Tag Archives: Rhode Island

Joseph Burdick lay in a hospital at Haynes Bluff, just north of Vicksburg, Miss., as his brothers-in-law Isaac Saunders and Abel Kenyon marched off with the rest of the 7th Rhode Island Infantry to capture Jackson, the state capital. By the time they returned, Burdick, a native of Hopkinton, was dead. He wasn’t the victim of shot or shell, but of a more insidious killer — disease.

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First in. Last out. It sounds like an accounting term, but it could have been the rallying cry of the 2nd Rhode Island infantry regiment during the Civil War.

Early in the morning of July 21, 1861, at the first battle of Bull Run (also known as Manassas), the 2nd R.I. became the first Union unit to engage the Confederates forces.

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Metal and fire rained down on the deck of the U.S.S. Oneida as she passed the entrance to Mobile Bay on Aug. 5, 1864.

On deck, David Naylor carried black powder charges in a passing box from the ship’s magazine to the 30-pounder Parrott gun. Red-hot pieces of metal, wooden splinters and sparks flew around the young Navy recruit, while steam screamed from the rear of the vessel from a direct hit on one of the boilers. Ahead, the ironclad C.S.S. Tennessee was bearing down.

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