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units:cook_s_battery_boston_light_artillery_primary_sources
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Back to Cook's Battery Boston Light Artillery
Primary Sources for the Cook's Battery Boston Light Artillery
Figure 1: Title: War views. No. 1501, Camp life, Army of the Potomac - writing to friends at home
Summary: Stereograph shows Boston Light Artillery soldiers in camp at Relay House in Maryland sitting at a long table, writing letters, as one soldier, in the foreground, appears to be sewing. Photographed June 1861. LoC image.
Figure 2: History and Complete Roster of the Massachusetts Regiments, Minute Men of …
By George Warren Nason
Figure 3: Minute Men of '61
Boston Evening Transcript, May 13, 1861
FROM THE BOSTON LIGHT ARTILLERY.
A letter received in this city from a member of the Boston Light Artillery, dated at the Relay House, May 8th, gives some details of the recent movements of that corps, from which we take several extracts:
You no doubt have heard of our march from Annapolis to this place. We were roused up at one o clock in the morning and supplied with twenty-four rations, and then started, no one of us knowing where, excepting Gen. Butler. We went over the worst roads you can imagine, also through tobacco and cornfields and woods, across rivers, &c. till we reached Washington Junction, a distance of thirty-one miles. There to halted to feed our horses, took another negro guide, and pushed forward to this place, a distance of eleven miles, with better roads, and arrived at eleven o'clock. Some of our horses as well as men dropped from fatigue as soon as we halted, from this forced march.
We are here to protect the great bridge of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. It is the most stupendous work of the kind I ever saw, being 112 feet high, with solid granite arched pillars. The arches at the bottom are sixty feet wide, and the structure is about a quarter of a mile in length. The Baltimore roughs intended to blow up this bridge, and we were only in time to save it. This and another covered bridge are the only great thoroughfares for passing from the Northwest to the South.
Our battery is stationed on a very high and steep within half a mile of both bridges. We are 172 feet above the town, if the small settlement may be so called. We are with the New York Eighth and the Massachusetts Sixth Regiment's, and are entrenched in a position which we can hold against any odds. It required sixteen of our stoutest horses to pull each field piece up here. We are only a rifle shot from Baltimore County. Our name has gone before us, and the people feel secure where we move. Hundreds come to see us, and the praise of the Boston Light Artillery is in all mouths.
The people here pretend to be all for the Union, but still there are secessionists among them. Several of our party ate breakfast with a colonel of a secession regiment, but were not aware of the fact till he had departed.
As one of the incidents of camp ills I will mention that one of our guard was shot at last night, but was not hit. He instantly gave a return fire, and shot the cowardly rebel on the spot, and the miscreant was soon put under the sod. The whole affair passed so quickly that many of the company were not aware of an attack and its results.
boston_evening_transcript_1861-05-13_1.jpg
Figure 4: boston_evening_transcript_-_may_16_1861
Figure 5: boston_evening_transcript_1861-05-27
Figure 6: Letter page 1
Figure 7: Letter page 2
The Baltimore Sun, June 17, 1861
The Boston Light Artillery Company, stationed at the Relay House, on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, has been brought in and located at the camp near Mount Clare.
the_baltimore_sun_mon_jun_17_1861.jpg
Figure 8: boston_evening_transcript_1861-06-18
The Baltimore Sun, July 9, 1861
Withdrawal of Artillery from the City.—The Boston Light Artillery, which has been stationed for several days past in Monument square and on Lombard, street, in front of the custom-house, was withdrawn yesterday morning, and it was stated sent to the Relay House. The infantry are still in the city, and the custom-house and postoffice closely guarded. There is also a considerable reserve force of infantry quartered in the old postoffice. building and in Monument square.
units/cook_s_battery_boston_light_artillery_primary_sources.1558616251.txt.gz · Last modified: 2019/05/23 12:57 by admin