Researcher: Stephanie Twist

 

            Private Frank F. Hodges of the Massachusetts forty fifth regiment, Company C, was first entered into the Civil War at Camp Meigs, Reedville, September 26, 1862. There he was a part of the Union army of the Massachusetts Infantry (militia). The Regiment that he was assigned to moved to Morehead City, North Carolina, on a steam boat called "The Mississippi" on November 5th, 1862. It was called the "Cadet Regiment" where its field and line officers were taken from the first Massachusetts Corps Cadet, where they where recruited at camp Meigs, Reedville. They were mustered in for nine months between September 26th 1862 and October 28th 1862. The officers where from the Boston area and the immediate vicinity, with ranks from over two-hundred cities and towns. There where a total of forty officers and nine hundred and eighteen men, and in total they lost twenty men that where killed and twenty seven men by disease.

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          After Morehead City, the forty-fifth regiment left for Newbern, North Carolina, on November 5, 1862. When they all arrive they where assigned to Colonial Armory's Brigade; the seventeenth, the twenty-third, the forty-third, and the fifty-first Massachusetts Infantry remained inactive to December 12th 1862. All but Company C and G went on to the Goldsboro expedition where they actively engaged at Kinston and Whitehall. On December 16th, when they reached Whitehall where they where holding the North banks of the Neuse River. The Federals demonstrated against the confederates for much of the day, attempting to fix them in a position, while the main Union column continued toward the railroad. There was no action while they where at Goldsboro. 

 

          After the Goldsboro expedition, they headed for Trenton, North Carolina. After Trenton the Forty-fifth regiment moved to the expedition to Core Creek. They engaged at Dover Road and it was the end of there active Campaigning. They remained encamped in the neighborhood of Fort Spinola from April 28, 1863 to June 24, 1863. The forty-fifth regiment then broke camp and returned home, reaching Boston on June 30, 1863.