Springfield Weekly Republican

RETURN OF THE THIRTY-FIRST REGIMENT.

The many friends of the Fifty-First Massachusetts will be glad to hear that the regiment is on its way home via Cairo, for its veteran furlough of thirty days. Three days ago it had safely passed some rebel batteries on the Mississippi, near White river, and may be expected in the state to-morrow or the day after. Though the 51st has been so long and far from home in the department of the gulf that we have been unable to follow its fortunes so closely as of our western Massachusetts regiments on the Potomac, yet none has more or warmer friends in the western counties, and the record that it has made for the honor of Massachusetts in the Port Hudson and western Louisiana campaigns, with its promptness in re-enlisting, will ensure it a hearty welcome home. The 51st had an untimely birth during the disagreement of Gov. Andrew and Gen. Butler in 1861, and with the 30th Massachusetts bore the brunt of this family quarrel. It was organized in Pittsfield in November and December, 1861, under authority from Gen. Butler, and by him named the Western Bay State Regiment, which name it bore until the difference was settled in favor of the governor, when it was re-christened the Thirty-First. During organization it was quartered in the buildings of the Berkshire Agricultural Society on the top of the coldest hill in Pittsfield, where the drill with the musket followed that with the shovel. As soon as the regiment promised to be a success the people of Pittsfield generously invited the officers to their homes and by their constant kindness wore out the memory of their first cool greeting, and made the long winter evenings fully compensate for the cold days of work on the hill. We have not now space to tell how the ladies were moved with sympathy for the cold, barehanded soldiers, how many mittens were given that winter, nor how the combined genius of lady and soldier brought out the one-fingered mitten so handy and now so common in the army. In re-visiting Pittsfield officers and soldiers alike will miss the welcome of her who was the warmest friend of the soldier, the first to greet them, the last to bid them good-by, and with her loving labor to follow them through the swamps of Louisiana and the siege of Port Hudson, making braver men by her strong faith. The lives of few are blessed by so many generous deeds in behalf of the soldiers of our army as was that of Mrs. Morewood. General Butler fulfilled his promise that the regiment should be the first to enter New Orleans. It landed May 1, 1862, and escorted the General to the St. Charles Hotel. A former correspondent of The Republican kept its readers informed of the movements of the regiment until after the fall of Port Hudson. About January 1, of this year, it was converted into cavalry by order of General Banks, and was with the advance on the Red River campaign, when it was known as the 6th Massachusetts cavalry. A staff officer of the department says it was the best cavalry regiment in the department. It is expected that after its furlough it will be ordered to rejoin its old corps the 19th, which has lately been transferred from the Gulf to the Army of the Potomac.