This narrative of the prominent events in the campaigns of the regiment, its enrolment, journeys, marches, battles, camps, and final discharge, conveys but little idea of its interior history, the associations of its members with each other, the routine of army life, and the daily experience of the individual soldier. All this is a portion of that unwritten history impressed indelibly upon the memory of the surviving members.

A spirit of fraternity and good-will pervaded the regiment throughout its term of service. It was a compact, homogeneous body of men, remarkably free from envy, strife, and jealousy. It came into the service under the second call for three hundred thousand men for three years. The early enthusiasm, caused by the breaking out of the war, had in a measure subsided. The military service was known to be arduous, dangerous, and severe. Hardship, hunger, disease, battle, and death must be confronted, and this very fact was the inspiration of the hour. Men knew that the war was likely to continue for the full term of their enlistment. The regiment was composed of good material. While there were many men above the age of thirty-five, and many even above the age of forty-five, yet the number of young men was so largely in excess of these that the average age of the entire regiment was hardly twenty-four years.

It was composed, in the main, of men of good moral character. But few were addicted to the vice of intemperance. The hard-earned pay was carefully husbanded, and sent to those who needed it at home. Not an officer or man was dismissed the service, or dishonorably discharged; not an officer or man was court-martialled. The high standard of moral character was due doubtless, in a great degree, to the influence of home; but the example of many men of strong religious character, prominent among whom were Orderly Sergeant White and the lamented Sergeant Merrick, had much to do in maintaining the tone of morality. All the vacancies existing among the commissioned officers were filled by promotion from the rank and file. After the muster-in, in 1862, not a commission, excepting to a chaplain, was issued to a person outside the regiment, nor was there an appointment made from civil life. Officers and enlisted men of the Thirty-sixth were commissioned in other regiments, and many others, of all grades, were detailed to various positions of trust and responsibility in the several divisions and corps of the army. As we recall the names of those who received appointments to honorable positions in other organizations we cannot fail to remember and claim the following-named as our own: Captain Prescott and Lieutenants Gird and Tucker were commissioned in the Fifty-seventh Massachusetts. Prescott as Major, and Gird as Captain sealed their devotion with their lives,—the first in the Crater, the second in the Wilderness. Tucker rose to the command of his regiment, after receiving fearful wounds, which hastened his death. Private Swords of Company B, was commissioned Captain, was wounded at North Anna, captured at Fort Stedman, and brevetted Major. Lieutenant Levi N. Smith, of Company D, was called to a position of great responsibility in the Commissary Department at army head-quarters, and was brevetted Colonel for efficient services. Sergeant Brown, of Company B,—one of the first of the Color Sergeants,—was commissioned Captain in the Twelfth Kentucky, and won a medal of honor for gallantry at Franklin, Tennessee. Private Snell, of Company E, and Corporals Benjamin Edmands and Chapman, of Company B, were commissioned Lieutenants in different regiments of colored troops, and rendered gallant service. The first served upon the staff of General Crawford; the second won a good name in South Carolina; and the third was killed in the great explosion at Mobile, on the very day of our muster-out of service, leaving the record of a gallant and faithful soldier. These are treasured as a part of the contribution of the regiment to the cause of Freedom in other organizations.

Nor do we forget the many brave and faithful men, as worthy as any of these, who served their entire term without any of the honors and privileges conferred by rank: Sergeants, capable of commanding companies, who were wounded in battle, and unable to rejoin their comrades in the field; or were, in some cases, commissioned, but not able to avail themselves of the rank on account of the reduced number of men in their companies and consequent inability to muster; or, as in the case of others, mustered-out of service as supernumerary Sergeants by reason of consolidation and transfers, and others equally brave and trusted, who toiled, and labored, and fought in the ranks with no incentive but a desire to render their full measure of loyal service, and who made a record of which they and their comrades may well be proud.

The associations born of common suffering and danger, and cemented by battle-blood, have continued and strengthened with the lapse of time. Soon after the war a Regimental Association was formed, which bears the name of "The Burnside Association of the Thirty-sixth Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers." General Burnside, then Governor of Rhode Island, acknowledged the receipt of an invitation to attend one of its reunions in the following characteristic letter:—

The Annual Reunions of the regiment, held at Worcester on the 2d of September, the anniversary of the departure of the Thirty-sixth for the seat of war, have always been largely attended, and the sons of the dead and the living comrades have been admitted to membership, and participate in these seasons of festivity and cheer. At all these gatherings we recall the memories of those who went forth with us never to return.

ROSTER AND RECORD
OF THE
THIRTY-SIXTH REGIMENT OF INFANTRY,
MASSACHUSETTS VOLUNTEERS,
1862-65.

The roster of commissioned officers contains the names and, as far as can be ascertained, the full military record of all who were commissioned in the Thirty-sixth Regiment, and the officers transferred to it from the Twenty-first Regiment. The record of the enlisted men is based upon the original muster-in rolls of the regiment by companies, as appeared on the 27th of August, 1862, the day the regiment was mustered into the service of the United States. The names of recruits have been added to the companies into which they were mustered. The record accounts for those only who were enlisted for the Thirty-sixth Regiment. The names of the men of the Twenty-first and Twenty-ninth regiments appear in the histories of their respective regiments. The roster and record have been carefully compared with the rolls in the office of the Adjutant General, who has furnished every facility in obtaining as complete a record as it is now possible to make.