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Concord’s Civil War Monument
Public Domain
Shock. Anger. Patriotism. Resolve. These were just some of the emotions that swept through the Northern states when Confederate forces fired on the Federal-held Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina on April 12, 1861. The Civil War had begun. Two days after Sumter’s surrender, President Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 volunteers to put down the rebellion. Massachusetts answered the call with an overwhelming response, and nearly 160,000 Bay Staters would serve in the Union army and navy. Like the rest of the North, the people of Concord were angered and inspired, and the town of just over 2,000 inhabitants would ultimately do its part by sending 450 men off to the war. Colonel George L. Prescott The Concord Town Hall served as the recruiting center while, all around town, handbills appeared, encouraging patriotic men of virtue to volunteer. Crying “WAR! WAR! WAR!”, one recruitment poster insisted that “None but men good and true and who are willing to be ready for any emergency, at a MOMENT’S NOTICE, need apply!” It was no coincidence that it echoed the sentiment and spirit of Concord’s minutemen of 1775. There is no more patriotic day in Concord than April 19, and the minutemen are an important part of Concord history. It was also no coincidence that it was on April 19, 1861, when 82 volunteers from the Concord Artillery left for Washington D.C. in response to Lincoln’s call. These were the first men of Concord to go off to the war. One of the first to volunteer was the company commander, 32- yearold Captain George L. Prescott. Tall, strong, and charismatic, it was reported that Prescott was the beau-ideal of an officer, “a stalwart man, every inch of whose six feet is of soldier stamp.” He would soon become the Colonel of the 32nd Massachusetts Infantry and serve with distinction through some of the war’s bloodiest battles, including Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and the Wilderness. Sadly, Prescott would not survive the war. During the Siege of Petersburg, the 32nd was involved in a charge which drove the Rebels into their entrenchments; Prescott received a mortal wound, with the bullet passing into his left breast. He died the next day and was brought home and buried in Sleepy Hollow. Ralph Waldo Emerson would eulogize him as a man with “a patience not to be tired out, a serious devotion to the cause of the country that never swerved, a hope that never failed.” Recalling another hero, Emerson went on,
“A Duty So Severe”
Concord and the Civil War BY RICHARD SMITH
©Richard Smith
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| Spring 2021
