Antietam: About my Connecticut death list

8th Connecticut Sgt. George Marsh of Hartford was killed, as the old  Hartford Daily Times
clipping story says below his image in this photo album, by the concussion of a  cannon ball  
during the Battle of Antietam. (Connecticut State Library collection)

Delving deeper into the story of Antietam the past several months, I became curious how many soldiers
from Connecticut actually died during the battle. Complete numbers are tricky to come by. About 150 men from the state were killed during the battle, including 8th Connecticut Sgt. George Marsh of Hartford, pictured above. Other soldiers, such as 16th Connecticut Capt. Frederick Barber and Pvt. James Brooks, died days and even weeks later from wounds they suffered during the fighting. Over the weekend, I decided the best way to get a grip on the total number of soldiers who died as a result of the fighting was to create an Excel spreadsheet  (It also is permanently linked in the All Antietam Posts box down the right side of the blog.) Most of the names come from the Catalogue of Connecticut Volunteer Organizations, an excellent resource. Published in 1869, the large volume includes among the regimental lists the names of soldiers who were killed or died as a result of their wounds at Antietam. I checked those lists carefully against other sources, including my own research, because some of the names in the Catalogue don't explicitly indicate a soldier was killed at Sharpsburg. At least one soldier who was killed at Antietam, 8th Connecticut lieutenant Marvin Wait, is not listed at all.

As I dig a little deeper, I expect to add more names to the spreadsheet, which I will periodically update and post on the blog. So far, I have a staggering 213 names. It brings even more meaning to this quote that appeared in the Hartford Courant on Oct. 13, 1862, about a month after the battle:: "It is seldom that we are called upon to bury so many braves in so short a space of time."

The spreadsheet categories include soldier's name, rank, regiment, company, residence, date of death, reason for death, place of death and burial site. The spreadsheet is sortable, so you may group by regiment, place of residence, etc. I also have linked out of the spreadsheet to stories or photos on my blog or elsewhere. I'll also add to those links periodically. I hope to make this the most comprehensive Antietam Connecticut death list available. If you see something amiss, send me an e-mail. Brian Downey over at the excellent Behind Antietam On The Web site  aims to put together a complete death list for the entire Maryland Campaign, which makes this effort look pretty small.

Listing in Catalogue of Connecticut Volunteers includes William W. Porter,  a private in the
16th Connecticut, who died from wounds suffered at Antietam.
(CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)

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MORE ON ANTIETAM: Read my extensive thread on the battle and the men who fought in it

Antietam panorama: Bloody Lane, William Roulette farm

  Click on image for full-screen panorama.

Mortally wounded on the William Roulette farm, 
14th Connecticut Pvt. George Corbit is buried 
in Center Cemetery in Coventry. The Talcott brothers,
also mortally wounded on Roulette's farm, are buried nearby.

Shot recently at Bloody Lane at Antietam, this interactive panorama provides a ton of information, especially when viewed on a large screen. It's pretty stunning actually. (Thank you, iPhone, picmonkey.com and especially dermandar.com!) Sunlight obscures detail to the far right, but the stone Observation Tower, probably the best place to take in the battlefield, juts out. In the middle is the farm lane leading to William Roulette's barn (in the far distance), which was used as a field hospital during and after the battle, and farm house. (The house, which retains its 1862 appearance, is not shown in this image, but you can check out my interactive panorama of it here. All 16 of my interactive Antietam panoramas are here.) The 14th Connecticut monument peeks over the ridge to the left (white monument), marking the regiment's farthest advance during the battle.  In its first battle of the Civil War, the 14th Connecticut swept across Roulette's property, capturing rebels in the farmer's house and spring house, where Lt. George Crosby later had surgery for a bullet wound. Roulette's property was ruined, of course, but he lost something much more important: His 20-month-old daughter, Carrie May, died shortly after the battle of typhoid fever, perhaps caused by an influx of thousands of soldiers in the area.


As I walk the fields on the Roulette farm, I often think of the three men from Coventry, Conn., who were mortally wounded near the farm lane. Privates George Corbit and Samuel Talcott were buried Oct. 23 in Center Cemetery in the small town about 20 miles east of Hartford. "Never before have the citizens of Coventry been called upon to perform a more painful duty,” the Hartford Courant reported four days after their funeral. On Nov. 12, a funeral was held in the same cemetery for Samuel’s brother, Henry, who died from his Antietam wounds in his father’s house in Coventry. "Yet hardly had the sun set behind the western horizon, or the dread echoes of the rumbling hearse died away in the distance," the Courant reported after Henry's funeral, "than they were again called upon to perform a similar duty."

Of course, it was at Bloody Lane that Alexander Gardner took some of the most famous photographs of the Civil War. I've walked the lane many times, often by myself,  and almost every time the hair raises on the back of my neck knowing that heaps of Confederate dead were stacked here Sept. 17, 1862. It's an eerie, mystifying, awe-inspiring and sad place. 

Alexander Gardner's image of rebel dead in Bloody Lane. (Library of Congress collection)

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Antietam: panorama: Joseph Sherrick farm

                                                 Click on image for full-screen panorama.

Here's a sweeping interactive panoramic view of the Joseph Sherrick farm at Antietam, including the beautiful brick farm house located across from John Otto's impressive home (white house in distance). Suffering from two bullet wounds in his right leg, 16th Connecticut Pvt. Henry Adams was taken to Sherrick's farm for treatment after he lay in Otto's cornfield for 40 hours.

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MORE ON ANTIETAM: Read my extensive thread on the battle and the men who fought in it

Antietam panorama: Connecticut section national cemetery

                                                  Click on image for full-screen panorama.

16th Connecticut Pvt. John Loveland's gravestone at 
Antietam National Cemetery. Loveland, from Hartford, 
was mortally wounded in John Otto's cornfield
 during the Battle of Antietam.

There are 85 gravestones for Connecticut soldiers at Antietam National Cemetery, but not all those men were killed at Antietam, an obscure fact that may only interest me. Indulge me for a moment while I toss around a few numbers. At least 25 Connecticut soldiers buried on the grounds are from units that did not fight in Sharpsburg, according my count using the History of Antietam descriptive list published in 1869. Pvt. Anson Balcom of the 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery, for example, was wounded in Winchester, Va., on Sept. 19, 1864, died 23 days later and was buried in the national cemetery, probably after his remains were disinterred elsewhere shortly after the war. According to the descriptive list, one grave contains the remains of an unknown soldier from an unknown Connecticut regiment. At least two soldiers who were killed at Antietam and have gravestones in the national cemetery are actually buried in Connecticut, leaving who's really buried under those markers a mystery. 8th Connecticut Pvt. Oliver Case, killed near Harpers Ferry Road, and 16th Pvt. Bridgeman Hollister, mortally wounded in John Otto's 40-acre cornfield, are buried in Simsbury and Glastonbury, respectively. Seven soldiers from Connecticut who died of their Antietam wounds were treated at Big Spring Hospital, a tent hospital set up on a farm near Keedysville, Md. Truman Squire of 89th New York, the head surgeon at that hospital, compiled the list below of 32 soldiers who died at Crystal Spring, also known as Big Spring or Locust Spring Hospital. Privates Horace Hunn (16th Connecticut), Francis Burr (16th); Henry Schofield (11th), Thomas Remington (11th), Frederick Culver (11th) and corporals Andrew Kimball (8th) and W. Farmer (8th) each have gravestones in the national cemetery. Schofield apparently also has a marker at Hickory Street Cemetery, which really makes my head spin. Where is he really buried? This exercise in frustration began tonight as I was trying to determine how many Connecticut soldiers who died at the Battle of  Antietam are actually buried in the national cemetery. That detective work continues. In the meantime, enjoy the interactive panorama above of the Connecticut section of the national cemetery.

Seven soldiers from Connecticut appear on a list of soldiers who died at Locust Spring (also
known as Crystal Spring) Hospital near Keedysville, Md., after the Battle of Antietam.
(Chemung County Historical Society)

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MORE ON ANTIETAM: Read my extensive thread on the battle and the men who fought in it

Antietam panorama: Ruins of John Otto's barn

                                                  Click on image for full-screen panorama.

John Otto's farm house, photographed from Burnside Bridge Road.

Seldom seen by battlefield visitors today, the remains of John Otto's Pennsylvania-style bank barn may be found just beyond a strip of woods, about 100 yards behind Otto's large farmhouse at Antietam battlefield. After the battle, Otto's house and barn, used as makeshift Federal field hospitals, were the scene of horror and anguish. Wounded soldiers from the 16th Connecticut were first treated here before they were moved to other hospitals, such as the German Reformed Church on Main Street in Sharpsburg. Otto, whose buildings were used as hospitals until Nov. 4, 1862, filed a compensation claim with the government in 1873 for $2,350.60 but was eventually awarded only $893.85, according to research by John Nelson on his outstanding "As Grain Falls Before the Reaper" CD. John Rogers, who blogs about 8th Connecticut Pvt. Oliver Case, and I visited the remains of the barn during a recent overcast afternoon. All of Otto's Civil War-era outbuildings, including a kitchen, spring house and hog pen, are long gone, but ruins of a root cellar may also be found behind the house. The immediate area around the Otto house looks much different than it did during the Civil War. For example, open ground to the left of the house in the image below is now woods. The Otto house sits high on a hill, overlooking the road that leads to Burnside Bridge, about a quarter-mile away. In Otto's 40-acre cornfield, about a half-mile behind the house, the 16th Connecticut suffered 43 killed and 161 wounded. (See full-screen panoramas of Otto's cornfield here.)

An early 20th-century image of the Otto farm shows five outbuildings, including the
 large Pennsylvania-style bank barn behind the house. The Otto farm house and
 barn were used as Federal field hospitals after Antietam.

Ruins of farmer John Otto's barn, 100 yards behind the Otto farm house.

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MORE ON ANTIETAM: Read my extensive thread on the battle and the men who fought in it

Antietam panoramas: Burnside Bridge

                                            Click on image for full-screen panorama.

BURNSIDE BRIDGE (Rebels' view): Here's a panoramic view taken just steps to the left of a quarry  pit from which the rebels fired on the Federals attempting to cross the small stone-arch bridge. Confederate forces held off the Union IX Corps here for about three hours before retreating on Sept. 17, 1862. Capt. John Griswold of the 11th Connecticut led skirmishers across the creek just to the right of the bridge. Shot in the middle of the 4-foot deep stream, he staggered to the bank on the rebels' side. Surgeon Nathan Mayer and four privates rescued Griswold, carrying him to a nearby small shed. (The shed has long since been torn down.) The Lyme, Conn., officer died the next day from a bullet wound near the stomach. The Park Service has done terrific work here restoring this site to near its 1862 appearance.

                                               Click on image for full-screen panorama.

BURNSIDE BRIDGE (Union view):  As the 11th Connecticut fanned out here along Antietam Creek, aiming to pin down the rebels on the bluffs across the stream, it faced withering fire. "The air rang with whistling balls," an 1868 history of Connecticut's service during the war noted, "and the ground quaked with the hard breath of artillery." 11th Connecticut Pvt. Daniel Tarbox of Brooklyn, Conn., was mortally wounded in the attack, dying the next day.  (On this spot last spring, I read a portion of 18-year-old Daniel's final letter home to his father. You can watch that here.) Each time I visit Antietam, I am amazed by what the Confederates accomplished here. With a few hundred men, some firing from perches in the trees on the bluff, they held off the Union IX Corps for three hours, time their army sorely needed for A.P. Hill to bring up his boys from Harpers Ferry, about 17 miles away. The bluffs along Antietam Creek are not very imposing, but they were imposing enough that Wednesday for the Yankees.

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MORE ON ANTIETAM: Read my extensive thread on the battle and the men who fought in it

Antietam panorama: The Cornfield

Click on image for full-screen panorama.
During my visit to Antietam last week, I spent much of my time walking John Otto's 40-acre cornfield, where the 16th Connecticut was routed. (Check out these three interactive panoramas that I shot there.) But on each of my visits to Antietam, I eagerly get up at the crack of dawn to run a 3.5-mile circuit near the much more infamous "Cornfield," the scene of savage fighting on the morning of Sept. 17, 1862. My route takes me from in front of the Dunker Church on Old Hagerstown Pike, down Cornfield Avenue (and past the simple yet beautiful Texas monument) and back up Smoketown Road. Aside from a woman walking a large dog, I was the only person on this part of the battlefield last Tuesday morning. It's an especially eerie experience when the fog lingers and the sun finally bursts on the horizon. The interactive panorama above, shot last Tuesday with my iPhone and made interactive with this very cool site, shows the southern portion of "The Cornfield," part of David R. Miller's farm in 1862. This excellent Civil War Trust site map offers further details.

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Antietam panoramas: Sharpsburg's Main Street church

Click on image for full-screen panorama.

Connecticut Civil War veterans chipped in
 $400 in 1891 to purchase this stained-glass
 window for the  German Reformed Church.

I got up early last Wednesday morning to shoot this panorama of Main Street in Sharpsburg, Md., a town  Norman  Rockwell should have put on his bucket list. Of particular interest to me is the Christ Reformed Church, the red-brick building toward the left of the image. Called the German Reformed Church during the Civil War, it was one of three churches in town used as a Union hospital after Antietam. During the past three months, I have been digging into the stories of some of the Connecticut soldiers who were patients in that church. One of those men was James Brooks, a 19-year-old private in the 16th Connecticut, who lay in no-man's land in farmer John Otto's cornfield for 40 hours before he was found by a Union burial crew. He initially was treated in Otto's barn, a makeshift field hospital, before he was transferred to the German Reformed Church, where he died on  Oct. 11, 1862. Brooks' body was returned to Connecticut and buried in a small cemetery in rural Willington under a gravestone that notes he died of  "six heavy wounds."

If you visit Sharpsburg, put a stop at the church on your to-do list, and arrange to go inside to check out the beautiful stained-glass window that faces Main Street. In 1891, Connecticut Antietam veterans donated that window in honor of their comrades who died at the battle. Below is a panorama of the inside of the church, shot with my iPhone 4. The church suffered significant damage during the war and was remodeled in the 1890s. The blood-stained Civil War-era floorboards  were reportedly ripped out in the 1940s, although I have heard that some of the original floorboards remain. I'll try to confirm that on my next trip to Sharpsburg.  An aside:  Recent blog subject Barney Houser, a private in the 1st Maryland Potomac Home Brigade, lived in the house to the left of the church during the Civil War. Items borrowed from his house for use in the German Reformed Church hospital included an iron kettle, a skillet, four window blinds, four ladles and a Dutch oven.

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MORE ON ANTIETAM: Read my extensive thread on the battle and the men who fought in it

Antietam panorama: William Roulette farm

                                                  Click on image for full-screen panorama.

On Sept. 17, 1862, William Roulette's farm was the scene of savage fighting during the Battle of Antietam. Roulette's house, barn and spring house were used as makeshift field hospitals. The spring house, the stone building shown here, was where Lt. George Crosby of the 14th Connecticut was treated for his serious wounds. He died 37 days after the battle at the home of his parents in Middle Haddam, Conn. After the battle, the rug in Roulette's parlor was so soaked with blood that it had to be washed in nearby Antietam Creek. I shot this panorama early last Friday while a biologist and his aide were the only other people there. This is easily one of my favorite places on the battlefield, a photographer's dream.

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MORE ON ANTIETAM: Read my extensive thread on the battle and the men who fought in it

Antietam panoramas: Where Gen. Mansfield met his demise

                                           Click on image for full-screen panorama.

The upright cannon tube represents the area where Maj. Gen. Joseph Mansfield was mortally wounded at Antietam, near the East Woods. The exact spot is believed to be about 35 yards farther down this road. "When I came up, some men were trying to carry him in a blanket, but the jolting motion made him bleed so fast, they were afraid to move," the doctor who treated Mansfield wrote to the old soldier's wife. (Click here for the .pdf of Dr. Patrick Flood's letter to Louisa Mansfield. LARGE FILE. The original letter is in the Middlesex County Historical Society, housed in Mansfield's old home in Middletown, Conn.) Mansfield, 58, died at the George Line farm a day after the battle. His funeral in Middletown, Conn., was one of the grandest of the Civil War in Connecticut. Laurence Freiheit, who is researching the life and times of Joseph Mansfield, added the cool overlays to my panoramic shot.

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Antietam panoramas: John Otto's 40-acre cornfield

                                             Click on image for full-screen panorama.

JOHN OTTO'S CORNFIELD (REBELS' PERSPECTIVE): In a 40-acre field of head-high corn on Sept. 17, 1862, the 16th Connecticut was battered, many men skedaddling for the rear. (Two deserters fled all the way to England. One deserter's ancestor saw his great-grandfather's photo for the first time on this blog.) Above and below are interactive panoramic images of what that field looks like today. Some of the 16th Connecticut wounded lay in this field for 40 hours, only rescued when Union burial parties found them late in the morning on Friday, Sept. 19. Many of the wounded were taken to about a half-mile away to Otto's barn, where a makeshift field hospital had been set up. Some of the most serious cases were later taken to the German Reformed Church on Sharpsburg's main street.

                                              Click on image for full-screen panorama.

OTTO'S CORNFIELD (REBELS' PERSPECTIVE II):  A.P. Hill's veterans, who quickly marched 17 miles from Harpers Ferry earlier in the day, arrived on the battlefield just in time to save Robert E. Lee's army at Antietam.  They struck the extreme left flank of the Union line that included the 4th Rhode Island and the green 16th Connecticut, sending both regiments retreating in chaos. “My company of one hundred men number but twenty eight at roll call this morning,” Pvt. William Relyea of the 16th Connecticut wrote his wife on Sept. 19, 1862, two days after the battle. “Many poor fellows bit the dust. I stood alone about fifty feet from the rebel line and fired and I supposed they fired at me, but I happened to notice I was alone and I left to help some of our wounded off. Capt. (Samuel) Brown was wounded and we found him dead today stripped of hat, coat, shoes, and all valuables." (1) The 16th Connecticut monument, dedicated in 1894, can be seen in the far distance.

(1) Relyea, William  Henry. Letter book containing copies of letters, 1862-1865, Ms. 72782,  Connecticut History Society, Hartford, Conn.

                                       
                                             Click on image for full-screen panorama.


OTTO'S CORNFIELD (UNION PERSPECTIVE): The 16th Connecticut lay in this hollow until advancing into Otto's cornfield ... and disaster at the Battle of Antietam. "About 4 o'clock we were marched over a hill, and down into a hollow, and lay down," a private in the 16th wrote. "We were in this situation about an hour, the shells from both batteries were playing over us. One man in our company lying just behind me was struck by a piece of shell. Cap't Manross was killed while we lay there. We marched from here up to a cornfield."

                                           Click on image for full-screen panorama.

OTTO'S CORNFIELD (WHERE NEWTON MANROSS FELL): In the center of  this panorama, in front of the large group of trees in the hollow,  is the approximate location where 16th Connecticut Capt. Newton Manross was mortally wounded by cannon fire. This is a hollow in which the 16th Connecticut lay just before it moved into the 40-acre field of head-high corn. "I often think of that day, Sept. 17, 1862, and helping Captain Manross into the fence corner," Lester Taylor, a private in Company H of the 16th Connecticut, wrote 39 years after the battle. "I could look down inside of him and see his heart beat, his left shoulder all shot off." Manross, a brilliant man and a world traveler, was from Bristol, Conn. He was an assistant professor at Amherst (Mass.) College when he enlisted.

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FACES OF THE CIVIL WAR: Stories and photos of common soldiers.
16TH CONNECTICUT SOLDIERS: Tales of the men in the hard-luck regiment.
MORE ON ANTIETAM: Read my extensive thread on the battle and the men who fought in it.