Upcoming talks in March

Wednesday, March 8, 2017 - I'll be speaking about my book Comedy and Tragedy on the Mountain: 70 Years of Summer Theatre on Mt. Tom, Holyoke, Massachusetts - for the Polish Junior League of Massachusetts at the Polish Center of Discovery and Learning, 33 South Street, Chicopee, Mass.  The time is 7 p.m., and the event is free and open to the public.

Wednesday, March 15, 2017 - I'll be speaking about my book on the Ames Manufacturing Company of Chicopee, Mass. and its importance during the Civil War for the Agawam Historical Association, at the Captain Leonard House, 663 Main Street, Agawam, Mass.  Free and open to the public, the time is 7 p.m.


​Saturday, March 18, 2017 - I'll be speaking about Comedy and Tragedy on the Mountain at Blue Umbrella Books, 2 Main Street, Westfield, Mass., free and open to the public, 3 p.m.
​

Insurrection in Springfield - John Brown and Frederick Douglass have a chat.

 

In November 1847, two famous abolitionists met in Springfield, Massachusetts, to discuss a bloody revolt against slavery.  A Southern attack on Ft. Sumter resulted in the Civil War in another thirteen years, but the rebellion against the status quo envisioned on this pivotal night by a black man and a white man in a marathon meeting proposed an alternate future.

A future that, in part, did not happen, or was at least delayed. 

 

This event is the scene of my one-act play Insurrection in Springfield, written to be presented for middle and high school students, commissioned by Shera Cohen of In the Spotlight, Inc., and supported in part by a grant from the Springfield Cultural Council, a local agency supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council. 

 

John Brown and Frederick Douglass spent a long night of frank discussion and clashing opinions. Brown, one of the city’s leading abolitionists, would soon depart for Kansas, where he and his appointed group of vigilantes murdered several men in an attack on a pro-slavery settlement.

For these two men, their means to an end differed wildly, but on this night of tense debate, neither had a crystal ball. 

But we know what happened next, and that makes the historical event all the more striking.

Read Insurrection in Springfield here at this link.  For production rights, contact In the Spotlight, Inc.

Talk on the Ames Company - Chicopee, Massachusetts

Today I'll be speaking before the Chicopee Historical Commission at the City Council chambers for a talk on the Ames Manufacturing Company during the Civil War, which will be audio recorded for an archive project.  My thanks to Mr. Joseph Pasterniak of the Chicopee Historical Commission for inviting me to participate.

The material for this speech comes from my book: The Ames Manufacturing Company of Chicopee, Massachusetts, a Northern Factory Town's Perspective on the Civil War.

Revolution versus Rebellion - my talk at the Edward Bellamy Homestead

My upcoming talks and book signings...

Tomorrow night, Wednesday, September 16th, at 7:00 p.m., I'll be speaking at the Chicopee Historical Society meeting on "Revolution vs. Rebellion" -- a look at how manufacturing change society during the Civil War years and brought about a social and commercial revolution.  The meeting is open to the public at the Bellamy Homestead, 91-93 Court Street, Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts.  The site is the home of nineteenth century author and social visionary Edward Bellamy, and is a National Historic Landmark.

On this occasion, a room in the Bellamy Homestead to display historical items is to be dedicated and named for my late sister, Ann Lynch Beebe, longtime treasurer of the Chicopee Historical Society.

On Saturday, September 19th, from 12:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., I'll be  signing a variety of my books along with other local authors at the Springfield City Library, 220 State Street, Springfield, Mass., as part of their autumn Author Fair.  

On Tuesday, September 22nd at 6:30 p.m., I'll be speaking at the Holyoke Public Library, 250 Chestnut Street, Holyoke, Mass., as part of their Conversations with Local Authors series.  I'll be discussing my book Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star., and will bring along some film memorabilia for display.  I'll also have a selection of my other books for sale and signing.

Shaw Memorial - Boston

Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and his men of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Colored Infantry Unit marched past here, past the Massachusetts State House, on their way to fight in the Civil War, the first Union black regiment.

Their gallantry and courage at the Battle of Fort Wagner in South Carolina was depicted in the 1989 film Glory.  Their story was first depicted here in sculptor Augustus Saint Gaudens' remarkable bas relief known as the Shaw Memorial.  Many feel that this bronze  sculpture was the finest piece that the noted 19th century artist ever produced.

It is a stirring and powerful piece of art that has depth and texture, and emotion.   Saint Gaudens used African American models for the solders marching to war and strove for realism in every detail.  When it was dedicated in 1897, among the many military units marching in review past the monument were 65 remaining members of the old 54th Mass.  Mr. Saint Gaudens wrote of the emotions of that day:

"Many of them were bent and crippled, many with white heads, some with bouquets... The impression of those old soldiers, passing the very spot where they left for the war so many years before, thrills me even as I write these words. They faced and saluted the relief, with the music playing 'John Brown's Body'…. They seemed as if returning from the war, the troops of bronze marching in the opposite direction, the direction in which they had left for the front, and the young men there represented now showing these veterans the vigor and hope of youth. It was a consecration."

Here, a proud member of the Mass. 54th Reenactors Regiment stands honor guard at the Shaw Memorial. Perhaps soldier ghosts salute and smile.

A special exhibit from July 18th running through October 31st in the picture gallery at the visitors center will celebrate the "CONSECRATION & MONUMENT: Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Regiment.

For more on the Shaw Memorial, have a look at this National Parks website.

New Book - The Ames Manufacturing Company of Chicopee, Massachusetts

Tomorrow, Wednesday, October 16th, I'll be speaking before the Chicopee Historical Society in the Community Room of Ames Privilege, lower Springfield Street, Chicopee, Mass. on three men who all worked at the Ames Manufacturing Company during the Civil War, and how the links and coincidences between them illustrate the Northern Civil War experience in a small factory town.  The event is free and open to the public.

Also, my latest book on the subject, The Ames Manufacturing Company of Chicopee, Massachusetts - A Northern Factory Town's Perspective on the Civil War will be for sale at the event.  It is also available in paperback from Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com, and CreateSpace.  It is available as an eBook through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Apple, Kobo, Diesel, Sony and other online shops.

New Book - Ames Co. - a Northern Factory Town's Perspective on the Civil War

This is to announce a new book I'm publishing next month titled The Ames Manufacturing Company of Chicopee, Massachusetts - A Northern Factory Town's Perspective on the Civil War.

It will be comprised of two essays previously appearing on this blog, in addition to a third article never before published, and will contain many photographs.   Here is an excerpt from the foreword:

The three articles that comprise this book tell different stories about the Ames Manufacturing Company of Chicopee, Massachusetts, which played an important role as an arms manufacturer during the American Civil War.  Together, they make up a kind of composite of the Northern Civil War experience in the small, but dynamic, universe of a factory town.  We meet Nathan P. Ames and James T. Ames, brothers who founded the firm, the younger burdened with the responsibility after the tragic and grisly death of the older.

We meet two workers in the factory, one of whom, Charles Tracy, was a machinist who left his position to join the army, and came home without a leg—and was awarded the Medal of Honor.  He was cared for by Clara Barton--and comforted by President Abraham Lincoln on a visit to his hospital ward. The other man, Melzar Mosman, just a boy of nineteen, worked in the foundry department forging canon.  He also left to join the army, but after the war would become celebrated for forging bronze statuary, including a number of Civil War monuments.

We meet the townspeople of Chicopee, the minister who hid slaves on the local Underground Railroad, and the high school principal, who purchased a military substitute to fight in his place.  Later, he would become Governor of Massachusetts and the successful defense lawyer of the infamous Lizzie Borden.

 

More on this book when it is available both as an eBook and in paperback.

 

Dutch Island Lighthouse - Rhode Island

Dutch Island sits in the West Passage of Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island.  It was originally used as a trading outpost by the Dutch from New Amsterdam (you know it as New York), but the  young United States thought it a good spot to fortify with cannon in case of sea invasion, and these fortifications remained from the Civil War through World War I.

This Dutch Island Lighthouse was built in 1857, to replace an earlier light dating from 1826.

 

A sturdy little 40-plus feet tower nesting on its rock, the light was automated in the 1940s.  Vandalism came in the 1960s and ‘70s, but the locally formed Dutch Island Lighthouse Society came to the rescue and stored the structure.  It resumed operation in 2007.

Have a look here at their site for some great photos and current info, and here for additional statistics and history on this lighthouseand its keepers.

 

Shaw Memorial - Boston, Massachusetts

This sergeant is a member of the 54th Massachusetts Colored Volunteer Infantry reenactment group.  He stands as a one-man honor guard by Augustus St. Gaudens' famous monument to the 54th Mass. on Boston Common.

 

This is to wish you in the U.S. a festive and thoughtful Memorial Day weekend.

 

 

No posts for the next two weeks.  See you in June.



Henry Clay Work - Middletown, Connecticut

Middletown, Connecticut hosts a statue on its town common, Union Green, to honor Henry Clay Work.  This self-taught 19^th century song composer was born in Middletown.  His songs were extremely popular around the time of the Civil War, probably most famous of which was the spirited “Marching Through Georgia.” (Listen here on YouTube.)

Mr. Work’s family moved to Illinois when he was a small child, and were ardent abolitionists.  His father was once arrested and imprisoned for helping runaway slaves to escape; his home was a stop on the Underground Railroad.  After his release from prison, the family, now penniless, moved back to Connecticut.

Henry Clay Work started as a printer’s apprentice as a young man, but composed songs, without a piano, but with meticulous precision in his head.  “Kingdom Coming” was another hit, and the sorrowful temperance ballad -- now lampooned in parody -- “Come Home, Father” (Father, dear Father, come home with me now…).

His last huge hit was “My Grandfather’s Clock” in 1876.  (Listen here on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHvOyuwJZnE)

Though Mr. Work’s music sold well in his lifetime, copyright as we know it did not exist, and poor investments made money a constant worry.  He died in his 50s of apparent heart trouble in 1884.

Popular music today may generate fame and fortune, but rarely has the social impact that it had in the 19^th century.  Henry Clay Work’s songs reflected their era, spoke for a generation, and affected change as well.

Melzar Mosman - Soldier, Sculptor, and Craftsman

Grant Monument, Lincoln Park, Chicago - JTLynch Photo

This is an excerpt of a speech I recently made to the Chicopee Historical Society about sculptor and bronze foundryman Melzar Mosman. I’m currently working on a book about this 19th century craftsman, and I’d love to hear from anyone who has more information. Please either leave a comment, or send me an email at: JacquelineTLynch@gmail.com.


One of the most famous founders of bronze statuary in the United States, Melzar Mosman, unique among foundrymen, was a sculptor as well.

These views are from 19th century postcards and show a different world in which the bronze statues are not yet corroded to green, and in which they are showcases in city parks and village greens. At the time they were more than memorials to fallen soldiers; they were art. Art for the community, and paid for by towns, and social and civic groups, and sometimes individuals to show their community pride.

We have the statute of General Ulysses S. Grant in Brooklyn, sculpted by William Ordway Partridge, a noted artist in his day, and cast by Melzar Mosman. This was done in 1895 in his shop called Chicopee Bronze Works in Chicopee, Massachusetts.

Here is the Civil War monument Middletown, Connecticut, done in 1874, sculpted by Melzar and founded by him while Mosman was still working at the Ames Manufacturing Company.

The Ames Company, which we discussed in this previous post, is noted of course for its enormous contribution to the Mexican War and to the Civil War producing swords and armaments, light and heavy artillery. But in 1853, Ames is credited with being the first foundry in the United States to cast bronze statuary. Ames had been producing bronze cannon since the 1830s, and in the politically turbulent years of the mid-19th century, cannon took precedence over statues.

Melzar was the grandson of Silas Mosman, also called Deacon Silas, who came from Rhode Island in 1829 to find work for himself and his sons in the burgeoning factory town of Chicopee. His son, Silas, Jr. would come to superintendent the Ames foundry and became noted as a skilled caster in bronze of statuary. The highlight of his career was being asked to cast in bronze the ornamental doors to the Senate wing of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., desgined by Thomas Crawford.

Melzar was born in 1843, and when he graduated from Chicopee High School, he went to work at the Ames Manufacturing Company under the supervision of his father in the foundry. In 1862 he quit to join the Union Army.


Melzar was a private attached to Company D and served at New Bern, North Carolina. His unit clashed with the enemy in skirmishes in the Goldsboro, Kinston areas. His unit was sent to Baltimore, and Harper’s Ferry, and helped in pursuit of General Robert E. Lee when the Confederates retreated from Gettysburg. Later that month, July of 1863, Mosman’s unit was sent home and mustered out. Melzar went back to the foundry at the Ames Company and made more cannon.

After the war in 1867, he went to Europe, as most young artists and craftsmen did, to study. He went to Italy and France, worked in foundries and learned the art of casting bronze statuary. He also learned to speak Italian and French.

The Minuteman, Concord, Mass. JT Lynch Photo

He returned to the Ames foundry to work alongside his father on statuary. In 1874, they produced “The Minuteman” statue of Concord, Massachusetts. The sculptor was Daniel Chester French. Melzar gradually took over the Ames foundry from his father, and Silas, Jr. died in 1883, having retired in 1880. At the time of his death, Melzar was his only surviving child, and Melzar was destined to completely crawl out from underneath his father’s famous shadow, not only as the most sought-after foundryman in the United States, but as a sculptor in his own right.



FOR MORE OF THIS ARTICLE AND PHOTOS, PLEASE SEE:

THE AMES MANUFACTURING COMPANY OF CHICOPEE, MASSACHUSETTS - A Northern Factory Town's Perspective on the Civil War

by Jacqueline T. Lynch

Available both in paperback and in eBook format from Amazon here, and many other online merchants.



War Memorials - Concord, Massachusetts

Here are just the plaques on the town war memorial in Concord, Massachusetts.


The memorial dates from the Civil War, which gave us Memorial Day, so we start there. Some towns have a few names for the Spanish-American War.

Then the World War took more men from town, and added some names to the town monument.

Then World War II did the same, for some towns, a lot of names. A small addendum for the Korean War, another for Vietnam. Here we have one name for the conflict in the Dominican Republic. Not too many people remember our invasion there in 1965, where some 44 Americans were killed.

Some towns have separate monuments for the fallen of separate wars, and some have the names of all the fallen clustered in a small granite and bronze universe, with only a new wreath every summer to mark the time denied them. That their names are permanently fixed here is perhaps more a comfort to us than to them.

More recent wars, and newer plaques, because the need to honor them never diminishes, just as the pain of their loss never fades.

News of the Lincoln Assassanation

Back from the Northern Kentucky University Y.E.S. new play festival, where my suspense drama "One Good Turn" premiered. My gratitude and admiration goes to director Sandra Forman, and her terrific cast: Harli Cooper, Katie Berger, Caity Shipp, Seth Wallen, Stephanie Wallenfelsz, Jinkju Lim, Rex Martinez, Simon Powell, Lauren Hayes, and Hayley Powell. It was a great experience.

Now, back to New England, but with still a bit of a connection to the rest of the country -- and always a connection to the past -- as we remember the assassanation of President Abraham Lincoln this week.  The President was shot April 14, 1865, on Good Friday.   Below, we have the front page of the Springfield, Massachusetts Daily Union from the next day, April 15th, with the distressing news hot off the telegraph wires.  The columns are edged in black, a custom at that time to indicate mourning over a death.

Springfield had a connection with the events of that tragic day through laywer George Ashmun, a friend of Abraham Lincoln.  Mr. Ashmun was in Washington City that day and wanted to bring an associate to meet with Mr. Lincoln that evening.  He asked Lincoln to cancel his evening at Ford's Theater.   Lincoln decided to keep his plans to attend the play that night, but wrote a note for his staff:

"Allow Mr. Ashmun and friend to come in at 9 a.m. tomorrow."

We believe this was the last words Lincoln ever wrote.  That night, John Wilkes Booth pulled the trigger. 

Springfield, just as in many communities in New England and across the north, closed stores and businesses, and church bells sounded a requiem.  At the Springfield Armory, an 18-gun salute was fired at sunrise, and then a 36-gun salute was fired at sunset.

Sarah Josepha Hale's Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving had been celebrated in New England for a couple of centuries before Sarah Josepha Hale fought to have it made a national holiday. She first came up with the idea in the 1820s, but it took 17 years of concentrated pestering beginning the 1840s, letters to five Presidents, as well as several governors, congressmen, and orchestrating a national letter-writing campaign, before President Lincoln signed the Executive Order in 1863 to make Thanksgiving a national American holiday, partly as an effort to find a common thread to unite the nation again.

Mrs. Hale shared Lincoln's enthusiasm for uniting the nation under common symbols. She also worked for the restoration of George Washington’s home, Mount Vernon, as a similar symbol to unite North and South with a powerful reminder of our shared roots and shared national interests.

Sarah Josepha Hale was born in the Guild section of Newport, New Hampshire, as this historic market in Newport tells us. Her personal achievements are numerous, from teacher, to novelist, to editor of the prestigious 19th Century magazine, Godey’s Lady’s Book, that there are many facets to her life we can discuss in future posts. For now, let us give thanks that she gave us a national Thanksgiving Day.

Below, an 1859 editorial, one of many she wrote, that expresses her still as yet unrealized dream of the Thanksgiving holiday.

OUR NATIONAL THANKSGIVING


"All the blessings of the fields,

All the stores the garden yields,

All the plenty summer pours,

Autumn's rich, o'erflowing stores,

Peace, prosperity and health,

Private bliss and public wealth,

Knowledge with its gladdening streams,

Pure religion's holier beams --

Lord, for these our souls shall raise

Grateful vows and solemn praise."

We are most happy to agree with the large majority of the governors of the different States -- as shown in their unanimity of action for several past years, and which, we hope, will this year be adopted by all -- that the LAST THURSDAY IN NOVEMBER shall be the DAY Of NATIONAL THANKSGIVING for the American people. Let this day, from this time forth, as long as our Banner of Stars floats on the breeze, be the grand THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY of our nation, when the noise and tumult of wordliness may be exchanged for the laugh of happy children, the glad greetings of family reunion, and the humble gratitude of the Christian heart. This truly American Festival falls, this year on the twenty fifth day of this month.

Let us consecrate the day to benevolence of action, by sending good gifts to the poor, and doing those deeds of charity that will, for one day, make every American home the place of plenty and of rejoicing. These seasons of refreshing are of inestimable advantage to the popular heart; and if rightly managed, will greatly aid and strengthen public harmony of feeling. Let the people of all the States and Territories sit down together to the "feast of fat things," and drink, in the sweet draught of joy and gratitude to the Divine giver of all our blessings, the pledge of renewed love to the Union, and to each other; and of peace and good-will to all men. Then the last Thursday in November will soon become the day of AMERICAN THANKSGIVING throughout the world.

Massachusetts Monuments at Gettysburg

It is rare we leave New England for purposes of this blog, but today we take a moment to remember the New Englanders who left a bit of themselves, either in the form of memories, monuments, or graves, on the battlefield of Gettysburg.

The Battle of Gettysburg, one of the most important events of the American Civil War, began July 1, 1863, and lasted for three days. The war did not end until almost two years later, so there was still plenty of fighting to be done, but this battle was the turning point.

There were a few odd elements to this battle which have intrigued historians for generations. First, the two armies, the Army of Northern Virginia, about 75,000 men under Confederate General Robert E. Lee and the Army of the Potomac, about 97,000 men under Union General George G. Meade ran into each other by accident. General Lee had wanted to take the war into the North, and so entered Pennsylvania with the hope of eventually taking Philadelphia, or Washington, D.C., or Baltimore, forcing the United States to bargain for peace.

One Confederate brigade, foraging for supplies in the countryside, stumbled into one column of Meade’s cavalry. The great battle erupted by chance. Another ironic twist is that, because of where the two armies were positioned around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the South came down from the north, and the North came up from the south.

The battlefield is a National Park today, and there are monuments to the individual fighting units placed all around at the approximate locations of where these regiments were placed during the battle. For more on the Battlefield, have a look at this website.

Here are a few regimental monuments from Massachusetts regiments:

The 37th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment was erected in 1886. There are also smaller markers for the flank positions of many of these regiments. This regiment was made of mainly of men from the western Mass. towns of Pittsfield, Springfield, Chicopee, etc. This is where they were, near present day Sedgewick Avenue, on the 2nd day of battle.

Here is the 11th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, made up mainly of Boston boys. They stood here on July 2nd, 26 were killed, 93 wounded, and 11 missing. The monument was dedicated in 1885, and there used to be a sword in that arm atop the monument, but it’s missing now. There is evidence of occasional vandalism even here.

Here is what is called a flank marker for the 12th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, in Ziegler’s Grove. It was called The Webster Regiment it’s first colonel, Fletcher Webster for his father, Daniel Webster. This marker, and the more ornate regimental monument, were dedicated in 1885. Five killed, 52 wounded, 62 missing from this unit.

Here is the 7th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, on Sedgewick Avenue, north of Little Round Top. Erected 1885.

As you can see, just a few steps away is where the First Massachusetts Calvary were placed. They seem almost like chess pieces, don’t they? The pawn and the knight.

Here is the 1st Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment on Emmitsburg Road, across from Sickles Avenue, erected in 1886. Mostly Boston boys, as you can see as etched in the marker, 18 were killed here, 3 later died of wounds, 80 were wounded, and 15 taken prisoner.   A front view of this marker leads the post above.

Here is a monument of the Second Brigade of the Army of the Potomac, comprised here of the 7th, 10th, and 37 Massachusetts regiments, and the 2nd Rhode Island Infantry.

Here is the monument for the 10th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, also on Sedgewick Avenue. Four men from this unit were wounded at Gettysburg, and five missing. They were western Mass. boys, mainly from Holyoke, Northampton, Chicopee, Springfield. Bronze founder and sculptor Melzar H. Mosman cast the bronze work for this sculpture. More about Mosman in this previous post, and also in this previous post on the Ames Manufacturing Company of Chicopee, Mass.

This is another moment that has been damaged by vandals (after this photo was taken). The current re-enactors unit of the 10th Mass. Regiment is raising funds for its restoration. See this site for more information on how you can help.

And here, in the adjoining cemetery, is how many soldiers from the Civil War are memorialized. This was the marred countryside where President Abraham Lincoln five months later at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg delivered perhaps his most memorable speech, encouraged a traumatized nation, and redefined its purpose.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.


Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.


But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

"Taps" - Memorial Day

Here’s a high school band student about to play “Taps” on his trumpet at a Memorial Day service at the Quabbin Park Cemetery in Ware, Massachusetts.

We think of the Civil War era as a more romantic age, but the following poem by Walt Whitman shows us that beyond Victorian sentiment, there lay a cold realization of the horror and cost of war. “Taps”, like Memorial Day, was a legacy of that war.


“Come Up from the Fields, Father”

By Walt Whitman



Come up from the fields, father, here's a letter from our Pete,

And come to the front door, mother, here's

a letter from thy dear son.

Lo, 'tis autumn,

Lo, where the trees, deeper green, yellower and redder,

Cool and sweeten Ohio's villages with leaves

fluttering in the moderate wind,

Where apples ripe in the orchards hang and

grapes on the trellis'd vines,

(Smell you the smell of the grapes on the vines?

Smell you the buckwheat where the bees were lately buzzing?)

Above all, lo, the sky so calm, so transparent

after the rain, and with wondrous clouds,

Below too, all calm, all vital and beautiful,

and the farm prospers well.

Down in the fields all prospers well,

But now from the fields come, father, come

at the daughter's call,

And come to the entry, mother, to the front door come right away.

Fast as she can she hurries, something ominous,

her steps trembling,

She does not tarry to smooth her hair nor

adjust her cap.

Open the envelope quickly,

0 this is not our son's writing, yet his name

is sign'd,

0 a strange hand writes for our dear son,

0 stricken mother's soul!

All swims before her eyes, flashes with black,

she catches the main words only,

Sentences broken, gunshot wound in the breast,

cavalry skirmish, taken to hospital,

At present low, but will soon be better.

Ah, now the single figure to me,

Amid all teeming and wealthy Ohio with all

its cities and farms,

Sickly white in the face and dull in the head,

very faint,

By the jamb of a door leans.

Grieve not so, dear mother (the just-grown

daughter speaks through her sobs,

The little sisters huddle around speechless and

dismay'd),

See, dearest mother, the letter says Pete will

soon be better.

Alas, poor boy, he will never be better (nor maybe

needs to be better, that brave and simple soul),

While they stand at home at the door he is

dead already,

The only son is dead.

But the mother needs to be better,

She with thin form presently drest in black,

By day her meals untouch'd, then at night

fitfully sleeping, often waking,

In the midnight waking, weeping, longing with

one deep longing,

0 that she might withdraw unnoticed, silent

from life escape and withdraw,

To follow, to seek, to be with her dear dead

son.

Two Graves of Civil War Soldiers

Here are two graves of Civil War soldiers, neither of whom survived that war. With Memorial Day approaching, we will be caught up again with a sense of urgency to pay meaningful tribute to the fallen of recent wars or wars still within the memory of those living today. A scene such as this photo, with two companionable graves in a quiet cemetery reminds us, by contrast, that urgency pales with time, and truly meaningful, lasting tribute may be beyond our abilities.

Memorial Day, or Decoration Day, was a by-product of the American Civil War and the then very urgent need to commemorate the service of thousands and thousands of fallen, in some cases, the entire male population of many small country towns, north and south.

These two men are Ruggles B. Palmer, and William Palmer. Despite the close proximity of the graves and the same surname, I am not certain at this time if they were related. They certainly may have been.

Ruggles served in the Massachusetts 27th Volunteer Infantry Regiment, which arrived first in Maryland in 1861, and then after two months’ training, sailed to North Carolina, where they fought under General Ambrose Burnside in many minor battles. We can see by the date of death on his headstone that Ruggles died before the advance on Richmond in 1864 and the bloody battle at Cold Harbor and the Siege of Petersburg. It is possible Ruggles was killed in one of the minor skirmishes when they were still in North Carolina, though it is more likely he died of illness. More than twice as many men in this regiment, some 261, died of disease than of battle wounds (128). This was a common statistic during the Civil War.

William A. Palmer served with the Massachusetts 37th Volunteer Infantry Regiment, which left for Washington, D.C. in 1862, fought at the horrendous Battle of Fredericksburg, at Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg among the most famous battles. As we can see by the death date on William’s headstone, he died just a couple days after the third battle of Winchester began in the Shenandoah Valley. We may well guess that William was a battle casualty, and strikingly, more men of the 37th died of mortal wounds, 165, than of disease, 92.

A lot to consider when inserting the flag into the metal holder, and leaving the flower by the stone.

Gerhardt's Civil War Memorial - Brooklyn, CT

From World War II battleships, we move to one of the common representations of the Civil War memorial, a lone soldier standing picket duty. This one is located in Brooklyn, Connecticut, sculpted by Karl Gerhardt.

The bronze figure stands atop a gray granite pedestal, approximately 30 feet in height, and was manufactured by the Ames Bronze Company of Chicopee, Mass. See this previous post on the Ames Manufacturing Company and its resident family of bronze founders, the Mosmans.

The Soldiers and Sailors Monument was dedicated June 14, 1888, the same day as the General Putnam statue in Brooklyn, as described in this previous post. It was a gift to the town from Thomas Smith Marlor, who had moved to Brooklyn, CT from New York City in 1870.

The sculptor, Gerhardt, who lived in Hartford, was a protégé of Mark Twain, and was 24 years old when he created this sculpture.

Harriet Beecher Stowe House - Hartford

Above is the Harriet Beecher Stowe house in Hartford, Connecticut. Walk around to the backyard and you see Mark Twain’s house across the lawn. Just this would be enough to give Hartford the reputation of being one of the foremost cities in 19th Century America. There were plenty of other reasons, but progressive social reform through literature was as good as any of them.

The author of over fifty books in an era when few women had careers of their own, Harriet Beecher Stowe is sometimes whimsically credited for having started the American Civil War by all the outrage in the North and in Europe over slavery caused by her tremendously successful novel, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

She and her husband, Professor Calvin Stowe, an author himself, had seven children, and in their retirement years moved to this 17-room Victorian Gothic Revival home in Hartford in 1873.

For more on the Harriet Beecher Stowe House, have a look at this website.

The Ames Manufacturing Company - Civil War and the New England Mill Town

(Chicopee 1856 - Chicopee Public Library)

The following is an abridged version of an article which originally appeared in North and South magazine, June 2006.

The American Civil War came to Chicopee, Massachusetts not as a battlefield, but in the form of textile mills, an arms manufacturer, and over 700 military volunteers. This community illustrated Northern Civil War experience in microcosm.

Chicopee’s most prominent family, called Ames, profited by the war, and was struck down by financial hardship as well as personal tragedy at the war’s end.
Ironically, while the Ames Manufacturing Company produced weaponry for a war to put down Southern rebellion and would bring an end to slavery, across the street and sharing the same canal for water power was a cotton textile mill that thrived on the existence of slavery to grow and harvest the cotton cheaply. It was town, and a time, full of paradox.

Correspondence which crossed the desk of James T. Ames, the factory’s owner, included this typical letter from Alfred Barbour, Superintendent of the Harper’s Ferry Armory, dated December 17, 1860.

“Dear Sir;
You will please furnish for the Harper’s Ferry Armory one hundred
and twenty tons of Marshal iron in molds or shapes suitable for
rolling into barrels; as you have heretofore furnished. The price will
be two hundred dollars per ton….” (1)

Soon, there would be no more orders from the South with the coming hostilities, and the U.S. Government due to the loss of Southern arsenals would come to depend more upon the independent manufacturer. (2) By 1864, the Ames Manufacturing Company would be the among the Union’s most important private manufacturers of side arms, swords, and light artillery, and the third largest producer of heavy ordnance. (3)

The coming war would create a maelstrom of contradiction for James T. Ames. He was already a prominent man in Chicopee, and representing an industry which was now of top importance to the United States government once the Southern states seceded, but he also turned a profit selling to the soon-to-be enemy before the embargo on such sales was enforced. As the above letter illustrates, Ames swords were purchased by the states of Virginia, Mississippi, Maryland, and Georgia as late as 1860. (4) War, by this time and to most people, seemed unavoidable, and these customers would soon be the enemy.

For James T. Ames, the coming war meant another personal conflict, with his friend James H. Burton of the Richmond Armory, a man whom he had helped to obtain the position of Master Armorer at Richmond. By June 1861, Burton had been appointed Lieutenant Colonel of Ordnance of Virginia, and in December, he was appointed Superintendent of Armories of the Confederate States of America. (5)

Another contradiction was that Ames’ factory would produce the most modern ordnance then known, yet such weaponry would tear to pieces men still incongruously brandishing as weapons James T. Ames’ most renown product, the Ames sword.


(Ames Mfg. Co., 1860s - Edward Bellamy Memorial Association, Chicopee, MA)

The Ames Company had come a long way. A family blacksmith, cutlery and tool shop begun in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, sons Nathan P. Ames, Jr. and James T. Ames brought the business to a new manufacturing village on the Chicopee River in the Western Massachusetts town of Springfield in 1829 at the invitation of Edmund Dwight, whose family owned huge textile mill concerns, land and water rights on the river. The Dwights offered Ames four years rent free, and the Ames Company continued their tool and cutlery business, and also repaired the cotton textile machinery for Dwight’s mills. It was a short step from edged tools to edged weapons, and soon Ames began the manufacture of swords for the federal government and for state militias. (6)

Two mill villages settled along the Chicopee River in northern Springfield were called Factory Village and Cabotville. Cabotville was where Nathan and James Ames eventually chose to establish their firm in 1834. The swords were stamped variously “NP Ames, Cutler, Springfield” and “Ames Mfg Co., Cabotville,” as the firm evolved, and the year the weapon was made. (7) In 1848 this most northern section of Springfield split off and became a separate town called Chicopee, and their swords were now etched with this name, just as it was on the gold presentation sword made for Mexican War figure Brigadier General John A. Quitman, presented to him by President James Knox Polk, ordered on April 18, 1848, when the new town of “Chicopee” was a week old.

By the time Chicopee became a town the Ames brothers had become leaders of the community. They made and donated the school bell for the high school. When the Third Congregational Church was built a stone’s throw from their property in 1834-1836, Nathan donated $5,000 for its construction, half his personal fortune. (8)

That was also the year fellow townsman Alonzo Phillips invented the phosphorus match, representing only one of many industries coming to life in that town and many technological innovations that sprung from that still very small community.

The Ames Company itself began a host of new product innovations based on research and experimentation. Nathan was instrumental in the experimentation in new techniques and advances in gun making. By 1844, the company was producing the flintlock, breech-loading Jenks Carbine, for which Nathan was awarded the Silver Medal by the Franklin Institute. (9)

“The nature of my invention,” Ames wrote to Burton of another experiment, “consists in the…construction of a barrel of steel or iron of a uniform bore, and exterior taper, without welding…by modes of drilling and rolling the metal.” (10)

“I fell (sic) pretty certain,” wrote Chief of Ordnance Bureau Captain Henry A. Wise, who had visited the famed Krupps works of Germany, “that your method of putting iron and steel together in truth as good, if not the same as Krupp’s.” (11)

Nathan traveled extensively on business and made several trips to Europe. On one occasion in London, a dental procedure in which was used a paste of probably silver and mercury would in time poison him and leave Nathan in hideous pain, and slowly dying. He would eventually relinquish his leadership of the firm to his younger brother, James, as his health deteriorated.

(Ames Company, date unknown. Edward Bellamy Memorial Association, Chicopee, MA)

By 1845, the railroad had come to Chicopee. The Republic of Texas was born, followed by the Mexican War, and by virtue of its government contracts for swords and side arms, Ames had a part in both events. It is interesting to note that the many of the members of the community, indeed in the state, did not support the war against Mexico. It would not the last time conscience clashed with business interests in the soon-to-be Town of Chicopee.

In the 1850s, several prominent farmers on Chicopee Street, which followed the Connecticut River northward from the village of Cabotville, were active players in secret rebellion against the Fugitive Slave Law as they allowed their homes to become stations on the Underground Railroad. These men were not the owners of the cotton mills which thrived on slave labor down South to produce their raw material, but presumably they were not more than a few pews away.

One local businessman whose conscience as regards slavery would later take a more violent turn was John Brown. He came to Springfield in 1846 to operate as a wool merchant and did business with Cabotville’s new Cabot Bank, established in May 1845. (12) John Brown owed $57,000 to the Cabot Bank from his miserably failing wool business. The Cabot Bank won a judgment against Brown. (13) John Brown left the area May 1849. (14)

While he was in Springfield, Brown received orator, author and former slave Frederick Douglass in his home. It may have been on the occasion when Douglass gave a lecture in Cabotville about his experiences, and it was with money from these touring lectures that he purchased his freedom.

Charles Dickens likewise spoke on another occasion, and “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was performed in Cabot Hall. (15) The last Chicopee seems to have heard from John Brown was the letter written to Timothy W. Carter of the Massachusetts Arms Company in Chicopee Falls in February 1856 from Osawatomie, Kansas, requesting more carbines and ammunition to be shipped secretly. (16) James T. Ames, pillar of the Third Congregational Church, sold arms to both free-soilers and slavers. Conscience, conviction, and commerce wove a messy alliance.

Back at the Third Congregational Church of Cabotville was held the funeral of Nathan P. Ames in 1847. He was 43 years old when he died. According to The National Cyclopaedia, published in 1936 which contained scores of brief biographies of successful men of business and science, none of whom apparently were without gentlemanly virtues, Nathan and James were “men of exceptionally fine character and during their joint lives were deeply devoted to each other.” (17) Both were certainly men of great accomplishment, and with Nathan gone, the business, its enormous undertaking as well as its inherent commercial and philosophical consequences, was left on the shoulders of his younger brother, James Tyler Ames.

By 1849, the original capitalization sum for Ames of $30,000 had increased to $250,000. (18) A company of remarkable diversification, artwork was cast as early as 1835 when bronze statuary was created under Silas Mosman, who would cast the bronze doors of the east wing of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. at the Ames Company, and would later include the “Minuteman” statue at the Lexington-Concord bridge, designed by Daniel Chester French, among his works. Along with works in brass and bronze, an iron foundry was added 1845, (19) and if the foundry was used for statuary, it was also meant for cannon.

By the Mexican War, the Ames Manufacturing Company’s main production had shifted to the making of arms, for the United States government and for foreign governments. The Chicopee Journal noted in September of 1854:

"The Ames Company of Chicopee have been engaged for
several months past in the manufacturing cannon, bombshells
and grape shot for His Most Serene Highness, Antonio Lopez
do Santa Ana. Of the last named article, two hundred tons
have been engaged, and we do not believe that the old, one-
legged humbug will have killed a hundred men after they are
all used up." (20)

Once again dictator of Mexico in between periods of exile, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna’s checkered relationship with his countrymen as well as with the United States did not prevent him from being a valued customer of the Ames Manufacturing Company.

It is interesting to note that though Ames had many contracts supplying weapons to state and town militias, besides the Federal Government, by the time of the political crisis of the Civil War that sent so many local civilian men into uniform, the fashion for town militia had faded in New England, certainly along with need for them. Chicopee’s Vital Records note that the Cabot Guards, their own town militia, received no appropriation of funds from the town in 1851, as they were about to disband. (21)

A few years earlier, the doomed Cabotville Chronicle took a break from lashing out at local industrialists to describe the military ball held at Cabot Hall in December, 1845 which “surpassed any thing of the kind we have ever seen in this village. The Hall was neatly and tastefully decorated…the music was the best that could be found this side of Boston or New York.” (22) The Hampden and Union Guards of Westfield also attended. Other than the community at last being seen free of Indian attack, it could also have been the distaste which many in town viewed the United States’ participation in the Mexican War which led to a mistrust and lack of enthusiasm for things with a military flare. Too, the old Yankee population with its colonial traditions was fading under new influences, like the Irish.

Most of Chicopee’s population of about 7,000, after its separation from Springfield in 1848, lived in Cabotville, and many of them were Irish immigrants huddled in the workers’ housing provided a stone’s throw from the mills by the factory owners.

"These factories employ 15,000 operators, many of whom are beautiful importations of the female sex from Erin’s Isle. The Ames Company employs 215 hands, and the Organization is second to none in Massachusetts." (23)

At the time of this 1857 Chicopee Journal article, the working day was 11 hours long, with a one-hour noon mealtime; in winter 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and in summer 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. (24) The National Cyclopaedia reported of James, “As an employer, he was ahead of his time in enlightened treatment of his workers, with whom he was extremely popular.” (25) Whether or not this were true, the working conditions in his factory were certainly typical of the time.

James T. Ames lived in a brick house, also a stone’s throw away from his company. Ames’ mansion was built between 1844 and 1846. (26) It was a two-story brick house with a picket fence, built in the late Georgian style. Part of its treasures in later years when it became a museum were a bronze wall candelabra removed from the White House when gas lighting was installed, and an invitation to dinner from President Abraham Lincoln. (27)

Whether his trade was the by-product of an era or just capitalizing on it, Ames’ fortunes depended on political turbulence, and now there was plenty. With the coming political tensions in the year Abraham Lincoln would be elected President, the Federal Government passed legislation banning arms sales to states which threatened secession, but this would not go into effect until January 1861. Until then, Ames sold muskets and sabers to Southern militia, (28) but a shipment of gun making machinery sold to Virginia was diverted by Isaac Wright, Superintendent of the Springfield Armory early in 1861. (29)

When Virginia went with the Confederacy, so did James H. Burton, born in Virginia, who went to work at Harper’s Ferry Armory in 1846. In 1849, he had been promoted to Acting Master Armorer. Burton experimented with improved designs for Minié bullet. In 1854, he left Harpers Ferry and came to Chicopee to work with the Ames Company. A year later in 1855, accepted a five-year contract as Chief Engineer of the Royal Small Arms Manufactory in Enfield, England. In 1860, Burton contracted to be superintendent of the Richmond Armory, with machinery confiscated by the Confederacy from the Harpers Ferry Armory. (30)

Back in Chicopee, one of the last contacts of the days of town militia, Indian attacks and the fading Colonial veneer disappeared when Reuben Burt, soldier in the Revolutionary War, died August 8, 1860. Burt had also served in War of 1812, (31) another conflict like the Mexican War which had Whig versus Federalist coming to verbal blows and philosophical angst as to whether or not it was better or even right for Massachusetts to secede from the Union over it. Secession was apparently not so unthinkable then...





FOR THE SECOND HALF OF THIS ARTICLE, PHOTOS AND FOOTNOTES, PLEASE SEE MY BOOK:

THE AMES MANUFACTURING COMPANY OF CHICOPEE, MASSACHUSETTS-

A Northern Factory Town's Perspective on the Civil War

By Jacqueline T. Lynch

Available in eBook and in paperback from Amazon and many other online merchants.