Rogers of starting the alarm, but could not prove it; whoever did it had reason to be proud of his success. We remained in camp in Patterson Park for three days; but the only other noteworthy occurrence that I recall there was a dress-parade one afternoon in a rain, at which the colonel commanded under an umbrella. August 29th. The regiment having received orders to report at Annapolis by rail, we struck tents and marched to the railroad station in the afternoon. The only insulting remark that I heard as we passed through the city was, They 'll make d-d poor manure for our land!" 66 Just after leaving Baltimore, Private Frank B. Marcy, of Company F, while attempting to climb through a window to the top of the car, feil under the wheels and lost an arm. We stopped at Annapolis Junction at ten o'clock at night, and the men slept in the cars and about the station. On the morning of the 30th six companies went on to Annapolis to garrison the Naval School buildings, and four were left to occupy the Junction, picket the Annapolis and Elkridge Railroad, and pervent contraband goods from passing from Baltimore to Virginia. Captain Walker, of Company G, was in command at the Junction, as the senior officer of the four companies left there; and Colonel Morse commanded the post of Annapolis. The 21st relieved a poorly drilled Pennsylvania regiment, who were very sorry to have to go, as the officers said that whiskey was plenty, and the pretty girls and inhabitants generally had been very friendly to them; but Massachusetts men would find things very different. The camp at the Junction had a first-class alarm on the night of the 30th. As in Baltimore, it occurred about midnight: a sentinel in the woods to the south of the camp fired his gun at an imaginary man whom he "saw creeping towards him." The men were somewhat nervous from being in a new place, and on account of the stories told them by the Pennsylvanians of the enmity of the people against Massachusetts men, and the alarm spread rapidly from one sentinel to another; all of them seemed to be firing as fast as possible in all directions, and as the battalion fell hurriedly into line bullets were hissing about, and things had rather a serious look. Fortunately, the sentinels had only a few rounds in their boxes, and the affair was soon over. This was the last entirely causeless alarm which ever occurred in the 21st, during its term of service. Early in September, our lieutenant-colonel, Albert C. Maggi, an Italian by birth, reported for duty with the regiment, and was assigned by Colonel Morse to the command at Annapolis Junction, and of the four companies which were kept on picket duty along the Annapolis and Elkridge Railroad and about the Junction. He was a well educated, enthusiastic soldier, and had served with honor under the great Garibaldi in South America and Europe. He at once announced his intention to make the 21st a regiment of regulars, and entered in earnest on the work his headquarters were made a school of soldiery for the officers, and not unfrequently an enlisted man, whose gun was found dirty or whose appearance had not been soldierly at inspection or parade, might be seen marching in a circle under guard, with his knapsack more or less filled with bricks. The lieutenant-colonel never treated Colonel Morse with even that outward show of respect which the good of the service requires that an officer inferior in rank should at least publicly show to his superior; exact in military detail, quick, outspoken, and determined, it was evident from the first that he and the colonel would not be comrades in the service long. I have always remembered one of his letters to the colonel, which before sending he read at one of our officers' meetings at the Junction. He was displeased at being assigned to a command of only four companies, as being below his rank; and soon after his arrival sent a letter to the colonel requesting as a matter of right that he be ordered to Annapolis, and the major sent to the Junction; this request the colonel declined to accede to, in a letter full of complimentary allusions to the lieutenant-colonel's military qualifications for the charge of so important a post as the Junction. Maggi's answer was in substance as follows: "I have just received your paternal letter refusing my request to be ordered to Annapolis. The Bible says that language was given to man to express his thoughts, but a philosopher has said that it was given to him to lie his thoughts. In your case I think the philosopher was right, but your letter was very paternal!" The four companies along the railroad and at the Junction were relieved by four of our other companies, and called in to Annapolis on Monday, September 16th; and, as long as the regiment remained in Maryland, the companies were detailed in turn for this duty. September 17th, the regiment was mustered in over again on account of informality in the previous musters. At about ten o'clock in the evening of Wednesday, September 18th, a terrible affair occurred in the Academy grounds at Annapolis. A corporal of the guard, Josiah W. Hayden, of Company K, was shot through the body by a sentinel, also belonging to Company K, whom the corporal had posted a few minutes before over one of the headquarter buildings, and died next morning. As the corporal was passing the sentry's beat he was ordered to halt and give the countersign; he was but a few feet away, the moon was shining brightly, and he knew that he was recognized: halting for a moment he refused to give the countersign, telling the sentinel that being on an interior post he had no right to require it; then, as he turned to move on the fatal shot was fired. Corporal Hayden was one of the finest fellows and best loved men in the regiment, and his comrades, as they gathered rapidly about the place, would probably have killed the sentinel upon the spot if he had not been at once covered by the guard. Charges were filed, and the sentinel was brought to trial; but, owing to his extreme youth (being only in his sixteenth year), and the fact that never having been properly instructed in his duty he thought that he had a right to shoot as he did, the court acquitted him, and he soon returned to duty. He afterwards did gallant service in the regiment, and slowly and patiently won his way to the respect of men who long looked upon him with hatred or horror. After this sad affair, the interior sentinels at Post Naval School, a place as safe as Boston Common, were not posted with loaded guns. September 22d, Private Lyman C. Gibbs, of Company C, was killed by a locomotive, while on duty near Annapolis Junction. On the evening of Monday, September 30th, First Lieutenant Charles K. Stoddard, commanding a picket station near Annapolis Junction, was shot through the abdomen by one of his pickets, and died at midnight. Lieutenant Stoddard was an open-hearted, genial man, and had not an enemy in the regiment. The sentinel who fired the shot, Henry C. Wester, of Company F, a Dane by birth, told the following story before the court of inquiry, which was fully confirmed by Corporal Ed. E. Monroe, who was making the rounds with Lieutenant Stoddard when he was shot: "I ordered him to halt four times before I fired; he made no answer, and did not stop; when I first halted him he was twenty or thirty feet off, the last time he was nearly at the point of my bayonet; he had on an overcoat buttoned up to the chin, and I did not know him, but thought he was a secessionist, and was afraid of my life. I fired and he fell, his coat flew open and I saw who it was. I fell down beside him and took his hand and said, 'Why didn't you answer.' I should not have killed him if I had known him; he was my best friend. I thought I was doing my duty and no more." To Assistant-Surgeon Warren, whom Lieutenant-Colonel Maggi sent at once to the spot, the lieutenant said: "Tell the colonel that I exonerate the man from all blame; give my love to all the officers of the regiment and to my folks." The following order was issued : HEADQUARTERS 21ST REGT. MASS. VOLS., SPECIAL REGIMENTAL ORDER No. 32. The colonel commanding, having heard the statement of Private Henry C. Wester, of Company F, relative to the death of First Lieu tenant Charles K. Stoddard of Company F, and also the statement of Corporal Edward E. Monroe, said statements being corroborated by Lieutenant Stoddard before his death, and having duly considered the same, and having taken the advice of the several captains of the regiment, does, in accordance therewith, direct that said Private Henry C. Wester be exonerated from all blame, and that he be commended for having faithfully performed his duty. By order of COLONEL MORSE, THERON E. HALL, Adjutant. Thursday, October 11th. We received our first pay from the United States, being to August 31st. The regiment did a good deal of tiresome fatigue duty in loading stores for the Sherman Expedition, destined for a descent upon the South Carolina coast, which rendezvoused at Annapolis during the month of October, and sailed on Monday, the 21st. Most of us felt very much vexed at not forming a portion of it, particularly as we had very good reason to believe that we had originally been selected as one of the regiments for the expedition, but had had our place filled, at almost the last moment, by that very gallant regiment, the 79th New York (Highlanders). Governor Hicks, then governor of Maryland, on the request of prominent residents in the vicinity, made a personal application to General Dix, department commander, and the War Department, that we might be retained at Annapolis and the Junction on account of the exemplary conduct of the men. Besides, we were represented by our colonel and the governor as better adapted to conciliatory purposes than fighting, and also as being afflicted with the small-pox, although we had at the time but one case of that disease in the regiment. Sensible men, knowing what fighting is, are generally entirely willing to wait for orders and not beg for a chance to fight, but the 21st were becoming galled at being kept so long on a tiresome routine of duty, and much preferred taking a hand in the conciliation of the fiery State of South Carolina, to winning the golden opinions of the people of Annapolis by our pacific behavior. However, we had an assurance from Governor |