A Narrative of Service with the Third Wisconsin Infantry

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Title: A Narrative of Service with the Third Wisconsin Infantry

Author: Julian Wisner Hinkley

Release Date: October 14, 2011 [eBook #37754]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

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SERVICE WITH THE THIRD WISCONSIN

INFANTRY

Julian Wisner Hinkley

From a photograph taken in July, 1864

Wisconsin History Commission: Original Papers, No. 7

A NARRATIVE OF SERVICE

WITH THE THIRD WISCONSIN INFANTRY

BY JULIAN WISNER HINKLEY

Captain of Company E, and sometime Acting Major

of said Regiment

WISCONSIN HISTORY COMMISSION

SEPTEMBER, 1912

TWENTY-FIVE HUNDRED COPIES PRINTED

Copyright, 1912

THE WISCONSIN HISTORY COMMISSION

(in behalf of the State of Wisconsin)

Opinions or errors of fact on the part of the respective authors of the Commission's publications (whether Reprints or Original Narratives) have not been modified or corrected by the Commission. For all statements, of whatever character, the Author alone is responsible

DEMOCRAT PRINTING CO., STATE PRINTER

Contents

Illustration

Portrait of the Author     Frontispiece

Wisconsin History Commission

(Organized under the provisions of Chapter 298,

Laws of 1905, as amended by Chapter 378,

Laws of 1907, Chapter 445, Laws of 1909,

and Chapter 628, Laws of 1911)

FRANCIS E. McGOVERN

Governor of Wisconsin

CHARLES E. ESTABROOK

Representing Department of Wisconsin, Grand

Army of the Republic

REUBEN G. THWAITES

Superintendent of the State Historical Society of

Wisconsin

CARL RUSSELL FISH

Professor of American History in the University of

Wisconsin

MATTHEW S. DUDGEON

Secretary of the Wisconsin Library Commission

Chairman, Commissioner Estabrook

Secretary and Editor, Commissioner Thwaites

Committee on Publications, Commissioners Thwaites

and Fish

EDITOR'S PREFACE

The author of this volume was born at Vernon, Connecticut, on March 12, 1838, of a long line of New England ancestry; he was sixth in order of descent from Governor Thomas Hinkley of Plymouth Colony. Coming to Wisconsin in his eleventh year, Julian grew to young manhood on his father's farm at Waupun and in Portage County. In 1858, our author left the farm and started life for himself—teaching school in winter, and working as a carpenter each summer.

On April 19, 1861, Mr. Hinkley enlisted in the Waupun Light Guard for three months. But the services of the organization were not accepted for that short term by the State military authorities, so on May 8 they were proffered and accepted for the war, and the organization became Company E of the Third Wisconsin Infantry. Hinkley was at the organization appointed First-Sergeant; but on February 6, 1862, he was commissioned Second-Lieutenant of his company, became First-Lieutenant on November 1 following, and on May 4, 1863, took command of the Company as Captain. He continued to serve the Third Wisconsin until its final discharge and payment in Madison on August 26, 1865, but during the last few months of this period was the acting Major of the Regiment. Since the war, Major Hinkley has been largely engaged in erecting public buildings, and has a wide acquaintance throughout Northeast Wisconsin.

The Commission is much pleased at this opportunity to publish Major Hinkley's Narrative. The book has only in part been written from memory. It has been made up from several excellent sources: (1) A manuscript diary kept from day to day, or week to week, by Mr. Hinkley during the years of his service; (2) several contemporary letters written by him, either to the local press of his section of the State, or to relatives and friends at home; and lastly (3), a manuscript narrative written by the author several years after the war, for the edification of his children. The work of amalgamating these diverse materials has fallen to the lot of the editorial department of the Commission; the result, however, has been passed upon in detail by Major Hinkley, and in its present continuous form accepted by him as his final narrative. This method of compilation has secured a manuscript possessing a contemporaneous flavor and accuracy, not usual with reminiscences. The Commissioners feel that the book is an interesting and valuable contribution to the literature of the war, being the view-point of a company commander in one of the most active of Wisconsin regiments, throughout the entire period of the struggle.

R. G. T.

Wisconsin Historical Library

     September, 1912

SERVICE WITH

THE THIRD WISCONSIN

INFANTRY

Enlistment and Training

The presidential election of 1860 found me just become of age. I exercised my newly-acquired rights of citizenship, in the then little village of Waupun, Wisconsin, by participating in the hurrahing and torchlight processions that in those days characterized a political campaign. I was a carpenter by trade, but immediately after the election went to teach a country school in the backwoods town of Buena Vista, in Portage County. Daily papers in that sparsely settled community were of course an unknown luxury, and it was only through the weeklies that we heard of the gathering storm in the Nation. From them we learned how State after State in the South were holding conventions, that they were passing ordinances of secession, and that the delegates were gathering at Montgomery, Alabama, to organize the Confederate States of America.

In the North, few people seemed as yet to realize that a great war was impending. The Southern newspapers boastfully asserted that secession might be accomplished in peace, for the Northerners were a nation of shopkeepers and mechanics, who would never fight to prevent it. And these statements, reprinted in the Northern papers, were far from soothing, for there is nothing that so quickly arouses the combativeness of men, and especially of young men, as the intimation that they are cowards. Thus were the younger and more hot-headed men on both sides being stirred to warlike feeling by newspaper writers, until such hostile sentiment was aroused that war was inevitable.

Immediately after the secession of South Carolina, I had expressed my intention, in conversation with my friends, that should war follow, I would have a hand in it. This determination grew as events drifted on from bad to worse. I cannot say that I was very strongly animated by a love for the Union in the abstract, or that I considered the abolition of slavery worth fighting for; but I felt that the dismemberment of the Union by armed force, submitted to without a struggle, would be a disgrace to the whole North.

The events of the following winter and spring are a part of the history of the Nation. Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1861. On April 12, Fort Sumter was fired upon, and surrendered on the 14th. On April 15 Lincoln issued his call for troops, and the war had burst upon the Nation in all its fury.

Waupun for a number of years maintained an independent military company, called the Waupun Light Guard. This organization had in its possession forty stand of arms belonging to the State, and uniforms for about twenty of its members. On the morning of April 19, I had gone down to the main street of the village to buy a paper. While discussing with Captain Clark of the military company, the events of the day, an agent of the State, who had just arrived on the morning train, approached us. He read to the Captain a notice that his company must at once be filled up to the regulation standard and reported for active duty, or surrender its arms, to be used by other companies going into service.

I had not heretofore belonged to this company, but at once told the Captain that I would enlist, and aid him to fill his command to the required standard. A meeting was called for that night, and with the assistance of the patriotic people of the village and surrounding country, the company was filled up by nine o'clock of the next morning. A telegram was immediately sent to Madison, tendering service for the ninety-day call. We had acted promptly and swiftly, yet not quite swiftly enough. Twenty-three other companies had filed notice before us, and the quota of Wisconsin was full.

Enthusiasm among the men ran high, however, and when on May 8 it was learned that no more ninety-day men could be accepted, it was determined by vote to tender service for the entire war, however long that might be. Those whose business was such that they could not leave home for longer than ninety days retired, but their places were quickly taken by others who were anxious to go. We were now accepted, and assigned to the Third Wisconsin Volunteers and ordered to rendevouz at Fond du Lac as soon as camp equipage could be furnished.

The former officers of the company were retained, with the consent of the newly-enlisted men, and additional non-commissioned officers were elected. Among the latter I was chosen First Sergeant, which position I held until promoted to a Second-Lieutenancy.

We boarded at the best hotels in the village, until ordered into camp. We were drilled several hours each day, and prepared for the work in store for us by the study of tactics and army regulations. At length, after what seemed to us in our impatience an interminable delay, we went into camp at Fond du Lac on June 15, and for the first time lived in tents. We now had daily company and battalion drill, together with officers' school in tactics and sword exercise. Colonel Thomas H. Ruger, our commander, was a West Point graduate, and under his efficient direction we became, before we had been very long in the service, as thoroughly drilled and disciplined as any regiment of regulars. Indeed we all felt sure, while we were still at Fond du Lac, that we were already veterans.

On June 28 appeared Captain McIntyre of the regular army to inspect us and muster us into the service of the United States. And here occurred a difficulty which illustrates how confidently the people of the North expected that the war would be of only short duration. Many of the best men in the company, who had been entirely willing to enlist for the war, objected to being mustered in for a three-years' term of service as required by the instructions of the Federal Government. It was only after considerable persuasion that they were all finally induced to do so. Probably not one of them had the slightest idea that he would serve for three years, and then enlist again for another three years, before the great struggle would be ended.

On the day after mustering in, uniforms were issued to us, consisting of light-grey trousers, mixed-grey blouse, and light-coloured hat. At first, they looked bright and fine, but they were of such poor quality, especially the trousers, that within ten days it was necessary to furnish the entire regiment with common blue workingmen's overalls, in order that we might with decency be seen upon the streets. Some money-loving patriot contractor had gathered in his reward from the State of Wisconsin by providing us with shoddy clothes; and in the end it came out of the pay of the Regiment.

Departure for the Front

The preparations for departure were soon completed, and on July 12, 1861, we shouldered our knapsacks, strapped on our haversacks, containing several days' rations, and boarded the railroad cars for the seat of war in Virginia. The train of twenty-four coaches pulled out of the station amid the cheers and farewells of our many friends, who had gathered to see us off. All were in the best of spirits. It seemed to us as though we were setting out on a grand pleasure excursion. No thought of death or