The fall of Fort Sumter produced a profound sensation in Lowell. Four
companies from the city hastened to join their regiment: the Mechanic
Phalanx, under command of Captain Albert S. Follansbee; the City Guards,
Captain James W. Hart; the Watson Light Guard, Captain John F. Noyes,
and the Lawrence Cadets (National Grays), Captain Josiah A. Sawtelle.
They assembled at Huntington Hall, the day after President Lincoln's
call for troops, and were mustered into the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment
under command of Colonel Edward F. Jones. They at once proceeded to
Boston and were joined at Faneuil Hall by the other companies of the
regiment and the next day were on their way to the seat of war. A
detachment of the regiment had to fight their way through a mob in
Baltimore, and four of the Lowell City Guards were the first to lay down
their lives in the great drama of war known as the Rebellion. Addison
O. Whitney and Luther C. Ladd, of Lowell, were the first martyrs; their
last resting-place is commemorated by a monument in a public square of
the city. The regiment arrived at Washington, were quartered in the
Senate Chamber, and formed the nucleus of the rapidly gathering Northern
army. The Hill Cadets, under Captain S. Proctor, and the Richardson
Light Infantry, Captain Phineas A. Davis, were formed the day after the
Baltimore riot. The company known as the Abbott Grays, under Captain
Edward Gardner Abbott, was organized five days later. That called the
Butler Rifles was organized May 1, by Eben James and Thomas O'Hare.

[Illustration: FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, 1860.]

While these active preparations for war were progressing, Judge Crosby
called a public meeting, April 20, at which the Pioneer Soldiers' Aid
Association, the germ of the Sanitary Commission, was formed. The city
government was liberal, too, in its appropriations for the families of
absent soldiers. In September, Camp Chase, a military rendezvous, was