Supplementary biographies. 1862.
Charles Edward Hickling.
Sergeant 45th Mass. Vols. (Infantry), September, 1862. discharged for disability contracted in the service, February 9, 1863. died of same disease, December 17, 1867.Charles Edward Hickling was born in Roxbury, Mass., April 24, 1841,—the only son of Charles and Eliza Brown (Edes) Hickling. He was the great-greatgrandson of William Hickling, who came from England in 1724, and established himself as a merchant in Boston. He was also the lineal descendant of Governor Bradford, the first Plymouth governor. He was fitted for Harvard College at the private school of Mr. Thomas G. Bradford, in Boston, entered college in 1858, and graduated in 1862. When the war of the Rebellion broke out in 1861, his room-mate, James Ingersoll Grafton, soon enlisted in the military service, and he had a strong desire to do the same, but was dissuaded by his parents. After graduation he went on a visit to Stockbridge, and while there, in the midst of a gay circle of friends, heard the news of General Pope's defeat. He wrote at once to his father:—
dear father,—The time has now come when it is necessary for me to go to the war. I think that every one who can go ought to go, and I do not wish to remain behind. I hope you will agree with me, and I think you will.No opportunity for a commission occurring, he enlisted as sergeant in the Forty-Fifth Massachusetts (Infantry), Colonel Codman. He was a member of Company B, Captain Churchill. The regiment was encamped at Readville from September 5 to November 5, 1862, when it embarked on the steamer ‘Mississippi,’ bound for Beaufort, N. C. The troops reached Beaufort on the 14th, and marched at once to Newbern, where they were placed under command of Major-General Foster.
