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PUTNAM PHALANX VISIT TO BALTIMORE DECEMBER 1860

This account can be found on the web at http://webroots.org/library/usamilit/batnoa04.html

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APPENDIX V.

As a part of the history of the times, it may not be inappropriate to 

reproduce an account, taken from the Baltimore American of December 5, 

1860, of the reception of the Putnam Phalanx of Hartford, Connecticut, in 

the city of Baltimore. At this time it still seemed to most men of 

moderate views that the impending troubles might be averted through 

concessions and compromise. In the tone of the two speeches, both of which 

were, of course, meant to be friendly and conciliatory, there is a 

difference to be noted which was, I think, characteristic of the attitude 

of the two sections; in the one speech some prominence is given to the 

Constitution and constitutional rights; in the other, loyalty to the Union 

is the theme enforced:

"The Putnam Phalanx of Hartford, Connecticut, under the command of Major 

Horace Goodwin, yesterday afternoon reached here, at four o'clock, by the 

Philadelphia train, en route for a visit to the tomb of Washington. A 

detachment of the Eagle Artillery gave them a national salute.

"The Battalion Baltimore City Guards, consisting of four companies, under 

the command of Major Joseph P. Warner, were drawn up on Broadway, and 

after passing in salute, the column moved by way of Broadway and Baltimore 

and Calvert streets to the old Universalist church-building.

"As soon as the military entered the edifice and were seated, the 

galleries were thrown open to the public, and in a few minutes they were 

crowded to overflowing.

"Captain Parks introduced Major Goodwin to Mayor Brown, who was in turn 

introduced to the commissioned

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officers of the Phalanx. Major Goodwin then turned to his command and 

said: 'Gentlemen of the Phalanx, I have the honor of introducing you to 

the Mayor of the city of Baltimore.' Mayor Brown arose, and after bowing 

to the Battalion, addressed them as follows:

Mayor Brown's Speech.

"'Mr. Commander and Gentlemen:--In the name and on behalf of the people of 

Baltimore, I extend to the Putnam Phalanx a sincere and hearty welcome to 

the hospitalities of our city. The citizens of Baltimore are always glad 

to receive visits from the citizen-soldiers of sister States, because they 

come as friends, and more than friends--as the defenders of a common 

country.

"'These sister States, as we love to call them, live somewhat far apart, 

and gradually become more and more separated by distance, just as sisters 

will be as the children marry and one by one leave the parent homestead.

"'But, gentlemen, far or near, on the Connecticut or Potomac, on the Gulf 

of Mexico or the great lakes, on the Atlantic or Pacific, they are sisters 

still, united by blood and affection, and the holy tie should never be 

severed. (Applause.)

"'Let me carry the figure a step further, and add what I know will meet 

with a response from the Putnam Phalanx, with whose history and high 

character I am somewhat acquainted--that a sisterhood of States, like 

separate families of sisters living in the same neighborhood, can never 

dwell together in peace unless each is permitted to manage her own 

domestic affairs in her own way (applause); not only without active 

interference from the rest, but even without much fault-finding or advice, 

however well intended it may be.

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"'Maryland has sometimes been called the Heart State, because she lies 

very close to the great heart of the Union; and she might also be called 

the Heart State because her heart beats with true and warm love for the 

Union. (Loud applause.) Nor, as I trust, does Connecticut fall short of 

her in this respect. And when the questions now before the country come to 

be fairly understood, and the people look into them with their own eyes, 

and take matters into their own hands, I believe that we shall see a sight 

of which politicians, North and South, little dream. (Applause.) We shall 

see whether there is a love for the Union or not.

"'But there are great national questions agitating the land which must now 

be finally settled. One is, Will the States of the North keep on their 

statute-books laws which violate a right of the States of the South, 

guaranteed to them by the Constitution of the United States? No 

individuals, no families, no States, can live in peace together when any 

right of a part is persistently and deliberately violated by the rest. 

Another question is, What shall be done with the national territory? Shall 

it belong exclusively to the North or the South, or shall it be shared by 

both, as it was gained by the blood and treasure of both? Are there not 

wisdom and patriotism enough in the land to settle these questions?

"'Gentlemen, your presence here to-day proves that you are animated by a 

higher and larger sentiment than that of State pride--the sentiment of 

American nationality. The most sacred spot in America is the tomb of 

Washington, and to that shrine you are about to make a pilgrimage. You 

come from a State celebrated above all others for the most extensive 

diffusion of the great blessing of education; which has a colonial and 

Revolutionary history abounding in honorable

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memorials; which has heretofore done her full share in founding the 

institutions of this country--the land of Washington--and which can now do 

as much as any other in preserving that land one and undivided, as it was 

left by the Father of his Country. I will not permit myself to doubt that 

your State and our State, that Connecticut and Maryland, will both be on 

the same side, as they have often been in times past, and that they will 

both respect and obey and uphold the sacred Constitution of the country.' 

(Shouts of applause.)

"As soon as the Mayor concluded, Major Goodwin arose; but it was some time 

before he could be heard, such was the tremendous applause with which he 

was greeted. The Major is nearly ninety years of age, and is one of the 

most venerable-looking men in the country. Dressed in the old 

Revolutionary uniform, a fac-simile of that worn by General Putnam, and 

with his locks silvered with age, we may say that his appearance 

electrified the multitude, and shout after shout shook the very building. 

Major Goodwin expressed himself as follows:

"'Mr. Mayor and gentlemen of the Baltimore City Guards, permit me to 

introduce to you our Judge Advocate, Captain Stuart.'

"Captain Stuart arose and spoke as follows:

"Speech of Captain Stuart.

"'Your Honor, Mayor Brown: For your kind words of welcome, and for your 

patriotic sentiments in favor of the Union, the Putnam Phalanx returns you 

its most cordial thanks. I can assure you, sir, that when you spoke in 

such eloquent terms of the value and importance of a united country, you 

but echoed the sentiments of the whole of our

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organization; and let me say, it is with great pleasure, upon a journey, 

as we are, to the tomb of the illustrious Washington, that we pause for a 

while within a city so famed for its intelligence, its industry, its 

general opulence and its courtesy, as is this your own beautiful Baltimore.

"'We opine, nay, we know from what you have yourself, in such fitting 

terms, just expressed, that you heartily appreciate the purpose which lies 

at the foundation of our organization, that purpose being the lofty one of 

commemorating, by our military attire and discipline, the imposing 

foundation-period of the American Republic, of attracting our own 

patriotic feeling, and that of all who may honor us with their 

observation, to the exalted virtues of those heroic men who laid the 

foundations of our present national prosperity and glory--men of whom your 

city and State furnished, as it pleasantly happens, a large and most 

honorable share.

"'We come, sir, from that portion of the United States in which the 

momentous struggle for American freedom took its rise, and where the blood 

of its earliest martyrs was shed; from the region where odious writs of 

assistance, infamous Courts of Admiralty, intolerable taxation, immolated 

charters of government and prohibited commerce were once fast paving the 

way for the slavery of our institutions; from the region of a happy and 

God-fearing people--from the region, sir, of Lexington and Concord and 

Bunker Hill and Croton Heights, of ravaged New London and fired Fairfield 

and Norwalk and devastated Danbury and sacked New Haven. And we come, Mr. 

Mayor, to a city and State, we are proudly aware, which to all these 

trials and perils of assaulted New England, and to the trials and perils 

of our whole common country, during "the times that tried men's souls," 

gave ever the meed of its heartfelt sympathy, and the

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unstinted tribute of its patriotic blood and treasure; which, with a full 

and clear comprehension of all the great principles of American freedom, 

and a devotion to those principles that was ever ardent and exalted, 

signalized themselves by their wisdom in council and their prowess on the 

field.

"'When the devoted metropolis of New England began to feel the awful 

scourge of the Writ Bill, Maryland it was that then contributed most 

liberal supplies for its suffering people, and with these supplies those 

cheering, ever-to-be-remembered, talismanic words: "The Supreme Director 

of all events will terminate this severe trial of your patriotism in the 

happy confirmation of American freedom."

"'When this same metropolis soon after became the seat of war, Maryland it 

was that at once sent to the camp around Boston her own companies of 

"dauntless riflemen," under her brave Michael Cresap and the gallant 

Price, to mingle in the defense of New England firesides and New England 

homes. She saw and felt, and bravely uttered at the time, the fact that in 

the then existing state of public affairs there was no alternative left 

for her, or for the country at large, but "base submission or manly 

resistance"; and, Mr. Mayor, at the memorable battle of Long Island she 

made this manly resistance, for there she poured out the life-blood of no 

less than two hundred and fifty-nine of her gallant sons, who fought in 

her own Smallwood's immortal regiment; and elsewhere, from the St. 

Lawrence to the banks of the Savannah, through Pennsylvania, Virginia and 

both the Carolinas--devoted the best blood within her borders, and the 

flower of her soldiery, to the battlefields of the Union.

"'Sir, we of this Phalanx recall these and other Revolutionary memories 

belonging to your city and State with pride and satisfaction. They unite 

Connecticut and Maryland in

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strong and pleasant bonds. And we are highly gratified to be here in the 

midst of them, and to receive at your hands so grateful a welcome as that 

which you have extended.

"'Be assured, Mr. Mayor, that in the sentiments of devotion to our common 

country which you so eloquently express, this Phalanx sympathizes heart 

and soul. You may plant the flag of the Union anywhere and we shall warm 

to it. And now, renewedly thanking you for the present manifestation of 

courtesy, we shall leave to enjoy the hospitality which awaits us in 

pleasant quarters at our hotel.'

"Captain Stuart was frequently interrupted by applause."

 Mark Twain's Speech at The Putnam Phalanx Dinner For The Boston Ancient And Honorable Artillery Company.

The New York Times, October 7, 1877

MARK TWAIN'S WAR EXPERIENCES.

HIS GRAPHIC RECITAL FOR THEM AT THE DINNER TO THE BOSTON ANCIENT AND HONORABLE ARTILLERY COMPANY.

Mr. Samuel L. Clemens was a guest at the dinner given the Boston Ancient and Honorable Artillery company in Hartford by the Putnam Phalanx of that city, and in responding to a toast said:

"I wouldn't have missed being here for a good deal. The last time I had the privilege of breaking bread with soldiers was some years ago, with the oldest military organization in England, the Ancient and Honourable Artillery Company of London, somewhere about its six-hundredth anniversary; and now I have enjoyed this privilege with its oldest child, the oldest military organization in America, the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts, on this your two hundred and fortieth anniversary. Fine old stock, both of you; and if you fight as well as you feed, God protect the enemy. I did not assemble at the hotel parlors today to be received by a committee as a mere civilian guest. No, I assembled at the head quarters of the Putnam Phalanx, and insisted upon my right to be escorted to this place as one of the military guests. For I, too, am a soldier. I am inured to war. I have a military history. I have been through a stirring campaign, and there is not even a mention of it in any history of the United States or of the Southern Confederacy. To such lengths can the envy and the malignity of the historian go. I will unbosom myself here, where I cannot but find sympathy. I will tell you about it, and appeal through you to justice. In the earliest summer days of the war, I slipped out of Hannibal, Mo., by night, with a friend, and joined a detachment of the rebel General Tom Harris' (I find myself in a great minority here) Army up a gorge behind an old barn in Ralls County. Colonel Ralls, of Mexican War celebrity, swore us in. He made us swear to uphold the flag and Constitution of the United States, and to destroy every other military organization that we caught doing the same thing, which, being interpreted, means that we were to repel invasion. Well, you see, this mixed us. We couldn't really tell which side we were on, but we went into camp and left it to the God of Battles. For that was the term then. I was made Second Lieutenant and Chief Mogul of a company of eleven men, who knew nothing about-war - nor anything, for we had no Captain. My friend, who was 19 years old, 6 feet high, 3 feet wide, and some distance through, and just out of the infant school, was made Orderly Sergeant. His name was Ben Tupper. He had a hard time. When he was mounted and on the march he used to go to sleep, and his horse would reach around and bite him on the leg, and then he would wake up and cry and curse, and want to go home. The other men pestered him a good deal, too. When they were dismounted they said they couldn't march in double file with him because his feet took up so much room. One night, when we were around the camp fire, some fellow on the outside in the cold said, 'Ben Tupper, put down that newspaper; it throws the whole place into twilight, and casts a shadow like a blanket.' Ben said, 'I ain't got any newspaper.' Then the other fellow said, 'Oh, I see - 'twas your ear!' We all slept in a corn crib, on the corn, and the rats were very thick. Ben Tupper had been carefully and rightly reared, and when he was ready for bed he would start to pray, and a rat would bite him on the heel. And then he would sit up and swear all night and keep everybody awake. He was town bred and did not seem to have any correct idea of military discipline. If I commanded him to shut up, he would say, 'Who was your nigger last year?' One evening I ordered him to ride out about three miles on picket duty, to the beginning of a prairie. Said he, 'What, in the night, and them blamed Union soldiers likely to be prowling around there any time?' So he wouldn't go, and the next morning I ordered him again. Said he, 'In the rain? I think I see myself!' He didn't go. Next day I ordered him on picket duty once more. This time he looked hurt. Said he: 'What! on Sunday; you must be a _____ fool.' Well, picketing might have been a very good thing, but I saw it was impracticable, so I dropped it from my military system. We had a good enough time there at that barn, barring the rats and the mosquitoes and the rain. We levied on both parties impartially, and both parties hated us impartially. But one day we heard that the invader was approaching, so we had to pack up and move, of course, and within 24 hours he was coming again. So we moved again. Next day he was after us once more. Well, we didn't like it much, but we moved, rather than make trouble. This went on for a week or 10 days more, and we saw considerable scenery. Then Ben Tupper's patience was lost. Said he, 'War is not what it's cracked up to be; I'm going home if I can't ever get a chance to sit down a minute. Why do these people keep us a humpin' around so? Blame their skins, do they think this is an excursion?'

"Some of the other town boys got to grumbling. They complained that there was an insufficiency of umbrellas. So I sent around to the farmers and borrowed what I could. Then they complained that the Worcestershire sauce was out. There was mutiny and dissatisfaction all around, and, of course, here came the enemy pestering us again - as much as two hours before breakfast, too, when nobody wanted to turn out, of course. This was a little too much. The whole command felt insulted. I detached one of my aides and sent him to the brigadier, and asked him to assign us a district where there wasn't so much bother going on. The history of our campaign was laid before him, but instead of being touched by it, what did he do? He sent back an indignant message and said: 'You have had a dozen chances inside of two weeks to capture the enemy, and he is still at large. (Well, we knew that! ) Stay where you are this time, or I will court-martial and hang the whole lot of you.' Well, I submitted this brutal message to my battalion, and asked their advice. Said the Orderly Sergeant, 'If Tom Harris wants the enemy, let him come and get him. I ain't got any use for my share, and who's Tom Harris anyway, I'd like to know, that's putting on so many frills? Why, I knew him when he wasn't nothing but a darn telegraph operator. Gentlemen, you can do as you choose; as for me, I've got enough of this sashaying around so's 't you can't get a chance to pray, because the time's all required for cussing, so off goes my war paint. You hear me!' The whole regiment said, with one voice, 'That's the talk for me.' So there and then, on the spot, my brigade disbanded itself and tramped off home, with me at the tail of it. I hung up my own sword and returned to the arts of peace, and there were people who said I hadn't been absent from them yet. We were the first men that went into the service in Missouri; we were the first that went out of it anywhere. This, gentlemen, is the history of the part which my division took in the great rebellion, and such is the military record of its Commander-in-Chief, and this is the first time that the deeds of those warriors have been brought officially to the notice of mankind. Treasure these things in your hearts, and so shall the detected and truculent historians of this land be brought to shame and confusion. I ask you to fill your glasses and drink with me to the reverent memory of the Orderly Sergeant and those other neglected and forgotten heroes, my footsore and travel-stained paladins, who were first in war, first in peace, and were not idle during the interval that lay between."