Who was he? Read a remarkable Battle of Nashville letter

Howard Pyle's painting depicts Minnesota troops fighting near Shy's Hill during 
the Battle of Nashville. (Read more.)

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The letter below, published in the Vermont Phoenix on Jan. 13, 1865, comes from a 7th Minnesota soldier who signs himself simply as "Edward," writing from Cumberland Hospital in Nashville. He wastes no time easing his mother’s fears: Yes, he was wounded in the Battle of Nashville, but it was a minor head wound and he’s recovering well. He knows she will have already seen newspaper reports of the fighting and possibly casualty lists, and he gently prepares her for the hardest news of all — the death of his close friend and comrade, 27-year-old Fred H. Fessenden. 

Edward's letter appeared in the 
Vermont Phoenix of Brattleboro
 on Jan. 13, 1865.

Edward then launches into a vivid, boots-on-the-ground account of the battle. On Thursday, Dec. 15, 1864, his regiment advanced under heavy artillery fire and spent hours lying flat on their stomachs while shells screamed overhead. When the order finally came to charge, they surged forward and captured the Confederate works in minutes. In the chaos, Edward saw their brigade commander Sylvester Hill killed instantly, with Fred catching him as he fell during the attack at Redoubt No. 3, south of today's downtown Nashville. 

Even in victory, death was everywhere, and the fighting didn’t slow down. The next day was even worse. 

Early Friday morning, Edward and Fred — "a fearless soldier of Jesus," according to an inscription on a CDV of him (below) — lay near each other before the final assault near Shy's Hill, calmly eating hardtack and talking, unaware of how little time they had left. During the charge, Edward was struck in the head and knocked down. Within minutes, Fred — after hearing that Edward had been wounded — was shot in the temple and killed. 

Between personal moments, Edward paints an unforgettable picture of the battle itself: charging across open fields under devastating fire, lying exposed between opposing artillery batteries, watching enemy lines crumble and finally storming breastworks bristling with cannon firing grape and canister at close range. He admits he cannot understand how anyone survived that final charge, yet survive they did — capturing guns, prisoners and a decisive victory for the Union, though at enormous cost.

So, who was Edward and what became of him? And why did this letter appear in a Vermont newspaper? Five soldiers named Edward — their surnames were Camirand, Wright, Klappenbach, Lightbourne and Schuetz — served in Company H with Fred H. Fessenden, who rests in Nashville National Cemetery. One of them probably is our letter writer.

I'm digging in.

U.S. hospital at University of Nashville | Library of Congress

A Soldier's Letter. Cumberland Hospital | NASHVILLE, TENN., Dec. 19th, 1864

You will doubtless be anxious to hear from me, for long before this reaches you, you will have heard of  this hard fought battle and glorious victory won near Nashville last Thursday and Friday and perhaps will see my name among wounded and the name of Fred H. Fessenden on the list of killed. To commence I will say I am slightly wounded in the head and am feeling very comfortable now, and if I do not get cold in my wound, I think I shall soon be able to return to my the regiment and to duty again.

7th Minnesota battle flag

About ten o'clock last Wednesday night we received orders to be up at four o'clock and ready to march at six o'clock in the morning and move upon the enemy's works. We did so. But as I cannot write you a long letter now, I will send you this morning's paper which gives an account of our work. The correspondent must have been with the 4th corps most of the time I think, for he does not tell half what we (Gen. A. J. Smith's command) did.

Our regiment got into action about noon on Thursday, when we drove the rebs some two miles; then we saw they had two lines of breast-works with several cannons and a large force behind them. The artillery fire from both sides now was most rapid and deafening. Our infantry line of battle now double-quicked across an open field to the foot of the hill on which the rebel battery was planted and about 40 rods from their works. Here we lay down. flat on our stomachs two hours, while our batteries tried to shell the rebs out of their works. 

A wartime illustration depicts the Union attack on Redoubt No. 3 at Nashville and the moment
Col. Sylvester Hill (on horseback) was struck by Confederate fire. Below, Redoubt No. 3 today.

Rebels retreat like a 'flock of frightened sheep'

About 5 p.m. the order was given to fix bayonets and charge upon their works. With a shout and yell, we rushed up the hill, and in less than five minutes the works were ours. I cannot describe the scene that followed, as I scaled the walls of the rebel fort, Col. Hill commanding our brigade rode past me shouting to the men to cease firing and form a new line of battle. Just then a ball came whizzing over head and struck Col. Hill in the face, killing him instantly. Fred Fessenden caught him as he fell from his horse.

Colonel Sylvester Hill,
killed at Nashville.

I immediately informed Col. [William] Marshall of it. He said "Is that so ? then I have command of the brigade now." The excitement of the hour was so great that no one stopped to obey the order to cease firing but all rushed on and on, driving the rebs before us like a flock of frightened sheep, until we had captured the second and third line of breastworks with several cannon, and twelve hundred prisoners.

It was now night and darkness closed our work for that day. We formed three lines of battle and lay down on our arms in the rebel camp. We cooked our supper on the fire that the rebs built to get their supper by, and I slept on some straw that the rebs slept on the night before. About ten o'clock that night our regimental Postmaster brought us a mail. I received two letters which I was very glad to get, and it's the last mail I have received. 

Next morning about one hour before daylight we were routed up and marched about a mile where we lay in line of battle until 8 o'clock. While there we cooked our breakfast. At 8 o'clock the order to advance was given. We had to march through a thick lot of brush and then emerged into an open wheat field where the rebs had a full view of us, and they improved the time by opening upon us a hot and rapid fire of shot and shell. We double-quicked towards them across the wheat field and found they were intrenched behind a strong line of breastworks. We lay down in a ravine in a corn field about an hour, while our batteries which had got into position poured their shells upon the rebels. The firing from the batteries on both sides now was the most rapid and deafening I ever heard. [The] Tupelo [Miss.] battle I thought was dreadful. But that was small compared to this. 

'We had a full view of the rebel works'

We lay just about half way between the rebel batteries and our own; the shot and shell whizzed over us, sometimes bursting close to us, throwing the mud all over us, and now and then wounding some of us as we lay there hugging the ground. You can imagine it was anything but agreeable. I was glad when the order came to advance again. 

We marched a little to the right and then forward about forty rods on to a little rising ground and lay down behind a rail fence. Here we had a full view of the rebel works, which were not more than eighty rods in front of us. We lay flat on the ground behind the fence and watched the movements of the enemy and the effects of our shells as they burst behind their works and among the rebs. We could see the rebs as they massed their forces on our right and then on our left as occasion required.

Minnesota monument on Shy's Hill, from which the Confederates retreated "pell mell" 
on Dec. 16, 1864, according to letter writer Edward.

Once they sent a heavy force up a hill in front of our right, but less than half an hour we heard a tremendous volley of musketry firing and then a cheering, and very soon we saw our extreme right had flanked that force and they were rushing back down the hill pell mell, in the most demoralized condition. While we were lying behind the fence I indulged in considerable sharp shooting. We could see the rebel sharpshooters posted behind some trees firing at us every time any one raised a little from the ground, and I with several others of our company tried our best to drive them off or stop their work. One especially I fired at several times, and after the last charge was made he was found dead by the tree.

About four o'clock p.m. the order was given along the whole line to charge upon the breast-works. We all jumped up and with a yell and cheer we rushed towards them. Not till then did we think there was half as large a force of rebels there. Directly in front of our regiment the rebs had a battery of four guns which they had kept silent until the charge was made, and we had no idea they were there until they opened on us a most murdering fire of grape and cannister while thousands of muskets sent a tornado shower of bullets at our advancing columns, but it did not check the line in the least although I cannot imagine how it was possible for a single man to reach the breastworks alive. 

'How dearly we paid for it'

Private Fred H. Fessenden, killed 
at the Battle of Nashville.
"A fearless soldier of Jesus,"
reads an inscription on this CDV.
(Minnesota Historical Society)

But in less than ten minutes our flag was upon their works, and our boys were behind their intrenchments; our regiment captured the four cannon that played upon me so fearfully, (with their old rage of treason and rebellion) and over a thousand prisoners. The works along the whole line were carried and the victory won. But how dearly we paid for it. The loss of killed and wounded will tell.

Just as we commenced the charge, I was struck on the left side of my head by a bullet, which knocked me down, stunning me for a few seconds. I soon rallied, however, and told my Lieut. I was wounded. He helped me to take off my haversack, canteen and rubber blanket. (It was raining hard at the time) and told me to crawl to the rear if I could, my head face and whiskers were covered with blood by that time. I crawled back a few rods and lay down where I was not so much exposed to the storm of lead that was pouring upon us. 

As I grew weak and faint from the loss of blood, I fell back a little further to a running brook where I could drink some water and bathe my wound. I lay there about an hour when two of my comrades came after me and helped me into a house which was near by, and about nine o'clock in the evening the surgeon got round to dress my wound. Over one hundred wounded were brought into that house that night. Soon after I was taken to the house my Lieut. came in and found me laying on a matress in the parlor. He said he got through without a scratch and 29 of our company with him, some five or six were missing and among that number was Fred. Fessenden, and he asked me if I had seen anything of him. I told him I had not. Soon afterwards one of our boys came in to tell me that Fred. was killed.

7th Minnesota soldier Fred Fessenden: 'Tell my friends I die trusting in God'

He said that when we had nearly reached the breastworks some of the boys told Fred that Ed was wounded. He asked if I was badly wounded, and they told him they thought I was. Just then a ball struck him in the temple and he sung out "Good bye" and fell dead upon the field. Soon after we left camp on Thursday morning and as we were forming in line of battle, Fred said to me, "Well, Edward, if I fall in the battle, tell my friends I die trusting in God." How little we knew that within 36 hours he would be called to be with his Saviour, whom he loved. He died about 4 o'clock Friday afternoon, Dec. 16th, 1864, and probably in less than five minutes after I was wounded. When I fell he was about six feet from me, but such was the excitement at that time he did not notice me. Just before the charge was ordered, we were lying down near each other eating our dinner of hardtack, and talking in the best of spirits.  

Fred was a good soldier, ever ready to do his duty, and always in the front rank and at his post in time of danger. He could always be depended upon. He was recently offered a promotion, but declined to accept it, preferring to serve as a private the rest of his time. But now he is promoted to higher and more noble employment than earth can give, and although I shall miss him very much, I feel that what is my loss is his infinite gain.

General George Thomas

Fred's body, with all the others who were killed in our regiment, were brought to the house in which I lay, and were all laid out in a row in the front yard. By order of Gen. [George] Thomas they were to be taken to the cemetery in the city and buried; each grave will have a head board, with name, company and regiment upon it. As soon as I am able, I shall try to find his grave. 

I lay in the house near the battle-field until Sunday afternoon, when most all the wounded who could ride in hacks were taken to this hospital. As I rode out of the yard I saw the row of dead, and was told which was Fred's body. He had his overcoat on, and his cap lay on his face. The boys said he looked very natural. I wanted to go to it, but the hack could not get nearer than two or three rods. 

I would like to write considerable more, but must stop and write to Jennie. I wrote this lying on my back, as I must keep my head as quiet as possible. Now, mother, don't worry about me, for I am in one of the best hospitals in the country, and am doing as well as I can expect. May God sustain you in this sad hour, and bring us all at last to our Heavenly home, is the sincere prayer of your bereaved, sympathizing and affectionate son, EDWARD.

Video: Explore Fort Granger in Franklin, Tennessee

Sparing no effort, the U.S. Army outfitted Fort Granger with powerful siege guns, field artillery, a powder magazine for 1,200 artillery rounds and a storehouse for 70,000 rations. “The strongest and finest fortifications in the department of the Cumberland,” an observer wrote. Union bigwigs named the fort for Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, a career U.S. Army officer, who, in 1863, delighted visitors by firing two shots from its monster Parrot gun into a tree a mile away.

'Malled': Where five soldiers paid ultimate price at Stones River

Stan Hutson holds his tintype of Julius Waite near the site of the Union soldier's death.

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Much of the battlefield in Murfreesboro, Tenn., where more than 24,000 souls became casualties in one of the war's bloodiest battles, is unrecognizable as hallowed ground. Developers have "malled" the battlefield, covering it with strip malls, housing developments and other urban schlock.

In 2019, Alabama native Stan Hutson — who cares deeply about the battlefield — took me to key points on the field. (Read my Civil War Times column.) We examined ground where soldiers paid the ultimate price outside what today is the national park, which encompasses only a fraction of the battlefield.

Here are the sites where five Battle of Stones River soldiers were either killed or mortally wounded on Dec. 31, 1862.

While leading his men at roughly 9 a.m. on December 31, 1862, Union Brig. General Joshua Sill was killed in the area above by a bullet that struck him in the face, penetrating his brain. The 31-year-old commander died wearing General Phil Sheridan’s jacket, mistakenly picked up by Sill during a military conference earlier that day. The men, good friends, had roomed together at West Point.

“No man in the entire army, I believe, was so much admired, respected, and beloved by inferiors as well as superiors in rank as was General Sill," a Union officer said afterward.

Sill’s death site is unmarked, forgotten, in the midst of retail businesses.

Somewhere out there in the sprawl of Murfreesboro, Tenn., John Penland was mortally wounded.

In or near Hell’s Half-Acre, John Penland, a 45-year-old private in the 57th Indiana, suffered a severe wounded when a cannon ball grazed across his stomach. After examining his map, Hutson figured the married father of nine children was shot near the busy road in the near distance, “between the Dollar General Store and that Gerber’s sign.” 

Penland, who had three sons in the Union Army, held in his intestines and walked a mile to his camp. He died from infection and fever on Jan. 4, 1863. Here's more on Penland on Find A Grave.

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(Image courtesy Richard Penland)

Even at the doorstep of the national park, nearly within site of the heart of the Slaughter Pen, the 21st century leans creeps closer into the 19th. Until 2017, this land upon which Mississippians, Tennesseans and Alabamians advanced on Dec. 31, 1862, was mostly open field, dotted with old-growth trees and a few houses. 

In the attack, James Lockhart Autry, a lieutenant colonel in the 27th Mississippi, was killed by a bullet to the head. The 31-year-old lawyer and politician from Holly Springs, Miss., left a wife named Jeannie and a 3-year-old son, James II. Now the area where Autry was killed is occupied by a 116-bed hospital and a parking lot. Here's more on Autry on the Rice University web site.

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Autry photo: “Col. James Lockhart Autry,” Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library, Rice University, accessed December 29, 2019.

Suburbia has claimed the area where 22nd Alabama Private Abner Ball was killed. 

Abner Columbus Ball, a private in Company G of the 22nd Alabama, was killed the day after his 35th birthday. He left behind a wife named Nancy and four children – two boys and two girls. The farmer was buried on the battlefield; his remains were recovered and re-buried in Murfreesboro’s Evergreen Cemetery, where many Confederate dead of Stones River rest. 

Did Ball die by what’s now a tire store? Was he originally buried by the present-day gas pumps at the convenience store? Hutson and I stood in the approximate area where Ball died. But because the ground bears no resemblance to the 1862 scene, there's no way to be sure.

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(Abner Ball photo courtesy Stephen Cone)

Julius Waite was killed near what today is a parking lot for a dental clinic.

Julius Berdan Waite, a 30-year-old private in Battery E of the 1st Ohio Light artillery, was killed in the opening action of the battle. Hutson owns a tintype of the soldier — "probably an image he sent to his wife,” he told me. 

In a Napoleonic pose, a bushy-bearded Waite, a farmhand as a civilian, stares straight ahead, the thumb of his large hand tucked inside his military jacket. The area where Waite was killed is near busy, five-lane Old Fort Parkway, a dental clinic, convenience store and an apartment complex construction site. About 15 years ago, the area was largely open fields.

(Waite image courtesy Stan Hutson)

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A death at Gettysburg: '... Covered up with a little dirt'

The 7th Wisconsin routed the Confederates in McPherson's Woods (background) before it was
forced to hastily retreat. (Library of  Congress)

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On July 1, 1863, the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, Private Silas Pease of the 7th Wisconsin was shot through the head and killed instantly, probably during the regiment's attack in McPherson's Woods. Because the regiment was forced to hastily retreat, Pease's body was left on the field and his commanding officer was unsure if he had been buried by the enemy. "Probably he was covered up with a little dirt, as that is the way they generally bury our dead," Lieutenant William Gildersleeve wrote in a letter to Pease's friend or relative nearly a month after the battle.

While examining pension records on fold3.com, I found Gildersleeve's letter about the 7th Wisconsin private, whom he described as "somewhat eccentric" but a "genial companion." If Silas Pease's remains were recovered, his final resting place may be in Gettysburg National Cemetery in an unknown grave.

(National Archives via fold3.com)

Camp of the 7th Regiment, Wis. Vol.
Washington Junction, Va.

G.F. Duren

Dear Sir:

Your favour of the 22nd inst. came to hand last night & I hasten to answer your inquiries. Silas Pease was killed about 4 o'clock PM on Wednesday, July 1st. He was shot in the head and died instantly. Soon after we were driven from the field and had to leave our dead & wounded in the hands of the enemy. His tent mate informs me he had between seventy & eighty dollars in his pocket, which the enemy got or was buried with him. I cannot vouch for his being buried. Probably he was covered up with a little dirt, as that is the way they generally bury our dead. I did not know that he was killed until after the battle. He was on the left & I on the right of the company.

I do not think that his body can be found or the place of his final rest. He has just 2 months pay due him for which he was mustered for & his friends will get it in due time through the proper channels, no other effects. He lost all with his brave & noble life. A patriot & a brave soldier, missed by his comrads in arms & friends at home. Although somewhat eccentric he was a genial companion. Give his friends ...

(National Archives via fold3.com)

... this testimony of our regrets of his untimely end. Many fell on that event full day and Silas was one that gave his life in putting down this rebellion. Peace to the memory of our noble boys.

If I can do anything further for you or Silas's friends it will afford me pleasure so to do.

Yours truly
W.H. Gildersleeve
2nd Lieut, Command'g Co. E
7th Regt. Wis. Vol

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Death and The Soldier's Friend: Corporal Charlie Adams' story

19-year-old Charles Adams' grave in East Cemetery in Litchfield, Conn.

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Adapted from my book, Hidden History of Connecticut Union Soldiers. E-mail me here for information on how to purchase an autographed copy.

Less than a half-hour after he received the urgent message, Congressman John Hubbard arrived at a wharf where a small steamship that transported wounded soldiers from Virginia battlefields sat motionless at a dock on the Potomac. The date was June 11, 1864, a quiet, sunny morning in Washington so calm that barely a ripple appeared on the water.

Ten days earlier, the 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery, mostly men and boys from Litchfield County in northwestern Connecticut, had been shattered at the Battle of Cold Harbor — the regiment’s first major fighting of the war. The butcher’s bill of 81 killed, 212 wounded and 15 missing took up nearly two full columns in the Litchfield (Conn.) Enquirer on June 9, 1864, sending the town, largely untouched by war until that time, into prolonged mourning and giving the region’s clergymen and stone carvers more work than they could have ever imagined. Two of the officers on that casualty list — Colonel Elisha Kellogg of New Hartford and Capt. Luman Wadhams of Litchfield — were among the regiment's most beloved soldiers.

"How de do, Mr. Hubbard?" 
grievously wounded Charlie Adams
 feebly  greeted Congressman
 John Hubbard (above).

Charles Adams Sr., a deacon at the Congregational Church in Litchfield and one of the county’s more respected citizens, broke the news of  twenty-nine-year-old Luman’s death to the soldier’s parents the same night he told them of the death of another one of their three sons, an officer in another Connecticut regiment.

Many Union wounded arrived in Washington after they had been transferred from Cold Harbor to White House, Va., a key Union supply point and hospital site on the south side of the Pamunkey River, about 120 miles as the crow flies from the capital. By the time of Hubbard’s arrival at the Washington wharf about 8:30 a.m., the steamship Monitor had emptied of all its human wreckage except the subject of the urgent message sent to the Connecticut representative: 19-year-old Charles Adams Jr., the youngest son of the deacon who days earlier had broken the tragic news to the Wadhams family.

Shot in the shoulder and right leg at Cold Harbor, Corporal Adams lay on the battlefield with many of his dead and wounded comrades in the “Heavies” for hours before he was finally rescued and transported to a field hospital. Nursed by a man from Goshen, Connecticut, on the journey from White House, Adams suffered from such grievous wounds that the surgeon who treated him advised against removing him from the boat.

Shortly after he stepped aboard the Monitor, the teen recognized the 60-year-old politician.

“How de do, Mr. Hubbard?” Adams feebly greeted the longtime family friend.

“The poor boy said he was willing to die and felt prepared, said he was a soldier of the cross,” Hubbard remembered. “[He] talked much about the family and especially inquired about his sisters.”  Informed of their son’s condition,  Charles Sr. and Julia Adams were already en route from Litchfield to find him but had left Connecticut without knowing  the whereabouts of Charlie, one of their 10 children.

2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery
Captain Luman Wadhams was
mortally wounded at Cold Harbor.

Hubbard was joined at Adams’ side by a soldier from Massachusetts, Surgeon William Smith and a nurse from Massachusetts, who brought a box of cordials for the wounded teenager and almost immediately was drawn to the son of a Litchfield judge.

Perhaps it was Adams’ age — he was just a boy, after all. Or maybe it was his dreadful wounds, all considered life-threatening. Or maybe it was because Adams was the lone soldier on the boat that tranquil Saturday morning on the Potomac. But Marie Greene was captivated by the corporal with the “sweet face, patient mild demeanor and wounded helpless, suffering … condition.”

The thirty-six-year-old woman had seen plenty of death during the war as a nurse for the U.S. Sanitary Commission, a private relief agency that provided invaluable aid to soldiers.  “I have stood by the side of many a dying soldier and I cannot tell you how it has pained my heart to see them dying without a hope in Jesus,” she later wrote.   Greene thought of herself as a “The Soldier’s Friend,” and even signed correspondence that way. Her devotion to the needs of soldiers was so impressive that a clergyman later in the war wrote “not all the angels are confined to heaven.”

Greene bathed the teenager’s temple, gave him wine and water and endeavored to keep Adams comfortable. If she only had nursed this soldier since he was cut down at Cold Harbor, she thought.  While she tended to Adams aboard the Monitor,  Hubbard explained that Charlie was a “pure-minded youth” who led an “exemplary life,” was “beloved” and had “family associations of a high order.”

But there was only one issue to ponder now: Would Charlie Adams survive?

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Death was not far from any family’s door during the Civil War. Six months after the Rebels fired on Fort Sumter, the Adams family was rocked when Charlie’s cousin died in an obscure battle in far-off Florida. Killed at Santa Rosa Island on October 9, 1861, Joseph Adams was a private the 5th Georgia  -- in the Rebel army. Divided loyalties -- Deacon Adams’ sister Sarah had moved South before the war -- apparently had not strained family relationships.

Cold Harbor: The 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery suffered more
than 300 casualties here on June 1, 1864. The monument in
the background of the top photo honors the "Heavies."

But the possibility of dying  did not seem to consume Charlie. After mustering into the 19th Connecticut (later 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery) on September 11, 1862, his regiment spent months manning the many forts that ringed Washington.  Although chances to fire on the enemy were few, Adams contemplated other opportunities to use his weapon.  “Nearly a hundred of the recruits have deserted all ready,” he wrote in the winter of 1864, “[and] several have been taken and I think we shall have a chance to shoot them.”

On February 2, 1864, Adams, the youngest soldier in his tent, celebrated his 19th birthday.  “I shall keep quiet about it,” he wrote to his mother, “until after we get to bed to-night, for if I should not I reason I should get whipped until I was black and blue.” And he also professed his belief in the Union cause and that the country would be rid of slavery. “If we come home all safe and sound or are wounded in battle,” he wrote, “we will never be sorry that we came out to protect the government and put down this wicked rebellion.”
Twice a week in the spring of 1864, Adams’ regiment practiced its marksmanship with heavy guns -- eight-inch mortars, 100-pounders and Rodman guns, which fired massive shells. The 100-pounders, which had an extreme range of about five miles, “make the best shots,” Charles wrote to his mother. He even imagined firing a shell on a section of town back home: “I think it would do Northfield good to drop one onto that church,” he wrote,  tongue in cheek.

By May 1864, Gen. Ulysses Grant’s unrelenting pressure on the Rebels offered hope that the war soon might end.  Even a lowly corporal 60 miles from the front had a grasp of the general’s strategy. “We have good news from the army this morning,” Adams wrote his mother on May 14, 1864. “Gen. Grant is pushing Lee slowly but steadily toward Richmond … [A] great event will take place before June that will tell in this war.”

At 1 a.m. on May 17, 1864, near Fort Corcoran, one of the defenses near Washington, Elisha Kellogg and his adjutant read a letter from the War Department.  Shortly after it was received, “Reveille” was played, the regiment was ordered to fall in and soldiers left their quarters like “angry bees.”  The 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery was directed to join the Army of the Potomac.  Early the next morning, it was on its way to the front at Spotsylvania Courthouse, Virginia, where it would serve as infantry.

Recalled a soldier in the regiment: “No matter how long a man has been a mere denizen of the unthreatened camp, drilled, mustered and rationed -- no matter how many blank cartridge firing he has done -- when at length he realizes that he must go to the front, and hear the ultimate arguments in the great debate of war, he feels a certain sinking of the heart.”

By the morning of June 1, Adams and the 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery would be at a crossroads town in Virginia called Cold Harbor.

Behind earthworks and abatis, the Rebel army awaited.

      Interactive panorama: Where 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery fought at Cold Harbor. 

“I only wish they were here,” Charlie softly repeated to Nurse Greene, a reference to his parents. Sadly, they had traveled to White House, Virginia, and were unaware that their son had been transported to Washington.

While Greene sat by him, the teenager asked for something to support his arm, so she placed a folded blanket in her lap and rested it in it, bringing him temporary relief.  He spoke quietly to Hubbard and Greene, then fell silent.  It was about 10 a.m. on June 11, 1864, about 90 minutes after the nurse and the politician had arrived aboard the steamship.

Greene asked Charlie if he had a keepsake for his family, but he didn’t reply. “He seemed waiting, watching for the time to come, and said distinctly ‘I am ready to go.’,” the nurse recalled, before he “fell asleep in death as calmly and noiselessly as falls an autumn leaf to the soft green sod beneath.”

“My dear lady,” the nurse  wrote to Adams’ sister, Mary, “it was a sad yet noble sight to witness such a scene. In the quiet sunny morning -- on that little Monitor-- upon the calm sunlighted Potomac.  A hero yielding up his breath for the sake of his country. A faithful soldier of his country and a devoted soldier of the cross. O, what sweet consolation to mourning  friends to reflect that he lived a noble life and died in a glorious cause -- serving God and country.”

Hubbard had Adams embalmed at Thomas Holmes’ establishment on Third Street, near the White House.  “I want the work done nice and well,” he wrote to Holmes, who claimed after the war to have embalmed more than 10,000 bodies.   The congressman paid $55 for an engraved coffin in which to ship Adams’ body in back to Connecticut.

“O, his father and mother are searching for him about White House [Virginia]!” Hubbard wrote to his wife, Abby, back in Litchfield. “Please break the sad news to the family as tenderly as possible.” Perhaps to help soften the blow for Deacon Adams and his wife, Hubbard noted that Charlie “died as easy as a baby falls asleep.”

“His body,” Hubbard wrote to his wife, “will be up about Tuesday.”

June 11, 1864: Excerpt from Congressman John Hubbard's letter to his wife on death 
of Charles Adams. (Litchfield Historical Society collection)

“... he died as easy as a baby falls asleep."

-- Congressman John Hubbard on death of Corporal Charles Adams

Telegram from Congressman John Hubbard to his wife on June 11, 1864: "Charles Adams died
 this morning. He did not appear to suffer at all." (Litchfield Historial Society collection)

On Sunday, June 19, 1864, a funeral service for Adams was held at the Congregational Church in Litchfield, near the town green and a short distance from the road on which he and his comrades marched off to war in mid-September 1862.  A week earlier,  another well-attended  service had been held in the same church for another Cold Harbor victim, Capt. Luman Wadhams.

Adams’ coffin was covered with flowers and wreaths and draped with an American flag, and an “exceedingly interesting and appropriate sketch” of his life was delivered by the church’s pastor, Reverend George Richards, who had seen first hand the horrors of the Civil War a year earlier at Fredericksburg, Virginia. After the church service, Adams’ remains were taken a quarter-mile to East Cemetery, accompanied by three officers from the 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery and soldiers from the 1st Connecticut, and following a prayer,  the nineteen-year-old’s remains were “committed to the dust.”

Months later, Greene still had the young  man in her thoughts. She requested a photo of Adams from his sister. (See complete letter below.)

“Perhaps I am asking too much of you but I have given much time and attention to soldiers at the wharf as they came from the front and in the hospitals,” she wrote to Mary Adams. “Consequently, I have become deeply interested in some and I am now collecting photographs of some with circumstances connected with my meeting them. If you have an extra one of your brother Charlie, I would be very grateful for it.”

When she finally received an image, she thanked Mary, calling it “perfect.”  She even wrote a poem in Adams’ memory — a few lines, she noted, “suggested by meeting and watching beside your darling brother Charles in his last moments.” It read, in part:

He smiled upon me in his pain

Until he sank to rest

My mission was not there in vain

I was a welcome guest 

Stranger we met, yet in his eye

I saw how he had striven,

And loved him, nobly thus to die

For country, God and Heaven 

Friends of the fallen hero boy

Beneath the chastening rod –

Great was the sacrifice – but now 

Your Charlie lives with God.  

---

Shortly after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Marie Greene had even gained the notice of Gen. Grant, who instructed commanding officers that the nurse be provided free transportation and access to sick and wounded soldiers  In the decades after the war, she sought a government pension, noting that her wartime service left her sickly. But despite support of veterans, her plea was originally rejected.

“During my weeks of pain and suffering,” a 39th Massachusetts officer who had been wounded at the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse wrote, “I had occasion to note the earnestness and self-sacrificing spirit with which Mrs. Greene gave her whole energies and time exclusive of her own comfort…”

At Memorial Day services at Congressional Cemetery in Washington in the 1870s,  Greene decorated soldiers’ graves and read poetry in their memory.  In February 1901, six years before her death at age 79 of pneumonia, Congress finally approved a $12-a-month pension for the ex-army nurse.

What “The Soldier’s Friend” did with her collection of soldier photos from the Civil War, including the “perfect” image of Charles Adams, is lost to history.

Nurse Marie Barton Greene's grave in Prospect Hill Cemetery in Uxbridge, Mass. She
was 79 when she died on Jan. 25, 1907.

NURSE MARIE GREENE: 'HE DIED ON THE CALM POTOMAC'

Nurse Marie Barton Green wrote this letter to Charles Adams' sister nearly four months after the 
the young corporal's death. (Litchfield Historical Society collection)

Washington, October 10th, 1864

Miss Mary F. Adams
Dear Lady

You will see by my signature that I am the person who watched by your darling brother Charlie on the little steamer Monitor at one wharf on bright summer's morning -- and your brother was the only soldier left on board. He could not live and the surgeon (a kind-hearted man) thought it best not to disturb him. I sat there by him until he died and I would not have left the gentle patient suffering boy had he lived hours longer. He died on the calm Potomac. It was a bright tranquil morning. But I do not understand why I did not hear from you after answering you last in which I noted to you all the particulars. It is barely possible you did not receive.

Perhaps I am asking too much ...

Nurse Greene inquired about a photograph or "miniature" of Adams as a keepsake.

...of you but I have given much time and attention to soldiers at the wharf as they come from the front and in the hospitals. Consequently, I have become deeply interested in some, and am now collecting photographs of some with the circumstances connected with my meeting them, etc. If you have an extra one of your brother Charlie, I would be very grateful for it. Altho my stay with him was short, I could not have heard or known him better had I been acquainted with him months.

I should prize his photograph or miniature very much. Please write me and inform me if you received my letter written in answer to yours.

I am yours in sympathy,
The Soldier's Friend
Mrs. Marie Barton Greene
P.O. Box 421/C
Washington D.C.

---

-- Have something to add (or correct) in this post? E-mail me here.

SOURCES:

--Charles Adams letters to his mother,  Adams Family Collection, Litchfield (Conn.) Historical Society.
-- Description of Charles Adams’ dying day from John Hubbard letter to wife, June 11, 1864, Adams Family Collection, LHS.
--Litchfield Enquirer, June 23, 1864.
--Marie Barton Greene letters to Charles Adams’ sister, Adams Family Collection, LHS.
-- Greene pension file, National Archives and Records Service, Washington, D.C.
-- Rev. Philo Tower letter to Greene, January 28, 1864, Greene pension file.
-- Vaill, Theodore F., History of The Second Connecticut Volunteer Heavy Artillery, 48-49.
-- Washington Evening Star, May 30, 1873.