Charles Carleton Coffin | Page 7

employment to the negroes even when he did not need
their services. Society was against the Africans, and they needed help.
They were not particularly nice in their ways, nor were they likely to
improve while all the world was against them. Mr. Coffin's idea was to
improve them.
About this time Whittier's poems, especially those depicting slave life,
had a great influence upon young Carleton. Learning the poems, he
declaimed them in schools and lyceums. The first week in June, which
was not only election time, but also anniversary week in Concord, with
no end of meetings, was mightily enjoyed by the future war
correspondent. He attended them, and listened to Garrison, Thompson,
Weld, Stanton, Abby K. Foster, and other agitators. The disruption of
the anti-slavery societies, and the violence of the churches, were
matters of great grief to Carleton's father, who began early to vote for
James G. Birney. He would not vote for Henry Clay. When Carleton's
uncle, B. T. Kimball, and his three sons undertook to sustain the

anti-slavery agitator, and also interrupter of church services, in the
meeting-house on Corser Hill, on Sunday afternoon, the obnoxious
orator was removed by force at the order of the justice of the peace. In
the disciplinary measures inaugurated by the church, Mr. Kimball and
his three sons and daughters were excommunicated. This proved an
unhappy affair, resulting in great bitterness and dissension.
Carleton thus tells his own story of amateur soldiering:
"Those were the days of military trainings. In September, 1836, came
the mustering of the 21st Regiment, New Hampshire militia. My
brother Frederic was captain of the light infantry. I played first the
triangle and then the drum in his company. I knew all the evolutions
laid down in the book. The boys of Boscawen formed a company and
elected me captain. I was thirteen years old, full of military ardor. I
drilled them in a few evolutions till they could execute them as well as
the best soldiers of the adult companies. We wore white frocks trimmed
with red braid and three-cornered pasteboard caps with a bronzed eagle
on the front. Muster was on Corser Hill. One of the boys could squeak
out a tune on the fife. One boy played the bass drum, and another the
small drum.
"We had a great surprise. The Bellows Falls Band, from Walpole, New
Hampshire, was travelling to play at musters, and as none of the adult
companies hired them, they offered their services to us free.
"My company paraded in rear of the meeting-house. My brother, with
the light infantry, was the first company at drill. He had two fifes and
drums. Nearly all the companies were parading, but the regimental line
had not been formed when we made our appearance. What a
commotion! It was a splendid band of about fifteen members,--two
trombones, cornets, bugles, clarionets, fife. No other company had
more than fifes or clarionets. It was a grand crash which the band gave.
The next moment the people were astonished to see a company of boys
marching proudly upon the green,--up and down,--changing front,
marching by files, in echelon, by platoons.
"We took our place in line on the field, were inspected, reviewed, and

complimented by Maj.-Gen. Anthony Colby, afterwards governor of
the State.
"When I gave the salute, the crowd applauded. It was the great day of
all others in my boyhood. Several of the farmers gave us a grand dinner.
In the afternoon we took part in the sham fight with our little cannon,
and covered ourselves with glory--against the big artillery.
"I think that I manifested good common sense when, at the close of the
day, I complimented the soldiers on their behavior, and resigned my
commission. I knew that we could never attain equal glory again, and
that it was better to resign when at the zenith of fame than to go out as
a fading star."
CHAPTER IV.
POLITICS, TRAVEL, AND BUSINESS.
Let us quote again from Mr. Coffin's autobiographical notes:
"In 1836 my father, catching the speculation fever of the period,
accompanied by my uncle and brother-in-law, went to Illinois, and left
quite an amount of money for the purchase of government land. My
father owned several shares in the Concord Bank. The speculative fever
pervaded the entire community,--speculation in lands in Maine and in
Illinois. The result was a great inflation of prices,--the issuing of a great
amount of promises to pay, with a grand collapse which brought ruin
and poverty to many households. The year of 1838 was one of great
distress. The wheat and corn crop was scant. Flour was worth $16 a
barrel. I remember going often to mill with a grist of oats, which was
bolted into flour for want of wheat. The Concord Bank failed,--the