Description
Carte view identified as John H. Hammond of the 1st Rhode Island Light Artillery. John would muster with the hard fighting “Battery A” in June of 1861. Equipped with 6 thirteen-pounder James rifles, the battery’s first and only fight of 1861, would come during the Battle of Bull Run, fighting on Matthew’s Hill. The following spring they would join in the Peninsula Campaign, fighting at Yorktown, Fair Oaks, Seven Days before Richmond and Malvern Hill in July, 1862. John would be wounded at Fair Oaks where he received a bullet wound through both an arm and leg. Sent to the hospital, he would remain there until being discharged for his wounds in September. That December, John would be commissioned a lieutenant in the Rhode Island Hospital Guards at the Lovell General Hospital located at Portsmouth Grove, Rhode Island. Following the establishment of the Lovell General Hospital, it was found necessary to maintain a military police force to preserve internal order and to prevent intrusion from outside. In the organization of the company, able-bodied men were not permitted to be recruited. It was required that any man that was selected, had been previously disabled in the field, yet were still fit for garrison duty. From the official history of the Rhode Island Volunteer Hospital Guards, “Captain Blanding had been lieutenant-colonel of the Third Rhode Island Heavy Artillery, and had been disabled for field service by disease contracted in Georgia and South Carolina. Lieutenant William S. Chase, who had served as Captain in the Fourth Rhode Island, had been wounded in the face at the Battle of Newberne, and Lieutenant John H. Hammond had been shot through the arm and leg in the Battle of Fair Oaks, while serving in the First Rhode Island Light Artillery”. This view dates to his time serving in that capacity. He would continue to serve as lieutenant of the Hospital Guards until his discharge in August of 1865. This one is back marked out of Portsmouth as well.
