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Chapter 2: Readville camp.
Lieutenant E. N. Hallowell, on Feb. 21, 1863, was ordered to Readville, Mass., where, at Camp Meigs, by direction of
Brig.-Gen. R. A. Peirce, commandant of camps, he took possession with twentyseven men of the buildings assigned to the new regiment.
Readville is on the
Boston and Providence Railroad, a few miles from
Boston.
The ground was flat, and well adapted for drilling, but in wet weather was muddy, and in the winter season bleak and cheerless.
The barracks were great barn-like structures of wood with sleeping-bunks on either side.
The field, staff, and company officers were quartered in smaller buildings.
In other barracks near by was the larger part of the Second Massachusetts Cavalry, under
Col. Charles R. Lowell, Jr., a brother-in-law of
Colonel Shaw.
During the first week seventy-two recruits were received in camp, and others soon began to arrive with a steady and increasing flow; singly, in squads, and even in detachments from the several agencies established throughout the country.
Surgeon-General Dale, of
Massachusetts, reported on the Fifty-fourth recruits as follows:—
‘The first recruits were sent to Camp Meigs, Readville, in February, 1863; their medical examination was most rigid and thorough, nearly one third of the number offering being peremptorily ’
