During his time with the 27th Maine, Private Charles W. Gooch, of Company I, wrote over fifty letters to his wife Julia, back home in Kennebunk, Maine. The following is a letter he wrote to her on the 30th of March, 1863. I've transcribed it as written, with lack of punctuation and spelling errors included.

The following is a letter written by Alonzo P. Moulton of Co. H, 27th Maine Infantry, to his sister Lucy E. (Moulton) Perry of Cornish, Maine. The envelope was postmarked on Dec 25th 1862, at Alexandria, VA. 
[I left spelling errors as is. There were no periods to break up the sentences so I did add a few to help in reading this. Some lines did have either a question mark or exclamation point, but hard to tell the difference.]

                                                                               Camp Vermont Dec 24   [1862]

Dear Sister
   I received your kind letter to day and as I have not much to do this afternoon I will write to you. I am as well as common all excepting one thing and that is I cant speak one word. I got cold out on picket and had a sore throat the cold has left me now but I cant talk any only whisper I can do that as well as once my throat is not sore now and I dont see why I cant speak do you? It has been two weeks since I spoke one word but I guess that I shall get well of it soon I hope so any way for it is not very pleasant to have to talk in a whisper all of the time I guess that it is nothing but hoarseness.
   I have heard of quite a number that has been takin the same way that was out here in the army and some of them did not get over it untill they went home? I dont have to do any duty now but I had rather be all right and do duty than to be as I am now if I dont get any better I shall stand a chance to get sent home before long but I think I had rather stop and run any risk than to leave the boys although it is a pretty hard show but as long as I am well I am good for it you now(?) We have moved since you heard from me before we are down the lines further now and about 12 miles from Washington and two miles from Alandra [Alexandria] and about five miles from Mount Vernon. I have not been down yet but mean to as soon as I can. I passed the house that Col Elsworth was killed in the other day ! dont you think we got winter quarters most all done at Camp Seward and had to leave then that was so bad I think? We have got the worst place for a camp ground that you ever saw all around with stumps but it is quite a sitely place as it is so near the Potomac that we can see all of the shipping that passes. We saw one of the gun boats pass down the river this morning the men that stood on it looked just as though they stood on the top of water they said that it was the monitor it had been up to Washington! I must close now!  you must not worry about me for I shall come out all right!
                                                                      Your loveing Brother Alonzo
[written on top of first page, sideways, but reads like he added to original letter]
I dont know as you can read this for there is not a drop of ink in the camp so I have to write with a pencil. We have not got any captain yet nor chaplain. I guess that Eld Russell will be chaplain I hope so

Pg 1 note: Alonzo writes (in sideways notation on top) that "we" have no captain or chaplain. Capt. Henry Snow of Company H had resigned in Nov '62, as he had wanted to be the regimental chaplain (he was a minister in Cornish), but not getting the approval of the other officers, quit instead. "Eld Russell" was Otis F. Russell, a corporal in Co. H, who was a Freewill Baptist minister before joining the service. He would get the promotion on Jan 30th, 1863.

Pg 3 note: "Col Elsworth" - Col. Elmer E. Ellsworth was the first Union officer killed during the war, while attempting to take down a Confederate flag atop the Marshall House in Alexandria, Virginia (24 May 1861).

Alonzo P. Moulton survived the war, and went on to reenlist with the 2nd Maine Cavalry in Oct 1864, serving for a year. A lifelong resident of Parsonsfield, he married Mary E. Towle after the war, had four children, and lived as a farmer in South Parsonsfield. He died in 1885, and was buried in the Maplewood Cemetery.

The Civil War veterans of the 27th Maine (with their honored guests and family) held an annual reunion on the 27th of August (unless it fell on a Sunday), beginning in 1882. This recent purchase brought to light the fact that Company C, which had been raised in Buxton and Hollis, also held their own reunions.

Their first meeting was held on Saturday, Jan. 14th, 1893, at the Knights of Pythias Hall in Buxton Center, where a permanent organization was formed. Captain Joseph F. Warren was elected President, Henry A. Chadbourne, Vice-Pres., James M. Hopkinson, Secretary, and John Martin, treasurer. 17 former members of the Company were present during the afternoon business meeting.
[see write-up in the Biddeford Weekly Journal, Jan. 20, 1893, pg 2] 

The above postcard was addressed to "B A Dow" of Standish Maine. The postmark is smudged, but was in Sept. 1899, and would have been for the seventh annual reunion. This man, Benjamin Ayer Dow, was not a 27th Maine veteran, but belonged to the 17th Maine Infantry, and apparently was an invited guest.

The Biddeford Weekly Journal, at times, would mention these reunions in their Buxton notes. They were still active in 1907, when a meeting was written about in the Sept. 20th issue of the newspaper. It was noted that, out of 100 men in Company C, 30 were left, and 11 were present at the annual reunion.

It was June, 1863. General Lee and his rebel forces had invaded Pennsylvania, and the Army of the Potomac was marching to intercept them, clearing the land around Washington, D.C. of troops. The 27th Maine, their nine-months of service expiring on the 30th, were anxiously awaiting orders to head north for home.

The following morning, Col Wentworth formed his regiment together in a square around him and read the request. Capt. Bryant, Co. I, wrote in his journal that they "formed in line, and all willing to stay were requested to step out in front". At first count, 176 men stepped forward. Throughout the day, others would change their mind, until there were 300 volunteers. That evening, the others began packing up and Major Hill, who had volunteered his services, was instead asked to lead the rest of the regiment to the train station. Col Fessenden and his 25th Regiment, who had chosen not to stay behind, left for home as well.

On Wednesday, 1 July 1863, Col Wentworth and his volunteers reported to Brig Gen'l DeRussey, who was commanding the defenses around Washington, at his headquarters in the Arlington House. Where they encamped for the next three days is unknown, but was somewhere along the Arlington Heights.

On the afternoon of Saturday, the 4th, the results of the Battle of Gettysburg were announced, and the order received to march for Washington. That evening, the train left for Portland, Maine. They arrived there on the 6th, and went back into camp. They would be mustered out over a week later, on the 17th of July.

It was not until the following Sept that Secretary Stanton began the process of preparing the medals for the 27th Maine men. E. D. Townsend, the Ass't Adjutant General, instead of procuring a list of the 300 volunteers who actually stayed behind, had created one from the muster out rolls, a list containing 864 men! He sent it along to clerk John Potts of the War Dep't, who sent it to Wm Wilson & Son, the manufacturers of the medal.  

On 26 Jan 1865, the office of the Adjutant General sent the medals to Gov. Cony of Maine. He wrote to Mark Wentworth on the 30th, inquiring what all the medals were about. The colonel replied on Feb 2nd, explaining the situation, and asked the governor to forward them to Kittery, and he would take charge in distributing them to his former soldiers.

The medals were sent out, or hand delivered, to the volunteers who were on Wentworth's list, through (at least) May of 1865. An article printed in the May 24th Lewiston Evening Journal wrote that "they have just been distributed", the author stating they had just seen the one awarded to Capt. Jeremiah Plumer of Co. F. The over five hundred "extra" medals not meant for distribution were supposedly sent back to Augusta, but were again returned to Wentworth, who stored them away. The whereabouts of those unawarded medals...well, that's for another entry.

See also (pages on this site):
312 (pages from the History of the Twenty-Seventh Maine)
Medal of Honor List (comparing the 312 list with the 299 one)
Blog: A Medal Found (One of the undistributed medals found on a Wells beach)

On Family Search: a checklist, from the Maine State Archives, likely the one Wentworth used in distributing the medals to the volunteers: the 299 list
​

General Orders, No. 195, was issued by the Adjutant General's Office of the War Department, under orders of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, on the 29th of June, 1863 [General Orders of the War Department, 1861-1863: Vol 2, pg 219-220]. This order would hit the local newspapers in a few days, and nationwide within a few weeks. The message would carry headlines such as "Medals for Volunteers", "Medals of Honor for Soldiers", etc. An "appropriate" medal of honor was being offered for troops choosing to remain beyond their expiration of service, as well as for those troops who volunteered to defend Pennsylvania and Maryland "in the present emergency", ie. the "Pennsylvania Emergency", or the invasion of the north by the Confederate Army. 

On the same day (the 29th), Daniel Somes entered the camp of the 27th Maine, bringing with him the request from Sec. Stanton and the President, asking both the 25th and 27th Regiments to remain behind a few days [see Medal of Honor blog].

Two weeks prior to this, General Lee had entered Pennsylvania. Sec. Stanton contacted New York State's Gov. Seymour, asking him to raise 20,000 volunteers from the state militia and rush them to Harrisburg. Nearly 14 thousand were raised, 12k of which were on the march the following day. With the Army of the Potomac a few days behind the rebel army, the guardsmen wouldn't have fared well had General Lee attacked Harrisburg. 

Meanwhile, the 27th New Jersey Infantry (a nine-month regiment) was due to reach the end of their service on the 19th of June, and had been ordered to proceed home from Kentucky. Gen. Burnside, on the 17th, sent a telegram to Stanton, telling him that the 27th N.J., currently with him in Cincinnati, Ohio, had volunteered to stay on one more month and had been sent to Pittsburg, PA.[telegram in the Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 6]. They then proceeded onto Harrisburg, guarding the bridge there on the 26th. The city deemed safe from an attack, they returned home for mustering out on July 2nd.

Fast forward to the 1870's. The war was long over, and the 27th Maine was the only regiment to receive their medals. But, what of the other units who also volunteered?

On behalf of the New York militia volunteers, the Legislature in NY passed a resolution on 9 Apr 1876, urging the Federal government to keep its word. Three years later, Thomas C. Reed of the 27th NJ Inf. requested a medal for his volunteer service based on G.O. 195, but was told that no funds had ever been appropriated for those medals promised in 1863, and so rejected his claim. He tried again in 1884, and the Medal of Honor was issued to him on 17 May of that year. Upon hearing this, four other soldiers from his New Jersey regiment also applied and received their medals [A Shower of Stars, pg 110].

On 12 May 1896, the House Committee of Military Affairs agreed to a resolution in authorizing the issuing of the medals, and funds were set aside for this purpose, but nothing more came out of this. Even the Assistant Secretary of War, in May 1896, had no objection to carrying out the orders of GO 195, and had regretted that there had been such a long delay [Buffalo Evening News, 30 Jan 1900, pg 4].

During this time, however, there were numerous other requests for medals, not just because of the GO, but for other actions that took place during the war. There were talks of totally shutting down any awarding of medals months before the above resolution was spoke of. One chairman estimated they would need some 200,000 medals to cover all of the applications [The Indianapolis Journal, 16 Mar 1896].

The New York militia volunteers never did get their medals. When the purge came in 1916-1917, the five New Jersey veterans of the 27th Infantry were among those who also had their Medal of Honor revoked.