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You are here: Home / Archives for 19th century

[FEATURE ARTICLE] Young Charley Baker of Wickford: North Kingstown’s First American Civil War Killed in Action

February 3, 2019 By Brian Wallin

Young Charley Baker of Wickford: Rhode Island’s First Civil War KIA
Young Charley Baker of Wickford: Rhode Island’s First Civil War KIA

In August 2015, we shared the story of the first North Kingstowner to fall in combat in the American Civil War during the March 14, 1862 Battle of New Bern (also spelled as New Berne) in North Carolina. With the Varnum Memorial Armory Museum’s recent acquisition of artifacts relating to that battle, it seems like a good time to retell the story of young Charley Baker and include a little about another North Kingstown man who died in that same encounter with North Carolina Confederate forces.

In a quiet corner of North Kingstown’s Elm Grove Cemetery is the Baker family plot. Among those buried under a simple, moss-encrusted marker is Charles Cahoon Baker, who is said to be the first North Kingstown resident to die in battle during the U.S. Civil War. Charley was a member of Company H, 4th Rhode Island Infantry Regiment part of the forces under command of then Col. Ambrose Burnside sent to capture the important fortifications that guarded key transportation lines used by Confederate forces. While Charley was not the first Rhode Islander to die in the war, his story is eminently representative of the horror of battle and the sadness of its aftermath.

Charley Baker was born in Wickford in 1845, the third of nine children of David Sherman Baker and Mary Cahoon Waite Baker. He grew up in the family homestead at 50 Pleasant Street (the house, still standing, was built in 1785 by Benjamin Lawton Packer and sold to Charley’s grandfather in the 1830s). When Charley’s mother and father started growing their large family, the house quickly was expanded and took on its present appearance around the time of the American Civil War.

Charlie Baker's Grave in North Kingstown’s Elm Grove Cemetery
Charlie Baker’s Grave in North Kingstown’s Elm Grove Cemetery

The Bakers were prominent local residents, members of the First Baptist Church and a family of strong patriotic principles. No one was surprised when Charley, who had just turned 17, was among those young men who rushed to Providence, RI, to volunteer as a private in the Grand Army of the Republic in September of 1861. Charley and his fellow volunteers left Rhode Island for Washington, DC on October 2. After training, they were attached to the Army of the Potomac and in early January of 1862, under the command of General Ambrose Burnside, they were sent to North Carolina, seeing service at the Battle of Roanoke Island before being sent on to New Bern.

Let’s go back to that cold, damp and dark morning on the last day of young Charley’s life. He woke from a likely fitful sleep after having landed with his comrades and marching through rain and mud to a campsite outside the Confederate-held Fort Thompson outside the city of New Bern. Shortly after dawn, gunfire broke out. Colonel Isaac Rodman, a well-known Rhode Island banker and politician who later died at the Battle of Antietam, ordered his 4th Regiment, including Charley’s Company H, into a breech in the Rebel lines.

Map of the Battle of New Berne
Map of the Battle of New Berne

Corporal George Allen, in a privately published 1887 book “Forty-six Months with the Fourth Rhode Island Volunteers”, recounts the action that took young Charley’s life on the morning of March 14. Union troops had launched an unsuccessful assault on Fort Thompson. Colonel Rodman, seeing the troops fall back, took it on himself to rally the 4th Rhode Island to charge again. In Allen’s words:

Our colonel immediately decided to advance the regiment without orders, taking the responsibility of the movement on his own shoulders; and dispatching an aide to General Parke to inform him of what he was about to do, gave the order, ‘Fourth Rhode Island fall in’. The boys were ready for the work. Moving by the right flank for a short distance to a slight rise of ground, and then right by files into line, they advanced at a quick step on the rebel line. Shot and shell, grape and minie-balls greeted their approach, and the men began to drop before the murderous fire; yet never swerving from their onward course, they steadily advanced, loading and firing as fast as possible, till within a hundred yards of the works, when with a cheer, they charged home, and planting their colors on the ramparts, swarmed over the breast-works. A short, fierce struggle, and the first was ours.

Battle of New Bern in Harper's Weekly (5 April 1862)
Battle of New Bern in Harper’s Weekly (5 April 1862)

Sadly, Charley Baker was not among those who made it to the fort. As he ran through the breech in the line, his last experience was likely a blinding flash and his war was over. He became the first of some 90 Rhode Islanders to die in that battle. Union losses also included 380 wounded and 1 missing. Confederate losses: 64 killed, 101 wounded, 413 captured or missing.

As was the custom whenever possible, Charley’s remains were recovered and his body was brought back to Rhode Island 6 weeks after the battle. On April 26th, many in the town of Wickford gathered at the First Baptist Church to mourn with the Baker family and also with members of the family of 32-year old Sgt. George H. Church, Jr., another North Kingstown man who died during at New Bern. His body was returned for burial along with that of Private Baker. George was the only surviving child of Dr. George Church and his and his wife Maria Burnham Church. A son named Samuel had died just short of one year of age in 1828.

Sgt. George Hazard Church, Jr.
Sgt. George Hazard Church, Jr.

The Church family grave obelisk has these words in tribute beneath George Junior’s name:

Rebellion raged throughout the land. Our son went forth with sword in hand. He nobly fought. He nobly fell. And yet we hope with weeping eyes, this body glorious will arise. Then safe in heaven we’ll meet our son in robes of white, and armor on.

The funeral service for the two men was described as the largest of its kind in the town’s memory. The procession from the church to the Oak Grove Cemetery on Tower Hill Road was nearly a mile in length. The caskets were carried on carriages from the Narragansett (Fire) Engine Company, of which both men had been volunteer members. The two soldiers were laid to rest in their respective family burial sites.

In her book, “Wickford Memories”, author Anita S. Hinkley writes:

“Charles Baker was one of my father’s older brothers and he was the first casualty of the Civil War from Rhode Island. Every Decoration Day we go to the Cemetery and put flowers on his grave. My grandmother never went. She and her only daughter, Abby, sat at home and look at Charlie’s few possessions and grieved as only women can who have lost their best.”

Church Family Monument
Church Family Monument

(Author’s Note: Actually, the first Rhode Islander to die in the U.S. Civil War was Pvt. Henry C. Davis of Woonsocket, RI. A member of Co K, 1st Rhode Island Detached Militia, he died of typhoid at Camp Sprague in Washington on June 16, 1861, 5 weeks before the First Battle of Bull Run. He was buried in St. James Cemetery in Woonsocket, RI).

One hundred and fifty seven years ago in March of 1863, a young man from North Kingstown, RI, along with a fellow soldier from the same town, gave his life in a brief and violent moment in the honorable service of his country. They were among more than two thousand Rhode Islanders to die in the Civil War. The motto of the Varnums, “To Encourage Patriotism”, reflects their memory and all who have gallantly served our nation through the years.

— END —

Filed Under: Feature Article, Varnum Memorial Armory Tagged With: 19th century, civil war, feature article, varnum memorial armory

[FEATURE ARTICLE] Samuel Colt and His Legendary Model 1860 Army Revolver

January 1, 2019 By Brian Wallin

Samuel Colt
Samuel Colt

Until the 19th century was well along, handguns were limited to single-shot weapons. In 1836, a 22-year old Hartford, Connecticut man, Samuel Colt, came up with a concept for controlled rotation of a firearm that would allow multiple rounds to be fired without reloading. Colt, the son of a textile manufacturer, developed a fascination for mechanical devices while visiting his father’s mill.  After being expelled from Amherst Academy for high-jinx involving a fire at the school, Colt went to sea to study navigation.

It was during his time on the water that he had an epiphany watching the helmsman spin the ship’s wheel. He made a wooden cylinder, locking pin, and hammer and determined that this could be rotated to allow a pistol to fire multiple times. On return from his ocean adventures, Samuel’s father financed his initial business ventures, but pulled the plug after his son’s initial failures. Colt then traveled around the U.S. and Canada demonstrating the use of nitrous oxide and providing fireworks shows. Eventually, he earned enough money as a showman to hire some experienced gunsmiths and to put his innovative ideas into a finished product. On February 25, 1836, he received a patent for a revolving cylinder pistol that, according to the documentation, enabled improved “facility in loading”, gave more stability to the user through “the weight and location of the cylinder,” and enhanced “rapidity in the succession of discharges.”

The Colt Gun Mill on the right.
The Colt Gun Mill on the right.

With that, Samuel Colt was on his way to lasting fame. But, the journey would take a few twists along the way. In 1836, with more financial help from his father, Colt opened Colt’s Patent Arms Manufacturing Company in Paterson, New Jersey and began turning out handguns and rifles, all incorporating the revolving cylinder concept. He failed at gaining a government contract for his weapons, deemed too advanced for the time. Although he did manage some sales, Colt was forced to give up control of the company when it went into financial distress.

The Mexican-American War proved to be Colt’s turning point. He was awarded a government contract for 1,000 revolvers and 200 thousand rounds of a tinfoil ammunition cartridge he had perfected. He had returned to his native Hartford, CT, and by 1855 built a new factory on the banks of the Connecticut River. The building still stands as a national historic landmark.

Under the management of an exceptionally talented engineer, Elisha K. Root, Colt’s company developed a means to produce interchangeable parts for its weapons, greatly increasing their attractiveness to buyers here and overseas. Soon, the Hartford plant was turning out 150 weapons a day. Around this time, the winds of war were blowing stronger by the day. Colt had been doing business south of the Mason-Dixon Line, but when war broke out in April of 1861, he immediately turned his attention to the needs of the Union forces. One of the wealthiest men in America by that time, Colt outfitted an entire volunteer regiment from his home state, the 1St Regiment Colt’s Revolving Rifles of Connecticut (and along the way was commissioned a colonel, a rank that he greatly prized).

Two Colt Percussion Revolvers: (top) Colt Model 1860 Army Percussion Revolver, and (bottom) Colt Model 1851 Navy
Two Colt Percussion Revolvers: (top) Colt Model 1860 Army Percussion Revolver, and (bottom) Colt Model 1851 Navy

Among the most popular of his revolvers were two mainstays of the Union military, the .36 caliber Model 1851 Navy revolver with its familiar octagonal barrel (replaced by a round barrel version in 1861) and the famed .44 caliber Model 1860 Army revolver. The Varnum Memorial Armory Museum has a fine example of the latter weapon.  The Model 1851 was used by both the Army and Navy and a fair number wound up in the hands of the Confederacy, either purchased before the war, carried by men who took their weapons with them when they switched their allegiance from North to South or captured during battle. Incidentally, according to American Civil War historian and author Rob Grandchamp, Rhode Island’s Governor William Sprague gave Col. Zenas Bliss of the 7th Rhode Island Volunteers a Colt Navy pistol, but it was lost during the Battle of Fredericksburg.

For this article, the writer will devote attention to the Model 1860 as it not only played a major role in the American Civil War, but it would eventually evolve into the famed Model 1873 Peacemaker, “the gun that won the West”.  The Model 1860 was carried by army infantry, cavalry, and artillerymen as well as by navy men, although officers in both services usually carried smaller sidearms.

Its single-action requires the hammer to be cocked for each firing. The .44 caliber Model 1860 uses the same size frame as the lighter .36 caliber Navy Model 1851. The Model 1860 also has a longer cylinder and a distinctive “creeping” loading lever, using pins that engage notches in the barrel to provide added strength. Colt first introduced this feature in an1855 side hammer revolver.

.44 caliber Model 1860 Army revolver at the Varnum Armory
.44 caliber Model 1860 Army revolver at the Varnum Armory

More than 200-thousand Model 1860s were built between 1860 and 1873, making it the most widely used revolver of the Civil War (a major fire in 1864 put the Hartford factory out of business for the duration although it was returned to service later). The Union Army purchased the bulk of the factory’s output (some 129,730 pieces). The Varnum Continental’s Model 1860 carries the serial number 111432, indicating that it was made in 1863. Armory Vice President and Museum Curator Patrick Donovan obtained the Colt through Skinner Auctions along with a holster in excellent condition.

The weapon accommodates a 0.454-inch diameter round, spherical lead ball or conical-tipped bullet propelled by a 30-grain black powder charge in a paper cylinder. Soldiers preferred the latter as it could be loaded more rapidly. The paper cartridge and bullet were placed in the front of each chamber and seated with a loading lever ram. A percussion cap was placed onto a raised aperture, a nipple, at the back end of the chamber. Repeat the process five more times and the gun was fully armed.

The small copper percussion cap, when struck by the hammer, ignites the charge. The projectile, depending on the load, has a muzzle velocity of about 900 feet per second with an effective range of 75 to 100 yards.  The Varnum’s Model 1860 has walnut grips, although there some were produced with more ornate grips, including ivory. Colt employed talented engravers who would also produce ornate designs on the gun’s metal finish. The standard model was unadorned.

Colt Model 1860 Revolver
Colt Model 1860 Revolver

The Model 1860’s frame did not have a top strap (a strengthening feature placed above the cylinder). Instead, its lower frame and a massive fixed cylinder pin provided the necessary strength. This feature required that the barrel be removed to also remove the cylinder. This concept made the Model 1860 slimmer and lighter than its closest competitor, the Remington Model 1858. Colt’s pistol could also be used with a detachable shoulder stock.

When originally produced, the Model 1860 cost approximately $20 per revolver, or in today’s valuation, more than $600. This was rather expensive during the 1860s, both for the United States Army and private citizens. Colt was criticized for the price, and by 1865 the revolver was reduced to $14.50. Throughout his life, Colt assertively protected his patents and business interests and was often unfavorably noted for his excessive promotional activities.

Colt's Hartford mansion known as Armsmear
Colt’s Hartford mansion known as Armsmear

Although he was widely recognized as a highly successful industrialist and inventor, Colt would see neither the full fruits of his labors nor the end of the Civil War. On January 10, 1862, at the age of 47, he died of chronic rheumatism (gout) at his Hartford mansion known as Armsmear. He is buried under a massive memorial in Hartford’s Cedar Hill Cemetery (also the final resting place of famed Rhode Island aviation pioneer Edson Gallaudet). During Colt’s lifetime, his company had turned out more than 400-thousand firearms in a wide variety of styles.  His company went public in 1901 and it gained further worldwide fame with its Model 1911 .45 caliber automatic pistol. The company remains in business today, having produced more than 30 million firearms since it was founded.

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Filed Under: Feature Article, Museum Exhibits, Varnum Memorial Armory Tagged With: 19th century, civil war, museum exhibit, varnum memorial armory

[FEATURE ARTICLE] Stiletto — Born in Rhode Island: First of the Mosquito Fleet

December 2, 2018 By Brian Wallin

Model of the USS Stiletto
Model of the USS Stiletto

Recently, the Naval War College temporarily made available to another facility its handsome model of a highly significant war craft, the USS Stiletto. The loan prompted this writer to share the story of its influence on modern naval warfare.

The Herreshoff brothers had already earned a reputation for small boat design and construction as well as integrating their exceptionally well-designed steam engines. When launched as a private yacht in 1885 by John and Nathaniel Herreshoff at their Bristol yard, it was clear Stiletto was built for both beauty and speed. To prove the point, the Herreshoffs brought her to New York Harbor to race the Hudson River’s fastest steamship, the 300-foot long Mary Powell.

USS Stiletto as private yacht (1887)
USS Stiletto as private yacht (1887)

On June 10, 1885, the little Stiletto (at 94 feet) handily beat the much larger steamer in a 30-mile run finishing two miles ahead of her competitor and averaging a speed of15 knots.  She went on to repeat a similar performance the very next day in the American Yacht Club Regatta, between Larchmont, NY and New London, CT. She beat the large schooner yacht Atalanta by 40 minutes. Unfortunately, Stiletto failed to properly round the finish line buoy and was not awarded the regatta prize. But, she had gotten the attention of the U.S. Navy.

Howell torpedo on the USS Stilleto
Howell torpedo on the USS Stiletto

Around the same time, the Naval Torpedo Station at Newport, RI, established in 1869 on Goat Island, had begun to engage in the development of self-propelled torpedoes. Already in use in Europe, the Navy had dragged its heels on importation of the so-called automobile torpedo. It preferred to develop a homegrown weapon. Initial experiments were not successful. However, the Navy found a winner in the Howell torpedo, the brainchild of Navy Lieutenant John Howell, who had perfected his design in 1870. The Navy now needed a vehicle to launch this new weapon and that was the Stiletto.

In 1887, the US Navy purchased Stiletto from the Herreshoffs for $25,000 and converted her to use in Newport, RI, as an experimental torpedo boat. She was officially commissioned in July of 1888 as Wooden Torpedo Boat 1 and continued in that role for nearly 25 years. She spent her entire service life at the Naval Torpedo Station. During that time, she was outfitted with bow and deck launch tubes.

USS Stiletto launching Howell torpedo
USS Stiletto launching Howell torpedo

She was the first vessel to launch the self-propelled Howell torpedo. Stiletto began her life as a coal-burner and was converted to oil in 1897 (but that experiment proved to be disappointing). Nevertheless, Stiletto continued to serve and was joined in 1890 by the 138-foot USS Cushing (TB-1), the first purpose-built torpedo boat (and also a Herreshoff product), quickly followed by several more such craft, each a little more sophisticated in design and performance. The Cushing was named for Civil War Lieutenant William Cushing, who sank the Confederate ironclad Albermarle using a crude spar torpedo and proving the value of such weaponry.

Stiletto was a familiar sight on Narragansett Bay. She augmented a barge-mounted test launcher used at the Torpedo Station and in the Sakonnet River. She was a tough little craft, sustaining repeated damage from storms over the years and was even sunk by accident in 1897 when her boiler was accidentally dropped through her hull during maintenance. She was raised and put back in service. In 1900, she successfully participated in major naval maneuvers simulating an attack on Newport Harbor.

USS Massachusetts (BB-2)
USS Massachusetts (BB-2)

Moments after firing a dummy torpedo at the “enemy” battleship Massachusetts, Stiletto’s pilot was blinded by the warship’s searchlight and the little torpedo boat rammed the pier at Fort Adams,Newport, RI. In 1908, she suffered another major accident when the Navy’s oldest serving torpedo boat was rammed by the torpedo station’s steam launch near the north end of Goat Island. Stiletto managed to make the Newport shoreline and was beached near Walnut Street before she could sink.

Stiletto never saw active duty, although her successors were involved in the Spanish-American War with the Atlantic Fleet. She was finally struck from the Navy list on January 27, 1911 and sold in July of that year to James Nolan of East Boston for scrapping. As though she hated to leave the familiar waters of Newport, Stiletto gave up the ghost on October 23, 1912 and sank at her mooring at the Newport Foundry and Machine Works.

By then, the Navy had perfected the role of the torpedo boat destroyer, making further major strides during World War I. The Howell torpedo was superseded around the turn of the century by an American licensed version of the European Whitehead device (manufactured in New York and here in Rhode Island). The little Stiletto and the early torpedo boat destroyers were quickly eclipsed by initial incarnations of what would evolve into the famed four-stackers of World War I.

The legacy of the Stiletto, however, eventually emerged in the famed PT boats of WW II. A little smaller than Stiletto (at 78 and 80 feet), they were familiar sights as their crews trained on the Bay from their base in Melville). Considerably faster and better armed than their ancestor, they carried on her tradition as fast attack torpedo boats. The many classes of Destroyers and Destroyer Escorts ably demonstrated the effectiveness of the technology pioneered before the turn of the 20th century by the speedy little Stiletto.

Fish torpedo at the Naval War College Museum
Fish torpedo at the Naval War College Museum

At the Naval War College Museum, the only surviving example of the Navy’s original and unsuccessful automobile torpedo, known as the Fish, sits beside one of only three existing examples of the Howell. The handsome model of the Stiletto is displayed with other examples of torpedo delivery vessels as part of the overall story of the evolution of undersea weaponry that began here in 1869. Although the Torpedo Station ceased operations in 1950, the Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division, Newport, RI, adjacent to Naval Station Newport continues to advance underwater weaponry and technology.

If you visit the Naval War College Museum (and it is well worth the trip), my fellow docents and I will gladly share in greater detail the development of undersea warfare pioneered right here in Narragansett Bay.

Filed Under: Feature Article Tagged With: 19th century, Navy, world war I

[FEATURED EXHIBIT] American Civil War Field Desk (Colonel John Talbot Pittman)

June 3, 2018 By James Mitchell Varnum

At the Varnum Memorial Armory Museum, we have a U.S. Civil War field desk used by Colonel John Talbot Pittman of the 9th and 11th Rhode Island Volunteers while manning the defenses of Washington DC.

Col. John Talbot Pittman’s Civil War Field Desk
Company G roster
Col. John Talbot Pittman’s Civil War Field Desk
Col. John Talbot Pittman’s field desk exhibit sign
Col. John Talbot Pittman’s Civil War shoulder boards
Col. John Talbot Pittman
Col. John Talbot Pittman’s Civil War Field Desk
Col. John Talbot Pittman’s Civil War Field Desk

Filed Under: Museum Exhibits Tagged With: 19th century, civil war, varnum memorial armory

[FEATURED EXHIBIT] Piece of USS Constitution (Old Ironsides)

June 3, 2018 By James Mitchell Varnum

Here’s another small (but fascinating) piece of history tucked away in the Varnum Memorial Armory Museum. This is a piece of the famed US Frigate “Constitution”, known as “Old Ironsides” for its defeat of five British warships during the War of 1812.

The piece was owned by Rear Admiral John R. Bartlett of Lonsdale, RI, who served with distinction from the American Civil War until the Spanish American War. He was also a founding member of the National Geographic Society. His friend, Captain Henry Greene Jackson, was an early Varnum Continentals member who donated it to us in 1936.

Rear Admiral John R. Bartlett
Piece of USS Constitution
USS Contitution
Exhibit tag on piece of “Old Ironsides”

Filed Under: Museum Exhibits Tagged With: 19th century, museum exhibit, old ironsides, varnum memorial armory, war of 1812

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[MAY 8 VARNUM MEMBER MEETING] Speaker Greg Banner on “El Salvador: US participation in a Central American Civil War

May 4, 2023 By James Mitchell Varnum

In 1991, Greg Banner (a US Army Major at the time) was assigned as an advisor in El Salvador. The US had established an advisory team approximately 10 years prior to help that country fight a communist insurgency. Major Banner spent 15 months as the team leader for one of the several district teams living with and helping Salvadoran units fight their war. This presentation will provide some background to the war and then an overview of one soldier’s experiences there, up to and including the peace treaty which was signed at the end of his tour.

About the Varnum Continentals

The Varnum Continentals are committed to the preservation of the historic heritage of our community, our state, and our nation. Please take a virtual tour of our museums to learn more about our mission to encourage patriotism. You can participate with us through active membership and/or philanthropic support in our non-profit organization. Donations are tax deductible to the full extent allowed by law. Museum tours are welcomed and our facilities may be rented for suitable events.

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The Varnum Continentals are committed to encourage patriotism through the Varnum Armory Museum, the Continental Militia, and the James Mitchell Varnum House and thus to preserve, support, and communicate the military history of our community, our state, and our nation.

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