Charles H. Clarke

History of Company F, 1st Regiment, R. I. Volunteers, During the Spring and Summer of 1861 Charles H. Clarke

In the following pages I have endeavored to present a correct description of the service performed by Company F, 1st Regiment Rhode Island Volunteers, during the spring and summer of 1861. While many of my comrades who served in that company may differ with me in some of the statements I have made, still I think that all will agree that what I have presented is as correct an account as can be had at this late period of that service. Thirty years is a long time for men to remember the particulars of any event, unless some memoranda of the same is at hand. During that service I endeavored to keep as correct as possible a daily journal of events, and from that journal I have prepared this brief history of the company, and I trust that my comrades who may read this will excuse any inaccuracies that in their opinion may appear; for it is my desire to place before you a correct history of Company F, the first company of volunteers that left Newport on the 17th of April, 1861, for the defence of the Stars and Stripes in the great war of the rebellion. -- Charles H. Clarke.