Here is a chapter from Our War: Days and Events in the Fight for
the Union, my book on New Hampshire’s Civil War history. In the book I
strove to show the big picture through a bunch of little pictures. The book’s
chapters are based on events of 50 days of the war as seen through the eyes of
the participants.
 |
| Frank Buzzell in his new uniform. He was a corporal by 1864. |
Some of these events
are personal, like this one, the story of a woman who has been hurt and perplexed
by her lover. Her name was M. Annie Thompson. She was from Salisbury, N.H, her
betrothed from the nearby town of Andover.
The reason I’m sharing
the story here is that, through my friend David Morin, I have just found a
picture of Frank Buzzell, the soldier in question. Many of the subjects of Our War are pictured in the book, but
not Buzzell.
I don’t know what you’ll
think, but when I saw him, I was not surprised that the man in M. Annie
Thompson’s life looked like this.
*
One winter’s day in
1864, M. Annie Thompson went to Andover, Corporal Frank Buzzell’s hometown, to
post the formal declaration of their intention to marry. A twenty-year-old
teacher, Thompson lived with her parents in nearby Salisbury. The groom-to-be was
off with his regiment and could not go with her. A twenty-six-year-old
minister’s son, he had been a farmer before volunteering with the Fourth New
Hampshire in 1861. But Frank Buzzell had a secret. He had just re-enlisted for
three years without telling Thompson. His decision had the potential to keep
the couple apart until early 1867.
When Buzzell broke the
news by mail, Thompson found it a “kind letter,” but she had expected him home
in months and the prospect of more years of danger for the man she loved
brought her low. What hurt most was that he had acted on his own. She made this
point between the lines of her response to him on the pleasant Sunday afternoon
of February 21, the day after she received the news. She was so upset she could
not go to church that day, and it took her six pages to pour out her emotions.
“Oh Frank,” she wrote, “you do not know how my heart aches – how each beat is
laden with deep deep sorrow.” She hated the idea that
“another three years must wear away” before they could be together. And yet she
saw her pain as a sign of the depth of her love for him. “I never felt the need
of your sympathy and love as I do to-day – never knew before yesterday and
to-day how much I love you,” she wrote. She sometimes dreamt of him the night
before a letter arrived, as she had before his latest letter. He had talked
about re-enlisting, but she had hoped he would come home to her instead. “God knows I would have you do what you
think to be right and I would try to
help you tho it cost a mighty struggle with my own feelings.” She took
him at his word that his decision was best for both of them. “I will not murmur,” she wrote. And then
she murmured: “Angels cheer your way
– though you will never know how hard it has been for me to do so.”
She told him she would
be with him wherever the war took him. “Whenever you are lonely, sad or weary, then remember that Annie though
far, far from you still loves you and sympathizes with you in all your trials
and hardships.” Her hurt made her long for him as never before. “I love you as
ever and wish more than ever to see you and receive your loving embraces,” she
wrote. She hoped he would get the commission he wanted, especially if being an
officer made soldiering safer. She prayed for a furlough so they could be
together, even if only briefly. She respected him for becoming a soldier. “I am
glad that as things occurred to bring about this cruel war, you were one of
those who possessed sufficient patriotism to enroll your name among the many
that were bound to serve their country and strive to defend and protect its
rights. . . . Yes, I love and pity the poor, suffering soldier.” She did not
mean any soldier, of course. “Some day, I hope not far distant – may see us
happy together – but alas only for a few short days. . . . How I would love to
put my arms round your neck and say ‘good bye’ with a good kiss and receive one
too. Just imagine me doing so, and believe me to be – yours as ever.”
Frank Buzzell knew a
good thing when he saw it. He came home on furlough even sooner than Annie had
asked him to. On March 20, less than a month after her letter, the couple rode
to Fisherville, where the governor’s son, the Baptist minister Joseph H.
Gilmore, performed their wedding ceremony.
Four months later, in
the trenches at Petersburg, a rebel marksman shot Buzzell halfway between the
right elbow and the wrist, shattering his ulna. A surgeon removed four inches
of bone. Buzzell’s recovery was long and difficult. Gangrene nearly cost him
his little finger, and in time both that finger and his ring finger became
deformed. The other fingers stiffened and curled so that his right hand was
useless. His arm atrophied.
In the unpredictable
way of war, Buzzell’s re-enlistment did not lengthen his service. True, his treatment
lasted until February of 1865, when he was discharged at Depot Hospital in
Concord, but it would have been long in any case. For re-enlisting, he received
a bonus, a promotion to sergeant, and the furlough during which M. Annie
Thompson became Annie Buzzell.
Frank brought home her
beseeching letter, and they kept it. Each added a note to the end. Frank wrote his
while still a soldier: “God bless you Annie B. I have kissed your name for I
wished to kiss you and could not.” In a corner of the same page, she wrote:
“This is the last letter that M. Annie Thompson wrote to F.A.B. and signed her
name.” She meant her maiden name, and to emphasize the point, she underlined
“Thompson.”
