"THE BOYS FROM VERMONT" BROCHURE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00981R000100080024-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 5, 2013
• Sequence Number: 24
• Publication Date: March 25, 1988
• Content Type: MEMO

Declassified in Part- Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/03/05: CIA-RDP91-00981R000100080024-1
STAT
MEMORANDUM FOR: Inspector General
VIA: Deputy Director for Administration
FROM: John M. Ray
Director of Logistics
SUBJECT: "The Boys from Vermont" Brochure
Attached is the brochure which you commissioned when you
were the Deputy Director for Administration. As you will
recall, the primary purpose of the brochure was to provide the
Historical Society with something that could be mailed to all
of the individuals who played a part in providing material
and/or information for the display. Copies have been turned
over to the Historical Society and additional copies will be
made available in a plastic container located at the lower
level of the auditorium.
Attachment
TA1( John M. Ray
OL 10113-88
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STAT
SUBJECT: "The Boys from Vermont" Brochure
OL/FMD
(25 Mar 88)
Distribution:
Orig - Addressee
2 - DDA
1 - OL Files
1 - FMD Chrono
1 - FMD Official
2
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c
Because of Camp Griffin's proximity to Bailey's
Crossroads, the sheer number of men assembled that
late fall day for the review, and the fact that it would
have been very unusual to exclude all five regiments
of Vermont's finest from a day of high visibility and
pageantry, it is generally believed that some of the
troops who marched before and around Mrs. Howe
belonged to the Langley outpost.
It did not take long for Mrs. Howe's words, following
their February 1862 publication in the Atlantic
Monthly, to catch on as a Union anthem. President
Lincoln himself is said to have asked that the "Battle
Hymn" be sung again, his voice barely audible over
the applause the song received when it was first
performed for him.
Julia Ward Howe
The Central Intelligence Agency gratefully acknowl-
edges the assistance of the following individuals and
organizations in the preparation of this display:
Barney Bloom
Assistant Librarian,
Vermont Historical Society Library, Montpelier
Philip Elwert
Curator, Vermont Historical Society
Thomas J. Evans
John Graham
President, Northern Virginia .Relic Hunters
Association
Kim Bernard Holien
Historian, US Army Center of Military History
The Houghton Library
Harvard University
Amy L. Johnson
George R. Lindsey
Curator of Local History and Genealogy
Brooks Memorial Library, Brattleboro, Vermont
Manassas National Battlefield Park
Brian R. McCarthy
Hugh McGonigle
Communications Specialist, Stamps Division
United States Postal Service
Northern Virginia Relic Hunters Association
Walton Owen
Fort Ward Museum and Historic Site, Alexandria
Art Pence
National Firearms Museum, Washington, D.C.
Perkins School for the Blind
Watertown, Massachusetts
Patricia H. Pickeral
Laura E. Putnam
And other members of the Samuel Gridley
and Julia Ward Howe family.
United States Cavalry Museum
Fort Riley, Kansas
Vermont Historical Society
The Virginia Room, Fairfax City Regional Library
The Willard Inter-Continental Hotel, Washington,
D.C.
This exhibition was arranged by the Interior Design Staff, Office of
Logistics.
AR research and collection of artifacts was conducted by the Historical
Intelligence Collection staff, Office of Information Resources.
Shotel Inc. of Silver Spring, Maryland designed and produced the
exhibit.
Printing and Photography Division produced the exhibit brochure.
The Boys fromVermont
and
"The attic Hymn
of the
Republic"
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Overview of of the exhibit area. The eleven photographs of
Camp Griffin appear to the left. Julia Ward Howe and her
poem are to the right. Note artifacts in the blue cases.
This exhibit, organized and mounted in 1987, com-
memorates the 125th anniversary of two local events.
One is the publication of the "Battle Hymn of the
Republic" and the other is the six month existence of
Camp Griffin, composed of troops from the 2nd, 3rd,
4th, 5th, and 6th Vermont Infantry Regiments.
Stationed in and around Langley during the winter of
1861-62, the Vermont troops had as their principal
responsibility the protection of a nervous Federal
City, whose painful memory of the debacles at Bull
Run and Ball's Bluff was slow to evaporate. Addi-
tionally, these men kept a watchful, if inexperienced,
eye on the nearby waterways serving the Capital?the
C840 canal and Potomac River.
Scattered across the area in clusters of tents, the
"Green Mountain Boys" chipped away at the long
tedious days with what became traditional camp
pastimes: singing, playing cards, whittling, drinking,
attending church services, and falling into a seeming-
ly endless number of formations. These men eventu-
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ally saw action in more than twenty major battles
including Antietam, Gettysburg, and the Wilderness.
Accompanying the troops was a fellow Vermonter,
the practiced photographer, George Harper
Houghton. This Brattleboro resident learned his craft
from one of the early pioneers of daguerreotype
photography. Sensing the historic journey on which
these men were embarking, Houghton followed the
Vermont regiments to northern Virginia. At Camp
Griffin, as the men suffered through the hardships
and boredom endemic to Civil War encampments,
Houghton recorded their story. Some of the eleven
reprints displayed here reflect their struggles with
disease and low rations.
Several of the photographs leap across one and a
quarter centuries with images still evident today.
"Salona," now designated a state and national histor-
ic landmark, served as the camp's headquarters.
Captured in one of Houghton's prints, this structure
is today the home of McLean resident, State Senator
Clive DuVal 2nd. Two other pictures portray a group
courtesy of the Vermont Historical Society
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of rocks still visible along Kurtz Road. One depicts
troops from the 5th Vermont mustered about the
mound of boulders while another shows band mem-
bers from the 4th Vermont Infantry Regiment, in-
struments in hand, seated casually atop the
formation.
This photograph, reproduced from the exhibit's collection,
shows troops from the 5th Vermont Infantry Regiment. The
two rock formations are still visible from Kurtz Road in
McLean.
Tangible reminders of camp life included here are
various tunic buttons, kepi insignia, and minie balls.
Also featured are a cartridge strap breast plate and a
musket powder flask.
Rounding out the Camp Griffin portion of the exhib-
it is a life size representation of a Vermont infantry
soldier. In studying the uniform and accoutrements,
careful research sought some peculiarity which set
the Vermonters'. attire apart from those of other
Union regiments ringing Washington. It was too
early in the war to expect brass buttons with the
Great Seal of Vermont embossed on them and, in
reality, some recruits were fortunate to have anything
beyond their civilian clothes. The men did add
something special to their apparel as the artist's
conception suggests - the soldiers customarily sported
a spray of hemlock in the brow band of their kepi.
The sprig recalled home where the evergreen is
prevalent.
Map showing the defenses of Washington. These forts
eventually repladed outposts such as Camp Griffin. To the.
right is an artist's conception of a Vermont infanoy soldier.
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The other 125th anniversary represented in the ex-
hibit is the publication of the "Battle Hymn of the
Republic" by Julia Ward Howe. While it is generally
recognized that Mrs. Howe wrote her poem by flick-
ering light in her Willard Hotel room, what is not as
readily known is what inspired her to write the war's
most famous and enduring song.
A lithograph reproduced in the exhibit shows the
circumstances that resulted in the epic verse. 70,000
soldiers are depicted amassed at Bailey's Crossroads
on November 20, 1861 for a Grand Review of Union
Troops. Witnessing the the pageant from Munson's
Hill were President Lincoln, General McClellan, and
their invited guests. Julia Ward Howe, already noted
in New England for her literary and abolitionist
efforts, was one of the reviewing officials. Watching
the panorama unfold, she delighted in its patriotic
fervor.
Once the parade was over, Mrs. Howe joined other
members of the delegation for the carriage ride back
to Washington. Again she soaked in in the scene
about her. Men fresh from the review filed around
the coach. She listened as they sang different march-
ing songs. One tune prompted a traveling companion
to ask if Mrs. Howe might not consider "better
lyrics" for the stirring melody. "John Brown's Body"
would be forever changed.
When Mrs. Howe wrote of seeing "Him in the watch-
fires of a hundred circling camps", and of having
"read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel,"
she was poetically restating the scenes associated
with the review and her return trip the the District.
And the idea that she could read "His righteous
sentence in the dim and flaring lamps" symbolically
underscored her own vision of the war. To her, these
men were the Chosen on their way to save the Union.