St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1878-05-17
Col. Proctor's War Record.
[From the Rutland Herald

Col. Redfeld Proctor will be a can
didate before the next state convention
for the Office of governor. 1t is his
right to run for governor it is the right
OF the convention to reject him and
choose one of his competitors if it likes,
but it is the right of no man to attempt
to soil his reputation by brutal per-
sonalities and lying insinuations. His
war record is called for by his enemies
with clamor that forbids silence on
the part of his friends, since silence
would imply that a truthful answer to
this would do Col. Proctor dishOnor.
A reticent man by temperament, Col.
Proctor does not prate about his war
record, but he can claim this advantage
over his mean spirited enemies, that he
has war record that whatever degree
of merit his fellow citizens may concede
to it, was made by honest and upright
service in the field if his blood did not
water, nor his bones fertilize the soil of
Virginia, it was not because of any fail
ure on his part to put himself at the
front where the angry shots of the enc
my fell the thickest. He answered the
call of his country with pertinacity of
patriotism that, while it found many
high souled imitators, did not include
any of his assailants whose war record
was made with pOpgun, loaded with
a newspaper wad, wetted by their eX-
pectatiOns. Col. Proctor entered the
service of his country in the summer of
1861 as quartermaster of the Sd YER
mont, but asked and obtained of Gov
ernOr Fairbanks the first vacant field
officers place, that of major of the 5th
Vermont.
Major Proctor was with his regiment
during the autumn of 1861, but during
the dreadful winter of 1861 and 90,
when the 5lh Vermont had over 500
sick at one time, Major Proctor was
Frustrated with the rest by typhoid
fever, and his life was despaired of more
than once by his friends before he final
ly recovered. As soon as his condition
permitted him to travel, Major Proctor
hastened to join his regiment, and found
them on the Peninsula in face of the
enemy. Nothing daunted by the sick
ness and hardship of army life that he
had already tasted of, Major Proctor
accepted the command of the 18th Ver-
mont regiment in the fall of 1862, and
the work of the I'd Vermont brigade. as
everybody knows, was no holiday work.
| The brigade was at Gettysburg ; the
18th, 18th and 10th regiments, showing
the most muskets, were ordered into the
| fight that was raging when the brigade
arrived. and the 18th and 18th regi-
ments were detained by order of Gen.
Sickles to guard the wagon train from
the enemy. This is Colonel Proetor's
war record. A man of frail health, he
cast into the scale mt that terrible time
the weight of his character and example
when none too many men of education
and social influence were answering 10
the drums of the Union he served the
Sd Vermont as quarteImaster with zeal,
integrity and ability he did his whole
duty in the 5th Vermont as soon as he
was able to leave his sick bed !; he did
his whole duty with the 18th Vermont,
and if any man thinks there are no sac
rifices nor trials in military service in
the field saving wounds and death, let
him ask his first neighbor who served
in the Army of the Potomac but to
thrice place ones self in the Army of
the Potomac, where, under unrelenting
rigOr there is no such thing as favor OF
shelter when the enemy are to the fore,
to place yourself deliberately where
wounds and death are the probabilities,
and avoidable by no act of yOnI own, is
as noble as if your possibilities had be-
come actualities and your name was
found among the wounded or the dead.
Colonel Proctor, at that time, when
the nation had need of him went to war
like man taking his chance fairly to
return or to fall just as God willed, and
it is an insult to every man who risked
wounds and death and honOrably missed
them, to be asked for his record by
some stay-at-home ranger who spurred
his neighbors with winged words to the
front while he urbanely refused to di-
vide with them the danger and the i'm
mortality of the sacrifice he urged them
to accept.