Northborough in the Civil War: Citizen Soldiering and Sacrifice
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About this ebook
Robert P. Ellis
Robert P. Ellis is the town historian in Northborough, Massachusetts. He is former professor at Boston College and author of To Celebrate Our Town: The First One Hundred Years of the Northborough Historical Society. He has contributed dozens of articles to literary and historical reference works throughout the course of the last 20 years.
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Northborough in the Civil War - Robert P. Ellis
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Introduction
This history concerns the role the people of Northborough, Massachusetts, played in the American Civil War. It is well understood that the war began as a response to armed internal rebellion, but behind that rebellion lay two opposed social systems, at the heart of which was a dispute over slavery. In the North—especially in New England, and even more in Massachusetts—this dispute had been steadily and intensively scrutinized for thirty years. A case could be made that nowhere was it scrutinized more intensively than in Worcester County, Massachusetts, where the presidential candidate of the Free-Soil Party opposing the spread of slavery to the new western territories prevailed in the presidential election of 1848 and remained powerful in 1852, when nationwide support for this party dwindled. In Northborough, advocacy for this movement was even stronger. It is hardly surprising that many Southerners feared the Free-Soilers and, a few years later, the Republicans—whom they often called black Republicans
—as relentless foes waging campaigns that they often suspected of being mere preliminaries to more profound attacks on an institution sanctioned by the federal Constitution.
I have included a discussion of the parade of abolitionists through Northborough before the war. They did not convert many citizens into abolitionists, but they fostered vigorous disapproval of the extension of slavery beyond the places where it was already established. In addition to the words of the abolitionists, a number of letters and other documents from the pre-war period reflect anti-slavery activity in town. None of these documents displays any awareness of the North’s economic complicity with slavery. Like most Northern opponents of slavery, the citizens judged it a moral evil extrinsic to their own way of life but unfortunately protected by the federal Constitution. When war broke out, the soldiers of Northborough understood that they were patriots responding to the threat of disunion. The opponents were rebels; their own duty was to protect the nation. Only later did the defenders of the Union see the struggle metamorphosing into a war against slavery.
Northborough is one of many communities whose men enlisted, whose neighbors pledged support to them and their families and whose officials advanced the cause as they could. No enlistees from Northborough became famous, but many displayed bravery. Twice as many Northborough soldiers died in those four years as perished in all subsequent wars. Villagers who worked on farms and in small shops were suddenly playing their parts in a stark drama whose denouement no author had written and no participant could foresee.
The Civil War is a complex and much-studied event. Even Northborough’s participation is a large subject, much of it publicly untold, some of it now untellable, but interesting diaries, letters, and other documents have come to light. Of particular importance are members of a well-educated Northborough family, the Allens, and their friends and relatives, who wrote copiously and benefited from descendents who collected and maintained their writings. I have been able to draw upon two substantial collections of this material. Much of it was not available to prior Northborough historians, and most of it has never seen print before. Wherever possible, I have drawn on the words of contemporaries—whether participants, observers or historians of military units populated by Northborough men.
Most of the details pertain to Northborough’s infantry volunteers who served chiefly in the eastern region of the war: Virginia, Maryland and briefly in Pennsylvania. Artillery and cavalry volunteers have left less of a record. Previous historians have ignored the fact that a few Northborough men served in the navy; the sailors are listed in my appendix, but unfortunately, details are lacking. I recently spoke with a descendent of one of them, but she was primarily interested in and knowledgeable about his peacetime pursuits.
Two twentieth-century historians of Northborough have dealt briefly with the Civil War. In 1921, Josiah Coleman Kent published his valuable Northborough History, and although he diligently researched the names and records of Northborough combatants, he wrote only fourteen pages on the war. William H. Mulligan Jr.’s Northborough: A Town and Its People, 1638–1975, published in 1983, has a mere four pages on the war. Amazingly, there seems to be no record of any papers on the war in the century-long history of Northborough Historical Society meetings.
Prologue
Northborough in 1860
Northborough stands at the eastern edge of Worcester County, Massachusetts. A stone along East Main Street, once part of the Boston Post Road, informs travelers that it is thirty-three miles from Boston. Worcester is about ten miles to the west. In 1860 there are 1,527 people in Northborough, of whom 741 are male and 786 female.¹ The most common occupation for a male is farming. The census lists no occupation at all for the great majority of females; this omission in effect signifies that many of them have the rigorous occupations of housewife and mother.
With two exceptions—a sixty-two-year-old woman named Angelina Pishaai (no occupation specified) and a fifty-two-year-old laborer, Warren Hemenway, who are listed as mulattos
—the people are all white. Townspeople have not seen very many blacks, but a considerable number of them, in years past, have met escaped slaves.
The majority of Northborough dwellers bear what might be called Anglo-Saxon names. Two hundred nineteen of them answer to the surnames Rice, Bartlett, Brigham, Maynard, Stone, Fay, Barnes or Johnson. The only other common ethnicities are French-Canadian and Irish; nineteen Boullies and seventeen Kellys live here. The Anglo-Saxon group belongs overwhelmingly to one of the three Protestant churches in town; the Irish Americans and French-Canadian Americans are predominantly Roman Catholics.
Through the center of the village passes the Agricultural Branch Railroad, stretching a few miles north to Fitchburg and south to Framingham, a town from which you can travel just about anywhere. To go immediately east or west on the Post Road you can journey via stagecoach or by your own horse or wagon. For decades, visitors have stopped at the midtown Munroe Tavern or a mile westward at Ball’s Tavern. Recently the Northborough Inn has been erected just a stone’s throw west of the Munroe Tavern, and the latter is reputed to be up for sale. There is talk that a new town hall may occupy its site. Northborough has one of the few banks in the area, a corporation consisting of three of the town’s most prominent men, Cyrus Gale, George C. Davis and Wilder Bush, having founded it in 1853.²
Farming is the most common occupation. Some sons help on their fathers’ farms and expect to inherit the farms one day or be hired by farmers; others are obliged to work in one of the town’s small shoemaking establishments or one of several ornamental comb factories, which employ more workers than does a small textile mill that is making a transition from cotton to re-processed wool. Another small textile factory has burned down this year. The people who have come down from Canada—both men and women—tend to work in the textile mill; the male Irish immigrants are more often laborers or farmhands, while the women, thanks to the advantage of speaking English, often find work as domestics.
Northborough believes in education and developed a system of public elementary schools even before Massachusetts established the requirement. So far there have been three attempts at establishing a high school; the last, begun just last year, does not seem to satisfy the townspeople, and it will cease this year. A permanent high school is still a few years away. There have been several private schools in Northborough; one of them, operated by Elmer Valentine and two of his daughters, persists. There is also an establishment of adult education called the Northborough Lyceum, featuring guest speakers and debates by townsmen.
Churches are important, of course. The First Church dates from 1746. It was the major factor in the existence of Northborough as a town, for its erection established a portion of the earlier town of Westborough as a separate precinct that later became a separate town. Its pastor for the past forty-four years has been Dr. Joseph Allen, whose name and family are prominent. He is now seventy years old and has a young assistant, Trowbridge B. Forbush. Within the years of Allen’s pastorate, two new congregations have formed. Just this year the Baptists have constructed a new church on Main Street. Silas Ripley is the pastor of that church, and another man whose role in this narrative will be significant, Samuel Stanford Ashley, leads the Evangelical Congregational, or, as it is usually called, the Orthodox Church. The Catholics are, as of now, without a church, so mass is celebrated in the homes of the communicants.
Some Northborough men have joined a military unit from the nearby town of Clinton. The highest-ranking Northborough man is Lieutenant James N. Johnson; one sergeant is his younger brother, Joseph. Both are comb makers. Walter Gale, another sergeant, is a son of the richest man in town, Captain
Cyrus Gale. He is listed as a farmer but is actually studying law. Of the two corporals from Northborough, one, Horace Peverley, married Lizzie Potter this year, and a son has already been born. Like the majority of Northborough lads, he has chosen a townsperson.³
Horace Peverley was a member of the Clinton Light Guard before the war. He became a husband and father in 1860 and joined the 15th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment in 1861.
The election of 1860 is a major event, with no fewer than four presidential candidates. The Democratic Party has