Produced by Barbara Kosker and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) PERSONAL NARRATIVES OF EVENTS IN THE WAR OF THE REBELLION, BEING PAPERS READ BEFORE THE RHODE ISLAND SOLDIERS AND SAILORS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. THIRD SERIES - NO. 15. PROVIDENCE: PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY. 1885. PROVIDENCE PRESS COMPANY, PRINTERS. REMINISCENCES OF SERVICE WITH THE TWELFTH RHODE ISLAND VOLUNTEERS, AND A MEMORIAL OF COL. GEORGE H. BROWNE. BY PARDON E. TILLINGHAST, [Late Quartermaster Sergeant of the Twelfth Rhode Island Volunteers.] PROVIDENCE: PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY. 1885. [Edition limited to two hundred and fifty copies.] REMINISCENCES OF SERVICE WITH THE TWELFTH RHODE ISLAND VOLUNTEERS. The months of July, August, September and October of 1862, were stirring times in Rhode Island,--and in fact throughout the entire North. The vigorous onward movement of our army towards Richmond, which had been long and frequently promised, was still deferred. The decisive victory won by the Union forces over Lee's army at Malvern Hills at great cost, which, in the judgment of every officer in the Army of the Potomac save one, and he the chief, should have been immediately followed by a determined advance towards the rebel stronghold, which was only about a day's march distant, was supplemented by the now somewhat stereotyped order to "fall back," thus presenting the not altogether inspiring military spectacle of a victorious army running away from its defeated and thoroughly demoralized enemy. General Pope's campaign in Northern Virginia, inaugurated with a great flourish of trumpets, had resulted disastrously; the rebel army was greatly encouraged by the inactivity and the vacillating conduct of their opponents, and had commenced a vigorous aggressive movement. The National capital was again in imminent peril, causing a feverish excitement throughout the country; Baltimore and Cincinnati were seriously threatened, and a great crisis was evidently at hand. Vigorous measures must be adopted at once, or our boasted Republic would soon be a thing of the past. The President, in view of the great emergency, had ordered drafts, amounting in the aggregate to six hundred thousand men, one-half thereof for three years, and the other half for nine months, the latter to be drawn from the enrolled militia; and the utmost activity everywhere prevailed in connection with the raising, equipping and forwarding of this vast army of recruits.