From right here in our area we have several lengthy published first-hand accounts of the Civil War, telling of bloody battles at Gettysburg and the Wilderness, of postings as far afield as Missouri, New Mexico, and the Dry Tortugas.

None of them traveled as far as a fellow whose diary has just been published by his great-great granddaughter Christine Friesel. “The Boys of Bath: The Civil War Diaries of Pvt. Charles Brother, USMC” brings us an unusual view of the war. Local men marched off to the army in thousands, but only a handful joined naval service.

Charley Brother came from a prominent Bath family – his father, a former county sheriff, was a stalwart of the Agricultural Society (which puts on the County Fair). Father and sons alike were active in business, and they lived in the house still standing at 110 West Morris Street. In 1862 Charley’s pals Josiah Gregg, Theodore Harris, and Phineas Towle went to Brooklyn Navy Yard to join the marines. Eighteen year-old Charley quickly joined them.

Nowadays the Marine Corps prides itself on intensive training, but that was pretty sketchy in 1862. On the evening of his first full day, a sergeant “took me in hand and put me through a few motions. Said I am competent to go into a squad he has been drilling some two or three weeks.” On November 4 the Bath contingent put to sea in U.S.S. Vanderbilt, originally a steam passenger liner donated by the millionaire.

They were enforcing the blockade of the Confederate coast, and searching for the commerce raider Alabama, getting trained in handling the ship’s guns (cannons) en route. Up till then Charley’s diary had included Bath, Corning, Elmira, Port Jervis, Manhattan, and Brooklyn. Now he sprinkles the names of Bermuda, Spain, the Azores, Jamaica, St. Thomas, Martinique, surely making him the most widely traveled of our Civil War diarists. What he does NOT mention is going ashore at any of these very interesting destinations. Warships were generally allowed only 24 hours in neutral ports, and many sailors liked the dream of tropical isles far better than they liked the reality of navy life. The smart captain kept well offshore, if he wanted to keep his crew.

In February Vanderbilt captured a blockade runner and Brother was told off to join the prize crew (even leaving his coat behind), and take the vessel into Key West. Now separated from his ship, he wound up back in Brooklyn, and was still there in July when “A great riot in opposition to the draft broke out… Twenty of us marines were ordered to fall in… with our belts and muskets. Were given thirty rounds of ball cartridges and marched over to New York.” The genocidal riot ran several days, but Brother’s detachment only needed bayonets once, to clear a park.

By August 5, 1864 he was aboard Admiral Farragut’s flagship, the Hartford, charging though a minefield into Mobile Bay. He was a message runner that day, giving him too good a view of “Men blown to pieces… Killed and wounded in every form…. Our cockpit looked like a slaughterhouse.” By sunset their sacrifice, and Farragut’s audacity, had closed one of the south’s few remaining ports.

On October 24, 1865, with the war almost six months over, Charley got off the train in Corning for breakfast. When he arrived in Bath, a walk of three or four minutes took him to his house, where “Mother and Father were at home.” The war would cast a shadow over the rest of his life. But all in all, it was a happy ending.

(“The Boys of Bath” is available in hardcover from Steuben County Historical Society at $33, plus $5 shipping if needed. Cash or check only – by mail or in person at One Conhocton Street, Bath, 14810. We’re glad we could help Christine in preparing the manuscript!)