And Meredith Veterans’ Memorial Project Gets A Boost
MEREDITH — “He was seated in the second row on the left side of the theater in back of the orchestra — with a command view of President Abraham Lincoln watching the play. Because the audience was laughing at the acts on stage at the time, few heard the shot that came suddenly during the performance.
“Edwin Bedee, a captain in the Twelfth Regiment, New Hampshire Volunteers, stared in disbelief as a man vaulted from the president’s box onto stage. When Captain Bedee saw the man jump from the president’s box, his first reaction was to pursue the fleeing gunman. Instead, Bedee, like the rest, listened as John Wilkes Booth boldly uttered the incredible words, ‘Revenge for the South!’ Little did the captain know that he had just witnessed murder of one of America’s great presidents.
“Recognizing a catastrophe, Captain Bedee sprang from his chair, climbed over some rows, bolted past the orchestra footlights, and crossed the stage in the direction in which the man had disappeared. A scream shattered the mounting noise: ‘They’ve got him!’ Bedee presumed the assassin was caught. Another scream, this time from Mrs. Lincoln: ‘My husband is shot!’ A doctor was called for. Captain Bedee reeled around and bounded across the stage toward the box. As he was scaling the box, another man appeared and stated he was a physician.
“Captain Bedee stepped aside, pushed the doctor up to the railing, and followed directly behind.
“When Bedee and the surgeon reached the box, President Lincoln lay in his chair, his head tilted back as though he were asleep. The doctor searched for the wound. Seeking some evidence of blood or torn clothing, he started to remove Lincoln’s coat and unbutton his vest. Meanwhile, Chaplain Bedee was holding the president’s head. Suddenly he felt a warmth trickling into his hand. ‘Here is the wound, doctor,’ Captain Bedee said, as one of his fingers slid into the hole in the back of Lincoln’s head where the ball had only moments before forced an entry.
“During the removal of some of the president’s clothing, papers fell from his pocket. Mrs. Lincoln, apparently rational in spite of the shock, is said to have handed the packet to Captain Bedee, requesting, ‘You are an officer. Won’t you take charge of these papers?’
“By now others had gained entrance to the box through the door. One was a surgeon, who proceeded to work with his colleague on the president. When Lincoln was removed to the house across the street from the theater, Captain Bedee helped carry the dying man; he waited at the house until Secretary of War Edwin Stanton arrived soon afterward. Then Captain Bedee delivered the papers to the secretary, writing his own name and regiment upon the wrapper that Stanton placed around the documents. Secretary Stanton gave the captain two assignments: first, to go to the War Department with a message, and second, to contact the officer in command at Chain Bridge on matters dealing with the escaping assassin.”
So begins Bristol historian Charles E. Greenwood’s “He Saw Lincoln Shot: The story of an obscure captain in the Union Army who was both a witness to and a part of a historic tragedy.”
Another historian, from Fremont, had another take on the story: “I think some of which has been written about Bedee has been exaggerated to some degree by Bedee himself. Everyone seemed to claim at the time they were in Ford’s Theater the night of the assassination — people in those days were really caught up in their own self-importance and frequently blew themselves up bigger than they were, simply because many considered you a nobody if you weren’t in the upper class of society at that time.”
The man who called himself E.E. Bedee was born Edwin Elzaphan Beede, an illegitimate son of an unmarried Sandwich woman and an unknown father. In those days, people hid their illegitimacy, and by changing the spelling of his last name, Beede hoped to keep people from finding out. He was brought up by his grandfather in Meredith.
According to a history of the 12th New Hampshire Regiment of Volunteers, Bedee was a printer before the Civil War. He enlisted in Albany, New York, and spent his first three months as an orderly sergeant before being promoted to second lieutenant. Later he was appointed a messenger in the citizens’ corps. Returning to Meredith, he joined New Hampshire’s 12th Regiment on August 18, 1852, as a sergeant-major, rising through the ranks to a major.
The 12th regiment was involved in some of the fiercest battles of the Civil War, including Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Cold Harbor, and the siege of Richmond. Bedee was wounded at Chancellorsville on May 3, 1863, and again on June 4, 1864. He was captured and made a prisoner at Bermuda Hundred, Virginia, on November 17, 1864. He was paroled on Feb. 22, 1865, made major on May 26, and mustered out June 21 as captain.
After the the war, Beede went to South Africa and made a fortune in the diamond fields. He sold his claims seven years later and set up as a diamond broker in Boston for several years.
In 1892, Beede gave Meredith a marble and granite statue of a Civil War veteran in uniform to perpetuate the memory of those who enlisted in the New Hampshire’s 12th.
Beede died in Plymouth on January 13, 1908, and is buried in the Meredith Village Cemetery.
Veterans’ Memorial Project
The Civil War statue by the town library that Beede donated to Meredith is the only veterans’ memorial to remain intact through the years. A wooden World War I sign erected in 1918 fell into disrepair and was removed. A wooden WWII sign, erected in 1946, was repaired many times, but is deteriorating. A tree was planted on library grounds to honor veterans of the Korean Conflict, but it had to be removed when it became diseased. There is a “beautiful” POW monument in Hesky Park.
A group of volunteers working under the auspices of the local organization Humble Grunt Work wants to build a new, permanent memorial that would list all of Meredith’s veterans. The town currently gives no recognition to those who fought in the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Spanish-American War, Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Grenada, the Persian Gulf War, and the conflicts since 9/11. Even Beede’s Civil War monument does not list those who served from Meredith.
The group estimates that the cost of erecting a permanent memorial with all those names will be as much as $250,000. While fundraising is expected to cover much of the cost, a unanimous vote to support the project at the Meredith Town Meeting ensured the project’s success. Voters agreed to provide as much as needed, up to the $250,000 limit, using money from the town’s unassigned fund balance. Because the fund balance is money previously raised and not used, the town will not be raising any new money from taxation.
In speaking on behalf of the volunteers, Fred Strader invoked Beede’s name while describing the need for a new memorial.
He said the memorial will be made of granite or granite and bronze and placed on the library lawn, with an accessible walkway from Main Street, also leading to the library’s new front ramp.
“Future Memorial Day and Veterans Day programs can be held at this memorial, which will also feature a flagpole,” Strader said.
The group has raised $100,000 so far, and will be selling memorial pavers for the walkway as another way to come up with the money and reduce the town’s share.
“These are veterans and all of them deserve to be noted and recognized,” Strader said.
This story originally appeared in the Laconia Daily Sun.