Letters

Of a Maine Soldier Boy

NORMAN C. DELANEY

Most soldiers of the Civil War wrote numerous letters home which revealed their feelings and opinions on daily or weekly happenings. Those letters which have been preserved help to give an intimate view of a portion of the war's activities. Even though many letters of both Northern and Southern soldiers have been preserved and published, each new set adds to our knowledge of the war and of its soldiers, since each collection reflects the individualism of the writer.

Charles Chase, although only a private in the Union Army, was an intelligent youth who wrote lengthy and descriptive accounts of his experiences while separated from his family. He wrote good-naturedly about such occurrences as the worm-infested bread with which the soldiers were too often provided; his refinement was manifested by his disdain for incompetent officers, ignorant Negroes, and North Carolina womanhood. Charles's army career covered a two-year period (August, 1862, to June, 1864) and took him up and down the Carolinas before his participation in the Virginia Campaign of 1864 and his death at Cold Harbor.

Here, excerpts of Charles's letters are printed as they were written almost a century ago. The majority of his letters still in existence are those he wrote to a brother, Roscoe, and a sister, Abbie, who were only a few years older than Charles and hence closest to him. The collection of Chase letters includes three letters written by Charles Chase between 1860 and 1864, one letter from Roscoe to Abbie (December, 1862), another from Abbie to Roscoe (August, 1862), and four from men associated with Charles during his lifetime, but written after his death.

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The last-named include the official death notice, written by LieutenantWalter Keith of Company D, 23d Regiment, and condolences to theChase family by Charles’s minister (Alonzo Miner), his former employer (Hezekiah Chase), and his best friend (Sylvanias Small).

The Chase story had its origins many miles from the Virginia battle field where it ended for Charles. He was born July 18, 1841, in the peaceful little community of Buckfield, Maine, son of Thomas and Esther (Daggett) Chase.

Thomas Chase, Charles’s father (born in Buckfield, June 6, 1808), was a sixth-generation descendant of Aquila Chase, an early Maine explorer and settler, and the son of Rev. Nathaniel Chase, an early Buckfield settler.(1)

The land pioneered by Nathaniel Chase became the family home stead, where Charles Chase and his eight brothers and sisters were all born and raised. The early years spent on the farm left a great impression upon Charles, as is evident from the nostalgia he felt later while away from Buckfield. It was here that the corn huskings, apple bees, and hay rides interrupted the not unhappy routine of school and farm chores. Buckfield was (and is) an isolated community far from the tensions of North-South relations and the burning slavery issue of the 1850’s.

Of Charles’s early years, what is now known can be gathered only from inferences in later letters. His father’s leadership in the newly formed Republican Party undoubtedly had an effect on Charles’s strong Unionist sentiments. In 1855, Thomas Chase became the first Republican representative in the legislature from Buckfield. (Thomas was also elected several times to the Board of Selectmen, officiating as chairman In 1861, as well as to other town offices.)

In 1860 Charles was a clerk at a wholesale boot, shoe, and leather, concern in Boston—Chase, McKinney and Moors (20-22 Pearl Street)(2) for he had decided that an ambitious young man should not remain on the farm. This was a big step for a boy still in his teens to have made. Others in the family, aside from the farmers, were engaging in the tree business, and Charles must have done a great deal of speculation as to the direction his future should take. For Charles, that direction was south—Boston, Massachusetts.

His first letters home dated from the period when ominous storm clouds were gathering for civil war. But Charles and his contemporaries

(1)William B. Lapham and Mrs. Julia Chase Washburn, Records of the Descendants of Rev. Nathaniel Chase of Buckfleld, Maine (Augusta: T. F. Murphy’s Job Printing Office, 1818), pp. 1, 2.

(2) Hezekiah S. Chase of the company was a third cousin to Thomas Chase. There is no evidence that the relationship helped Charles secure his position. Although both Thomas and Hezekiah were descendants of Moses Chase, Hezekiah branch had been located In Newbury, Mass., for many years. Charles’s relations with his employer It appears from his letters, were properly formal.

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were concerned principally with their own activities instead of national issues. When war finally came, however, patriotic fervor for the Union filled young Charles. It was in desperation that he remained behind while others went to war, and his letters speak again and again of his desire to enlist. When his twenty-first birthday came, his mother’s opposition could no longer prevent Charles from enlisting. The next two years of his life, all that was to be left to him, saw the young clerk emerge into an efficient fighting man of the Federal Army.

In all likelihood, Charles Chase, with those others who fell at Cold Harbor, was buried at the Cold Harbor National Cemetery at Richmond, where the United States government has erected a white marble sarcophagus over the bodies of the unknown dead from the battlefields of Mechanicsville, Savage Station, Gaines’ Mill, and Cold Harbor. The only memorial to the memory of Charles Chase is a small monument in the family cemetery at Buckfield, Maine.

Charles’s letters, written while he was in Boston and in the army, were preserved for many decades. His letters to his mother were last known to be in the possession of Mrs. Homer Chase of Auburn, Maine, and have been presumed lost since the recent (1954) death of Mrs. Chase. How ever, the bulk of the Chase letters, those written to Abbie and Roscoe, eventually found their way to Boston and have been preserved. For many years Charles’s Civil War mending-kit, commonly referred to as a "housewife," was on exhibit at the Androscoggin Historical Society in Auburn, Maine, having been loaned to the society by Mrs. Homer Chase. Unfortunately, the kit was recalled before the death of Mrs. Chase, and its whereabouts is now unknown.

On August 4, 1862, Charles Chase enlisted for three years in the 23d Regiment, Massachusetts Infantry. The circumstances of this event are all revealed In Charlie’s letter to Roscoe of the preceding day:

I hope soon to be off for the war, if the surgeon passes me, I go and of course, he will. I go in the Mass. 23d, Col. Kurtz, an able officer and a fine man. This is one of the best Regts. that has left the state. I am acquainted with a number in it and they are all fine fellows. The regt, is now stationed at Newbern, N.C. guarding the city. Tis a healthy place and I think I shall be able to stand it, shall try at least. . . . Yester-day was measured for a coat and to-morrow shall be for my pants and boots. It will cost me something more to do this way but I rather do it than to wear, or rather try to wear the govt. uniforms. This city pays $100 bounty and after the 15th, they talk of drafting. I have about closed up my business here, have told my friends that I was going and go I will. Mother must not stand in the way this time, it’s too late for that. I wrote home Thursday that I was going and today I received their reply, you know about what it was, even father joined with them. I felt a great

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deal like swearing at what he said. Mother and Abbie I expected it from but I thought he would at least keep still. They talk about warm weather and this and that, it would be just the same if I was going to Canada. Had the Northern women one half the spunk the Southern women have the war would be nearly ended now. The Southern mother says "GO" while the Northern mother grows nearly crazy at the bare thought of her son going to war. But it will make no difference with (me) I know I am needed and I am going. When you write home, just reason with them a little and scold too for all of me. Is it any harder for them than for others? Who should they have go? Father speaks of being surprised that I should desire to go when the Govt. is getting all the men it wants. He knows that not one half have yet volunteered, in this city not more than one fourth have come forward.

* * *

Charles was soon on his way, after setting aside a few days for setting his affairs and making a two-day visit to his family in Buckfield (The last time the family ever saw him alive) "I am off," he wrote. "I go to camp this morning and to Newbern, N.C. Monday. Am in Co. D. 23 Mass. Regt. now stationed at that place. I have much more than I can do so must cut this letter short."(4)

The same day, Abbie Chase wrote to Roscoe in California, giving the family’s reaction to Charles’s enlistment. Her patriotic sentiment seems to belie what Charles earlier wrote about Northern women. Abbie’s letter also contains an account of a certain "unpatriotic" Laura W., who made a statement against the nation’s young men going off to War, while Charles was at home.

They [the Hines girls] told him I they were glad he was going and bade him God Speed. Laura W. came in while we were there & she exclaimed against it. She said she didn’t think it was any body’s duty to go. She didn’t think the country worth such lives. Bright speech wasn’t It? I felt bad for her that she had such principles instilled into her mind. How shocked Nancie looked and I said something. I told Nancie & Kate what you said and they seemed very much pleased. I think a great of them.. (5)

* * *

The men had the usual ", miserable" sea voyage to Newbern. Abbie’s first letter to the new recruit, wonding where are you tonight" bought the reply: "Probably at that hour I lay In the front part of that old boat, first on one side and then on the other as the boat pitched back

3 to Roscoe, August 3 18664

4 to Roscoe, August 9, 1862.

5 to Roscoe, August 9, 1862.

Pt.2