From the Hawley Hills to the Mississippi Mud

In June of 1861, in Hawley, Massachusetts, a seventeen-year-old boy watched as his older brother Albert left the security of the rolling hills and fertile farmland and mustered out with Company H of the 11th Massachusetts Infantry. In July of 1862, Albert, while fighting with his unit in Virginia, found himself with a wounded lower right leg during the Battle of Malvern Hill. His now nineteen-year-old brother George undoubtedly received this news with a feeling of responsibility to avenge his brother’s attack and to do his part to repair the fabric of the broken nation.

That August Abraham Lincoln called for three hundred thousand new soldiers to join the Union Army, and so little brother George volunteered to fill the quota for Hawley by enlisting in the newly formed 52nd Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. Leaving home on October 1, 1862, George passed through the village of Shelburne Falls on his march to Camp Miller in Greenfield, Massachusetts, where the regiment was organizing for deployment. In a letter to cousin Emma Field, he expressed his regret at not waving to her as they passed through the village, but assured her he would stop in to say goodbye on a promised four-day furlough before leaving from Greenfield to the battle zone.

Life at Camp Miller that first evening was jovial and full of optimism. George writes, “I must say that I never saw a Co of men feeling to all appearance…so happy as did the men in camp that first night.” There were “a great many good singers” in camp and he was happy to learn a number of new songs and tunes. There was very little swearing among the men there, although George speculated that his was likely not a model regiment in that regard.

While two companies were mustered in on October 7th, the remaining eight companies of the 52nd encountered some confusion over quotas. Several men refused to take the oath because their town quotas were full. Officials from at least one town, Ashfield, were expected at Camp Miller in order to determine whether “bounty” would be paid for those over quotas. On October 11th, the remaining companies finally were mustered in. They remained in training at Camp Miller until November 20th, at which time they departed for Louisiana via New York.

The train from Greenfield to New Haven was not terribly uncomfortable for George, although he was still suffering from a cold. A massive crowd to the extent that George had never seen bid the soldiers farewell, waving flags, old aprons, handkerchiefs, and if nothing else at hand, the caps on their heads. After witnessing sad goodbyes between friends and family, George was happy not to have either there to say a distressing goodbye to. He was, however, delighted to see some friends at the train depot in Springfield on a brief stop at the station there. They had brought him a bundle of provisions and a bottle of cider; he promptly passed the cider to his fellow soldiers, himself not a drinker.

Just after midnight the regiment reached the Elm City where they boarded a transport ship to New York. After several uncomfortable days at Franklin Barracks, New York, sleeping on hard marble floors while waiting for a transport, the regiment finally boarded the Illinois and spent seventeen miserable crowded days en route to Baton Rouge. On December 21st, George writes, “Neither did I have a realizing sense of this war untill I came to the Baton Rouge + New Orleans to see the property that has been destroyed and hear the people talk.” He also comments on encountering black slaves for the first time, never having seen black person before entering the Mississippi River. For a young man of nineteen, this new encounter must have been curious and a fast education in the reason the war was being fought so fiercely.

Through January, 2023, George remained with his company in Baton Rouge. On the evening of January 23rd Company E was ordered to go “into the country” where George found himself on picket duty one evening after the previous pickets had deserted their posts. He and a few others had just fallen asleep in an abandoned house when they were awakened and ordered to lie in an open field and watch and listen “for the faintest” noise. With, thankfully, no activity that night, George could retire back to camp in the morning. He was content in the days that followed to get acquainted with the black residents in the area, particularly observing a method for driving their teams of four horses and wagon while sitting on one horse with a small rope and a whip, commenting that “I should like to see one of these teams stray through the sts of a Mass village I believe there is nothing that would draw a crowd of people out quicker than that.” He also found solace in a good meal at times, eating a dinner of fresh beef, soft bread, and molasses. George, it seems, tried to focus on whatever he could besides the actual war, especially when it came to communicating with his family back home

With muddy wet conditions, little regular sleep, many of the men succumbed to illness. By February, so many men had been lost from the ranks to illness that the Captain on duty on Saturday morning, February 14th refused to excuse George from the days required assignment despite the young man’s inability to eat anything for the previous two days and his obvious physical distress. George was forced to go on a five mile foraging expedition, returning to camp at 4:00PM at which time he collapsed in his tent. The doctor was called and diagnosed George with measles, ordering him transported on a stretcher to the Measles Hospital in Baton Rouge. With eighteen to a room in the hospital, each on thin mattresses placed on the floor, the medical attention there was described as horrific, with “no care at all.”

George remained at the Measles Hospital until March 2nd, dipping in and out of consciousness for days. With the doctors wanting to get some of the recovering soldiers out of the way, George hoped he would be able to rejoin his regiment and continue his recovery at camp. However, the 52nd Massachusetts Regiment was under marching orders to Port Hudson and there was not a camp for George to return to, so he was transferred to the U.S.A. Hospital, a less crowded facility in Baton Rouge. Still, it was not ideal. On March 18th George writes, “I suppose our boys are having a hard time but I wish I was able to be with them anything but staying in the Hospital.” Time moved slowly in the hospital for George. He did, though, write of the “splendid flowers” in bloom and how his dear cousin and friend Emma would love to visit the gardens there in Baton Rouge. Taking solace in the beauty helped George face another possible two months in the hospital, before his expected return home in June, 1863.

No more letters followed. Little evidence of the service of George Darwin Clark of Hawley, Massachusetts can be found outside of his personal writing. On the 24th of May, 1863, the attending physician at the hospital in Baton Rouge signed a "Certificate of Disability for Discharge" for Private George D. Clark of Hawley, indicating that he was unfit to serve due to "Phthisis of the left lung succeeding Measles from which he suffered since his muster into service." The war had broken George. That cold he had left Greenfield with the previous October had started the domino effect that was his Civil War experience, from cold to measles to succumbing on September 13, 1863 at the age of twenty to consumption. While George was able to die at home with his family among the beautiful hills of Hawley, he likely never saw his older brother Albert again. Albert served with the 11th Regiment until 1865 before mustering out. His first child, George, was born that same year, with the hope, I am sure, to carry on the Clark name in the memory of a brother lost too young.