CIVIL WAR MESS CHEST, COMPANY G 6th MASSACHUSETTS VOL. MILITIA

CIVIL WAR MESS CHEST, COMPANY G 6th MASSACHUSETTS VOL. MILITIA

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$3,950.00

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Item Code: 1202-869

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This Civil War mess chest was stenciled twice on the underside of the lid by William Boyd Tingley, the wagoner of Company G of the 6th Mass Volunteer Militia, who was probably charged with transporting it for the company officers. This measures 24” wide, 13-1/2” deep and 12-3/4” tall. There are two hinges on the back and a key lock in the front and there is a very faint label on the lower left of the lid that is likely a shipping label.

Officers had to supply or pay for their own rations, mess gear, etc., and usually combined resources on a company or other basis to form a mess. This contains a variety of gear and utensils: a long handled skillet, ladle, colander, and long-handled pot; a large coffee pot, and pot with hinged lid, 4 tinned iron plates, a canteen, a mess cup, small burner, 4 large spoons, 4 wood handled forks, a hinged metal box likely for the utensils, three smaller tinned iron cylinders with lids, two of which are labeled in raised letters as containing medicinal ointments; a wood, folding camp mirror; and, most essential, a coffee mill mounted on a board with its handle and brass plaque in place. The latter reading, “H. Wilson’s Improved Patent Coffee-Mill.”

The stencil reads: “W.B. TINGLEY / Co. G.6th. Regt.M.V.M.” William Boyd Tingley served in two of the regiment’s three activations for field service- their nine-month tour of duty from August 1862 to June 1863, and again during their one-hundred-day service from mid-July to late October 1864. Hanson’s “Historical Sketch” of the regiment does not list him in their first service when, at the forefront of the “Minutemen of 1861,” they were attacked by a mob in Baltimore while changing trains for Washington. Company G in that service was from Worcester, and while it is possible some of their gear, as regimental or personal property, made it into the company’s next embodiment as federal troops, the subsequent Company G appears to have been organized in Lowell in 1862 as the “Amateur Drill Club,” with some of its members then joining the regiment for its 1862 mobilization.

Tingley’s enlistment dates to 8/22/1862 and he was mustered into Company G of the 6th MVM for nine-month’s service as the company Wagoner on 8/31/62. He held the post until 6/3/63 when he mustered out of US service with the rest of the regiment at Lowell, Mass. When Tingley signed up for U.S. service again with the regiment on 7/15/64 he was mustered in for one-hundred days service as a member of Company G again, but was made a private instead of wagoner, which some records interpreted as a reduction in rank. His service record, however, indicates he was posted to the regimental headquarters from July 17 to September. It is thus likely another soldier had simply replaced him as company wagoner so that he could take on duties at the regimental HQ, perhaps even doing the same job, but for the regimental field and staff officers. In any case, he seems to have returned to his company in September and mustered out with the regiment on 10/27/1864 at Readville, Mass.

During their 100-days service the regiment was posted at Washington, in Fort C.F. Smith on Arlington Heights, and then transferred to Ft. Delaware, where they were on guard over some 7,000 Confederate prisoners of war. In their earlier 9-months service, while Tingley was with his company they saw some action. They were sent to Fortress Monroe and then campaigned in the Blackwater Region, seeing combat in particular at the Battle of Deserted House in January 1863, where CW Data says they lost 4 killed and 9 wounded, the Siege of Suffolk, with several wounded,  and the Battle of Carrsville, where they lost 2 killed, 14 wounded, and 9 prisoners.

Tingley was born in Buffalo, NY, in October 1837. In the 1860 census he is working on his family’s farm in Tewksbury, MA. In 1870 he is still in Tewksbury, but employed in a cabinet works and by 1880 was living in Providence, RI, working as a “drummer for drugs.” He had married in 1872, but apparently had no children, and passed away in Providence, RI, in September 1909.

This would make a very good addition to a camp display.  [sr][ph:L]

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