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316 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.

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 established at Lowell.

Among the first, and most distinguished, of the citizens of Lowell to offer his services to the general government at this crisis, was General Benjamin F. Butler, already a lawyer and orator of great reputation, who had previously held high rank in the militia.