Camp Meigs
Camp Meigsis a formerAmerican Civil Wartraining camp that existed from 1862 to 1865 inReadville, Massachusetts.[1]It was combined from the formerCamp Brigham(formed to train the18th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry)[2][3]andCamp Massasoit(formed to train the24th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry)[4][5]and trained the54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry,among others. The 54th regiment was one of the first official African-American units in the United States during the Civil War. The former camps were merged into Camp Meigs in August 1862.[6]
Other units that trained there include the11th,43rd,44th,45th,47th,48th,55th,56th,58th,59th,60thand62ndregiments of infantry; the1st,2nd,4thand5thregiments of cavalry; the2ndregiment of heavy artillery; and the5th,9th,11th,12th,13th,14th,and16thbatteries of light artillery.[6]The 6th, 18th, 22nd, 23rd, 24th, and 26thUnattached Companies Massachusetts Volunteer Militiawere also at the camp during the war.[7]It was the busiest training camp in Massachusetts.[6]
In 1869, the land was obtained by the Norfolk Agricultural Association, improved upon, and ultimately became theReadville Race Track.On December 12, 1915, the newly formedSturtevant Aeroplane Companytested its new A-3 Battleplane prototype on the Readville field, becoming the first American airplane engineered specifically for air combat.[8]The A-3 was designed byGrover C. Loening,most recently the Army’s aeronautical engineer at San Diego and hired by Sturtevant. TheBattleplanefeatured a water-cooled 140 hp Sturtevant V-8 engine with two removable 8-foot × 2.5-footnacellespositioned mid-wing for machine gunners to fire outside the propeller arc. The test flight was piloted by Lt. Byron Jones.
By World War II, the site was largely abandoned, although U.S. Navy pilots from Squantum Naval Air Station flying theirStearman biplaneswould practice "touch and go" landings on the remnants of the old oval track.[9]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^"Boston Harbor I - Camp Meigs".American Forts Network.Retrieved15 July2020.
- ^"Boston Harbor I - Camp Brigham".American Forts Network.Retrieved13 July2020.
- ^Schouler, William(1868).A History of Massachusetts in the Civil War.Boston: E.P. Dutton & Co. p. 189–190.
- ^Miller, Richard F. (2012).States at War, Volume 1: A Reference Guide for Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont in the Civil War.Hanover: University Press of New England. p. 339.ISBN978-1611683240.
- ^Schouler 1868,pp. 191–192.
- ^abcBrowne, Patrick (May 2015)."Civil War Training Camps in Massachusetts, Part One".Historical Digression.
- ^Higginson, Thomas Wentworth (State Historian) (1896).Massachusetts in the Army and Navy During the War of 1861-65, Vol I.Boston, MA: Wright and Potter Printing Co, State Printers. pp. 319–326.
- ^"Sturtevant Aeroplane Co".
- ^"Sturtevant Aviation History".
External links
[edit]
- Emilio, Luis F.(1891)."Readville Camp".History of the Fifty-Fourth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 1863-1865.Boston: The Boston Book Co. pp. 19–34.
- Hubbard, Charles E. (1882)."Camp-Life at Readville".The Campaign of the Forty-Fifth Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer Militia.Boston: J. S. Adams. pp. 1–19.
- Doyle, Dennis (December 2014)."Camp Meigs and the U. S. General Hospital at Readville, MA".Milton Historical Society.
42°13′50.13″N71°8′3.00″W/ 42.2305917°N 71.1341667°W
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