The 1st Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry was an infantry regiment in the Union army during the American Civil War. It was the first regiment to leave Massachusetts for a three-year term (several had previously left for 90-day terms) in response to President Abraham Lincoln's May 3, 1861, call for three-year regiments. It was also the first three-year regiment from any state to reach Washington, D.C., for federal service. The core of the regiment was five companies from the 1st Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, a peace-time unit which was formed in 1858, replacing an earlier, disbanded unit of the same designation. Five companies of new recruits were added to the regiment and the unit was mustered in by companies beginning May 23, 1861, at Camp Cameron in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
After arriving in Washington, the regiment became part of Major General Irwin McDowell's Army of Northeastern Virginia and saw their first combat during the Battle of Blackburn's Ford. The 1st Massachusetts was engaged during the First Battle of Bull Run. When Union forces surrounding Washington were reorganized, the regiment became part of the Army of the Potomac, with which it was associated for the rest of its term of service. It was involved in the Peninsular Campaign and was present for virtually all of the major battles in which the Army of the Potomac fought, including the Second Battle of Bull Run, the Battle of Fredericksburg, the Battle of Chancellorsville, the Battle of Gettysburg and Lieutenant General Ulysses Grant's Overland Campaign.
Organization At the start of the war, with the firing on Fort Sumter, the 1st Massachusetts Volunteer Militia consisted of five companies based in and around Boston, Massachusetts. The peace-time unit of militia was organized in 1858 not long after an older unit of the same name disbanded. The regiment was initially built around five companies (later companies, D, E, F, and G) of the First Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Militia. These five companies were the "Union Guards" of East Boston (B), the "Roxbury City Guards" of Roxbury (D), the "Pulaski Guards" of South Boston (E), the "National Guards" of Boston (F), and the "Independent Boston Fusiliers" (G). The commanding officer, Colonel Robert Cowdin, originally offered their service in response to Lincoln's first call for 75,000 volunteers to serve a term of 90-days. But as the unit did not yet have the ten companies required for a regiment, the request was set aside. The state the added five other militia companies in part or as a whole to fill the complement of ten companies as A, C, H, I, and K. A was drawn from the two militia companies in Brookline, C from the North End True Blues in Boston, H from the Chelsea Volunteers in Chelsea, I from the Schouler Guards in Boston, and K from the Chadwick Light Infantry of Roxbury.
The regiment first made its headquarters at Faneuil Hall in Boston and began recruiting volunteers for five new companies. This progressed for about a month until a full complement of companies was reached. When Lincoln's call for three-year regiments was issued on May 3, 1861, the men of the 1st Massachusetts unanimously agreed to serve for that term. The first four companies were mustered into federal service on May 23 and the remaining six over the next few days. On May 25, the regiment was ordered to occupy an improvised training camp outside of Boston dubbed Camp Ellsworth. The barracks were located in an old ice house next to Fresh Pond in North Cambridge, Massachusetts. The regiment began active training and drilling here, however, the camp and barracks turned out to be unsuitable and unhealthy, resulting a growing sick list. On June 13, the unit moved to a different location in North Cambridge where new barracks were constructed. This came to be known as Camp Cameron. Just two days later, the War Department summoned the regiment to active service.
Initial service in 1861 The 1st Massachusetts left Boston on the Boston and Providence Railroad in seventeen passenger and four baggage cars, drawn by two locomotives. Arriving in Groton, Connecticut, the regiment detrained and embarked on the steamship Commonwealth It sailed out and south outside Long Island and landed in Jersey City where the men disembarked and, after a meal, again entrained, this time on the New Jersey Railroad, for Washington. Since the Baltimore riot two months earlier when the 6th Massachusetts was attacked by a large crowd of civilian Confederate sympathizers, new Union regiments headed southward generally avoided passing through that city. Col. Cowdin decided to travel through Baltimore which required the regiment to march on foot between two of the city's train depots as the 6th Massachusetts had done. The men of the 1st Massachusetts were ordered to load their muskets before conducting the march. A large crowd of civilians assembled but remained silent as the 1st Massachusetts passed. After boarding train cars without incident, the regiment arrived in Washington on the evening of June 17. It was the first of the three-year regiments to reach the capital.
On June 19, the regiment marched through Washington and Georgetown and established a camp on the north side of the Potomac River which they called Camp Banks. The 1st Massachusetts spent nearly a month there, drilling and preparing for the upcoming campaign. The men shared an opinion with the other New England troops that the further they traveled south,there was an increase in travelers' discomforts and inconveniences, poorer living, exorbitant charges at accommodations, indifference to human comfort, and disregard of human life and happiness. This seemed to feed the very dim view they of the local white population who they saw as overtly or covertly supportive of secession.
As a result, strict military discipline was enforced. The men were learning to be soldiers with a tight schedule of instruction, physical training, and inspections. They were attached to the Fourth Brigade (commanded by Col. Israel B. Richardson) of the First Division (commanded by Brigadier General Daniel Tyler) of Maj. Gen. Irwin McDowell's Army of Northeastern Virginia. As part of their brigade, the regiment soon took up its part in patrolling and protecting portions of the Washington Aqueduct.
First Bull Run Campaign
On Tuesday, July 16, the regiment received orders to march with their brigade into Virginia as Gen. McDowell commenced to move his army to meet the Confederate forces gathered around the important railroad junction at Manassas, Virginia. At 3:00 p.m., the 1st, in company with the 2nd and 3rd Michigan and the 12th New York Regiments, constituting Col. Richardson's brigade, crossed the Potomac via the Chain Bridge into Virginia, and began a march towards Vienna. The men noted the support of local Unionists as the marched and reached their bivouac at 11:00 p.m. Throughout Tuesday and Wednesday, the regiment saw evidence of the rebel army in trees felled as obstacles across the road and various pieces of clothing and equipment left along the road side.
Battle of Blackburn's Ford
Thursday, July 18, Tyler's division was ordered to probe the Confederate position on the other side of Bull Run. Richardson's brigade led the reconnaissance-in-force known as the Battle of Blackburn's Ford during which the 1st Massachusetts acted as the leading regiment of the brigade by Col. Cowdin's request. As they started off at 7:00 a.m., the heat was extremely oppressive, and water was scarce, and the 1st turned left from Centreville down the road leading down to Blackburn's Ford across Bull Run, a tributary of the Occoquan River. Its banks were covered with a dense undergrowth of bushes and thickets. Either side of Bull Run was peculiarly well adapted to defensive warfare, with a gentle slope downs to the water, which had carved a deep chasm thus forming a barrier to cavalry and artillery. The men of the regiment noted that the road to the ford ran apparently through a farm or plantation, with a house, barn, outbuildings, and orchard on the left, and a large wheat-field on the right. Around 11:00 a.m., the men saw rebel pickets in thick woods along Bull Run, who withdrew as the brigade approached. The 1st was wearing their gray Massachusetts militia uniforms (the typical color for many state militia units). This caused considerable confusion for both Confederate and Union units that encountered the regiment later that day and might have confused the pickets.
The brigade's skirmishers advanced half-way down the hill to make observations and, across Bull Run, they saw rebel infantry in numerous cleared spots and around certain buildings, interspersed here and there by cavalry, but no artillery. Richardson immediately ordered up his artillery, and the rest of his regiments. The first battery was posted in the wheat field fired twelve or fifteen shots before rebel batteries replied with four or five rounds of accurate fire. When the second battery arrived, and was posted by the orchard, it fired on the enemy's batteries who ceased firing after four rounds.
When the full brigade arrived, it deployed athwart the road with the 1st Massachusetts on the left. Richardson directed the 1st Massachusetts to hold the farm and its buildings, the ravine to its front, and along its fence and walls. Two companies pushed into the woods along Bull Run and made contact almost immediately who opened fire but seemed only to prevent the crossing of Bull Run and not advance themselves. Another company took the house and barn on the left and followed the skirmishers into the woods. Once again, confusion over the regiment's uniforms made it difficult to identify friendly soldiers from the rebels. Eventually, they crossed Bull Run, and three companies of the 1st Massachusetts were ordered forward as skirmishers to probe the Confederate position.
That night the regiment returned to Centerville for its bivouac. At Blackburn's Ford, its first taste of battle, the 1st Massachusetts lost 13 killed, including 2nd Lieut. William H. B. Smith of Cambridge, and over 20 wounded and missing. On Friday, the next day, it returned the ford to man a picket line at Bull Run for through to Sunday, July 21.
First Battle of Bull Run
Due to the failure of the reconnaissance at Blackburn's Ford, McDowell determined that a frontal assault on the Confederate lines across Bull Run would be necessary. The result was the First Battle of Bull Run fought on July 21. During the battle, the 1st Massachusetts and their brigade were posted at Blackburn's Ford to hold the crossing and to make demonstrations, or lightly engage, the forces on the other side of the ford to prevent them from reinforcing the rest of the Confederate line. The 1st Massachusetts, relatively sheltered in woods near the ford, waited for hours while the main action played out several miles to their northwest, upstream along Bull Run. In their position, mail and rations had been brought forward, and it seemed everything was going in the Union's favor. Various bodies of rebel troops could be seen gathering in the 1st's front and on the left. The men had strengthened their position with a parapet of earth and an abbatis extending several hundred feet to the right and left. Skirmishers in the woods soon fell back to the regiment reporting large numbers of rebels.