[From My Dear Wife written by David Brett and compiled by Frank Putnam Deane II, Pioneer Press, 1964]

In an answer to President Lincoln's call for 300,000 volunteers in July, 1862, Captain Achille DeVecchi, on leave in America from the Italian Army, organized a battery of light artillery which was designated as the Ninth Battery, Massachusetts Volunteer Light Artillery. The first rendezvous and the formal organization of the battery was at Camp Stanton near Lynnfield, with the officers being:

Captain, Achille De Vecchi
First Lieutenant, Christopher Erickson
Junior First Lieutenant, Alexander H. Whitaker
Second Lieutenant, George W. Foster
Junior Second Lieutenant, Richard S. Milton

At first the battery had no tents, and the original members when they arrived in camp slept on the ground or on the floor of the cook house, which was the only building in camp. It was not until August 2nd that tents were obtained and the camp took on the appearance of a military post. The first guard was posted on August 4th.

The battery was mustered into the service of the United States on August 10th by Lieutenant Elder of the Regular Army to serve three years unless sooner discharged. Ninety men were thus mustered into United States service.

This, then, was the organization of the battery September 3rd, when its one hundred fifty enlisted men and five officers boarded the Providence Railroad for Groton, where it went aboard the steamer Commonwealth for New York, arriving there on the 4th. At New York the battery took the train to Philadelphia where it arrived about nine that evening, and after being treated to a supper of cold meats, bread and coffee by the ladies, it again entrained for Washington city. Early on the morning of the 5th while crossing the Susquehanna River at Havre de Grace, the battery barely escaped being dumped into the river when a truck near the center of the train suddenly broke, tearing up many ties. After a delay of several hours, while the damaged car was detached from the train and pushed into the river, and the damaged truck repaired, the battery-borne train proceeded to Washington City, arriving on the 6th when it went into camp at Camp Seymour on East Capitol Hill. On the 18th the battery received its guns, six three-inch rifled Rodmans, and on the 22nd it moved from Capitol Hill to Camp Chase, across the Potomac on Arlington Heights. The battery remained on the grounds which once belonged to Robert E. Lee until October 26th, when it again crossed the Potomac to go into camp at the newly formed artillery camp of instruction. Camp Barry, which was located on the Maryland side of the river near the Blandensburg Toll Gate, 1 1/2 miles northeast of Washington City. Here, at Camp Barry, which was under the supervision of General Barry, the battery was joined by the 19th and 11th Massachusetts Batteries, the 1st Rhode Island Heavy Artillery, and the 17th New York. Here the battery remained attached to General J. J. Abercrombie's Division, learning the art of the artillerist, until November 19th, when it again broke camp to move across to the Virginia side of the Potomac to Fort Ramsey on Upton's Hill, where it was to remain for the balance of the year 1862.

January, 1863 arrived amid dissension in the camp of the 9th Battery directed against Captain De Vecchi, who on the 26th resigned his commission, to the delight of the men. On February 20th, the battery's new captain, John Bigelow, arrived.

In December of 1861 Bigelow had received an appointment as Adjutant of the 1st Maryland Battalion of Artillery, had served with the battalion in the Peninsular Campaign, where at Malvern Hill his left arm had been shattered. Rejoining the battalion in the autumn, he was with the army at Fredericksburg but early in 1862 had been obliged to return to his home in Brighton, Massachusetts after contracting malaria. In January, 1863 he had again offered his services to his native state of Massachusetts and had subsequently received an appointment by Governor Andrew to the command of the 9th Battery.

On April 17th, the battery was ordered to Centerville where it was to go into camp with the reserve artillery, and there by freak chance, to become attached to the Army of the Potomac when that army marched north in pursuit of Lee's Confederates, who had invaded Maryland and were headed into Pennsylvania in June, 1863.

The Keystone Battery of Philadelphia, which had been camped alongside the 9th Battery, had been ordered up to join the Army of the Potomac, but because the battery had delayed in executing the order, irked General Hunt, the Army's Chief of Artillery, canceled the Keystone's order and in its placed called up the 9th Battery. The Battery left Centerville on June 25th and marching north, joined up with the army at Edward's Ferry the next day, being attached to the artillery reserve of the Army of the Potomac in Colonel McGilvery's 1st Volunteer Brigade along with the 15th New York, 5th Massachusetts Batteries and Captain R. B. Ricketts' Pennsylvania Battery; these were the guns which, with John Bigelow's Battery, were to save the day a week later at a little town in Pennsylvania called Gettysburg.

When the battery arrived at Gettysburg on the morning of the 2nd of July, the great battle had commenced, but the battery was ordered into park until about three in the afternoon, when the order came for Captain Bigelow to take his battery and report to Captain Randolph, Chief of Artillery of the 3rd Corps, who directed Bigelow to take up position between a peach orchard and a wheat field in the field of a Pennsylvania German farmer named Abraham Trostle.

No sooner had the battery maneuvered into position than casualties could be counted among the men and the horse of the battery;-- now they were seeing action for the first time. Bigelow directed his fire at the Confederate batteries posted along the Emmitsburg Road with such effective results that the Southern gunners lost accuracy and slackened their fire. Now Semmes was forming his Confederate infantry in front of the buildings of the Rose farm less than half a mile distant, Bigelow turned his guns in that direction. Soon Semmes went down and his brigade dispersed with the loss of some 400 killed. Meanwhile General Kershaw had sent two of his Southern regiments against Bigelow's front and left and Barksdale's Mississippians started coming in on his right, forcing him to retire his battery which he did by prolong firing. Upon reaching Trostle1s barn yard, Colonel McGilvery ordered Bigelow to hold that line at all hazards until the Union line could be reformed in his rear. No sooner had Bigelow placed his guns in this position when on came Barksdale's brigade consisting of the 13th, 17th, 18th and 21st Mississippi Regiments sweeping all before it. The Union cannoneers were order to fire double canister, which tore great gaps in Barksdale's advancing Confederates, but soon the Southerners reached the guns and hand-to hand fighting took place. The Union line meanwhile being re-established, Bigelow was ordered to fall back and abandon his guns. The battery had delayed the Rebels long enough for the Union line to be reformed at the expense of twenty-eight men killed and wounded, including Bigelow wounded by a shot in the side; and the loss of sixty of its eighty-eight horses dead; twenty more wounded, and four of its six guns left in the hands of the enemy, but which were recovered early that evening by a charge of Union infantry. On the following day the gallant battery, now under command of Junior Second Lieutenant John S. Milton and consisting of but two guns, was engaged at Zeigler's Grove on Cemetery Hill, where it helped to stem Pickett's gallant charge, losing five more horses.

During the remainder of that summer and fall the battery was active at Warrenton, where it remained in camp from August 1st until September 16th, when it again resumed the march, going to Culpepper Court House and remaining at that place until October 11th, when the battery took part in the Briscoe and Mine Run Campaigns during the latter part of November without suffering further loss.

The weary and battle-tried battery went into winter quarters on the 13th of December on a hill overlooking Brandy Station about a mile northwest of the town, where the men again occupied themselves, building log huts and making themselves comfortable for the winter.

Captain John Bigelow returned to his command of the battery on February 12, 1864. He had been severely wounded July 2nd of the previous year when his battery had made its gallant stand at Trostle's farm at Gettysburg. Now, with the coming of the new year, the battery had been reassigned from the 1st Volunteer Brigade of the Artillery Reserve, in which it had seen so much action the previous year, to the 2nd Volunteer Brigade of the Artillery Reserve; but with the spring campaign about to get under way it had been again reassigned to Major Robert H. Fitzhugh's 34th Volunteer Brigade of the Artillery Reserve only to be assigned, a month later, to the Artillery Brigade of the Fifth Corps, commanded by J. Howard Kitching, colonel of the 6th New York Heavy Artillery.

May 4th saw the battery abandoning its winter camp at Brandy Station and resuming the march, this time to Ely's Ford on the Rapidan, where it crossed the river, finally arriving at the Chancellor House that evening. When they arrived, the Army of the Potomac was hotly engaged with the rebels in the Wilderness and then at Spotsylvania; but the battery did not see action until May 19th when it was placed in position on the Anderson Farm, near Spotsylvania, while nearby the battle of Harris Farm was being fought. Four days later, on the 23rd, after crossing to the south bank of the North Anna River at Jericho Ford, it went into its first action since leaving winter quarters, losing one man killed. Here the battery remained until the 26th, when it again recrossed the North Anna at Quarles' Ford, moving to Bethesda Church on June 1st and being under fire much of the time until the 3rd. Leaving Bethesda Church, and after much marching and countermarching, the battery crossed the James River on the 16th near Wilcox's Landing and advanced to the Petersburg front. They were hotly engaged on the 18th near the Avery House on the Baxter Road in support of an infantry attack and suffered the loss of one man killed, and six wounded, one mortally. The battery then proceeded to the Jerusalem Plank Road on the Petersburg lines, where it constructed and occupied Fort Davis.

On the 14th of August the battery moved to Fort Dushane (or Duchesne) near the Weldon Railroad, and on the 27th of October accompanied the 2nd and 5th Corps to Hatcher's Run where the corps forced a passage and returned the following day to its previous position. In December the battery accompanied General Ayres' 2nd Division of the 5th Corps on a second expedition on a the line of the Weldon Railroad, beyond the Nottoway River. Upon returning from the expedition the battery was garrisoned at Fort Rice, where it was to remain until the following February.

During the last week in December, Major Bigelow ( he had on August 1, 1864, been promoted to the rank of Brevet Major, U.S. Volunteers) had resigned his command of the battery and Lieutenant Richard S. Milton was promoted to the command, his Captain's commission being dated January 1, 1865

For the first month in the new year, the battery remained inactive at Fort Rice, but on the 5th of February it was sent on an expedition to Dabney's Mill on Hatcher's Run, where it was to view the army in action for the next two days, but not take part. On the 7th it returned to Fort Rice, remaining there until March 25th when it was ordered to join the Artillery Brigade of the Ninth Corps, commanded, by Major Charles A. Phillips, former commander of the 5th Massachusetts Battery. On the same day it was ordered up and shared in the assault against Fort Stedman, without loss.

Upon evacuation of Petersburg by the confederates, the battery on the 3rd, after turning in two of its guns, marched through the desolate city and joined in the pursuit of Lee's retreating army. On the 5th it reached Nottoway Court House where it was ordered to remain. It stayed in this vicinity until April 20th when it was ordered to City Point, arriving there April 23.

On the 3rd of May, Captain Milton headed his battery on its northward journey, passing over many of the hard-fought battlefield of the previous four years, and reaching the defenses of Washington on the 13th.

The Grand Review of the victorious army was held on May 23rd (Sherman's army was to march the next day) and the gallant little battery joined in the parade down Pennsylvania Avenue. Six days after the review, the battery was ordered to turn in its guns and equipment--the end was now in sight for the battle-weary men. The men entrained for Boston on June 1st, arrived there two days later and immediately marched through the city (where little notice was given it because of its unexpected arrival) to Galloup's Island in Boston Harbour. There on June 6th it was mustered out of the service of the United States, being discharged three days later.

The battery had lost during its service two of its officers, and thirteen of its enlisted men killed and mortally wounded and four additional enlisted men had died of disease, a total of nineteen men.