THE
SCRAPBOOK

Thereafter, they scuttled this way and that, following one lead after another.

“Brown,” said Angelica Doyle, “that’s what you need, Professor Kelly. Francis Brown’s roll of Harvard students in the Civil War.”

“Call me Homer,” said Homer. “You say there’s a roll of students? But I’ve already got the memoirs.”

“No, no. This is a list of all the men who were in the war, not just the ones who died.”

“Oh, I see.”

Opening the roll of students, Homer understood at once that Francis Brown had been one of those diligent record keepers whose labors are of so much more value than those of geniuses in the literary line—writers and historians and stuck-up professors like, for example, himself.

ROLL
OF
STUDENTS OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY
WHO SERVED IN THE
ARMY OR NAVY OF THE UNITED STATES
DURING THE WAR OF THE REBELLION.
PREPARED AT THE REQUEST OF THE CORPORATION,
BY
FRANCIS H. BROWN, M.D.
CAMBRIDGE:
WELCH, BIGELOW, AND COMPANY,
PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.
1866.

Homer turned over the pages of Brown’s 1866 edition with awe. At the request of the Harvard Corporation, Francis Brown had scampered around collecting information about every student who had joined up or been drafted during the Civil War. He had winnowed information from the Academical Department, the Medical School, the Law School, and the Scientific School. He had written it all down, he had made lists, he had sorted them into classes, and he had put sad little asterisks beside the names of the men who had died. His roll was a masterpiece of industry and attention to detail. He had finished his list in 1866, but did he then rest? No, no, he kept right on, adding new names and scrounging for more, producing an expanded version in 1869.

Homer exulted to Mary. “Your great-great-grandfather’s in it. I found out that he was a first lieutenant, but now he’s more mysterious than ever.”

“He is? Oh, Homer, what does it say?”

“‘Present at Gettysburg, further history unknown.’”

“How strange! Do you suppose it means he deserted at Gettysburg?”

“Could be. It might explain all the dark looks and raised eyebrows in your family.”

“The shame, you mean. Oh, I’m sick and tired of the shame.”

“Well, you’ll like this. A lot more of those jolly men on your Hasty Pudding playbill are in Brown’s list. They were in the war too.”

“They were? Oh, show me, Homer.”

In the end she put it all together in a scrapbook, with regimental histories from Francis Brown’s Roll of Students of Harvard University Who Served in the Army or Navy of the United States During the War of the Rebellion.

CIVIL WAR HISTORIES
OF PERFORMERS IN
HASTY PUDDING

Charles Redington Mudge, 1860

(Female Smuggler and Nubian Acrobat)

First Lieutenant, 2d Mass. Vols. (Infantry), May 28, 1861; Captain, July 8, 1861; Major, November 9, 1862; Lieutenant Colonel, June 6, 1863. KILLED AT GETTYSBURG, July 3, 1863.

Otis Mathias Pike, 1860

(Despised and Celebrated Knight of the Inkwell)

Private, 2d Mass. Vols. (Infantry), July 12, 1862. KILLED AT GETTYSBURG, July 3, 1863.

Seth Morgan, 1860

(Concord Rosebud)

Second Lieutenant, 2d Mass. Vols. (Infantry), May 25, 1861; First Lieutenant, November 9, 1862. “PRESENT AT GETTYSBURG, further history unknown.”

Noah Gobright, 1860

(French Maid, Fair, but Alas!)

First Lieutenant, Artillery Reserve, Captain John Bigelow’s 9th Battery, Mass. Light, Lieutenant Colonel McGilvery’s brigade. IN ACTION AT GETTYSBURG.

Horace John Hayden, 1860

(Listen to the Mockingbird)

Second and First Lieutenant, 3d U.S. Artillery, August 5, 1861; Brevet Major, October 2, 1865. HAYDEN’S BATTERY WAS AT GETTYSBURG.

Stephen William Driver, 1860

(Fairy Bell)

Acting Assistant Surgeon, USA., April–November 1863. PROBABLY AT GETTYSBURG.

George Gill Wheelock, 1860

(Whistling Solo)

Acting Assistant Surgeon, USA, January 13–July 8, 1865. TOO LATE FOR GETTYSBURG.

Stephen Minot Weld, 1860

(Young Scamp)

Second Lieutenant, 18th Mass. Vols., January 24, 1862; First Lieutenant, October 24, 1862; Captain, May 4, 1863; Aide to General Reynolds at Gettysburg; Lieutenant Colonel, 56th Mass. Vols, July 22, 1863; Colonel May 6, 1864: Brevet Brigadier General, U.S. Vols., March 13, 1865; mustered out, July 12, 1865. HUGELY IMPORTANT, FIRST DAY AT GETTYSBURG!

Order from General Reynolds in Weld’s diary:

“Ride at once with your utmost speed to General Meade. Tell him the enemy are advancing in strong force, and that I fear they will get to the heights beyond the town before I can. I will fight them inch by inch.”

Thomas Rodman Robeson, 1861

(Polly Ann and Augustus Tompkins)

Second Lieutenant, 2d Massachusetts Vols. (Infantry), May 28, 1861; First Lieutenant, November 30, 1861; Captain, August 10, 1862. DIED AT GETTYSBURG, July 6, 1863.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., 1861

(Ludovico, a Respectable Gentleman)

Private, 4th Battery Mass. V.M., April 1861; First Lieutenant, 20th Mass. Vols., July 10, 1861; Captain, March 23, 1862: Lieutenant Colonel (not mustered), July 5, 1863; A.D.C., mustered out, July 17, 1864.

WOUNDED BEFORE GETTYSBURG.

William Yates Gholson, 1861

(Great Lyric Tragedienne)

First Lieutenant, 106th Ohio Vols., July 16, 1862; Captain, July 24, 1862; killed at Hartsville, Tennessee, December 7, 1862. DIED BEFORE GETTYSBURG.

Henry Pickering Bowditch, 1861

(Brabanto, a Hasty Old Codger)

Second Lieutenant, 1st Mass. Cav, November 5, 1861; First Lieutenant, June 28, 1862; Captain, May 13, 1863; discharged, February 15, 1864; Major, 5th Mass. Cav, March 26, 1864; resigned, June 3, 1865. PROBABLY IN CAVALRY BATTLE AT GETTYSBURG, JULY 3, 1863.

Henry Weld Farrar, 1861

(Mr. Snoozle)

Vol. A.D.C., staff of General Sedgwick, March 1863; Second Lieutenant, 7th Maine Vols., April 10, 1863; First Lieutenant, March 15, 1864; Captain, June 7, 1864; Brevet Major, October 19, 1864; Brevet Lieutenant Colonel.

PROBABLY AT GETTYSBURG.

John Bigelow, 1861

(Montano, caught in a row but not disposed to fight)

Captain, 9th Mass. Battery, February 11, 1863: Brevet Major, U.S. Vols., August 1, 1864; resigned December 11, 1864. HERO IN BATTLE OF THE PEACH ORCHARD, July 2, 1863, AT GETTYSBURG!

NOTE!!! In the first Hasty Pudding production of this 1861 class in March 1860, Sir O. Pikestaff was again responsible for “These Tearfully Comical Sidereal Abominations Involving Gaulish Chieftains, Druids, Bards, etc., Which Have Been Got Up with Utter Recklessness as to Pecuniary Considerations!!”

“Well, it’s a very nice collection,” said Homer, looking at Mary’s pasted pages, “but are we any closer to exonerating your great-great-grandfather?”

“Oh, I suppose not,” said Mary. “I was carried away, that’s all.”