Williamstown Exhibit Follows Two Men Through Civil WarBy Phyllis McGuire, Special to iBerkshires
09:08AM / Thursday, January 19, 2012 | |
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Williamstown Historical Museum will mark the 150th anniversary of the Civil War with the new exhibit "Williamstown in the Civil War."
"It seemed a good idea to tell a story about how the Civil War affected one small town, instead of trying to summarize the highlights of the Civil War," said Dustin Griffin, chairman of the Exhibitions Committee who has been working on the exhibit for six months.
The exhibition, which will be open to the public from Saturday, Jan. 21, through the spring, focuses on the Massachusetts 27th and 37th Regiments from 1862-1865. The opening will feature Griffin's lecture on "Captain and Corporal: Two Williamstown Soldiers in the Civil War" at 11 a.m.
Griffin said the exhibit tells the story of two volunteer regiments that enrolled a large number of Williamstown men. His lecture will tell the story of two men — a collegiate and a cobbler — in one of those regiments.
Archibald Hopkins was born into an upper-middle-class family as the second son of Williams College President Mark Hopkins. College-educated, Hopkins entered the Army as a captain and came out a lieutenant colonel. The other man, Richard Welch, was a poor uneducated immigrant whose trade was as a shoemaker.
Despite his uninspiring background, Welch distinguished himself as a soldier. He won the Medal of Honor — the highest military decoration awarded by the U.S. government — for his actions at the Battle of Petersburg, where Hopkins was his commanding officer.
In the Portrait Gallery section of the exhibit, there are a number of photographs of Hopkins and Welch.
Among other artifacts in the exhibit are letters, newspaper clippings, Civil War-era books, a Civil War Springfield Rifle and a Minie ball (bullet), and images of the town meeting at which bounties were established as incentives for prospective recruits to enlist in the Union Army.
"We have provided explanatory captions, some of them quite detailed, in the hope that visitors can learn something about life in the Army," said Griffin.
Perusing material in the "Training" section, visitors will be "transported" to Camp Briggs (now a park) in Pittsfield, where civilians were transformed into soldiers. Ironically, they became brothers-in-arms in the war that pitted state against state, neighbor against neighbor and brother against brother.
Some of the maps on display trace the routes on which regiments marched to engage the enemy in battle. Although the 37th regiment was ordered to Gettysburg in case they were needed as replacements, the men didn't see any action, said Griffin. But some were lost, however, because Confederate artillery shells landed in the rear.
A section in the exhibit features stories that could have read in local papers about where a loved one's regiment was and what life was like in military quarters.
Newspapers also published the names of those who had been wounded in battle. One headline reads "Another Soldier Buried," referring to a North Adams man who had been killed in the war at the age of 27 and left four children.
"I wanted the exhibit to do more than 'honor the dead,'" said Griffin. "Some men acted bravely and nobly, but some men were shirkers or deserters — as in any war."
While away from the front, two Williamstown men, both Irish immigrants, deserted when their regiment was assigned to enforce the controversial draft law.
"The draft was very unpopular in New York City, where riots broke out in July 1863, when working-class Irish expressed resentment that a middle-class man with $300 — a lot of money for a working man — could buy his way out [of the draft]," Griffin explained.
The exhibit ends on a happy note with a section called "Coming Home," which includes a drawing of a young man returning to the farm after the war had ended, and a report in the Berkshire County Eagle about welcoming the regiments back to Pittsfield on June 29, 1865.
Griffin has planned the exhibit for some time and praised Sarah Currie, director of the museum, for working alongside him, saying "Sarah was indispensable."
The Williamstown Historical Museum is housed in the rear of the Milne Public Library. For more information, call 4413-458-2160.
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