KEENE IN THE CIVIL WAR
1861-1865

Extracted from “A History of the Town of Keene” 

by S. G. Griffin, Keene NH Sentinel Printing Company 1904

On the 4th of April 1861, Dr. Thomas E. Hatch was appointed postmaster at Keene under the administration of President Lincoln, vice Joshua D. Colony.  Albert Godfrey was the choice of the citizens, as expressed by a vote of 189 to 62, but Dr. Hatch was appointed through the influence of his uncle, Hon.  Thomas M. Edwards, member of congress.  Personally Dr. Hatch was acceptable to the people, but his appointment in opposition to the choice of the citizens caused much ill feeling.

During the early months of 1861, alarming- reports of the acts of the disunionists were daily received.  One after another the Southern states passed the " Ordinance of Secession," and a Southern confederacy was formed.  Officers of the army and navy were throwing off their allegiance and espousing the cause of the South.  Armed forces were organizing and drilling throughout the Southern states.  A majority of the cabinet of President Buchanan was secessionist, and arms, forts, arsenals and other war material, besides public funds and other property belonging to the government, were seized, to be used in active rebellion.  The forts in the harbor at Charleston, S. C., held by a small force of United States troops, were demanded and threatened with forcible capture if the demand was refused.  The life of the president-elect was known to be in peril, but the designs of the assassins were frustrated and Mr. Lincoln reached Washington and was inaugurated on the 4th of March.

On the 12th of April 1861, Fort Sumpter was attacked by the secessionists, and after a gallant defense was surrendered with the honors of war.  The telegraph flashed the tidings to every part of the Union and the most intense excitement was aroused.  Public meetings were hastily called in every place of importance throughout the North to give expression to public sentiment.  The city of Washington and the archives of the government were in imminent danger of capture by the rebel forces.  On the 15th, President Lincoln issued his proclamation calling for 75,00 militia, for three months, for the defense of the government, and convening both houses of congress in extra session.  On the 16th, Governor Gilmore issued his call for regiment of volunteers from New Hampshire, in compliance with the request of the president, and Keene was mad one of the recruiting stations.

On the afternoon of Friday, the 19th, handbills signed by leading men of both parties were circulated in Keen and the adjacent towns calling on the people of Cheshire county to assemble at Keene on Monday, the 22d, to take action on the national crisis. That mass meeting was held in Central square at I o'clock on the day named.  Hon.  Levi Chamberlain - one of the three commissioners from New Hampshire, recently returned from the "Peace Congress" at Washington - called the meeting to order, and Ex-Governor Samuel Dinsmoor, a Democrat, was chosen president, with seven leading men of the county, three of whom were also Democrats, vice presidents.  Governor Dinsmoor took the chair and made a short patriotic speech in which he said: " Amid the general gloom which pervades the community there is yet one cause for congratulation - that we at least see a united North." General James Wilson was at home from California on a visit and Governor Dinsmoor introduced him to the multitude.  Both gentlemen wore rosettes of the national colors, and each as he came forward was received with enthusiastic applause.  Gen. Wilson made one of his old-time rousing speeches.  He was intensely patriotic, and though too far advanced in years and too feeble to take the field himself, his eloquence roused the patriotism of the younger men.  He was followed by others, several of whom offered their services on the spot.  Col.  Tileston A. Barker, of Westmoreland, a Democrat, offered to lead a company to the front; and such a company was immediately organized with full ranks - named the Cheshire Light Guards – and was ready to march within three days.  Hon.  Levi Chamberlain presented a paper already signed by twenty-three citizens, pledging $100 each to aid the families of those who would volunteer in case the town did not make an appropriation for that purpose, and the list was rapidly increased.

The same evening a meeting of the citizens of Keene was held in the town hall to encourage enlistments and to take further action towards aiding the families of volunteers, followed the next evening by another meeting for the same purpose.  During this second meeting Lieut.  Henry C. Handerson, who had been appointed recruiting officer at Keene, marched into the hall with a company of recruits; and they were received with rousing cheers.  That company, sixty-seven strong, left for Concord on Thursday, the 25th, and was assigned to the First regiment, New Hampshire Volunteers, organized at Concord.  The route then was by cars via Fitchburg, Groton junction and Nashua, and a crowd of people assembled at the station to bid them Godspeed.  Rev.  Dr. Barstow offered a prayer, and an agent of the New Hampshire Bible Society gave each volunteer a testament.

The excitement continued through the summer and fall, and frequent meetings were held, several of them being mass meetings on the Square.  The same enthusiasm prevailed throughout the North.  Legislatures were called together and regiments of volunteers were rapidly organized in all the states.  Troops from Massachusetts, New York and other states were promptly on the ground to defend the capital and other points.  The number of troops called for by President Lincoln had volunteered within ten days, and the quotas of the states were more than filled.  During that season of 1861, besides a battalion of cavalry, a light battery of six rifled brass pieces-155 men-and three companies of sharpshooters, New Hampshire organized and put into the field seven regiments of infantry; and the eighth left the state in the winter following-in all nearly 9,000 men.

On the 6th of May, Capt.  Barker's company of seventy-nine men and a third company of recruits of sixty-two men left Keene for Portsmouth amid the cheers of a large concourse of people.  Thus far all had enlisted for three months only, under the first call of the president, but these two companies, and others from other places, were accepted by the governor and sent to Portsmouth with the expectation that more troops would be needed; and the call soon came for another regiment from New Hampshire, to serve for three years or the war.  Those who had enlisted for three months were given. the first opportunity to serve in the longer term, and about one-half of the 1,000 volunteers then present at Portsmouth immediately reenlisted for three years or the war.  They were assigned to the Second regiment and given a short furlough to prepare for their long absence.  A large proportion of Capt.  Barker's men reenlisted, and the company came home in a body.

There were no funds in the state treasury to meet these extraordinary expenditures, but the banks, the citizens and Gov. Goodwin himself became responsible for the money borrowed for the emergency.  Two banks in Concord offered a loan of $50,000, and the three banks in Keene offered $10,000 each; and a little later, citizens of Keene subscribed for $25,450 of the loan of $150,000,000 negotiated by the government.  Tuesday evening, May 28, a large meeting was held at the town hall to take further measures for providing for the families of volunteers.  The sum of $5,000 had been subscribed on the paper already mentioned, but it was desired to secure appropriations from the town and legislation by the state for that purpose.

The women immediately began work in aid of the soldiers, furnishing underclothing, bandages, lint, and everything that might be needed by troops in the field or in the hospitals.  The women of Keene held their first meeting for that purpose on the 6th of May at the house of Rev.  E. A. Renouf.  It was then decided to hold a meeting the next day at the town hall, and a large attendance was secured.  At first packages were forwarded to Concord, where a state organization called the Soldiers, Aid Society had already been formed.  Early in June the Cheshire County Soldiers’ Aid Society, was organized in Keene, and the women of Keene, who were its officers and managers, acted under that organization.  Correspondence and cooperation were established with societies in each town in the county, and their packages were sent to Keene, and later all the contributions were forwarded direct from Keene to the agency of the National Sanitary Commission.  Nearly every woman in Cheshire County was a member of the Soldiers' Aid Society, There was also a juvenile Soldiers' Aid Society in Keene.  This county organization continued with unabated zeal all through the war, held weekly meetings, received and forwarded large amounts in contributions from the town societies and from individuals, churches and other organizations-and accomplished a vast amount of excellent work in aid of the sanitary and Christian commissions.  It had for presidents, Mrs. Thomas M. Edwards, Mrs. Thomas B. Kittredge, Mrs. Samuel Dinsmoor and Mrs. Thomas H. Leverett; for treasurers, Miss Loretta Boies, Miss Margaret R. Lamson and Miss Katherine Wheeler; for secretaries, Miss Susanna Thompson, Miss Katherine F. Wheeler and Mrs. Mary D. Smith; with Miss Mary W. Hale, corresponding secretary in the earlier part of the war.  It was under - the supervision of a board of eleven directors-of which the officers were members selected from the several religious societies in town, and an assistant committee of men consisting of Hon.  Samuel Dinsmoor, William P. Abbott, Caleb Carpenter, Sumner Wheeler and William P. Wheeler.  At the close of the war, in 1865, the funds remaining in its treasury were used to aid the families of those soldiers who had lost their lives in the war.  The organization was continued until 1871, when it did its last work to aid the sufferers by the great fire in Chicago.  During the last two years of the war there was a Cheshire County Christian Commission, a branch of the national, with headquarters at Keene; and there was a Union League Club in Keene which held regular meetings every week.

The New Hampshire legislature assembled on the 5th of June.  Hon.  Levi Chamberlain of Keene presented a series of resolutions pledging the resources of the state “for the integrity of the Union," and declaring, " That the duty of the General Government to suppress all attempts to dissolve the Union, is imperative, and cannot be evaded,') which passed without a dissenting vote.1 On the 24th a bill passed the house -169 to 94 - and became a law, appropriating $1,000,000 and placing it in the hands of the governor and council to be used for fitting out troops and sending them into the field, and the immediate organization of three regiments was authorized.