Location: In front of Goodnow Hall, 157 Main Street, Charlemont
Coordinates: 42°37’41.5″N 72°52’14.5″W
Date dedicated: Unknown
Design/Sculptor/Manufacturer: Unknown
The town of Charlemont honors its veterans with a war memorial located on Main Street in Charlemont Center, directly in front of the historic Town Hall (Goodnow Hall). The monument serves as a comprehensive honor roll of the town’s military service across multiple conflicts. The exact date of the Charlemont War Memorial’s dedication, as well as the identities of those involved in its planning and placement, remain unknown at this time. If additional information comes to light through local records or community contributions, this site will be updated to reflect those details.
There are 69 names on the monument’s Civil War plaque. According to a local history, more than 76 served. And according to the Massachusetts Adjutant General’s records, 115 men were attributed to Charlemont’s quota. As we’ve seen with other towns, such discrepancies are typical. The latter number included men from other towns who were recruited to fill Charlemont’s required quota. The lower numbers are likely the amount who actually resided in Charlemont. According to the 1976 local history by Allan Healy, 13 of these men died in service.[1] The Adjutant General’s records reveal that four of these men were killed in action or mortally wounded in battle, two died as prisoners of war, and seven died of disease.
Charlemont, according to Healy, was a fervently pro-Union town with strong anti-slavery convictions well before the outbreak of the Civil War. After the firing on Fort Sumter, patriotic zeal surged. The first men to enlist were mustered into Company H of the 10th Massachusetts Infantry on June 21, 1861. This was known as the “Shelburne Company,” a prewar militia unit formed in the neighboring town. Once mustered into federal service, they joined the Army of the Potomac, seeing early and bloody action at battles like Fair Oaks in 1862, where Corporal George A. Veber became Charlemont’s first soldier killed in action.
Other early Charlemont recruits joined the Greenfield Company of the 27th Massachusetts Infantry, organized under Captain Horace Walker of Shelburn. Several Charlemont men served in this company. Among them were M. M. Phipps, Richard Wolfenden, and Samuel Wolfenden, who later died at Andersonville Prison.
In the summer of 1862, Charlemont sent its largest contingent yet when over twenty men joined Company B of the 52nd Massachusetts Infantry, a nine-month regiment raised in Franklin County. Among them were Henry M. Albee (who died returning home), Edwin W. Booth (died April 1863), Albert Lilley (died June 1863), and Noah Baker (killed in action at Port Hudson). These men endured disease and heavy combat during the campaign along the Mississippi, especially during the Union assault at Port Hudson in June 1863.[2]
A standout figure among Charlemont’s Civil War veterans was Lieutenant Leonard B. Rice, who served with Company B of the 52nd Massachusetts. Wounded in the forearm at Port Hudson, he returned home and became one of Charlemont’s most respected citizens. After the war, Rice served as a selectman and a representative in the Massachusetts General Court.
[1] Allan Healy, Charlemont, Massachusetts: 1765–1965 (Charlemont: Charlemont Bicentennial Committee, 1965), 102.
[2] Healy, 103.