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CIVIL WAR SOLDIER’S STENCIL OF SHEPHERD B. CRAM - 17th N.H. CONSOLIDATED WITH THE 2nd NEW HAMPSHIRE BEFORE GETTYSBURG

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Civil War items don’t get much more personal or identifiable than a soldier’s stencil. These were commercial products marketed to soldiers and to their friends and family as a considerate parting gift for a new recruit. These were made by punching the soldier’s information through a thin sheet of brass or white metal that was then folded over a sturdier metal frame and usually came supplied with a small bottle of black ink and a small brush with which to apply it. This one is in excellent shape and reads, “S.B. CRAM / DALTON. N.H. / Co. A. 17^th.N.H.V.” having belonged to Shepherd B. Cram (sometimes recorded as “Shepard,” and even “Stephen,” and with his last name occasionally misread as “Crane.”) He enlisted in the regiment at Dalton, NH, Sept. 11, 1862, and mustered into Co. A as a private on Nov. 22. Cram shows up at age 4 in the 1850 census living with his parents and four siblings on a farm in Dalton and in the 1860 census at age 13, living on the Elijah Baker family farm, also in Dalton, perhaps working as a hired hand. He was reportedly born in Lancaster and may be the Cram child listed as born in New Hampshire April 1, 1846.

When he signed up he gave his age as 18, but we find Elijah Baker signing the consent form used for a minor, so there may have been some doubt. In any case, the regiment was one of three raised by congressional district in the state under an August 1862 call for troops. Unfortunately, recruits for the 17^th were siphoned off to the 15^th and 16^th regiments to bring them up to strength and leaving the 17^th undermanned and the regiment eventually failed of completion, with officers and NCOs discharged in the Spring, and some 94 enlisted men transferred to the 2^nd NH which was home on furlough at the time. Cram was among this group and officially transferred to Co. F of the 2^nd NH on April 16. The 2^nd NH went back to Washington on May 25, spent a couple of weeks in the city as part of the 22^nd Corps, and was then assigned to the 3^rd Brigade, 2^nd Division, 3^rd Army Corps in the Army of the Potomac. The new members of the unit had a brutal initiation to war when Sickles moved the corps forward on July 2 at Gettysburg, forming an attenuated salient on the Union left that was the focus of much of the fighting that day at Little Round Top, the Wheatfield, the Peach Orchard and other locations now famous.

The short regimental history in the state rosters of the regiment records the action as follows:

“At Gettysburg, July 2, the Second was, early in the action, detached from the brigade and reported to General Graham, First Brigade, Second Division. The regiment's desperate defense of the angle at Sherfy's peach orchard made that a historic point of the field. It took in 24 commissioned officers and 330 enlisted men. Three officers were killed and 18 wounded--4 mortally. Seventeen enlisted men were killed, 119 wounded, and 36 missing. The killed and mortally wounded aggregated 56.”

Cram is listed as dying of disease at Mount Pleasant Hospital in Washington on August 2 or what looks like perhaps August 21 in one record. Whether he was taken ill and hospitalized before or after the battle is unclear, but he was nevertheless a young volunteer who gave his life for the country.  [sr] [ph:L]

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