PREFACE. AT the first annual reunion of the survivors of the regiment at Worcester, February 8, 1866, I was urged by many comrades to prepare a history of its service. While a member of the regiment, from its organization until the 25th of April, 1863, I had kept a full diary, and collected the official reports of battles and casualties in action. As these would give me a start, I thought that I could find time to do the work, and at once set about its preparation. During the summer of 1866, circulars were freely distributed among the members of the regiment and families of deceased comrades, calling for facts which they deemed of interest, and the principal portion of this history was compiled and written in the years 1866 and 1867. With an intense feeling of loyalty to the glorious old regiment and of tender regard for the memory of our dead comrades, I devoted to this labor of love every hour during those years which I could spare from the demands of a laborious profession. But there were still many gaps to be filled, and the Roster was entirely wanting. I became dissatisfied with the result, and found it not very difficult to persuade myself to put my record upon the shelf, in the hope that it would at some future time be my privilege to coöperate with other comrades in producing a better monument to our heroes. As the years passed on it became more and more evident that the materials which I had accumulated must be used by me if by any one; and finally, at the reunion of 1879, I promised an early completion and publication of the history. The revision which I had supposed would be the work of months only, has to my great regret occupied years, —more than a year of the delay being caused by the difficulty of making a roster of the regiment worth publication. I had expected to use the Roster published by the Commonwealth in 1870, in the "Record of the Massachusetts Volunteers," but found that part of it relating to the enlisted men so frequently and wonderfully incorrect, that I have dared to take hardly anything from it without verification. In this task of correction I have examined personally all the monthly regimental returns, and indeed every roll, report, and return relating to the regiment on the files of the office of the adjutant-general, from whom and his assistants I have received all possible aid in the work. Even now I do not claim that the Roster is perfect, but the errors cannot be very numerous, and it is certainly by far the best that exists at the present time. Lest I should be understood as accusing the adjutant-general, under whose direction the record published by the State was prepared, of carelessness in so important a matter, I ought to say that most of its mistakes and omissions exist also in the muster-out rolls from which it was made up. Many of our comrades have died since their muster out of service, by reason of wounds and disease suffered or incurred while in the regiment; but in my record of casualties I have confined myself to deaths in the service. This is the history of a fighting regiment, and I shall particularly regret any errors which may be found to exist in the record of casualties in action. It is hardly possible that there are many such errors, as in addition to the official reports, I have had full lists of casualties from the hospital records of Surgeons Cutter and Oliver, also from acting Sergeant-Major Harrison C. Cheney, for the summer campaign of 1864, and from Captain William H. Sawyer, the last commander of the 21st battalion, for its final service, besides receiving valuable information on this subject from many others. To Captain Sawyer I am also indebted for official documents and facts of interest in connection with the latest service of the reënlisted men. Since I ceased to be connected with the regiment, I have derived information not only from sources indicated above, but from the carefully-collated statements and diaries of several officers and men, to whom I have, as far as possible, given credit in the text or notes from time to time. I am also indebted to Major-General John G. Parke, Chief of Engineers, for a full set of the war maps published by the government; to the late Major-General Burnside, for copies of official reports obtained from the War Department; and to the late Governor Bullock, for copies of his eloquent addresses to the regiment on its departure from the State in 1861, and return on the reënlistment furlough, in 1864. The history of the 21st in rebel prisons, contained in the twenty-second chapter, is one of the most interesting and valuable parts of the book, consisting principally of the full prison diary of Private George A. Hitchcock, and extracts from diaries and a narration of incidents of their prison life by Sergeant-Major P. Frank Gethings, First-Sergeant Marcus M. Collis, Corporal Alvin S. Graton, and Privates Wilbur A. Potter and John E. Short. The maps, plans, and general statements of campaigns, strength of opposing armies, losses, etc., have been carefully prepared from the best attainable sources, and may be relied upon. For opinions incidentally expressed as to commanding officers and campaigns, I am alone responsible. In the account of the battle of Antietam, it is stated on the 201st page of the book that our brigade, after the passage of Antietam Creek, took position in a ravine on the right of the road. This statement should be limited to the old regiments of the brigade (21st Massachusetts, 51st New York, and 51st Pennsylvania); the 35th Massachusetts, on crossing, were pushed up the hill directly in front of the bridge, and led the division in the advance against Hill's troops late in the after noon. I sincerely thank my comrades for the sacred trust which they have committed to me in the preparation of this history, as well as for the patience with which they and the families of our loved and honored dead have waited so long for its publication, and am fully conscious how meagre and inadequate it will seem to many of them. CHARLES F. WALCOTT. CAMBRIDGE, June 20, 1882. |