History of Swansea, Massachusetts, 1667-1917; - citizen hylbom blog

Historical Address 95
The War for the Union
The war to preserve the Union, on account of its nearness
to our time, interests us more deeply than does the war which
made us an independent nation. But in some respects it
called for less endurance and sacrifice. The clash of arms and
the alarms of war did not vex these hillsides and echo across
these bays as they had done in Phihp's and the Revolutionary
wars. It was not so long continued nor financially so disastrous
as was the war for independence, in which the financial
system of the country went to wreck, and its promises to pay
became worthless, insomuch that, even three years before the
war ended, this town voted $140 for an axe, and $50 a day to
its selectmen. Let us honor the heroic endurance of the
fathers, while we also cherish with pride the valor of their sons,
our brothers, who responded nobly to the call of the nation,
when threatened with disunion. For it is to be said that in the
later struggle this town did its full duty. At the close the town
stood credited with twelve more men than the State had required.
It is true that some of them were not its own citizens,
but hired substitutes; but it is also true that from these farms
and hamlets enough perhaps to balance the hired contingent
went into Rhode Island regiments and batteries. Her rebeUion
record contains the names of one hundred and thirty soldiers
who went from or who were hired by and for this town.
Swansea's sons were widely scattered among our State
organizations and were in all branches of the service. One or
another of them faced the nation's foes on most of the battlefields
of the Atlantic slope and of the Gulf. They helped to
roll back the haughty and desperate tide of rebel invasion that
was twice shattered on the glorious fields of Antietam and of
Gettysburg. They fought with Hooker at Chancellorsville,
with Burnside at Fredericksburg, with Sherman in the
Shenandoah. They were with McClellan in his march to
Richmond by the bloody peninsula, and they followed Grant
through the Wilderness and beyond, to Richmond and to
Appomattox. Others of them shared the fortunes of the forces
which captured the coast and river cities of the Confederacy,
and raised the blockade of the Mississippi. Every man had
his story. Each looked armed battalions in the face and
sustained the hostile shock of the assault. They heard the
whistle of the rifle ball which was seeking their life, the shriek
of the exploding shell, the clatter of galloping squadrons, the
clash of sabres, the roar of the cannonade, the cries of the
wounded, the groans of the dying, the mournful dirge over the
dead. The blood of some of them was shed, and that of them