The Thirteenth New Hampshire Regiment was formed as a result of President Abraham Lincoln's call for 300,000 volunteers on July 1, 1862, when Union General George McClellan's initiative to capture Richmond failed during the Seven Days' Battles of the Peninsula Campaign. The Thirteenth enlisted men from the entire state of New Hampshire. Rockingham, Hillsborough, and Strafford counties supplied two companies each, while Merrimack, Grafton, Carroll, and Coos counties supplied one company each.1
Company F was comprised of men from Strafford County. Sixty-four enlistees were from Barrington, while the remainder hailed from Nottingham and Strafford. Captain Lewis Buzzell of Barrington was instrumental in raising and recruiting this company, and trained them on a field in West Barrington. After training he marched his recruits to Concord where they mustered in as Company F.2
The Thirteenth received basic training at Camp Colby near the state capital of Concord. Upon arrival at camp each recruit received a woolen blanket, a rubber blanket, a knife, a fork, a spoon, a tin plate, and a tin dipper.3
References:
1S. Millett Thompson, Thirteenth Regiment of New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry in the War of the Rebellion, 1861-1865 : A Diary Covering Three Years and a Day (Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1888), 1.
2Morton H. Wiggin, A History of Barrington, N.H. (Barrington, N.H.: Joan Wiggin, 1966), 100.
3Thompson, Thirteenth Regiment of New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry, 2.
