Original Newspaper Articles

The day finally fixed for the departure of the Twenty-Second Regiment M. V., Col. Henry Wilson, and which the friends of the regiment have looked forward to with the liveliest anticipations, opened most unfavorably for the expected demonstrations. The morning hours darkened with clouds and rain, which, to fair weather soldiers, would have proved a complete embargo.

As the day advanced, however, the sun struggled with the elements for the prevalance of fair weather, and nearly gained the mastry over the storm. The men of the Twenty-second were astir at an unusually early hour, and preparations commenced for breaking up their camp. The reveille was beaten at three o’clock, and at four the tents were struck and packed. The baggage train was sent on in advance of the troups and arriving in this city, halted in Haverhill street until the regiment came up. Cars were sent down over the Eastern and Boston and Maine Railroads early this morning, and a long train was made up at Lynfield.

The train containing the troops reached the depot soon after 9 o’clock, and was greeted by an immence crowd of people. The company of sharpshooters attached to the regiment formed on Causeway street, and the remainder of the regiment on Canal street. The sharpshooters carried their trusty rifles, many of them in cases to keep them from the weather.

The men composing this company were very intelligent looking. They were dressed in grey uniform and overcoat. The rest of the regiment had the army blue uniform and the Enfield rifle. No better looking body of men has left Boston for the Capitol since the war commenced. Col. Wilson has justly reason to feel proud of his command. The following is a correct roster of the regiment:

After the line was formed, which was under the superintendence of Col. Wilson, the line of march was commenced, and the regiment, accompanied by its fifteen baggage wagons and hospital wagons, proceeded by the most direct route to State, Court, Tremont and Beacon streets to the Common. All along the route the sidewalks were crowded with people who greeted the regiment with hearty cheers.

Col. Wolson was frequently and enthusiastically applauded. He was mounted on a fine thorough-bred stallion, which was presented to him fully equipped, a few days since, by some of the personal friends of the Senator. The horse is of dark bay color, weighs 1000 pounds, and was purchased for $500.

Upon reaching the Common the line was formed on the Charles street mall, and soon after the regiment was dismissed to partake of a substantial breakfast which the city authorities, with their usual liberality, had provided. The men appeared to appreciate the kind provisions made for their comfort.

In the programme of the day was the presentation of the colors to the regiment by Hon. Robert C. Winthrop. The presentation was about to take place when our paper went to press. The following is Mr. Winthrop’s address:

Colonel Wilson: I am here at the call of a committee of your friends, by whom this beautiful banner has been presented, to present it, in their behalf, to the regiment under your command.

I am conscious how small a claim I have to such a distinction; but I am still more conscious how little qualified I am, at this moment, to do justice to such an occasion. Had it been a mere ordinary holiday ceremony, or had I been called to it only by these withwhom I have been accustomed to act in political affairs, I should have declined it altogether.

But it was suggested to me by the committee, that the position which I had occupied in former years, in regard to some of the great questions which have agained and divided the public mind, and the relations which I had borne to yourself, politically if not personaly, might give something of pecular and welcome significance to my presence here today - as affording another manifistation, more impressive than any mere words could supply, that in the hour of our country’s agony, and in view of the momentousd issues of national life and death which are trembling the scale, all political defferences are buried in a common oblivion, and that but one feeling, but one purpose, but one stern and solemn determination, prevades and animates the whole people of Massachusetts.

To such a suggestion, sir, I could not for an instant hesitate to yield; and most heartily shall I rejoice it any word or any acty of mine may help to enforce, or even to illustrate, that unanimity of sentiment which ought to make, and which I trust does make, a million of hearts this day beat and throb as the heart of one man.

Sir, you will not desire - this crowded assembly will not desire - that in discharging the simple service so unexpecxtedly assigned to me, I should occupy much of your time in formal words of argument or of appeal. Still less could such a detention be agreeable to these galiant volunteers, impatient to find themselves fairly on the way to their distant scene od duty, and entitled to spend the few remaining hours before their departure in exchanging farewells with the friends and relatives who are gathered around them.

Yet I should hardly be excused by others, or by yourself, if I did not attempt, in a few plain words, to give some expression to that prevading sentiment, to that solemn purpose, to that stern resolve, which animates and actuates each one of us alike.

Sir, there is no mystery about the matter. There ought to be no concealment about it. There can be no mistake about it. Your venerable Chaplain has embodied it all in that sparkling lyric - "E Pluribus Unum" - which might well be adopted as the secular song of your noble regiment. It is nothing more, and nothing less, than a sentiment of duty to our whole country; of devotion to its Union; of allegiance to its Rulers; of loyalty to its Constitution; and of undying love to that old Flag of our Fathers, which was associated with its earliest achievement of our Liberty, and which we are resolved shall be associated with our latest defense. It is nothing more, and nothing less, than a determination that neither fraud nor force, neither secret conspiracy nor open rebellion, shall supplant that flag on the dome on our Capitol, or permanently humble it anywhere beneath the sun; - that the American Union shall not be rent asunder, not these cherished institutions of ours be cast down and trampled in the dust - until, at least, we have made the best, the bravest, the most strenuous struggle to save them which the blessing of heaven upon our own strong arms, and in answer to the prayers of a Nation on its knees, shall have enabled us to make.

Massachusetts, I need not say, has arrayed her numerous regiments at the call of the National Government, and under the direction of her own untiring Executive - for no purpose of subjugation or aggression; in no spirit of revenge or hatred; with no disposition and with no willingness to destroy or impair any constitutional right of any section or of any citizen of the Republic. She would as soon wear a yoke upon her own neck, as she would aid in imposing one on the neck of a sister state. She sends forth her armed battalions - the flower off Essex and Middlesex, of Norfolk and Suffolk, of both her capes and all her hills and valleys - in no spirit but that of her own honored motto: "Ense quietem;" - only to enforce the Laws; only to sustain the Government; only to uphold the Stars and Stripes; only to aid in restoring to the whole people of the land that quiet enjoyment of Liberty, which nothing but the faithful observance of the Constitution of our Fathers can ensure to us and our property.

"Union for the sake of the Union" - "For our country, our whole country, and nothing but our country" - these are the mottoes, old, stale, hackneyed and threadbare, as they may have seemed when employed as the watchwords of an electioneering campaign, but clothed with a new power, a new significance, a new gloss and a new glory, when uttered as the battle-cries of a nation struggling for existence; these are the only mottoes which can give a just and adequate expression to the cause which you have enlisted. Sir, I thank Heaven that the trumpet has given no uncertain sound, while you have been preparing yourselves for the battle.

This is the cause which has been solemnly proclaimed by both branches of Congress in resolutions passed at the instance of those true-hearted sons of Tennessee and Kentucky - Johnson and Crittenden - and which I rejoice to remember at this hour, received your own official sanction as a Senator of the United States.

This is the cause which has been recognized and avowed by the President of the United States, with a frankness and fearlessness which have won the respect and admiration of us all.

This is the cause, which has been so fervently commended by us from the dying lips of Douglas, and by the matchless voices of Holt and Everett. This is the cause, in which the heroic Anderson, lifting his banner upon the wings of prayer, and looking to the guiding and leadership of the God in whom he trusted, went through that fiery furnace unharmed, and came forth, not indeed without the smell of fire and smoke upon his garments, but with an undimmed and undying lustre of piety and patriotism on his brow.

This is the cause, in which the lamented Lyon bequeathed all that he had of earthly treasure to his country, and then laid down a life in her defense, whose value no millions could measure.

This is the cause, in which the veteran chief of our armies crowned with laurels which Washington alone had worn before him, and renouncing all inferior allegiance at the loss of fortune and of friends, has tasked, and is still tasking to the utmost, the energies of a soul, whose patriotism no age could chill.

This is the cause to which the young and noble McClellan, under whose lead it is the privilege to serve, has brought that matchless combination of sagacity and science, of endurance, modesty, caution and courage, which have made him the Hope of the hour, the bright particular Star of our immediate destiny.

And this, finally, is the cause which has obliterated, as no other cause could have done, all the divisions and distinctions of party, nationality and creed; which has appealed alike top Republican, Democratic and Union Whig, to native citizen and to adopted citizen; and in which the sons of Massachusetts or of New England or of the North alone, not the dwellers of the Hudson, the Deleware, and the Susquehanna only, but so many of these, also on the Potomac and the Ohio, the Mississippi and the Missouri, on all lakes, and in all the vast mesopotamia of the mighty West - yes, and strangers from beyond the seas, Irish and Scotch, German, Italian, and French - the common emigrant and those who have stood nearest the throne - brave and devoted men from almost every nation under heaven - are seen rallying beneath a common flag, and proclaiming with heart and voice: "The American Union - It must be, and shall be, preserved."

And we owe it to the memory of our fathers, we owe it to the hope of our children, we owe it to the cause of free institutions, and of good government of every sort throughout the world, to make the effort, post what it may of treasure or of blood, and with God’s help, to accomplish the result.

Nay, we owe it to our misguided and deluded brethren of the South - for I will not forget that they are our brothers still, and I will call them by no harsher name - we owe it even to them, to arrest them. if it be possible, in their suicidal career, to save them from their worst enemy - themselves; and to hold them back from that vortex of anarchy and chaos which is yawning at their feet, and to which, in their desperate efforts to drag us down, they are only certain of plunging themselves and engulfing all that is dear to them.

I congratulate you, Col. Wilson, with all my heart, on the success of your own efforts in this great work of National defense. Returning from discharge of your laborious and responsible duties as Chairman of the Committee of Military Affairs in the Senate of the United States, you have thrown out a recruiting signal for a regiment; and lo! two regiments have responded to your call; yes, and with Sharpshooters and Light Artillery enough in addition to, make up your own brigade. And though one of your regiments is not yet quite ready for the field, it will follow you in a few days, and you will march to the capital as the virtual leader of them all.

Sir, I must detain you no longer. I have said enough, and more than enough to maintain the spirit in which this flag is now committed to your charge. It is the National ensign, pure and simple; dearer to all our hearts at this moment, as we lift it to the gale, and see no other sign of hope upon the storm-cloud, which rolls and rattles above it, save that which is reflected from its radiant hues; dearer, a thousand fold dearer, than ever it was before, while gilded by the sunshine of prosperity, and playing with the zephyrs of peace. It will speak for itself, far more eloquently than I can speak for it.

Behold it! Listen to it! every stripe is articulate. There is no language or speech where their voices are not heard. There's magic in the web of it. It has an answer for every question of duty. It has a solution for every doubt and every perplexity. It has a word of good cheer for every hour of gloom or of dispondency.

Behold it! Listen to it! It speaks of earlier and of later struggles. It speaks of victories, and sometimes of reverses, on the sea and on the land. It speaks of patriots and heroes among the living and among the dead; and of him, the first and greatest of them all, around whose consecrated ashes this unnatural and abhorrent strife has so long been raging - "the abomination of desolution standing where it ought not." But before all and above all other associations and memories - whether of glorious men, or glorious deeds, or glorious places - its voice is ever of Union and liberty, of the Constitution and the laws.

Behold it! Listen to it! Let it tell the story of its birth to these gallant volunteers as they march beneath its folds by day, or repose beneath its sentinel stars by night. Let it recall to them the strange, colorful history of its rise and progress; let it rehearse to them the wonderful tale of its trials and its triumphs in peace as well as in war; and, whatever else may happen to it or to them, it will never be surrendered to rebels; never be ignominiously struck to treason, nor ever be prostituted to any unworthy and unchristian purpose of revenge, depression or repine.

And may a merciful God cover the head of each one of its brave defenders in the honor of battle!

After the speech of Mr. Winthrop, which was heartily cheered, Col. Wilson spoke as follows:

Mr Winthrop: In behalf of my command, I accept at your hands this beautiful ensign of the Republic, and in their name I tender to its generous donors their sincere thanks, and also for your words of encouragement. This banner will go wherever we go. (Cheers) And whether it may be unrolled, as today, in the face of friends who love it, or in our camp, or in the face of those that would erase its glittering stars, this act of your kindness and these words of yours will live in our hearts and linger in our memories.

You present it to us today, radiant with beauty. Shot and shell may mar it - the storm of battle may beat upon it - but whenever our eyes look upon it we shall feel that the men of Massachusetts expect that no act of ours shall one of its stripes be soiled or one of its stars dimmed. Our country summons her sons to the defense of the unity of the republic and the support of republican institutions. The men of my command have generously responded to the appeal of their country. They leave their beautiful Massachusetts home - the dear and loved ones - behind, and go forth, not in the spirit of wrath or hatred, but to uphold the authority of our government.

Sir, we are not soldiers yet, but we hope to be soldiers. We go forth in the resolve to do our duty, and we shall go feeling that we are citizens of the proud old Commonwealth of Massachusetts. And I trust that at all times, and in all places, we shall do our duty to our common country, and bring no disgrace to our state. You have alluded to the relations of the past. Here and now let me say that when the guns of the enemies of our country were pointed at Fort Sumpter, I felt that the time had come to forget the differences of the past, political and personal, and rally around the flag of our country. Sir, in the presence of the events that are transpiring about us, all personal ends and aims, all loves and all hates, stand rebuked, and we are summoned to do our whole duty for our country.

Sir, we are told in Holy Writ that he who is putting his banner on should not boast like him who is taking it on. We have nothing yet to boast of. We go forth in the hope to do our duty, and we hope that when we return this banner to Massachusetts that we shall have done something for our country - something that will exact the commendation of the friends who are around here today. We hope that when this banner is brought back by the men who have borne it in the face of the enemy, that the cause of our country will have succeeded, and that no star will have been erased from our national banner, and that in liberty’s unclouded blaze we may raise our heads a race of other days.

We hope that when this contest shall close that the unity of the republic will be assured and the cause of republican institutions in America established forever. We go forth in that spirit to do our whole duty. We go forth cheered by this confidence; and God in his providence grant that by no act of ours we shall lose that confidence and that approbation. (Applause)

At the close of the presentation ceremonies the regiment wheeled into marching column, and crossing the parade ground proceeded to the Worcester depot, where they take the cars for New York.