| “Quaeque ipse miserrima vidi, Et quorum pars magna fui.” |
PROVIDENCE:
SIDNEY S. RIDER
1878.
Copyright by
SIDNEY S. RIDER.
1878.
PRINTED BY PROVIDENCE PRESS COMPANY.
(Late Lieutenant-Colonel First Rhode Island Light Artillery.)
PROVIDENCE:
SIDNEY S. RIDER.
1878.
Copyright by
SIDNEY S. RIDER.
1878.
When the first call for troops, to serve for the term of three months, was made by President Lincoln, in 1861, for the purpose of suppressing the rebellion, which had assumed most dangerous proportions to the National Government, the Marine Artillery, of this city, responded cheerfully to the call, and under the command of Captain Charles H. Tompkins, left Providence, April eighteenth, for the seat of war.
The senior officer of the company, who remained at home, was Captain William H. Parkhurst, then book-keeper at the Mechanics Bank on South Main Street. Before the company was fairly away, I called upon him and suggested the propriety of calling a meeting to organize a new company to take the place of the one that had gone. The suggestion met his views, and he at once published a notice that a meeting for the purpose would be held that evening at the armory of the Marines, on Benefit Street. The meeting was largely attended, and comprised among its numbers a great many of our most intelligent and influential citizens. A large number of names were enrolled that night as members of the new company, and arrangements were made to have the armory open daily, for the purpose of obtaining additional signatures to the roll of membership. In a few days some three hundred names were obtained, and every man whose name was enrolled seemed to take the greatest interest in having the work proceed.
By general consent, rather than by appointment or election, I assumed the duty of conducting the drills and of reducing matters to a system. It was supposed at the time that the force already called into the field, consisting of seventy-five thousand men, would be amply sufficient to effectually quell the disturbance that had arisen at the South, but