Location: Town Common, Elm Street and Bridge Road, Salisbury
Coordinates: 42°50’26.2″N 70°51’40.2″W
Date dedicated: May 17, 1981
Construction/design: Dan Bolduc and Norman Snow
The monument honoring Salisbury’s Civil War Veterans was placed on the green in Salisbury Square by the Historical Commission. Assembly of the stone and plaque was conducted by Dan Bolduc and Norman Snow. It was dedicated in a special memorial service on May 17, 1981. The plaque bears the names of the men who served with a star indicating those who lost their lives. Carolyn Sargent, chairman of the Historical Commission at the time, conducted the research for the monument and its roster.[1]
Among first to enlist from Salisbury in the early days of the war was a group of at least 26 men who signed up with a company then forming in Arlington, Massachusetts that became known as the “Union Guards.”[2] By the time this company was filled out, Massachusetts had already met her first quota and no further recruits would be accepted by the War Department until the next call for troops. Frustrated, their captain made arrangements to have the company join the 40th New York Infantry, known as the “Mozart Regiment.” It was funded by and named after the Mozart Hall Committee, a political machine headed by New York Mayor Fernado Wood. The Mozart Regiment suffered the second highest casualties of any New York regiment—many of these in Devil’s Den at Gettysburg.
Salisbury men served in many other regiments but the largest group consisted of at least 60 who served in the 48th Massachusetts Infantry. This regiment, raised mostly from Essex County, formed in September of 1862. The Salisbury men made up most of Company C of the regiment and were commanded by Capt. William Pettengill of Salisbury (pictured). This unit fought in Louisiana, taking part in both assaults on Port Hudson.[3]
[1] Carolyn Sargent, Salisbury History, (Newburyport: Harborside Printing, 1991), 113.
[2] W. H. B. Currier, “Salisbury,” in History of Essex County, ed. Duane Hamilton Hurd (Philadelphia: J. Lewis & Co, 1888), v. 2, 1465-1466.
[3] Albert Plummer, History of the Forty-eighth Regiment, M.V.M. during the Civil War (Boston: Press of the New England Druggist Publishing Co., 1907), 86-92.