The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1888-11-15
BENNINGTON1S MILITARY
HISTORY.
Introduction to the Military Chapter to
be used in the Memorial History
of Bennington County, in
course Of preparation.
BY L. c. ALDRIcH.

breathing a spirit Of patriotism as pure
as the air of the grand hills around
them, rushed to the Nations Capitol to
uphold the honor of the flag, and pre-
serve intact the Republic 1t was not
with them a question what battles were
to be fought, what graves filled, or
what alters shivered; but DOMINIC the
blue, vowed, no matter what the cost,
that the serpent of secession should find
an eternal grave, and gasp its last amid
shrieking shell and Kissing bullet.
The mystic chord of memory stretch
ing from every battlefield and patriot
gravel brings before us, in meteoric
brilliancy, the important part perform
ed by Bennington County's soldiery in
that great struggle. Loyal citizens only
knew that they were needed, and they
fastened to respond; they exchanged
the ripping music of the mountain
stream for the thunder of the deep
mouthed cannon and the deafening
musketry volley; they went forth from
the roof-tree of home to camp on south
ern soil, and stand guard in the pitiless
night beneath the sorrowing stars !;
they went out to be shot to death, if
need be; to be fired at by concealed
and merciless foe; to struggle in delir-
ium in hospitals, or SILVER and starve
in loathsome pens, with stones for pill
lows and vermin for companions, that
the flag might be preserved unsullied.
This was the spirit that animated the
volunteers ofBennington as they sprung
into the arena when Titans struggled.
Remembering the beautiful sentiment
expressed by Colonel Stuart Taylor, it
may well be asked: Fathers, mothers,
brothers and sisters of Bennington
County, can you look up to see the
morning furrow all the orient into gold
without thinking what sacred graves it
gildsP Or, can you watch the slow de-
clining day without wishing it could be
always sunlight on the silent mounds of
Bennington's patriot dead? Do you
ever see the spring-time daisy, or the
purple violet, but that you think of the
darling dust which feeds the wild flow
ers of the Wilderness, of Antietam, of
Gettysburg, of Spottsylvania, of Peters
burg, and other fields where loved and
lost are sleepingp
But the martial spirit of Bennington
county was not born with the outbreak
of the rebellion; it was in being in the
days when the sturdy pioneer woods
llldu ulbI lCllCu llG bidb plOoBCl-
GUS towns might spring up, agricultural
interests be enlarged, and the mechan-
ical arts add to the wealth of the pro-
gressive inhabitsnts; it was in exist
ence when the New York authorities
sought to dispossess the struggling set
tiers from the lands they had purchased
and to which they were entitled under
the New Hampshire charters; it exist
ed when Ethan Allen, Seth Warner,
Remember Baker, Robert Cochran, and
other brave patriots and their followers
organized themselves into the famous
band of Green Mountain Boys for the
protection of homes as well as rights !;
it existed when, during the darkest
days of the revolution, the inhabitants
of the county and state found them
selves deserted by their sister states
and were compelled, almost single
handed, to combat the common enemy
in battle for self-preservation it GER
tainly existed when, on the 18th of
August, TIT, the British arms received
their first decisive defeat on the bloody
battlefield of Bennington; that martial
spirit certainly existed during the peri
cd of uncertainty, after the revolution
had passed, when Vermont was seeking
admission to the Union, and, being
practically denied by Congress, was
compelled to substantially defy the
power of the federal government in Or
der to achieve that much desired indie
pendence and recognition for which her
people were asking. Had it not been
for that determined martial spirit, YER
mont as q State would not have been
known.
That same determined spirit was in
herited by later generation of sons of
Vermont, and became patent when, in
1912 and tho years following the gov
eminent Of Great Britain again sought
to wrest the control of America from
the people that held it; for, despite the
opposition of the Federalists, and their
obstructive measures, the loyal men of
the county again rushed to the defense
of the country and performed well their
part in driving the invaders from the
land, thus preserving intact our federal
institutions.
Following the second war with Eng
land that spirit slept, and the only man.
Hesitation of its presence was on the
grand old days of general training"
when the the farmer, the mechanic, and
the woodsman abandoned toll, and HE'D
away to the muster" for a season of
Notification, to eat Yankee gingerbread
and drink new cider and boast of the
prowess of the American eagle.
The record made by the volunteers of
Bennington County from the first blaze
of hostile cannon, until secession was
buried at Appomattox by the surrender
| of General Lees sword, forms one of
the most brilliant of the many grand
chapters of its history. To family pic
ture their services it will be necessary
to refer to the records of the regiments
to which they belonged, which forms
an unbroken chain of testimony to DEM
onstrate the patriotism of the County's
soldiery.
1t is not to keep alive sectional ami
mostly that the historian recites the acts
of a victorious host. Would the Athe-
mans meeting in the Angora listen to a
proposition that no man speak of Mar
athonp Would Romans teach nothing
but philosophy, and withhold from a
a rising generation all knowledge of the
victory of Scipio over Hannibal, or how
Horatius held the bridgep 1t was not
Marathon, but the memory of Marathon,
which fixed the home of civilization in
Europe instead of in Asia. 1t was not
the surrender at Appomattox that binds
in iron bonds the States of this Union,
but it is the memory of its cost, kept
alive in the hearts of the people which
gave to civilization its grandest onward
step, and which some future Guizot,
in tracing the pathway of human ad-
yapcement, will declare secured to the
world the fullest enlargement of human
liberty. And as other generations shall
know the record of the services of the
sons of Bennington, from 1861 to 1865,
it will inspire them to preserve sacred
the patriotic sentiment of country
first, the citizen afterward." But, to
the record.
During the course of the war Ben
nington County, according to the most
authentic record obtainable, furnished
for the service the gross number of if
teen hundred and seventy-four men,
divided among the several towns of the
county as follows: Arlington, 1919;
Bennington, 1858; Dorset, l2l; Glasten-
bury, II; Landgrove, "a; Manchester,
1856; Peru, 40; Pownal, lI3; Readsboro,
70; Rupert, 90; Sandgate, 60; Sears
burg, 90; SALISBURY, I47; Stamford,
So; Sunderland, So; Winhall, 70;
Woodford, 30.
II believe that we shall have from II
IN on ~ N fOrffxr 10. Nka 49, L....z 4