A Narrative of the Services of the Officers and Enlisted Men of the 7th Regiment of Vermont Volunteers (Veterans) from 1862 to 1866 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1882 Excerpt: ...in considering the charges brought against it--even upon the assumption of their truth--there was much in the state of health and physical condition of the officers and men which entitled their conduct to lenient scrutiny. The regiment had just returned from a trying and disastrous expedition, in which it had experienced great hardships and been exposed to an unusual amount of sickness. A large number of the men had perished by disease, and so many of the surviving members of the regiment were impregnated with, and suffering from malarial poison, that out of about 900 men not over 225 could be brought into line of battle on the morning of the engagement. Of this small number but about 100--the men who but a few days before had joined us from Fort Pike--were fresh and strong, the residue being largely convalescents, and hardly fit for any more severe service than light camp duty. Indeed, such was the state and condition of the regiment, that even Gen. Butler's Court of Inquiry was constrained to find that it was "much reduced in numbers, and doubtless in morale, by the "severities of the campaign at Vicksburg, and long confine"ment on transports." That this was so is not strange, when the experience to which we had been subjected is taken into account. The Seventh left Vermont in the preceding month of March, and reached Ship Island early in April following. Within less than two months thereafter the regiment was ordered to take part in the river campaign, and with no opportunity to become acclimated, or even accustomed to the duties of a life entirely different from that which they had led from boyhood, the men were immediately REFLECTIONS. 103 assigned to the most arduous field service, in performing which they were constantly exposed t...