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New York and the War with Spain. History of the Empire State Regiments

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New York and the War with Spain. History of the Empire State Regiments NewYork and theWar with Spain HISTORY Ol THE EMPIRE STATE REGIMENTS Published wider the Direction of the State Historian AI.liANV : THE ARGUS COMPANY, PRINTERS 1903 MY MEMOIRS OP THB Military History of the State of New York DURING THE WAR FOR THE UNION, 1861-65 BY COLONEL SILAS W. BURT Former Assistant Inspector General, National Guard, State of New York. Editbd by thb STATE HISTORIAN, and Issued as War op the Rebellion Series—Bulletin, No. 1. — PREFACE. WHILE serving in the military establishment of the State of New York during the war of 1861-65 and later in all about eight years— I kept occasional notes of such events and transactions as I had any connection or acquaintance with, and copies of printed reports and other literature pertaining to military matters. I had then no formulated purpose as to the future use for these data. After the war ended I frequently urged upon Governor Morgan the preparation by some competent literary man of an account of the remarkable military accomplishment by the State of New York, during his second administration in 1861-62; saying that, both from a public and a personal view, he could well afford to pay liberally for such a permanent record. I think he did engage Dr. Cornelius R. Agnew of this city, who had been a member of. his staff in 1859-60, to prepare such an account, but for some reason it was never done, nor was I ever called upon for my data, which I had placed at the Governor's disposal. Unfortunately the greater part of my diaries, memoranda and other papers were lost in the fire that destroyed the Morrill Storage Warehouse in this city in October, 1881. This loss and the death of Governor Morgan in the spring of 1883 for a while put the matter out of my mind. Three years later, having collected some material but with a larger dependence on my memory, I began to write my memoirs of the relation of the State to the whole war and had concluded the part covered by Governor Morgan's admin- 4 Annual Report of the State Historian. istration when other more urgent matters diverted my attention and the subsequent misplacement of the manuscript, etc., wholly arrested my completion of the work. The recent recovery of the manuscript and its acceptance by Mr. Hastings, State Historian, for incorporation in his annual report will preserve some aspects of an important part of the history of our State. In revising it now I have added a few notes and appendices regarding matters of inter- est that have recently occurred to me. These memoirs make no pretention to literary merit, and the desultory manner in which they were prepared has bred some repetitions that seemed necessary to illustrate topics in hand, but I trust they may furnish some material to the future historian who shall tell in fullness and in fitting phrase the glorious story of how the Empire State met a great crisis in the fate of the Nation. As in most of the events and transactions mentioned I had a part, their recital may have a personal or even egotistical flavor, but this I assume is so natural or incidental to such memoirs as not to require apology. I cannot determine whether I shall be able to continue the memoirs to the close of the war. The later period is not so impor- tant or interesting, except as to the draft riots of July, 1863, and to the extraordinary and excessive expenditures of bounties to fill quotas of localities or furnish substitutes for drafted men. Very few regimental or other organizations were begun or completed during this later period and most of the enlistments were for the recruitment of regiments in the field. It is a somewhat melancholy thought that I am the sole survivor of those who served on Governor Morgan's "War" Staff; I am " however becoming used to finding myself the last leaf ", that Holmes depicts, on quite a grove of trees. S. W. B. New York City, April 25, 1902. INTRODUCTORY. AS these memoirs are necessarily personal to some extent, I will give a very brief account of how, without any previous military training or connection, I became absorbed in that branch of the New York State service for nearly eight years and during the most critical period of our national history. The project of a trans-continental railroad, first actively pressed by a Mr. Whitney, had in 1858-9 gained such strength in Congress as to make its early prosecution seem imminent. As a consequence, and at the instance of Mr. Horace Greeley, I spent a large portion of the year i860 in that pan of the Rocky Mountain region then popularly known as " Pike's Peak," though extending a hundred miles north of it. It was my idea that I could so acquaint myself with the larger topographical features of that region, which seemed to present the most formidable obstacle to the railway, as to make my engagement as locating engineer probable, if not indispensable, when the work began. Mr. Greeley in October wrote me that the coming Presidential election and the conditions of popular feeling, North and South, would indefinitely postpone the railroad scheme. We therefore returned to my father's house in Kinderhook, N. Y., anx- about January 1, 1861. I was without employment and very ious to obtain some business engagement, but the threatening attitude of the Southern States and the consequent business dis- tractions and paralysis were insuperable impediments. 6 Annual Report of the State Historian. On the 1 6th of February the New York State Legislature had appropriated the sum of $50,000 for the relief of the people of Kan- sas Territory suffering from the great drought of the previous year and my father had been selected as the agent to dispense this bounty. This task he completed in March and was settling his accounts with Comptroller Denniston at Albany, when, on April 1 6th, the law was enacted, appropriating $3,000,000 for the organi- zation and equipment of volunteers to aid in repressing the rebellion. My father was requested to aid in auditing the accounts for expendi- tures under this act. In the meantime I remained at Kinderhook, my impatience with lack of work, being mitigated by some temporary employment and by that absorbing interest in the great national drama that held every one's attention more or less. Perceiving that the immediate field of the contest would be in Virginia, I cast about for a good map of that State on such a scale as would give a clear idea of mili- tary positions and movements, but could find none in the village. In the pursuit of my profession as a civil engineer I had collected many railroad and other maps, and fortunately had a series of the U. S. Coast Survey reports, containing charts of the Chesapeake Bay and other Virginia and Maryland waters, and of the rivers flow- ing into them. I was thus enabled to construct a map on a scale of eight miles to the inch, permitting the representation of such topographical details as were known to me. On one of his visits home my father insisted on taking this map to Albany, and he showed it to the Inspector General, Marsena R. Patrick, a former officer of the regular army, who took it to Governor Morgan and asked permission to appoint me as a clerk in his office, saying that while I would not be needed for map-making he believed that my education and experience would be very useful in the work of War of the Rebellion Series. 7 organizing and equipping troops. The result was my appointment as a clerk in the Inspector General's office at a salary of one thou- sand dollars a year. I repaired to Albany to report for duty on Monday, May 27th, and found the city in great excitement on account of the funeral services of Col. Elmer E. Ellsworth of the nth N. Y. S. Vol. Infan- try, assassinated at Alexandria, Va., on the previous Friday, and whose body was then en route to Saratoga County to be interred there. I was very kindly received by General Patrick and began my service in the State military department, little thinking that it would continue for nearly eight years, and was also the beginning of a long term in the public service extending to this date. SILAS W. BURT. April 25, 1887. No. U FIRST LEVY-APRIL 15 TO JUNE 30, 1861. the history of the great rebellion of 1861 no incident IN has been more dwelt upon than the absolutely unprepared condition of the Free States to meet the shock. There had been for many years premonitions of the great revolt, but successive compromises had relieved the situation, and the public mind at the North had finally concluded that despite the outcry there was no wolf across the bor- der. The Federal army was insignificant in numbers and whether by chance or design, its largest collected force was in Texas and so early as February 18th was treacherously surrendered to the rebel forces by General David E. Twiggs, its commanding officer, and was released only upon a parole that disarmed many loyal offi- cers at a time when they were sorely needed. By evident design the greater part of the small arms and munitions of war had been transferred to Southern arsenals before actual hostilities were begun. Very few of the Free States had an organized militia and where there was any such organization it was very feeble compared with the great mass of population.
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