Civil War under my nose: West Brookfield, Mass.

Augustus Potter, a private in the 15th Massachusetts, was wounded at Antietam,
Gettysburg and Mine Run, Va.. He survived the Civil War.

As Andy Hall notes on his outstanding Dead Confederates blog, good stories don't fit on a slab of stone in a cemetery. A recent trip to Massachusetts reinforced that.

I visited West Brookfield, Mass, about and hour or so from my home in Connecticut, two weeks ago to do research on Justus Collins Wellington, a private in the 15th Massachusetts who was killed at Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862. Wellington's parents are buried in Pine Grove Cemetery in West Brookfield, but I believe Justus is probably buried  under a gravestone marked "Unknown" in the national cemetery in Sharpsburg, Md.

A small Second Corps, II Division flag
on Potter's grave.

In searching for the gravestones of Justus' parents, I stumbled upon the final resting place of one of his comrades: Augustus N. Potter, also a private in Co. F. in the 15th Massachusetts. Potter, who survived the Civil War, has a very interesting story.

A 24-year-old shoemaker from West Brookfield, Potter enlisted as a private in the 15th Massachusetts on July 12, 1861, the same day as Wellington. Potter probably knew Justus, who also was a shoemaker in West Brookfield. He mustered out because of a disability on Jan. 10, 1862, but was back with his regiment when it was decimated in the West Woods at Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862. Potter suffered a slight leg wound at Antietam, one of 325 casualties (including 70 killed) in his regiment in about 20 minutes.

Less than a year later, Potter was at Gettysburg, where he was wounded on July 2, 1863. A little more than four months later, Potter was wounded at Mine Run, Va., and seven months later, on June 22, 1864, he was captured at Petersburg, Va., sent to Libby Prison in Richmond and later paroled. Thanks to three of his descendants, there's an excellent breakdown of Potter's service on Susan Harnwell's terrific 15th Massachusetts site. Potter's brother, Henry, a private in Co. C of the 4th New Hampshire Infantry, was killed at Drewry's Bluff in Virginia on May 16, 1864.

Wounded three times, captured, survived the war -- I'll bet Potter had some amazing tales to tell.

After the Civil War, Potter was busy too. He fathered 10 children with his wife, Mary. He died March 9, 1918 at age 81.

I'll look to dig up much more on Potter at the National Archives next spring.

Civil War under my nose: Avon, Connecticut

The 16th Connecticut, including 15 men from Avon, fought in this field on the Otto Farm  at
Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862.  The 16th Connecticut monument is in the distance.



 Robert Hawley, a private in the 16th
Connecticut  from Avon, Conn., was mortally
wounded at Antietam.  This is
his marker at West Avon Cemetery. 

After walking a Civil War battlefield, I always come away with a renewed respect -- heck, make that awe -- for the common soldiers.

How did they do it?

What kind of courage did it take for soldiers to blast away at each other with rifled muskets from 75 yards?

How could they march, sometimes barefoot, 10 or more miles in a woolen uniform on a hot summer day?

What kind of fortitude did it take to subsist on green apples, hardtack and corn?

Incredible.

At the Battle of South Mountain, near Boonsboro, Md., on Sept. 14, 1862, soldiers killed and maimed each other fighting over tremendously difficult, rocky terrain. Three days later, at nearby Sharpsburg, Md., barely trained troops of the 16th Connecticut Infantry fought on terrain that, while not as imposing as South Mountain, was nonetheless trying. I've walked that same ground on a warm spring day, and it's a haul.

Private Newton Evans of Avon, Conn., was
wounded  at Antietam and later died at
Andersonville prison in Georgia.

The John Otto Farm at Antietam includes gulleys, ridges and  a 40-acre cornfield that was the scene of terror for the 16th Connecticut. After finally slugging their way across Antietam Creek at the Rohrbach Bridge, Union troops briefly re-grouped on the Otto property. As they pursued the Rebels on the afternoon of Sept. 17, 1862, the Federal army was in sight of the village of Sharpsburg. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia was in desperate straits.

Part of Ambrose Burnside's left flank in the Army of the Potomac at Antietam, the 16th Connecticut formed in Hartford on Aug. 24. 1862. It was comprised of men from towns in Hartford County, including the small farming community of Avon, where I live now. In 1860, 1,059 people lived in Avon, and at least 84 men from the town served in the Union army during the Civil War. (1)

The 16th Connecticut, which included 15 men from Avon, was green. None of the Connecticut boys had even fired a weapon in battle before Antietam. Could they be counted on? Or would they, like some rookie soldiers in the 14th Connecticut in fighting at the Roulette Farm at Antietam, "shut their eyes" and fire their muskets in the air? (2)

Corporal Henry Evans of Avon, Conn.,
was killed at Antietam. This marker is in West
Avon Cemetery, but Evans is actually buried
in the national cemetery in Sharpsburg, Md.

Before navigating a hill to reach the 40-acre cornfield on the Otto Farm, the 16th Connecticut came under heavy fire.

"The air was filled with bullets and fiendish missiles," Bernard Blakeslee, a lieutenant in the 16th Connecticut from Hartford recounted in a memoir published 10 years after the war. "Hundreds of cannon were now aimed at us; grape and cannister, marbles and railroad iron were showered down like rain. The crest of the hill was a great protection to the Sixteenth, and only about a dozen were disabled. A battery was ordered up to engage the enemy, but it was whirled back in less than five minutes, losing every officer, seven men, and five horses. To see those men stand there and be shot down till they received orders to retire was a fearful sight." (3)

Eventually, the 4th Rhode Island and the 16th Connecticut made their way up a ridge and reached the head-high corn in the 40-acre cornfield, where they were blasted in the left flank and scattered by troops from A.P. Hill's division, which had marched 17 miles from Harpers Ferry. Hill's division saved Lee at Antietam.

Sign for second-most infamous
cornfield at Antietam.

"General Rodman observed that the rebels were about to flank us and get in our rear, and ordered the Fourth Rhode Island, and Sixteenth Connecticut to swing to the left that we might face them, but at that particular moment the rustling of cornstalks warned us that the rebels were on us," Blakeslee wrote. "Colonel Beach gave the order 'Attention!' While this order was being executed a terrible volley was fired into us. Volley after volley in quick succession was hurled into our midst. The Sixteenth sprang up and returned the fire with good effect; some fixed bayonets, advanced, and were captured. The most helpless confusion ensued. Our men fell by scores on every side." (4)

Out of 779 engaged, the 16th Connecticut lost 43 killed, 161 wounded and 204 captured or missing. Corporal Henry D. Evans of Avon was killed and three of his fellow townsmen -- privates Newton Evans, Wallace Woodford and Robert Hawley were wounded. Hawley died eight days later. (Woodford and Evans later became prisoners of war; Evans died in Andersonvile on Sept. 9, 1864, and Woodford died at home on Jan 10, 1865)

Wallace Woodford, a private from Avon in the 16th Connecticut,
was  wounded at Antietam. As this marker in West Avon
Cemetery notes, he was "eight months a sufferer
in Rebel prisons." He died at home on  Jan. 10, 1865.

Woodford is buried in West Avon Cemetery, about three miles from my house, under a large brownstone family memorial that notes he was "eight months a suffererer in Rebel prisons."

There are markers for Evans and Hawley in the West Avon Cemetery, but neither is buried there. Evans' final resting place is the national cemetery in Sharpsburg, gravesite No. 1,084. Hawley's final resting place is unknown.

(1) American Civil War Research Database.
(2) Mr. Dunn's Experiences in the Army: The Civil War Letters of Samuel W. Fiske, Pages 8-9, edited by Stephen W. Sears, 1998.
(3) History of the Sixteenth Connecticut Volunteers, B.F. Blakeslee, 1875
(4) Ibid.

Flags and Grand Army of the Republic markers by headstones in West Avon
(Conn.) Cemetery. At least 84 men from Avon served in the Union army during the Civil War. 

Civil War under my nose: Kensington, Conn.

This flag in the Kensington Congregational Church in Kensington, Conn, was sewn by
church members during the Civil War and hung from the belfry.

In researching Berlin's Bacon brothers -- try saying that three times really fast -- I stumbled upon a few nuggets of Civil War history early Sunday afternoon.

The Kensington Congregational Church
was dedicated in 1774.

Behind the Kensington Congregational Church stands what some claim is the first monument in the United States dedicated to Civil War soldiers. (Kentuckians may want to duel Nutmeggers for that honor.) If you think it's a little odd for a war monument to be placed next to a church, you aren't alone. But passions ran high during the Civil War.

On July 28, 1863, a little more than three weeks after the Battle of Gettysburg, a small crowd gathered at the church for dedication of the 18-foot brownstone obelisk, a word that will never again appear on this blog. The event would have been better attended, but area farmers had more important things to do, according to an account in the Hartford Courant. (1) Rev. Elias Brewster Hillard apparently was instrumental in developing the idea for the monument and another church member, Nelson Augustus Moore, designed it. Church members and area residents raised funds to build it -- some accounts say it cost $350, others $475. (2)

On the monument are listed the names of 14 area soldiers who died during the Civil War, including a pair of brothers (John and William Warner) and a father and son (Richard and James Ringwood).  A bronze plaque for Berlin's Elijah Bacon, who was killed at the Wilderness on May 6, 1864, was added at the base of the monument in 1988. (Another soldier listed, Nelson Ritchie of the 16th Connecticut, died after the Civil War.) Interestingly, Bacon's father, a stonecutter from Berlin, may have cut the stone for the memorial. That merits more research.

"Erected to commemorate the death of those who perished in
suppressing the Southern Rebellion." an inscription
on the monument reads.

I wanted to know more about this large, old relic, so I rang the church doorbell. Rev. Olivia Robinson, a friendly, soft-spoken woman, answered and quickly took me to the back parlor of the church, where she pointed out an even more impressive relic behind protective glass: a 10-foot by 18-foot red, white and blue flag with 33 stars. (Thanks for correcting me on the stars, mstrauch.)

There's a neat story on the history of the flag that I found in a book published in 1912 on the 200th anniversary of the founding of the congregation. On the morning of April 13, 1861, the good Rev. Elias Brewster Hilliard, apparently an excitable sort, heard word that the Rebels had shelled Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor in South Carolina.

“(Hilliard) was standing at the door of the church … when Mr. Samuel Upton, at the time the village postmaster, came in, bringing the news that Fort Sumter had been fired on the day before. Mr. Hillard entered the pulpit, laid away his prepared sermon, and delivered a stirring patriotic address whose echoes rang in the town for many a day. During the following week the ladies of the church held a meeting, and made, without the aid of sewing-machines, the grand old flag which was hung from the belfry of the church at its completion, and continued to float in the breeze throughout the war.” (3)

Nice.

The flag was restored in 2002.

(1) Connecticut Civil War monuments web site
(2) Research by Cathy Nelson, historian and assistant director Berlin-Peck Memorial Library
(3) Two Hundreth Anniversary, Kennington Congreational Church, Page 100, 1912

This Civil War monument next to the Kensington Congregational Church
  was  dedicated July 28, 1863.  The cannon was added in 1913.

  Approximately the same view as above in 1913, on the 50th anniversary of the  monument's
dedication. Note the ivy on the monument. (Photo courtesy Kensington Congregational Church)

Civil War under my nose: Berlin's Bacon brothers

Elijah William Bacon, awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously for capturing a Rebel flag at
Gettysburg, was killed at the Wilderness on May 6, 1864. 

Almost every family in Connecticut was touched in some way by the Civil War. Many families were jolted more than once by tragedy.

As I wrote in this post, Edwin and Mary Wadhams of Litchfield lost three sons, all dying within 18 days of each other in fighting near Richmond, Va., in 1864.

The Bacon family of Berlin also suffered more than most.

Marker for Andrew Bacon, who served 
in the 14th  Connecticut,  in Maple Cemetery
in Berlin, Conn.

By 1860,  Roswell and Betsy Bacon had a typically large family for the era: sons Oliver, Andrew, Elijah and Almeron and a daughter, Maria. In his early 50s, Roswell was a stonecutter, and at least two of his sons followed in his footsteps at the family quarry in Berlin, a small town about 15 miles from Hartford. Because of  the expansion of the railroads in the 1840s and a thriving brickmaking industry, Berlin enjoyed a solid economy at the start of the Civil War in April 1861. (1)

Like many Berlin men, the Bacon's sons joined the Union army, with Oliver enlisting first, on Aug, 9, 1861, as a saddler in the 1st Connecticut Volunteer Cavalry. After President Lincoln called for 300,000 volunteers in the summer of 1862, Andrew and Elijah enlisted as privates in Co. F of the 14th Connecticut Infantry on July 28. Berlin, a stop on the Underground Railroad for runaway slaves, strongly supported the Union cause: 216 men from the town served in the Federal army out of a population of nearly 2,200. (2).

On Aug. 25, the 1,015 soldiers of the 14th Connecticut left the state for Washington, where they served in the defenses of the capital until early September. By that time, Andrew and Elijah Bacon likely were well aware that a Rebel army under Robert E. Lee was moving north to draw the Army of the Potomac from its encampments around Washington.

At Antietam, 14th Connecticut troops
"didn't know what they were expected
to do," Captain Samuel Fiske wrote.

Along with the rookies of the 108th New York and 130th Pennsylvania, the barely trained troops of the 14th Connecticut received their baptism of fire at Antietam on the morning of  Sept. 17, 1862. The performance of the Connecticut boys at the Roulette Farm and nearby sunken road was hailed as "behaving like veterans" in some accounts, but the reality was probably quite different.

"The battle was a scene of indescribable confusion. Troops didn't know what they were expected to do and sometimes, in their excitement, fired at their own men," Captain Samuel Fiske of the 14th Connecticut wrote. Some of the raw troops even "shut their eyes, and fired up in the air" (3). Elijah and Andrew escaped unscathed, but the 14th Connecticut suffered 38 killed and mortally wounded, 88 wounded and 21 missing.

By July 1, 1863, the 14th Connecticut had suffered heavy losses in major battles at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville and was "reduced in size to a battalion," according to its chaplain, Henry Stevens. The remaining 200 men in the regiment fought well at Gettysburg, flushing sharpshooters from the Bliss Farm and helping stop the Rebels during Pickett's Charge on July 3. Incredibly, the 14th Connecticut captured nearly 200 prisoners and five Rebel battle flags during that fighting.

I haven't found an account detailing the specifics of Elijah Bacon's role at Gettysburg, but he captured a flag of the 16th North Carolina during Pickett's Charge. For his valor, he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor on Dec. 1, 1864 --  one of 63 Union soldiers so honored for their actions at Gettysburg.

But the son of a stonecutter from Berlin, Conn., never received the medal.

 Medal of Honor marker for  Elijah Bacon.

Civil War Medal of Honor.
(National Park Service)

Elijah William Bacon was killed in action at the Wilderness on May 6, 1864. He left behind a wife, Eliza, and two daughters. (4)
Also in early May, Andrew was captured at Ely's Ford, Va., and sent to Andersonville, the notorious Rebel prisoner-of-war camp in Georgia. Seven months later, he too was gone. After being transferred from Andersonville to another camp in Florence, S.C., Andrew died on Jan. 25, 1865, one of 10 Berlin men to die as a prisoner of war. He left behind a wife, Marissa, but no children. (5)


Word likely traveled slowly, but sometime in May 1864, Roswell and Betsy Bacon were notified that one son was dead and another was captured. Sadly, this was not unusual news in Berlin -- at least 42 soldiers from the town died during the Civil War. (6)

Oliver Bacon, whose cavalry regiment also served at Gettysburg, survived the war, but not without tragedy. After he was discharged Sept. 15, 1864, he married a Berlin girl, Rosa Woods, the 16-year-old daughter of Charles Woods. Rosa was "pretty as a picture, with her great brown eyes and dark curling hair." Soon after they were married, however, Rosa died, another terrible blow for the Bacon family. (7)

It's unclear if the bodies of either brother were returned to Connecticut..

Markers for Elijah Bacon (left) and Andrew Bacon next to the grave of their father.
a Confederate prisoner-of-war camp in Florence, S.C., on Jan. 25, 1865.

(1) Berlin (Conn.) Historical Society
(2) American Civil War Research Database
(3) Mr. Dunn's Experiences in the Army: The Civil War Letters of Samuel W. Fiske, Pages 8-9, edited by Stephen W. Sears, 1998.
(4) Research by Cathy Nelson, historian and assistant director Berlin-Peck Memorial Library
(5) Cathy Nelson research
(6) American Civil War Research Database
(7) The History of Berlin, Catherine M. North, Page 249, 1916

Faces of the Civil War: George Bronson

George Bronson served as a hospital steward in the 11th Connecticut.
(Photo courtesy of Mary Lou Pavlik, Bronson's great-great granddaughter.)


Ever since she first read the Civil War letters of her great-great grandfather about 20 years ago, Mary Lou Pavlik has had an especially keen interest in The Great Rebellion. Today, she has a hard time checking out of the 19th century.

"I have strong passion for the Civil War," said Pavlik, a lifelong resident of Torrington, Conn.

Mary Lou Pavlik with famed Civil War historian
Ed  Bearss. (Photo courtesy Mary Lou Pavlik)

Dressed in period attire, Pavlik takes a step back in time by assuming the character of her great-great grandmother and reading aloud the letters of great-great grandfather George Bronson at Civil War living history demonstrations at least five times a year.

In 44 unpublished letters to his wife Mary Anne, Bronson wrote about patriotism, missing home back in Connecticut, the horrors of the battlefield, caring for the wounded and entering the rebel capital in the final days of the war. The often-eloquent letters of the physician from Berlin, Conn., are a fantastic window into the most tumultuous time in our nation's history.

Founded in 1785 and known for a thriving tinware industry, Berlin, about 15 miles from Hartford, was home for about 2,200 people in 1860, a year before South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union. Nearly 10 percent of Berlin's population, 216 men, fought for the Union army in places such as Reams Station and Cold Harbor, Va.; Pocotaligo, S.C., and Irish Bend, La. (1) At least 42 of them died, including Private Elijah Bacon, who earned the Medal of Honor for capturing a Rebel flag at Gettysburg and was killed 10 months later at the Wilderness.

Mary Anne, George Bronson's wife.
(Photo courtesy Mary Lou Pavlik)

Bronson married Mary Anne Lewis, a woman of high social standing in Berlin, on Sept. 5, 1861. Five weeks later, the 34-year-old newlywed was off to war, enlisting as a lowly private in Co. A in the 11th Connecticut Infantry. After drilling in nearby Hartford, Bronson and his comrades headed for New York, where the 11th Connecticut left by steamer on Dec. 17, 1861, bound for Annapolis, Md.

Bronson frequently wrote Mary Anne throughout the war and encouraged his wife to do the same.

"We find it much more comfortable in this latitude than at Hartford," he wrote Dec. 18, 1861, from aboard the steamer headed to Annapolis. "You must write me good long letters and as many of them as you can. The steamer has got the shakes so that I cannot write very well. ... I miss your society very much and hope to hear from you often. I will not attempt to write more as the vessel shakes so much."

Attached to Williams Brigade under General Ambrose Burnside's command, the 11th Connecticut served from January to July 1862 in North Carolina, where it suffered light casualties at the Battle of New Bern.

Bronson soon impressed his superiors and was promoted to hospital steward, an important role in caring for sick and wounded soldiers.

Union General Jesse Reno died at the Battle
  of  South Mountain on Sept. 14, 1862.
"A musket ball in the side ... passed obliquely
through his body and came out near
the stomach," Bronson wrote.
(Library of Congress collection)

"The candidate for enlistment or appointment as hospital steward should be not less than eighteen nor more than thirty-five years of age," an 1862 Civil War manual states. "He must be able-bodied and free from disease. ... He should be of honest and upright character, of temperate habits, and good general intelligence. He must have a competent knowledge of the English language and be able to write legibly and spell correctly." (1)

Bronson's duties may have included assisting field surgeons in operations, supervising hospital cooks and nurses, and  prescribing drugs and even performing minor operations during emergencies.

By September 1862, Bronson undoubtedly heard word of a Rebel army under Robert E. Lee moving north. The Union army would move from its encampments around Washington for Maryland, where it fought Lee's army at the Battle of South Mountain, near Boonsboro, Md. At Fox's Gap on Sept. 14, 1862, Bronson witnessed the terrible cost of war, including the death of beloved Union General Jesse Reno.

"General Reno had but just given his orders when a party of the enemy suddenly opened fire and he received a musket ball in the side which passed obliquely through his body and came out near the stomach," Bronson wrote his wife on Sept. 14, 1862. "He immediately dismounted and said I am mortally wounded. He expired in half and hour conscious to the last, and uttering words of encouragement to his command.  He had lately succeeded to the command of Gen. McDowell's Corps.  We established our hospital in a house about 200 yards below the battery and worked hard all night. Every house and church for miles around were occupied as hospitals."

A day later, Bronson described the awful aftermath of the battle to Mary Anne.

"Language is inadequate to give a description of the scenes which met my view this morning as I went upon the Battlefield, five hundred and seventy-five dead bodies were picked up within 20 rods, the rebel dead lay scattered in every direction," he wrote. "Our own dead, which were few in proportion to those of the enemy, had been removed from the field soon after they fell."

The 11th Connecticut attacked at Burnside Bridge, called
Rohrbach Bridge by the locals before the Civil War, at
 Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862. It suffered 139 casualties here.

Two days later, at a little stone arch bridge spanning a swift-moving creek outside the small farming community of Sharpsburg, Md., Bronson and the 11th Connecticut experienced the bloodiest day in American history. With a relatively small rebel force holding the strategic high ground across Antietam Creek, the 11th Connecticut was instructed to cross Rohrbach Bridge and make the first assault on the heights.

Probably later that night, Bronson described the scene in a letter to his wife.

"Dear Mary, Our Regt. was ordered to take the bridge and hold it so the division of Genl. Rodman could pass," Bronson wrote Sept. 17, 1862, the day of the Battle of Antietam. "They did do it and with what loss you can judge when you see the official report. General Rodman was wounded. Our Sec. Lieut., Col., and Major, and nearly one half of our Regt. was killed or wounded. I do not know the name of the creek, but I have named it the creek of death. Such slaughter I hope never to witness again. The fight was very severe."

Bronson worked tirelessly at a Union hospital at the Henry Rohrbach farm a short distance from the bridge.

"I took off my coat to dress wounds, and meet with a terrible loss," Bronson wrote in the Sept. 17 letter to his wife. "Some villain rifled my pockets of several packets of medicine, my fine tooth comb, and what I valued most my needle book, containing the little lock of hair you put in.  It was not the value but the giver that I cared for. Can you please replace it?"

Mary Lou Pavlik, dressed in Civil War period attire, at  her great-great
 grandfather's grave  in Danbury, Conn.
(Photo courtesy Mary Lou Pavlik)

General Isaac Rodman, whom Bronson mentioned in his letter, died Sept. 30 at a field hospital, one of three Union generals mortally wounded at Antietam. The 11th Connecticut suffered 36 dead and 103 wounded. Nearly 23,000 casualties, including 3,650 dead, were suffered on both sides.

The 11th Connecticut was involved in other major battles during the Civil War, including Fredericksburg, Cold Harbor and Drewry's Bluff, but none compared to Antietam.

The huge number of casualties overwhelmed both armies. Nearly every house, barn and church in the area was used as a hospital.

"337 wounded dressed in this hospital," Bronson wrote Mary Anne on Sept. 19, 1862. "3 of the men from our Reg. had their legs amputated. The last I do not think can long survive."

In 1864, Bronson developed pleurisy during the siege of  Petersburg, probably a result of treating wounded soldiers, and returned to Connecticut to recuperate. He rejoined the 11th Connecticut when he was well enough to travel.

In April 1865, as the Army of the Potomac battered Lee's army in the final days of the war, Bronson and the 11th Connecticut entered the Rebel capital of Richmond, Va.

"The negro troops were not the first to enter the city, as was stated in the paper, but the 1st Brigade of the 3rd division, which happens to be the one that I belong to," Bronson wrote Mary Anne on April 14, 1865. "The Negro Troops did actually arrive at the city first, but were not permitted to enter. There is much suffering among the inhabitance (sic) for all the necessaries of life, and they are evidently glad to change masters.”

Bronson was mustered out of the Union army on Dec. 21, 1865, at City Point, Va. Because of the pleurisy contracted near Petersburg, he was unable to practice medicine full time after the war. The Bronsons, who had one son, lived in New York, Florida and finally Connecticut in their remaining years. George died at age 72 on Oct. 31, 1898, a little more than four years after the monument to the 11th Connecticut was dedicated at Antietam.  His final resting place is Wooster Cemetery in Danbury, Conn.

Union graves at Burnside Bridge were photographed by famed Civil War photographer
Alexander Gardner. In his book on Antietam, William Frassanito wrote that the graves
were for soldiers of the 51st New York..  (Library of Congress collection)

(1) American Civil War Research Database
(2) The Hospital Steward's Manual, Page 20 (Philadelphia, 1862)

Civil War under my nose: Springfield Armory

An "Organ of Muskets" at the Springfield (Mass.) Armory holds 645 1861 Springfield muskets.


Arms manufacturers in the Connecticut River Valley produced a vast quantity of weapons for the Union army during the Civil War. Rifles, muskets, pistols and other arms were manufactured in Connecticut by Colt in Hartford, Whitney U.S. Navy Rifle in New Haven, Welch and Brown in Norfolk and by James D. Mowry and Norwich Arms Co. in Norwich. More than 200,000 bayonets were supplied to the army by the Collins Co. in Collinsville, about six miles from my house.

This Gatling gun -- an early machine gun -- was first used
during the Civil War.  It's on display at
 the Springfield Armory musuem.


In Massachusetts,  the Federal armory overlooking the Connecticut River in Springfield, about a 35-minute drive from Hartford, competed with other manufacturers in the valley to supply small arms to the Union. The destruction of the armory in Harpers Ferry, Va., (now West Virginia) during the Civil War left the Springfield Armory as the only federal manufacturing point for arms until the 1900s. The Springfield Armory manufactured, repaired, tested and designed weapons from 1777, when President Washington authorized its creation, until it closed in 1968.

My first impression of the Springfield armory grounds: Hey, this place is huge. Surrounded by more than a mile of wrought-iron fence, many of the armory buildings are now occupied by Springfield Technical Community College. The most fascinating display in the museum is the two-story tower of 645 Springfield muskets, stacked Jenga-like. It's called an "Organ of Muskets," and it was made famous by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's anti-war poem in 1843. I was tempted to ask the National Park Service employees behind the main desk at the Armory museum today if they cared to part with just one -- a pristeen 1861 Springfield musket like the ones displayed can easily go for $3,000 or more -- but figured that would not go over well. :)

This was just a drive-by visit today, but it's definitely worth another trip and a couple hours of my time.

The Main Arsenal building at the Springfield (Mass.) Armory.



Carbines manufactured during the Civil War.



Faces of the Civil War: Justus Wellington

Justus Collins Wellington, a private in the 15th Massachusetts
 Infantry, was killed  at Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862. This is
a 1/9-plate  ruby ambrotype in my Civil War collection.

Like many men his age, 23-year-old Justus Collins Wellington faced an agonizing decision in 1861:

Should he continue to work for his family, which depended on his labor as a shoemaker?

Or should he go fight for his country, which was in the grips of the Civil War?

A haunting view of Wellington's
ruby ambrotype image.

He chose to serve the Union, and it cost him his life.

From West Brookfield, Mass., a small town about 80 miles west of  Boston, Wellington came from a large family. In 1860, his parents, Apollos, 48, and Charlotte, 44, had five other children: Nancy, 24;  John, 22; Marsha, 17; Julia, 15; and Charles, 12. Nancy and her husband, Oliver Woodbridge, also lived in the Wellington household with their son, Theo, and an unnamed 3 1/2-month-old girl. (1) Although certainly of age to serve, John did not join his brother in the Union army, perhaps because of poor health.

One can imagine the strain put on the family when Justus decided to travel to Worcester, about 20 miles east of  West Brookfield, to join the 15th Massachusetts Infantry on July 12, 1861. The Wellingtons were not well off, and Justus' father, who made about $200 a year as a shoemaker, was not in good health during the Civil War.

"In 1862, I remember Apollos Wellington as a weak, nervous man with constant pain in the side and back and trouble with his kidneys," Apollos' longtime physician, George Forbes, wrote after the war. "From above causes, he was unable at that time to perform manual labor and was supported by his son, Justus C., prior to and during the war.

After being routed by the Rebels at Ball's Bluff near Leesburg, Va., on Oct. 21, 1861, Wellington and
 other Union soldiers swam across the Potomac River to Harrison's Island. Some drowned.

"I have seen and known, personally and professionally, Apollos Wellington, and have prescribed for the above troubles several times each year since 1862 and know he has been unable each year since 1862 to perform manual labor sufficiently to maintain himself and has been obliged to subsist upon charity." (2)

Inside this battered thermoplastic case for the
Wellington photo, someone -- a relative, perhaps? --
wrote Justus' name and place of death.

Nearly 100 men from West Brookfield served the Union during the Civil War. (3) They included 23 men who listed their occupation as shoemaker, carpenters, laborers, farmers, teamsters, a clerk, a teacher and even a minister. Sharply dressed for a photo (above) probably taken shortly before or shortly after the war began, Justus undoubtedly knew little of the rigors army life before he enlisted. And like most Civil War soldiers, he probably never had traveled far from his hometown.

The private in Co. F. would soon know all about the horrors of the Civil War.

Three months after being mustered into service, the 15th Massachusetts fought at Ball's Bluff, near Leesburg, Va., about 35 miles upriver from Washington. The Union army suffered about 1,000 casualties during the battle   the Rebels won decisively along the bluffs of the Potomac River. Wellington survived unscathed, but not without consequences for his family. According to his sister, Nancy, Justus "had some money ready to send before the battle but lost everything (as he) swam the Potomac to save his life." (4)

Wellington's casualty sheet offers no
clue where he might be buried.

The 15th Massachusetts fought in all the major battles in the Eastern theater during the war, including the 1862 Peninsula Campaign at the gates of Richmond. But it was in a woodlot on the outskirts of a small farming town in western Maryland that the boys from Massachusetts suffered more than any other regiment on both sides during the Civil War.

"In less time than it takes to tell it, the ground was strewn with the bodies of the dead and wounded," Private Roland Bowen of the 15th Massachusetts wrote of the fighting in the West Woods at Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862.  "In a moment all was confusion, it was every man for himself. We all run like a flock of sheep. The rebs ... mowed us down."

In about 20 minutes during the bloodiest day in American history, 70 men in 15th Massashusetts were killed and 255 were wounded. Among the dead was a shoemaker from Massachusetts named Justus Collins Wellington. He was 24 years, 8 months and 4 days old.

Ever since I purchased the ambrotype of Wellington from a New Hampshire antiques dealer in 2004, I've wondered about his final resting place. After the battle, many of the 15th Massachusetts dead were buried in a trench on the west side of the Mary Locher cabin, near where they fell in the West Woods. After the war, most of the Union dead were disinterred and re-buried in hometown cemeteries or in the national cemetery in Sharpsburg. I haven't found a marked grave for Wellington, who most likely is buried under a gravestone marked "Unknown" in the national cemetery. 

Wellington's name appears on this war memorial in his hometown of
West Brookfield, Mass.,  four spots above  his brother-in-law,
Oliver Woodbridge. Oliver was a prisoner of war.

The awful effects of the Civil War hit home for the Wellington family again in 1864 when Justus' brother-in-law, Oliver Woodbridge, became a prisoner of war. A private in the 27th Massachusetts Infantry, he joined the army after Justus' death and was captured at Southwest Creek, N.C.. He was later exchanged.

Tragedy struck the Wellington family again on July 11, 1866, when Justus' brother, John, died of "consumption" at age 24. After John's death, Justus' mother became ill the next day and was "bed-ridden 10 years and sick until her death in 1876." (5) Seventeen years later, Justus' father died in Monson, Mass., at age 81. Charlotte and Apollos Wellington are buried in West Brookfield at Pine Grove Cemetery, a rolling plot of land dotted with pines a short distance from the village green.

Justus Wellington's name appears on a monument to war veterans of West Brookfield, four spots above brother-in-law Oliver Woodbridge. Wellington's name is also on the bottom left corner of a large plaque on the beautiful 15th Massachusetts monument at Antietam -- the most impressive monument on the field. To honor Wellington, I took the ambrotype of him from my collection of Civil War photos back to Antietam five years ago, placed it next to his name on the monument and took the picture below.

(1) 1860 U.S. Census
(2) Physician's affidavit in pension applicaiton, April 1887, National Archives
(3) American Civil War Research Database
(4) Pension affidavit, National Archives
(5) General affidavit in pension application, Feb. 25, 1887, National Archives

Wellington's name is listed on the bottom left corner of the 15th Massachusetts
monument at Antietam. I took the ambrotype of Wellington from my collection there
five years ago and photographed it next to his name on the monument.



Civil War under my nose: Dorence Atwater

The Dorence Atwater monument is in Baldwin Park in Terryville, Conn.

As I have noted in posts here, here and here, you don't have to look hard to find a marker, monument or grave related to Civil War history in Connecticut. On a drive from Thomaston, Conn., back to Avon on a rainy Memorial Day morning, I pulled off the road into a park in the village of Terryville. That's when I happened upon a sign that -- surprise, surprise -- told an intriguing Civil War tale.

Dorence Atwater

I wasn't familiar with the incredible story of Dorence Atwater, who was born in Plymouth Center, Conn. (Terryville) and probably lied about his age when he enlisted in the Union army at the start of the Civil War when he was barely 16.

After being captured at Hagerstown, Md., on July 7, 1863, Atwater was sent to a prisoner of war camp in Richmond before eventually ending up in the notorious Rebel POW camp in Andersonville, Ga. (1) While imprisoned there, he had the presence of mind to secretly record the deaths and burial locations of many of his fellow soldiers. He survived Andersonville and then turned over the death records after the war to Clara Barton., the famous Civil War nurse (and later the founder of  the American Red Cross). Atwater and Barton used the records to help properly mark the many previously unknown graves at Andersonville, no doubt bringing comfort to their families back north.

Clara Barton in 1902

In his amazingly colorful life, Atwater was a gold speculator, selected as U.S. Consul to the Seychelles by President Andrew Johnson at age 23, married a Tahitian woman and worked with lepers. (2) Pretty incredible stuff. Atwater died in 1910 in San Francisco and was buried in Tahiti. Deborah Safranski has an excellent account of her ancestor here, and Judith Giguere of the Plymouth (Conn.) Historical Society has more detail on Atwater here.

As for the cannon at the memorial, well, it's a biggun'. I am not a Civil War cannon expert, but I think this is a  Columbiad tube, many of which are on display at courthouses and memorials throughout the United States. The barrel of the cannon (bottom photo below) has markings and a serial number, which I believe identifies the foundry where it was made.

By the way, Atwater isn't the only famous citizen of Terryville. Tadeusz Wladyslaw Konopka, better known as Ted Knight of "Mary Tyler Moore Show" fame, is also from Terryville.

Clara Barton, the famous Civil War nurse who founded the American Red Cross
after the war, attended the dedication of the Atwater monument in 1906.



A look straight down the barrel of the Atwater monument cannon.

(1) American Civil War Database
(2) Angel of Andersonville: The Extraordinary Life of Dorence Atwater by Deborah Safranski, 2008