Civil War Memorials In The Lakes Region
What we celebrate now as Memorial Day began as Decoration Day, when families placed flowers on the graves of those who died during the Civil War. Records at Harvard University recount the earliest such celebration, organized by a group of formerly enslaved people in Charleston, South Carolina, less than a month after the Confederacy surrendered in 1865.
Charleston is where the war began, in April 1861, and by the spring of 1865, the city lay in ruin, and was largely abandoned by white residents. Black residents, along with white missionaries and teachers, organized a parade of 10,000 people on May 1, 1865, with 3,000 schoolchildren followed by several hundred women carrying baskets of flowers, wreaths, and crosses to decorate the graves of the dead. Black men followed, and then contingents of Union infantry and other citizens of both races.
Waterloo, New York, was another place where residents decorated veterans’ graves, starting in the summer of 1865. However, it was not until Ohio Representative James A. Garfield, a former general and future US president, declared May 30, 1868, to be known as Decoration Day that the observance we now observe became an official holiday.
The Grand Army of the Republic — a fraternal organization founded in 1866, comprising veterans who had served during the Civil War — led an effort to place memorials commemorating those who had had been killed in the conflict at locations around the country, including in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. The GAR dissolved in 1956 with the death of its last member, Albert Woolson, but other community members and veterans’ groups have carried on the effort to immortalize those who died in the nation’s wars.
New Hampshire’s Civil War memorials honor the state’s Twelfth Regiment, an infantry division organized at Concord and mustered on September 10, 1862. One such memorial was placed in Meredith at the direction of a man who called himself E.E. Bedee, who claimed to have been by Abraham Lincoln’s side when John Wilkes Booth shot the president in Ford’s Theater on April 14, 1865.
Bristol historian Charles E. Greenwood recounted the incident in “He Saw Lincoln Shot: The story of an obscure captain in the Union Army who was both a witness to and a part of a historic tragedy.”
“He was seated in the second row on the left side of the theater in back of the orchestra — with a command view of President Abraham Lincoln watching the play. Because the audience was laughing at the acts on stage at the time, few heard the shot that came suddenly during the performance.
“Edwin Bedee, a captain in the Twelfth Regiment, New Hampshire Volunteers, stared in disbelief as a man vaulted from the president’s box onto stage. When Captain Bedee saw the man jump from the president’s box, his first reaction was to pursue the fleeing gunman. Instead, Bedee, like the rest, listened as John Wilkes Booth boldly uttered the incredible words, ‘Revenge for the South!’ Little did the captain know that he had just witnessed murder of one of America’s great presidents.
“Recognizing a catastrophe, Captain Bedee sprang from his chair, climbed over some rows, bolted past the orchestra footlights, and crossed the stage in the direction in which the man had disappeared. A scream shattered the mounting noise: ‘They’ve got him!’ Bedee presumed the assassin was caught. Another scream, this time from Mrs. Lincoln: ‘My husband is shot!’ A doctor was called for. Captain Bedee reeled around and bounded across the stage toward the box. As he was scaling the box, another man appeared and stated he was a physician.
“Captain Bedee stepped aside, pushed the doctor up to the railing, and followed directly behind.
“When Bedee and the surgeon reached the box, President Lincoln lay in his chair, his head tilted back as though he were asleep. The doctor searched for the wound. Seeking some evidence of blood or torn clothing, he started to remove Lincoln’s coat and unbutton his vest. Meanwhile, Chaplain Bedee was holding the president’s head. Suddenly he felt a warmth trickling into his hand. ‘Here is the wound, doctor,’ Captain Bedee said, as one of his fingers slid into the hole in the back of Lincoln’s head where the ball had only moments before forced an entry.
“During the removal of some of the president’s clothing, papers fell from his pocket. Mrs. Lincoln, apparently rational in spite of the shock, is said to have handed the packet to Captain Bedee, requesting, ‘You are an officer. Won’t you take charge of these papers?’
“By now others had gained entrance to the box through the door. One was a surgeon, who proceeded to work with his colleague on the president. When Lincoln was removed to the house across the street from the theater, Captain Bedee helped carry the dying man; he waited at the house until Secretary of War Edwin Stanton arrived soon afterward. Then Captain Bedee delivered the papers to the secretary, writing his own name and regiment upon the wrapper that Stanton placed around the documents. Secretary Stanton gave the captain two assignments: first, to go to the War Department with a message, and second, to contact the officer in command at Chain Bridge on matters dealing with the escaping assassin.”
Fremont Town Historian Joann Kilbury Spencer cast doubt on that tale: “I think some of which has been written about Bedee has been exaggerated to some degree by Bedee himself. Everyone seemed to claim at the time they were in Ford’s Theater the night of the assassination — people in those days were really caught up in their own self-importance and frequently blew themselves up bigger than they were, simply because many considered you a nobody if you weren’t in the upper class of society at that time.”
E.E. Bedee, an illegitimate son of an unmarried Sandwich woman and an unknown father, was born Edwin Elzaphan Beede. In order to hide his illegitimacy, Beede changed the spelling of his last name. According to a history of the 12th New Hampshire Regiment of Volunteers, Bedee was a printer before the Civil War. He enlisted in Albany, New York, and spent his first three months as an orderly sergeant before being promoted to second lieutenant. Later he was appointed a messenger in the citizens’ corps. Returning to Meredith, he joined New Hampshire’s 12th Regiment on August 18, 1852, as a sergeant-major, rising through the ranks to a major.
The 12th regiment was involved in some of the fiercest battles of the Civil War, including Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Cold Harbor, and the siege of Richmond. Bedee was wounded at Chancellorsville on May 3, 1863, and again on June 4, 1864. He was captured and made a prisoner at Bermuda Hundred, Virginia, on November 17, 1864. He was paroled on Feb. 22, 1865, made major on May 26, and mustered out June 21 as captain.
After the the war, Beede went to South Africa and made a fortune in the diamond fields. He sold his claims seven years later and set up as a diamond broker in Boston for several years.
In 1892, Beede gave Meredith a marble and granite statue of a Civil War veteran in uniform to perpetuate the memory of those who enlisted in the New Hampshire’s 12th.
Beede died in Plymouth on January 13, 1908, and is buried in the Meredith Village Cemetery.
Lakes Region Monuments
Alton: Its monument is “dedicated to the memory of those who enlisted from Alton in the War of 1861-65. Died in defense of their country and sleep in unknown graves. Erected by M.H. Savage Post GAR.” Three sides of the monument then go on to list the names of the deceased and where they died.
Ashland: The town actually has two Civil War monuments. The oldest was erected by the Grand Army of the Republic OW Keyes Post and dedicated to the unknown dead of the Civil War. It is tall and narrow with a very simple inscription: “GAR / 61-65 / Unknown”. A second memorial is inscribed “Lincoln” and “In memory of the soldiers of Ashland in the War 1861-1865”.
Bristol: The US government gave the Bristol GAR post a surplus Civil War naval mortar from the USN Orvette for use as a monument in 1896. It was placed on a granite base in Central Square in 1897 and was formally dedicated on November 4, 1898. When the square was redesigned in 2012, the mortar was moved and, embarrassingly, the cannonballs were mounted on the wrong side of the mortar. A dozen years later, the mistake has not been corrected.
Center Barnstead: Dedicated on September 23, 1911, Center Barnstead’s monument depicts a uniformed Civil War soldier who may be Colonel Henry W. Blair. The man, with a mustache and beard, stands dressed in boots, socks, a hip-length jacket, and a hat with a wide brim. He holds the muzzle of his rifle in front of him, and a bedroll is slung over his left shoulder. The sculpture is mounted on a block of polished dark granite. At the time, the sculpture cost about $1,500 and was installed under the auspices of the Grand Army of the Republic, the Women’s Relief Corps, and the citizens of Barnstead “in memory of the soldiers and sailors who served in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the Civil War.” It bears a later inscription honoring those who served during World War I. In addition to public donations, the town of Barnstead appropriated $300 toward the project.
Tamworth: The town has erected a series of memorials listing those who died in various wars, including the Civil War. They stand together in Veterans Park.
Tilton: Citizens of Tilton and Northfield got together to erect a Soldier’s Monument in 1889. The copper soldier it depicts had become badly tarnished, but recently was cleaned and polished to restore its luster.
Wolfeboro: The town’s Civil War monuments states that it was “Erected to the memory of the loyal men of Wolfeboro who served in the War of 1861-1865 by grateful citizens”.