1
The Irish Volunteer
Official Newsletter of the 116th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, Co. B
VoL. X. – No. 1]PENNSYLVANIA, SATURDAY, MAY 30, 1863[SINGLE COPIES SIX CENTS
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the Year 1863, by Sullivan et-al in the Clerk’s Office for the Far Western District of Pennsylvania
1
May 2002
Joe and Holly Sullivan Editors
ADMINISTRATION
IN THE FIELD
Capt. Kevin Walzyck
and
1st Lieutenant Steve Stowell
BEHIND THE DESK
Chairman, Kevin Burton
ON THE HOME FRONT
Civilian Advocate, Andi Redinger
Official Web Site of 116 PVI
UPCOMING EVENTS AND MEETINGS
Board Meeting and Meeting of the General Membership. Scheduled for Saturday, May 11, at 10 A.M. See article.
McIver Park battle event, April 27th and 28th at Estacada, Oregon. The event coordinator is Mitch Rice at 503-654-5258. More information is available at
--NCWC / 116PVI –
STARLIGHT PARADE June 1. For more information, refer to STARLIGHT PARADE article in this newsletter
Willamette Mission Reenactment and Living History July 4th through the 7th at Willamette Mission State Park in Brooks. Event Coordinator is Hollie Porter 503-364-8152
Board Meeting is tentatively scheduled for July 20th.
FORT HOSKINS LIVING HISTORY AND DEDICATION, September 14.
Board Meeting and General Membership Meeting
is scheduled for Saturday, May 11, 10 A.M. at a location yet to be determined. At this meeting we will cover many important issues to the 116th, including a motion for the re-appointment of the Secretary position. All members will be notified via email, once the location is detemined. Call Kevin Burton at 541-688-2901 if you do not hear before May 9th.
COMPANY COMMANDER’S REPORT
First of all I want to start by saying it has been a pleasure to serve the 116th PVI over the years as a Corporal for several years and
First Sergeant for four years. I now look forward to the new challenge before me as First Lieutenant and Company Commander.
I want to encourage everyone, civilian and military alike, to strive to work together as a team to make our events and activities
what they should be: productive, educational, fun, and honoring to those we are portraying.
I want to thank all of the soldiers for their support past, present, and in the future.
Serving the 116th with honor,
1st Lt. Steven Lee Stowell
FROM OUR CHAIRMAN
Hello to all,
The new season has finally arrived. We have a new commander and Kevin Walczyk will be our Capt and Steve Stowell will be our 1st Lieutenant. This will be the arrangement until Steve gets really up to speed. So we all need to help him out and to knuckle down and learn the Manuel as best we can so it all goes smoothly! Steve has been voted in as the Company Commander putting him in that board position. Joe Sullivan has also been put on the board in the open board position. Welcome aboard to both of you!
I think this can be our best season yet if we are all willing to work together and help each other out. I thank all those who have been at our company meetings. It is nice to hear input from all the members and it helps the board in the decisions it makes. Let’s make sure we all keep our powder dry and have a great season.
Kevin Burton Chairman 116th P.V.I cob
541-688-2901
137 Aberdeen
Eugene, OR 97402
THE NEW SOLDIERS
[Reprinted from]
HARPER’S WEEKLY.
MAY 30, 1863.
In the Southwest ten colored regiments have been already formed, and General Thomas expectsthat ten more will be organized. General Butler had four such regiments in his command when he left Louisiana. General Banks is organizing a colored army corps. General Foster, in North Carolina, who was bitterly opposed to enrolling colored men, when he was caught in Washington armed three companies of them, and is now most anxious to have as many regiments as he can get. General Hunter, in South Carolina, whose colored force has seen service, commends them as hardy, brave, patient, and obedient. In the District of Columbia a regiment is forming. In Massachusetts there is one regiment ready, another is rapidly filling its ranks, and a most competent officer, General Wilde, has been designated to the command of a colored brigade which will probably rendezvous at Newbern.
These are the signs of the return of common sense to the nation, for there was a time, not very long ago, when, if there were any willingness to use the services of colored men at all, it was a general opinion that they must not be actual fighters. And yet great as is the stake of all of us in this war, it is peculiarly vital to the colored race, for it concerns their personal freedom and consequent social consideration, as well as their civil liberty. It was clear from the beginning of the rebellion that there could be but two classes of men in the country, the loyal and disloyal—those who were willing to fight for, and those who meant to fight against, the Government. To undertake the creation of a third class, consisting of those who were individually and collectively quite as much interested in the result as we, was one of the many foolish theories in which we indulged. What could he more absurd than to hail with joy the assistance of foreigners, many of whom could not even speak our language, and who could not be supposed to understand even their own interest in the war, and reject with scorn the strong hands of men whose right to themselves and their children was to be settled by the struggle? The war is not the battle of any particular race, or color, or nativity, for the American people is the most eclectic under heaven. It is the fight of all the people loyal to a Government which secures equal rights, against their fellow-citizens who would overthrow both rights and guarantee, and plant a despotism of privilege upon the ruins.
We do not claim for the colored regiments bravery superior to that of other soldiers. All we ask is that they shall have as fair a chance as any. They may not he especially heroic; but since Bull Run, in which Americans, Germans, and Irish fled in promiscuous panic, we have learned that valor is to be tested only by long and various observation. One negro at Hilton Head, after he enlisted and the regiment was ordered to Florida, ran home and hid himself in the chimney. He was pulled out, went with the rest, and was so cool, brave, and effective in actual battle that he was promoted to a sergeancy on the field. It would be idle to sneer at German soldiers because the Eleventh Corps at Chancellorsville were called "Dutchmen," for Frederick the Great fought with German soldiers. And if in some great battle the same panic which has at times overcome all our soldiers should seize the colored ranks, we bespeak for them the charity which has protected all the others.
"If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what's said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference."
Abraham Lincoln
The Inner Life of Abraham Lincoln: Six Months at the White House by Francis B. Carpenter (University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska, 1995), pp. 258-259.
SAFETY TESTS???
From your 1st Sergeant;
It has come to my attention that very few safety tests have been mailed or even turned in. I ask you please do not put so much work on John Baker and myself by waiting to the last minute before turning them in. Remember that with out a completed test and graded we can't let you go on the field. Thank you for your ear on this matter and attention to such a important part of safety.
In HIS service
1st Sgt. Kevin Burton
NEW MEMBERS LIST
No submission this month
MINUTES OF THE GENERAL MEMBERSHIP MEETNGS
No submission this month
A BACHELOR’S SOLIOLOQUY ON THE CONSCRIPT ACT,
BY WHICH A MARRIED MAN OF MORE THAN THIRTY-FIVE YEARS OLD IS EXEMPT.
[Reprinted from] HARPER’S WEEKLY.
MAY 30, 1863.
To be,
Or not to be, a conscript? is the question.
Whether ‘tis nobler in a man to marry—
An able-bodied man of six-and-thirty—
And enter upon the dread uncertainty
Of matrimonial life with all its accidents,
Perchance a fretful wife, a numerous family,
And bills interminable of grocer, baker,
Butcher, and doctor (for such things will follow, As surely as the night succeeds the day),
Or take up arms against a sea of traitors,
And, by opposing, end them all? —To marry—
To sleep—no more. And by that sleep to end
The heartache and the thousand natural fears
That flesh is heir to on the field of battle—
The bursting bomb-shell, and the whistling bullet—
The bayonet charge ;—It were a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To marry ;—to sleep;—
To sleep! perchance to dream;—ay, there’s the rub; For in that sleep what horrible dreams may come—
A Country murdered through my negligence—
What terrible lectures may assail me there
By her who hath a legal right to “Caudle” me,
When thus, by marrying, I have ‘scaped the “DRAFT,”
Must give me pause: There’s the respect
That makes calamity of such a life.
For who would bear the whips and scorn of time,
Be pointed at through all the years to come:—
“There goes a sneak who, when his Country called him To bravely battle in the glorious cause
Of Freedom and the Hope of all the world,
Hid, like a treacherous Copperhead, behind
A petticoat!—Who, when he might have been
A hero in the final victory. Where Right and Union vanquished Wrong and Treason,
Did his quietus make with a—bare woman !“
But that the dread of something in the South,
That dark, rebellious country from whose baurn. No traveler returns—puzzles the will.
Thus marrying does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of fear,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn away,
And lose the name of action. Soft you now !
My Country calls. She, whom of all I know
Most worthy to be loved, is whispering—-”Go!”
I go; nor will I press the nuptial bed
Till she, who loves me, with a warrior wed.
MINUTES OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
No submission this month
STARLIGHT PARADE
JUNE 1, 2002
On Saturday, June 1, we will once again remind the greater Portland area that there is an active organization dedicated to preserving our American history through Civil War re-enacting as we march in the Portland Rose Festival's 2002 Starlight Parade. We have received awards in past years for our efforts and I hope to make this event even better than last year by illuminating our entry even more! The parade route is approximately 2 miles in length with some gradual inclines so be prepared.
Civilians, dress your best with comfortable shoes and bring lanterns with candles and matches. Soldiers, bring weapons, leathers, accoutrements, and colors. Musicians, parade dress, polished brass, fifers bring lots of wind and drummers bring heavy hands. Cavalry on foot, and artillery are also invited to march! (I'm still waiting for that cannon/caisson to be rolled down the streets of Portland!) PLEASE BRING COLORS TO HELP FORM A COMBINED COLOR GUARD. Blue and gray will march alongside each other so both battalions get equal TV coverage.
Please remember, YOU MUST BE AT LEAST 12 YEARS OLD TO MARCH IN THE PARADE -- NO EXCEPTIONS -- PORTLAND ROSE FESTIVAL RULES. Unfortunately, the Starlight Committee has limited our marching unit to only 60 total participants so be the first to sign up! The Portland Rose Festival Association has made it abundantly clear that they will be counting bodies and asking kids who are under 12 years of age to leave the formation area this year.
For those who wish to ride the bus to downtown Portland, we will be meeting Saturday, June 1 leaving at 6:30pm at the Lake Oswego/Tualatin G. I. Joe's located just east off of I-5 at exit 290. There will be a $5 fee for riding the bus that will be collected at the bus site. All others may meet us at NW Burnside and Park (next to Powell's Bookstore) at approximately 7:30pm in downtown Portland. I do not know our exact location just yet, but in all years past we have been somewhere around that block.
Please complete and send me an application by e-mail or snail mail so I can keep track of how many people will be marching. Once again, only 60 are being allowed to march this year so be attentive in getting your application in quickly.
NAME ______
PHONE ______
E-MAIL ______
UNIT ______
Send to:
Elizabeth Walczyk
916 SW Westvale St.
McMinnville, OR 97128
(503) 435-1311
Please call/e-mail me if you have any questions at all! Thank you for your consideration of this event! I look forward to serving with you once again!
In the ancient spirit,
Sgt. Eli Walczyk
Chief Musician
Oregon Fife & Drum Corps
DEADLINES FOR SUBMISSION
This is your newsletter and all are encouraged to submit articles to it. All Announcements, Advertisements, Letters to the Editor, and articles must be received by the 19th of July to make the next newsletter.
Make submissions to:
Editor
24465 Gellatly Way
Philomath, Oregon, 97370
Or email:
Did you read the names of the soldiers of the 116th Combany B in Last month’s newsletter?
Last month’s newsletter featured a fairly complete listing of the soldiers enlisted in the original 116 PVI company B. Did you notice the number of Irish, German, and even English names?
1
THE PRESIDENT, GENERAL HOOKER, AND THEIR STAFFS AT A REVIEW IN THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC
The Irish Volunteer
Joe and Holly Sullivan, Editors
24465 Gellatly Way
Philomath, OR, 97370