluntest comments are saved for this...."There is a building called a Hospital at this camp, but they have no medicine for the sick." "when Gen. Butler worked his way to Washington, it was understood at the National Capital that there was a Massachusetts... We need and demand attention to the wants and necessities of our soldiers, both sick and well".


DAN SULLIVAN

Companies A, B & F of the 38th Regiment.

These three Cambridge companies would be the last companies of men for a "New" regiment to go through what was by then called Camp Day. They were part of the most crowded piece of the camps' history. Camp Day had 1500 bunks and at times during this part of the 38'ths stay at the camp as many as 3000 men were assigned to the camp. The over crowding was handled in a couple of ways. First more than one man would sleep in each bunk. Secondly, since most of the 300 men of the 38th lived in Cambridge they were furloughed each night to go home. This may have been true of some of the replacement recruits who also lived locally. They stayed at the camp from August 4 until Aug. 26, 1862. The other seven companies of this regiment went into camp at Camp Stanton in Lynnfield. Originally the Cambridge companies were intended to move to Lynnfield and join the rest of the regiment but they all went to the front before this happened. When they did leave they had so little warning that they had no time to eat the dinning that was cooking for them or to be given rations to take with them. The City had voted to provide trolley cars but the men voted to march on what was the hottest day of the year. One oddity about the seperate formation of these two portions of the regiment is the fact that both groups named their first three compamies A, B, C. This was not discovered or charged until both groups were about to board the train in Boston to go to the war.


DAN SULLIVAN

8TH Light Battery

I just realized I missed this group.
This battery, under the command of Asa Cook, was recruited for six month duty. On May 30, 1862 the first 40 recruits were sent to Camp Cameron. On June 25 the Battery left the state. On its way through Trenton N. J. its train derailed. Two men & 13 horses died in the accident. Much of their equipment was also destroyed.  (1)


(1) Massachusetts in the Rebellion, P. C. Headley, Walker, Fuller & CO., Boston, 1866.


DAN SULLIVAN

Charles William Bardeen CO D Massachusetts 1st Regiment

According to his memoir, A Little Fifer's War Diary, 1862-4, Bardeen was born in Fitchburg on Aug. 28, 1847. He first attempted to enlist at the age of 14 in Lowell but was turned away for being too young. Six months latter he had better luck. His cousin had been sent back to Boston to recruit replacements for the First Regiment. Bardeen was made a drummer boy and assigned to Company D, July 21, 1862. His first stop as a soldier was Camp Cameron in Somerville. "I drew my first uniform, and uncomfortable enough the coarse wool was to my unaccustomed skin. The first nights were almost torture. Still wearing the day's thick woolen shirt, I slept between coarse woolen blankets in a bunk filled so closely with soldiers one could hardly turn over. His attempts to teach himself the drum, on the hill between the camp and Tufts college, were so unsuccessful that he turned to the fife instead. His duties also included buying postage and carrying the mail from the Post Office at Porter's Station. The men in camp liked having their regiment stenciled on their knapsacks. Young Bardeen then went into Boston and purchased green paint and stenciled recruits knapsacks for 25 cents each. Business was so good that he asked his younger brother to come out from Fitchburg to help him. During his time here the name of the camp was changed to Camp Day. On Sept. 1, 1862 he left to join the 1st Reg.

DAN SULLIVAN

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

The war made the home front a very lonely place.

A while ago I came across an interesting article in the Middlesex Journal, July 27, 1861. It talks about the effect of recruiting in South Reading, now Wakefield, MA. Even that early in the war. The opening sentence paints a very sad picture. "So many young men have left town for the Camp and the battle-field, that a feeling of lonesomness comes over those who remain at home." Most of the recruits, from this town, at the battle-field" would have been in the 5th Regiment, Company "B". Those at the "Camp" where the Sixteenth Regiment Company "E" at Camp Cameron in Cambridge.
A war of this magnitude pulls a huge percentage of young men away from home at the same time. This makes a very big impact on the community, families, schools, workplaces etc. When you add this to the fact that companies would be recruited locally, you had a situation in which one very bad day at the battle field could mean that a large percentage of families could learn that their sons would never be coming home in the same edition of the local paper or that days mail.
The article goes on to talk about the importance of the Post Office as a gathering place for those waiting for word from their loved ones but still reflected the lessened population of the town as a whole. "The Post Office is not now thronged as it used to be, though probably the mails are as formerly. There is a time, however, when a deep interest is manifested in the contents of the mails, as was the case on Monday afternoon and some days subsequently. The letters were opened with trembling and the papers eagerly read ...The news of Monday P. M. , cast a deep gloom over the village, and although the reports the next morning  
learned the probability of the fall of friends in battle from this vicinity, there was dreadful uncertainty in the matter, which caused the greatest anxiety for days." It was learned that several of the casualties came from the town.
This was the First Battle of Bull Run. Parents, wives, children, friends and other loved ones would repeat this process for another four years.


Dan Sullivan