Father Fidelis Kent Stone and the Civil War
by Morgan P. Hanlon, C.P.
In the late Spring of 1861, young James Kent Stone (the future Father Fidelis Kent Stone) returned to the United States after a year spent studying at the University of Gottingen in Germany. He already had three years of Harvard College under his belt; and Harvard would honor the academic credits he had earned at Gottingen making him eligible, in a few weeks, to receive his Bachelor of Arts degree.
The country to which he returned was disintegrating with frightening rapidity. The Southern States had already withdrawn from the Union and fired upon the U.S. garrison at Fort Sumter. In April before Kent Stone had even reached American shores, Lincoln had called for 75,000 volunteers and the following month for 42,000 more. James (his family called him Jim) was probably looking forward at this point to getting settled at home and beginning a career. He was not overly eager to answer the call to arms, although there could be no question of his physical courage. In the summer of 1860, he had risked his neck and his life time and again in the Swiss Alps creating for himself an international reputation among mountaineers.
Once back in Brookline he accepted a teaching position in Dixwell's Private Latin School which he himself had once attended. He also renewed a friendship with the charming Cornelia Fay, a young parishioner of his father's at St. Paul Episcopal Church in Brookline Massachusetts—a friendship which very soon became a courtship.
A year went by in which things went from bad to worse for the North. Wounded veterans began to appear on Boston's streets; casualty lists were displayed to anxious throngs outside newspaper offices. On August 4, 1862 Lincoln called for 300,000 nine-month volunteers. Jim Stone could not hold back any longer. It was on that day that Jim and his 18 year old brother Henry ("Hal" to the family) enlisted together in the 2nd Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. They were given a week's grace to wind up their affairs and ordered to report to Camp Cameron, Cambridge, Massachusetts. At Cameron they were subjected, for only one week, to the Civil War equivalent of today's seven-week long Basic Infantry Training. Also, it was probably during this time that he became engaged to Cornelia Fay.
At the end of the week, Jim was made an acting-sergeant and ordered to deliver a draft of 90 other recruits to the Regiment which was then in Virginia resting after the Battle of Cedar Mountain. The brothers were assigned to Company "C" of the 2nd. Their arrival on August 19th was noted by the Chaplain of the Regiment, Rev. Alonzo Quint. In 1918 Fr. Fidelis would remember the event in a letter to his niece Sybil Stone: "Hal and I joined the Regiment just as it was going into bivouac after Cedar Mountain, & then we had a nice time of it for two weeks dodging the Confederates…" The 2nd Massachusetts did not dodge hard enough for on August 29th and 30th it fought at Second Bull Run where the Army of the Potomac once again took a beating from Stonewall Jackson.
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