Harvard memorial biographies ...

yohn Hodges.

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JOHN HODGES.
Private 8th Mass. Vols. (Infantry), April 17- August I, 186I; First Lieutenant 19th Mass. Vols., August 27, 1861-June 19, 1862; Major 5oth Mass.
Vols., November 8, 1862; Lieutenant-Colonel 59th Mass. Vols., February
7, 1864; killed at Petersburg, Va., July 30, 1864.
JOHN HODGES, JR. was born in Salem, Massachusetts,
Decenber 8, 1841, the son of John and Mary Osgood (Deland) Hodges. He attended school in his native city until
August, 1858, when he entered Harvard College as a Freshman. The coming national storm had already increased the
interest in military matters in Massachusetts, and this rather
interfered with his scholastic progress. In the middle of his
Junior year he left college to return no more. The degree
which he afterwards received was a compliment to his patriotism and success.
Previous to the war he joined as a private the Salem Light
Infantry, better known as the Salem Zouaves, where an unusually high standard of discipline was enforced and an uncommon proficiency attained. The rules of the company were
rigid to the extreme, and Hodges showed his aptitude for true
soldiership by the readiness with which he obeyed. When the
first call for troops was issued in April, 1861, he eagerly hailed
the opportunity. His company was attached to the Eighth
Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, as right flank company, being
detached from its proper regiment, the Seventh, for that purpose. There was much hard work and exposure to try the
fortitude of the young soldier during those first three months
of real service, though the regiment did not take part in any
engagement.
This campaign resembled a protracted picnic rather than the
stern realities of war, so soon to follow. Floral decorations,
flag presentations, boxes and visits from friends, and one enormous wedding-cake, varied the monotony and relieved the
hardships of camp life in very essential particulars. More no