What a year

Well this is the last posting of the year and my 250th overall. As for 2009 it came and went like a flash in the pan and all I can look back at it and say is wow. Traveled far and wide, finally saw my Battery G book in print, conducted some deep and interesting research, and thought deeply. As 2010 comes I look forward to several more articles in print, including one in January on the epic march to Gettysburg, the long overdue Providence Marine Corps of Artillery book, and my earnest and only wish of finding a full time job in the field of history. Well off to the mountains for a festive time. From all of us here in Hopkins Hollow, the very best of holidays to all.

From George

On my current George Gaskell project, I just cannot help but take deep note of the magnificent writing this soldier left behind, he knew how to transfer his thoughts to paper. Here is an example of one of George's poems, thinking of a voyage he took to Africa in 1859-1861.

Memories

There’s many a palm-tree grove and valley fair,
Blooming beneath the fairest of all skies:
There’s many a blossom perfuming the air,
Beauty and fragrance in each petal vies:
Birds, whose bright wings, all Iris’ colors bear,
And fruits delicious glad my teeming eyes;
While through the evening mellowing low but clear,
Songs and light tones of laughter greet my ear.

There’s other evenings, when the clove-tree shade
Seemed to imperfect; for each twinkler’s gaze
Fell on the features of a dusky maid,
Close by my side in that too blissful maze,
And as my fingers’ mid her tresses played,
Were whispered words whose magic but decays
With the quick soul whose overflow gives birth
To this approach to heaven- the nearest from our earth.

Past days in Africa- when each glowing hour
Seemed of itself one long, glad day of joy;
When the breast teeming with its tropic power,
Found pleasures real, and without alloy-
Dearest are ye of memory’s varied dower.

While some may sadden, time can never cloy,
But brigs a sweetness- each remembrance blest-
Of days congenial in the happy East.
Harrison’s Landing, Va.
G.L.G.

An Unidentified Rhode Island Boy

Going through my images, I found this unidentified member of the Independent Company of Rhode Island Hospital Guards. Raised from disabled Rhode Island soldiers in 1862, who were unfit for further service, these men garrisoned and policed the hospital at Portsmouth, Rhode Island, making sure none deserted, while also boasting the defenses of Narragansett Bay. This soldier was one of those men, but does not have a name.

Benjamin Eddy Kelley

Second Lieutenant Benjamin Eddy Kelley was 18 when he left the Providence High School in April of 1861 to serve a three month hitch in Company C of the First Rhode Island Detached Militia. He passed through Bull Run and in November of 1861 he reenlisted and became the first first sergeant of Battery G, First Rhode Island Light. Respected by his men, Kelley and Private George Gaskell keptthe Battery records. The only son and surviving child of wealthy parents (his sister and father both died in 1860), Kelley was promoted to second lieutenant and given command of the center section of his battery in November of 1862. Five months later he became the first officer of the First Rhode Island Light Artillery Regiment when a shell struck his leg during the battle of Marye's Heights. Declared mortally wounded by the surgeon's, he died quietly late on the night of May 3, 1863 at Chatham, in Falmouth, VA. Kelley's body was brought back to Providence and interred at Swan Point Cemetery on May 9, 1863. Universally mourned by his fellow soldiers, Kelley was just one of many young men from Rhode Island who did not come back.

Living Descendents

I am currently finishing up my work on George Lee Gaskell who served in both Battery G and the Fourteenth Rhode Island. He did have four children and died in Cincinnati in 1926. If anyone knows any living descendants, I would love to contact them

The snow

Being snowed in today with some twenty inches of the stuff, it is amazing to note the winters in Virginia, as seen by the men of the Seventh. It was cold one day, warm the next, sometimes snow, mostly mud.

The Fourth

The Boys of the Fourth Rhode Island did not take to kindly to being consolidated with the Seventh, there was an open mutiny that nearly occurred. It seems this defiance continued even into death as well. Reuben Whitman died of dysentery at Fort Hell, Virginia. At the time of his death he was a member of the Seventh Rhode Island, but his parents placed that he was a member of the Fourth on his headstone. Randomly walking around Greenwood Cemetery the other day, I looked down and there was Reuben.