For the Relief of the Soldiers:
Yarmouth in the Civil War

The Civil War comes to Yarmouth during the summer and fall of 2001 as the Captain Bangs Hallet House Museum stages the exhibition For the Relief of the Soldiers: Yarmouth in the Civil War.  This exhibition marks the Historical Society of Old Yarmouth’s first attempt at an annual “theme” for its historic captain’s house.  Designed as a way to bring in members and the local community, as well as visitors from around the world, the theme will involve tour material focused on Yarmouth’s participation in the Civil War, special displays of objects borrowed from individuals and museums, and a small exhibit highlighting some of Yarmouth’s own brave men.  The tour features lots of interaction and hands-on activities for adults and children alike.  

Many of Yarmouth’s sea captains were out to sea as hostilities broke out at home.  The meager Confederate Navy, seemingly no match for the great maritime strength of the Union, wrought havoc with merchant shipping with its handful of raiders.  The raiders captured commercial vessels and ransomed them for bounties or burned any ship carrying cargoes that might in any way be connected to the war effort.  The piracy of the Confederates brought a great slow-down in merchant shipping.  Some captains carried on, finding great excitement in the cat and mouse game.  Others, like Captain Bangs Hallet, retired in the midst of the war, no longer willing to endure the risks.  Marine insurance rates soared.  Ship owners began to sell off their vessels in an attempt to protect their assets.  Great Britain slowly began to regain her dominance of the seas, lost only two decades earlier to the upstart Americans.

Other Yarmouth men also depended upon the sea for a living:  the fishermen.  Dozens upon dozens of small fishing schooners, harboring in Lewis Bay, Bass River and Yarmouth Harbor, found their markets for fish completely cut off.  Their last catches lay rotting along the banks while their ships remained idle.  With no fish to preserve there was less need for salt, another major product Yarmouth citizens harvested from the sea.  By the end of the war, the fishermen’s boats had lain so long in disuse that to begin again meant building new ships.  Many abandoned the sea, and the Cape, for careers inland.  Salt works were dismantled, and the rot-resistant wood used to build barns and outbuildings.

Yarmouth’s, and the Cape’s, most decorated soldier was Joseph Hamblin.  Hamblin, who lived on Summer Street in Yarmouth Port, moved to New York as an adult and enlisted with one of the first regiments to be mustered into the Army of the Potomac: the Fifth New York.  Hamblin was named the Adjutant for this colorful group of Zouave soldiers and quickly distinguished himself.   The soldiers of the 5th looked to Hamblin as a brave and heroic figure.  One of the soldiers of that regiment wrote “In bodily formation this man, chiseled in marble, would have rivaled the Apollo Belvedere.  He was one of nature’s masterpieces and the finest I ever saw.  By his many engaging qualities he won the affection of the men; they loved, honored, almost idolized him.”   In 1862 Hamblin was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel of the 1st United States Chasseurs.  Hamblin participated in nearly every major battle fought by the Army of the Potomac, from the first battle at Great Bethel in June of 1861, to the very last battle at Sayler‘s Creek in April of 1865.  At Cedar Creek he was wounded twice, but refused to leave the field until the battle was assuredly won.  After a brief recuperation in Yarmouth Port, Hamblin, returned to duty not having missed any major action.  His unit was the last one mustered out of the Army in 1865.  Hamblin died an early death in 1870, having succumbed to “diseases contracted during the War of the Rebellion.”  

In April of 1865, bells rang from the Methodist church in Friend’s Village, the Congregational Church on Yarmouth’s common, the Universalist Church in Yarmouth Port and the Congregational Church in West Yarmouth.   The war was over.  But days later, the bells rang once more as Yarmouth learned that President Lincoln had been killed.  Of the mood in Yarmouth, Charles Swift, editor of the Yarmouth Register, writes “Little is talked of but the awful calamity of last week.  A heavy gloom rests upon the village, and increases day by day, as the people begin to realize the melancholy fact that ABRAHAM LINCOLN has been brutally murdered.”

The Civil War, although carried out far away from the isolated shores of Cape Cod, left its mark on the town of Yarmouth and its citizens.  For soldiers like Daniel Wing and Edwin Hale Lincoln, it provided an adventure never to be forgotten and an experience that shaped their lives.   For the women of Yarmouth’s villages, the war created and outlet for their talents, an opportunity to be part of a cause.  But for all those associated with the maritime economy of the Cape, the Civil War “stood squarely between the good times and the bad.”  Although the decline of American merchant shipping had imperceptibly begun prior to the war, the war hastened the end of an era and forced Cape Codders ashore.  The glory days of Yarmouth’s deep-water captains, the prosperity of a community supported by the products of the sea -- all were gone.  Children moved inland; clipper ship captains retired; fishermen became tradesmen and merchants; and the population of Cape Cod towns began to decline.  In the words of Cape historian Henry Kitteredge “No community that depends on the sea for its prosperity can flourish long after it is driven from the sea ... the war got the blame.”

To hear and see more about Yarmouth during the Civil War --  its people, its soldiers, its contributions to the war effort -- visit the Captain Bangs Hallet House Museum, 11 Strawberry Lane in Yarmouth Port!  For the Relief of the Soldiers: Yarmouth in the Civil War will be on display from June 1 through October 15, 2001.