A Vermonter in New Kent - 1862 - Coda

Now that the series is over, the question remains, who was "See See Ess?" Deciding to crack the case forthwith I started with the logical assumption that "See See Ess" was an acronym of a sort for C. C. S. So then a soldier with the initials C. C. S.- or better yet and officer or at least non-commissioned officer, from the easy way he seemed to get around and mingle with various rank. After searching through the combined rosters of the Union regiments from Vermont I almost immediately came across a Lieutenant C. C. Spaulding serving in the Company D of the Fifth Vermont. What is more, Charles Carroll Spaulding, born left the Fifth Vermont in the fall of 1862 and went on to FOUND A NEWSPAPER in Montpelier, Vermont. Further research revealed that Spaulding was a Democrat, which would seem to match the correspondent's praise of McClellan and occasionally critical remarks about Lincoln. His obituary also revealed he had been to the West which would gibe with some of the comments in the letters to the paper. 

I was rather pleased that I had pulled all these facts together in order to find the identity of the letter writer. And then I found this in the Green Mountain Freeman of October 16, 1862

Lieut. C. C. Spalding(sic), Co. D, Fifth Vermont, has been honorably discharged from the service on account of ill health. He has now gone to Washington hoping to get some Situation whose duties his health will allow him to perform. We hope to hear from him occasionally over his familiar signature      See. See. Ess.

So, not so a great piece of detective work as I thought. Pride goeth before a fall and a newspaper clipping you should have checked in the first place.

Here is Spaulding's full obituary:

Charles C. Spaulding, editor of the Newport News while it existed, died in Boston last Thursday. He was the son of Dr. Azel Spaulding of Montpelier. He graduated from the university of Vermont in the class of 1847, and chose the profession of civil engineer, but did not follow it long. In 1849, when the California gold fever broke out, he was one of the pioneers who bought that numerous land, making the passage in a sailing vessel around Cape Horn. His success at mining was indifferent. Returning home via the Pacific coast and the Gulf of Mexico, he spent about a year in Montpelier, when he went to New York and entered the service of Harnden & Co. as express messenger between New York and Boston. Soon going West, he engaged in surveying and railroad engineering in Ohio, Illinois and Kentucky. At the time of the establishment of Kansas a territory, he was living in one of the border counties of Missouri, where he married a Missouri lady. He took part in the establishment of its territorial government, making preliminary surveys and encouraging immigration by writing special letters to tho New York Tribune, which attracted no little attention in the East. He published a paper in Lawrence, Kansas, and was elected an alderman, and was for a short time mayor of the city. He took the democratic side on the out break of the Kansas war, and soon after left the state. He afterwards taught school, and at the breaking out of the war returned to the East, enlisting in tho sixth Vermont regiment, served two years, came home and started the Newport News, at Newport. This he sold, and went to Boston in 1866 and took a position on the Boston Post. In 1869, he became connected with the Boston Herald, and remained with that paper up to the time of his decease. He had been suffering from a complication of diseases involving the heart and other vital organs, and bis death was not unexpected.

-Vermont Farmer (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.)January 26, 1877

A Vermonter in New Kent - 1862 - Part VII

  The final letter to the The Daily Green Mountain Freeman from New Kent during the Peninsula Campaign of 1862


                                                    (Our War Correspondence.)

                                  From the Fifth Vermont Regiment.

                                                          Camp at the White House, Va.,
                                                                                                 May 17. 1862

Mr. Willard: Well I yes, well! And that ejaculation don't begin to express what I wish it to convey. About two hours ago I closed a letter for your columns, informing you that we were to march at meridian. Everything was made ready for the "fall in" command. Tents were struck, rations dealt out for sixty hours, knapsacks packed and slung, the usual amount of grumbling, questioning and swearing done and performed, baggage cut down below the army standard, mess chests thrown out, sick call made, and last, but not least, the grounds swarmed with mounted specials, all accounted for another harvest of bloody news. The day being bright and balmy the boys felt well, expecting before nightfall to reduce the distance, if not some military obstructions, between them and Richmond. But back comes the rattling, surging caissons and artillery, and the long, glistening lines of infantry "stack arms," "break ranks," and commence again another siege of resting, loafing and growling. How pic-tur-es-que! Did you ever sit down to a dainty meal, hungry and over-impatient for the eating ceremonies to begin, and just as your dish was tilled and ready tor the thirsting, longing palate, have some saucy blackguard or roguish friend tell a story that blockaded every avenue of nourishment and appetite as effectually as if a doctor bad administered some drug emetic? If you have, you can form some idea of the sensations of a soldier when orders are countermanded, after he has packed, and swore, and growled enough to scare at least a full regiment of rebels. But this is only one, and by no means the most trying perplexity of soldiers on the march. Well, we shall probably go sometime. The distance, some twenty-five miles, is nothing, but heavy bodies move slow, especially if they happen to collide with other bodies of equal gravity and momentum. But sooner or later, perhaps not as speedily as you or we may desire, this army will be in Richmond.

That Power that holds destiny in one hand, and grace, love and pit dun in the other, has he decreed it, and as well might the enemy attempt to choke the roar, or catch the rain-bowed spray of Niagara's falling waters, or one by one to pick the orbs of night from the blue behind the breaking, drifting clouds, as to stay the slow, heavy, steady tread of McClellan's squadrons and battalions. Richmond is ours, not to day, but one June day sim will ever warm the viper of treason that now so safely slumbers in its streets.

But I have written you once to-day, and as I only a few minutes ago received a letter from Montpelier with something very much like, but still it was not quire a rebuke, for "writing three letters in one day," I think I will be more prudent hereafter, and give a finale to this before it assumes the proportions of a correspondence." 

Yours, &c., See See Ess.


-The Daily Green Mountain Freeman, May 29, 1862


Next time, who was "See See Ess?"

A Vermonter in New Kent - 1862 - Part VI

Continuing a series on the Civil War in New Kent with reports to the The Daily Green Mountain Freeman from their correspondent in the Vermont Brigade during the Peninsula campaign of 1862. In this letter our correspondent continues his adoration of "Little Mac," and denounces the "cruelty and barbarity"  . . . of those who he has traveled half the country to kill.

(Language warning)

(Our War Correspondence)

                                 From the Fifth Vermont Regiment

                                                                   Camp at White House Farm, Va,
                                                                                    May 17th, 1862.

Mr. Willard: We have been in this camp since the forenoon of the 14th inst., and troops are concentrating here all the time. Transportation has been greatly impeded by the long rain storm, making the roads almost impassable. I learned yesterday that the roads between this camp and our last one, at Cumberland, are filled with our wagons fast in the mud. But slowly thy keep coming up, and should say that now we have at least sixty thousand men at this camp- all on one level, open field, the east side being skirted by the river with its raking musts and smoking chimneys. Near the northeast comer is the White House, a very respectable, but not costly or fancy residence. Its yard and garden grounds are extensive, unique, and very pleasant, just the place to satiate the extravagant home feelings of the most princely American.

Upon these grounds Little Mac ins pitched his tents, and himself and staff are evidently quite at home in their shade and clover. Though strictly guarded, the premises are constantly surrounded by thousands of anxious soldiers,- anxious for what? Why, more to see their General than this deserted homestead of the arch traitor, for we all love him, and it is a satisfaction that no soldier can express to belong to this army, to share their trials and sufferings with one they so much honor and esteem. Yea, I have told you this before. Nothing can shake our confidence in that man, for it in absolute, like the faith of the Christian mother in her God.

But now, on we go. It is only eight o'clock, and at twelve we march again, -that is, this division, and for aught I know, others. But I think the order is for this division only, us we have all the time been pushed in advance, and shall be until somebody's appointment as a Brigadier General is confirmed; at least, that is what we all think. But no matter; if we are to fight so as to kill two birds with one stone, so much the better. Yet, it may cost us a little more blood to do this "heavy and perilous work."(1) We have a fierce, bitter and desperate foe before us, and from many specimens that I have seen of their rank and file, as also of their officers, and from the further evidence before us of their cruelty and barbarity, it is hard, very hard indeed, to persuade myself that these men were ever amenable to the influences of Christianity. God knows I pity them, and while we fight them as enemies, and day by day become more familiar with their folly, perverseness and crime, our shame for them as countrymen is augmented. But, as I have just told you, we are to proceed on, -onward to Richmond, and should it be my good fortune to live to pass this equator of Rebeldom, I expect to see enough more of treason and its blind adoration to enable me to finish this partial exordium of my hate. 

What is to be the character of our march from this point, cannot be known. Ayers' battery has just gone on gunboats. Our order is to march at noon with two days' rations, but as a remark, apt and spicy, and too good to be lost, amid not contraband, I think, I must inform you that my friend, Maj. Joyce, says "very man is to be put in a runner case and floated up the river." Not bad; we are short of transportation, and the idea, impromptu and original is not much behind Gen. Mitchells cotton bale bridge(2). By the way, this reminds me of an other good thing on a Washington County officer. and when you are short for "copy,' just ask, in a mild but not exactly leading manner, Capt. Randall about his novel mule trade, and he will sell you something rich. I once owned a mule myself, and can in a measure sympathize with the Captain when his transaction, like my own, comes to be a standing joke. Don't be afraid; the Captain is the best natured man in the world, and in self-defence(sic), will give you at least "a plain, unvarnished title." 

For a wonder, we have not seen a wood-tick since we have been in this camp. Yet it is no wonder either, for we are fully a quarter of a mile from timber. But we have the marks of our old friends still about us, in the shape of blotches and sears, and to make a clean breast of it, we are just about as well tick, flea and bug bitten, dirty, ragged and cross as we can he and still be in a condition to make a good fight. Soldiers must have something ail them besides hunger, or they would be of little account. I said hunger, for I can think of nothing else that plagues us more. Yet we have enough to eat, such as it is; at the same time we can't call it nourishment; it is simply subsistence. And just as I feel now, though I am not hungry, and do not expect to die just yet, I would freely give five dollars, if I had it, for the measure of good bread and milk that I could "mow away." That may look a little extravagant in your " price current," but the late sutler tariff has used us soldiers to such extravagance. "Uncle Ira" says, "he saw a nigger this milking milking a cow, and he had a mind to run up and knock him over and take the milk; and there are many soldiers here who would not have showed a good revolution in that way, they would have knocked him over. 

But I am writing more than I intended to, and taking time that I should be giving to preparations for the march, Richmond! Richmond, the great Babel of rebellion, is all we think about. Shall we ever get there? I hope so, and if we do, your correspondent will have something besides a dearth of news for his letters. What a field will then he open for the rivalship of scribblers. Somebody will "spill" in attempts at sensation. Artemas (3) will be there to tell his tale and open his show, exhibiting to the astonished natives "wax works" of their forefathers, and the Dixie mummies of their descendants. And can't Greeley, or some one else, be there to read Othello's tale, of "men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders, the anthropophagi,"(4) and other monsters that picture best his horror and his hate? Certainly we can. Well, well see by-and-by. We may be weeks on the road, -the 2d Vermont has been a year already,- but some of us will get there, or the war will not, as predicted, he speedily closed. 

Yours, &c , See See Ess.

-The Daily Green Mountain Freeman, May 28, 1862

(1) Gen. Ormsby M. Mitchel had recently used a cotton bale pontoon bridge to cross a creek in                  Tennessee.

(2) In April the "Yorktown Correspondent" of the New York Herald Tribune had written,

"When the advance is made whenever that day be -Gen. Wm. F. Smith's division will be first in all heavy and perilous work. No one in the army enjoys the confidence of Gen. McClellan and his generals more than Gen. Smith."

 (3) I assume Artemas Ward, 

"Artemus Ward was a persona dreamed up by 23-year-old New Englander and newspaperman Charles Foster Browne (née Brown—he added the e to affect an English air). Browne started out as a humble typesetter but rose to transatlantic fame thanks to this immensely popular alter ego he created to fill out the pages of the Cleveland Plain Dealer."- American University Magazine, March 2015

 (4) Othello,  (1.3, lines 141-146)