THE CIVIL WAR. 503 



the Pequot, August 30, 1863. Robert Lorenzo Curtis, a 

 sailor in the Flag from December 28, 1862, was discharged 

 at the Navy Yard, Philadelphia, February 15, 1865. 

 Williavi J. Couillard was a sailor in the Antony from 

 August 20, 1863, being discharged in August, 1864; he 

 reenlisted in November for twelve months. 



The account of marine enlistments ought not to end 

 without some reference to the Cohasset men * who were 

 engaged under private contract to do wrecking for the 

 government near the mouth of the Potomac. Captain 

 Loring Bates in 1862 took the schooner Sarah Young 

 with the three divers, Israel C. Vinal, Joseph Battles^ 

 and Michael Brennock, besides the seamen Levi Creed, 

 Lorenzo Bates, Joseph Richardson, Joseph Willcutt, and 

 others, going to Fortress Monroe. 



They examined the sunken Cumberland off Newport 

 News and reported on her condition. The Whitehall 

 also, blown up by the Merrimac, was searched and her 

 guns recovered. General Butler's Greyhound at the 

 mouth of James River was also raised. For two or three 

 years these men were busy for the government saving 

 stuff from sunken craft and clearing rudders and doing 

 all such marine work. 



But who can tell of all the persons who contributed in 

 one way or another to the success of our nation in her 

 great struggle .'' Even the women at hom^e had an im- 

 portant work of sending comforts to the soldiers. When 

 lint was needed for dressing wounds in the early part of 

 the war, a number of our women gathered daily in the 

 engine house upon Main Street and there scraped pieces 

 of linen with case knives, making bunches of soft fibers 

 to send to the hospitals at the front. f Anxieties almost 



* Captain Joseph H. Smith was in the employ of the government, raising 

 sunken ships. One of his apparatuses for fastening chains around a submerged 

 craft is shown in the historical collection. 



tOne of the Cohasset girls, Helen A. Bates, afterwards Mrs. Brigham, became 

 in later years the president of the Massachusetts Department of the Woman's 

 Relief Corps, thus continuing the kindly services to our nation's soldiers. 



