This is a great, wartime, identified and inscribed solid silver bugle made by D.C. Hall of Boston, standing 16 ½ inches tall with its silvered brass mouthpiece in place. The tube is the correct Civil War style single coil, relatively uniform in diameter throughout making it something more of a trumpet for the technically minded, with ferrules joining sections and securing the mouthpiece, and a floating garland on the bell. See Chris Nelson’s still classic article on Civil War bugles in North-South Trader 29.4 (2003) for an overview of the subject, which also shows a similar bugle, though of brass, made by another Boston maker (E.G. Wright,) that uses not only the same trumpet style tubing, but the same European style thumbscrew and split-C clamp tuning adjustment for the mouthpiece.

The bugle is free of dents or dings, has a beautiful bright finish (only the mouthpiece shows some rubbing to its silver wash at the bottom,) and crisp, fully legible engraving on the bell reading, “D.C. HALL, / Manufacturer, / BOSTON” in a mix of block lettering and Old English, with short flourishes at top and bottom, all within a nicely rendered wreath with knot at bottom. Just below this (with the bell upwards) is additionally engraved, “G.N. Seaman / 24^th / MASS VOLS.” with flourishes around the name, both name and unit in script and the lower line in block letters.

According to Bazelon, Hall was in business in Boston by 1859 as “Musician House,” in business with J.L. Allen as musical instrument makers at 334 Washington Street by 1861, and at that address on his own in 1863 and at 112 Congress St. from 1864 to 1866. After that date he was partner in Hall & Quimby until 1876 and then on his own again off and on until his death in 1900. George Nicholas Seaman was born 9/29/1846, making him just fourteen when enlisted in the 24^th Mass on 9/17/1861 and just fifteen when he mustered into Co. F as a musician on 10/2/1861, giving his age as 16 and listing himself as a student. Given that even his stated age was under the age limit he must have had a parent or guardian give permission, though his family situation is unclear and some sources have him living with a family named Foster. In any case, every company muster roll from the time of his enlistment to his discharge on 9/18/1864 at the expiration of his term of service lists him as present, and the regiment saw plenty of action.

The 24^th Massachusetts, nicknamed the New England Guards Regiment, was principally officered by men with service in the old 4^th Battalion Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, the “New England Guards Battalion,” with the men mustering in as they arrived in camp at Readville, MA, starting in September 1861. They took part in Burnside’s Coastal Expedition, leaving for Annapolis in early December and sailing for the North Carolina coast in early January, fighting and taking losses at Roanoke in February and Newbern in March, followed by expeditions to Little Washington and up the Neuse River, and Tranter’s Creek. Part of the regiment was in the siege of Little Washington. Seaman’s company seems to have been among those on the Tarboro Expedition, fighting at Rawle’s Mill and Batchelder’s Creek, with losses, in November and the Goldsboro Expedition in December with action at Kinston, Whitehall and Goldsboro. The regiment was sent to South Carolina in January 1863, and posted to Beaufort, Seabrook Island (Edisto Inlet,) James Island, with fighting at Secessionville, and Morris Island with the assault and siege of Fort Wagner, and the taking of forts Wagner and Gregg. In late 1863 it was sent to St. Augustine, FL, with part of the regiment at Jacksonville, taking part in a reconnaissance on the St. Johns and a skirmish at near St. Augustine. In May the regiment was reunited at Yorktown, VA, and saw more action in Butler’s operations south of the James against Petersburg and Richmond, fighting at Port Walthall Junction, Chester Station, Swift Creek, Fort Darling, at Drewry’s Bluff, where it lost 11 killed and 54 wounded or missing, and Deep Bottom, losing more than 100, including 20 killed or mortally wounded. From Aug. 26 to Sept. 28 it was in the Petersburg lines, during which time Seaman mustered out at the expiration of his term of service. During the regiment’s wartime service, mostly in the 18^th and 10^th Corps, it lost 7 officers and 90 enlisted men killed or mortally wounded, and many others wounded, but recovered to some degree, the vast majority suffered in battles fought while Seaman was a member of the regiment.

Two specific occasions seem likely for Seaman’s acquisition of the bugle. The first after regimental bands were abolished in Fall 1862, that is: men who had been mustered in specifically as members of a regimental band were discharged. Company musicians, like Seaman, remained. The regimental history states that upon their return to Boston, members of the band held a concert, proceeds of which were used, “for the equipping of a band to be drawn from the enlisted men of the regiment.” A second possible occasion was Seaman’s appointment as “Post Bugler” on November 11, 1863. This was while the regiment was stationed at St. Augustine, and this point in time might also be appropriate since the January-February 1864 muster roll lists him as, “Orderly to Col. Osborn.” It thus looks very much as if he was serving as regimental bugler at the time and silver bugle might be appropriate to that status or at least for Colonel’s orderly. This would put him in the center of action on the battlefield, though the regimental history makes clear in any case that musicians in the regiment served under fire, helping the wounded off the battlefield, some reluctant member of the band receiving, “a positive and direct statement as to their duties” to that effect from the Colonel in 1862.

As a final note on Seaman’s wartime service, he may have been involved in one of the more solemn experiences of the regiment. In late July 1864 near Deep Bottom a Confederate deserter entered the lines where the 24^th happened to be posted. A “drummerboy” of Company F confirmed his identity as a former member of the company, who had been sent to prison in 1862, escaped and later, it turned out, joined the Confederate Army and had the sheer bad luck to enter Union lines, in hopes of being sent north, exactly where his old unit happened to be temporarily posted. Members of the company formed his firing squad about two weeks later.

Seaman entered the mercantile business after the war in the Boston area, though some sources place him in Detroit in the millinery business later. He apparently married in 1870, divorced and later remarried in 1902. His first marriage produced at least one child, a son; his second seems to have produced a daughter. An 1891 passport application indicates he traveled on business or pleasure. He died in 1904 at St. Croix, now the U.S. Virgin Islands, and he is buried there under a government tombstone.

This is a great looking bugle, with a wonderful inscription, and a lot of history.  [sr] [ph:L]

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