Brothers: Connecticut's Civil War sacrifice

Each number on this map represents a Connecticut town in which a family lost at least two
 sons during the Civil War.  Numbers denote a story below. (CLICK TO ENLARGE.)

Five years of conflict.

Eight sets of brothers.

Seventeen separate Civil War tragedies.

The siblings from Connecticut whose stories are told below died far from their hometowns in such places as New Bern, N.C., Sharpsburg, Md., and Florence, S.C.

They died from gunshot wounds, disease ... or worse. Two of them lingered for weeks after being wounded, dying in their hometown. Two were only teenagers. One man's fiancee died almost exactly a month after he was killed in battle. Most left behind a wife and children. At least five were not even returned to their home state for burial. One soldier's brother and father died in service for their country during the war.

Who knows what all the ripple effects were of the deaths of these soldiers during the most tragic five years in American history?

In an e-mail to me more than two years ago, a descendant of a set of these brothers wrote that their loss is felt in her family even today. I'm not surprised.

Luman, Edward and Henry Wadhams: The brothers died in Virginia in 1864.

1. LITCHFIELD: The Wadhams brothers

In late spring 1864, Deacon Adams made several trips to the farmhouse of Edwin and Mary Wadhams, not far from the center of Litchfield, to deliver terrible news.

One of the Wadhams' sons had died.

Then another.

The Wadhams brothers' marker at 
West Cemetery in Litchfield, about 35 miles
 west of  Hartford.

And another.

Within an 18-day span, three Wadhams sons were killed in battles near Richmond.

The first to die was Edward, a 27-year-old sergeant in the 8th Connecticut who was killed at Fort Darling on May 16. Ten days later, Henry, a 33-year-old lieutenant in the 14th Connecticut, was killed at North Anna River. Finally, Luman, the well-regarded captain in the 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery, was mortally wounded at Cold Harbor on June 1. Carried off the field by fellow soldiers using muskets as a makeshift stretcher, Luman died in an ambulance two days later en route to White House Landing, Va. He was 29 years old.

Luman's funeral service, held at the Congregational Church opposite the Litchfield village green, was "crowded to its utmost capacity by sympathizing friends, and large numbers of strangers from out of town came to pay their respects to the lamented deceased." (1)

Luman is buried beneath an impressive, white marker in Litchfield's West Cemetery. Perhaps his brothers are buried there too, although that merits more research. On a side of the marker are these words:

"The battle is fought, the victory won. Rest, soldiers, rest."

Edwin Lee (left) is buried in Barkhamsted, Conn. His brother, Henry, is buried under in an
unknown  grave in Virginia. (Photos John Lee of Hartford Co. and His Descendants)

2. BARKHAMSTED: The Lee brothers

A captain in the 11th Connecticut Infantry, Edwin Lee was just 28 years old when he was struck and killed by an artillery shell on March 14, 1862 at the Battle of New Bern (N.C.). Before he died, Edwin reportedly said: "Tell my brother I died at the post of duty. Good-by. Go on for your country!" (2) He was buried near the battlefield and later disinterred and brought back north for re-burial at Riverside Cemetery in Barkhamsted, about 20 miles northwest of  Hartford.  Edwin's brother, Henry, was killed on Aug. 16, 1864 at the Battle of Deep Run (Va.). His final resting place is Fort Harrison National Cemetery, near Richmond, where his body lies with many other Union soldiers whose tombstones are marked "Unknown." The 35-year-old lieutenant in the 7th Connecticut, described as a "brave, faithful, uncomplaining soldier," left behind a wife and four young children. (3)

Brothers John and James Willard have memorial markers in West Avon Cemetery, next to
West Avon Congregational Church. Each man, however, is buried elsewhere.

3. AVON: The Willard brothers

Two weather-worn markers stand in West Avon Cemetery in memory of  John and James Willard. Sadly, neither brother's final resting place is back home in Connecticut.  James, a 20-year-old private, was killed in the 7th Connecticut's attack on Fort Wagner, near Charleston, S.C., on July 10, 1863. He was buried on the battlefield, perhaps thrown into a trench by the enemy. The son of Julius and Damaris Willard "sleeps where he fell," according to his cemetery marker. John, a 32-year-old wagoner in the 11th Connecticut, died of yellow fever in New Bern, N.C., on Oct 3, 1864, and according to his marker, he is "buried in that city."

4. BERLIN: The Bacon brothers

Medal of Honor marker next to Elijah Bacon's grave
in Maple Cemetery in Berlin, Conn.

On July 3, 1863, Private Elijah William Bacon of the 14th Connecticut was a hero at Gettysburg, snatching the colors of the 16th North Carolina during Pickett's Charge. Less than a year later, on May 6, 1864, he was killed in action at the Wilderness. Posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for valor at Gettysburg, Elijah left behind a wife, Eliza, and two daughters. Elijah's brother, Andrew, was captured in early May at Ely's Ford, Va., and sent to Andersonville, the notorious Rebel prisoner-of-war camp in Georgia. After being transferred from Andersonville, Andrew died on Jan. 25, 1865 at a POW camp in Florence, S.C.  He and his wife, Marissa, had no children. The brothers are buried in Maple Cemetery in Berlin, about 15 miles south of Hartford.

5: EAST HARTFORD: The Flint brothers

Alvin Flint Jr.

Death was no stranger to the Flint family during the Civil War. In the winter of 1861-62, Alvin Flint Jr.'s mother and sister died of consumption in East Hartford. Just 18 years old, Alvin joined the 11th Connecticut as a private on Oct. 1, 1861. Less than a year later, he too was dead, killed in the 11th Connecticut's fruitless attack at Burnside Bridge at Antietam. The loss was no doubt excruciating for 53-year-old Alvin Flint Sr., who had enlisted in the 21st Connecticut along with his 13-year-old son, George, in August 1862. "Hardly had the sadness of the death of a dear daughter, that I had lost last January, worn off when this sad, sad calamity should come upon me," he lamented in a letter published in the Hartford Courant on Oct. 29, 1862. In another unbelievably tragic turn of events, Alvin Sr. and young George died of disease within several days of each other in mid-January 1863. In a 13-month timeframe, five family members -- including two brothers -- were dead. They are all buried in Center Cemetery in East Hartford.

6.  COVENTRY:  The Talcott brothers

A private in Company D of the 14th Connecticut, 26-year-old Henry Talcott was wounded when an artillery shell burst near a wall in the lane leading up to William Roulette's farmhouse, wounding three other men and killing three in his company. (4) Samuel, Henry's 20-year-old brother, also was severely wounded at Antietam; he lingered for several weeks before he died on Oct. 14, 1862.  Samuel was buried in Center Cemetery in his hometown of Coventry, about 25 miles west of Hartford. "After the services the congregation viewed the remains," the Hartford Courant reported on Oct. 27, 1862, "and the sad procession slowly wended its way to the cemetery. The flag draped in black was borne by the members of the Sunday School Class of Talcott, to whom he was strongly attached."  Like his brother, Henry also lingered for several weeks before he died on Nov. 10.  He is buried to the right of his brother in the family plot.

Close-up of Samuel Talcott's gravestone. The 20-year-old private was mortally
wounded on Sept. 17, 1862. He died four weeks later.

7. EAST HADDAM: The Bingham brothers

John Bingham was killed at Antietam. Wells Bingham survived.
Another brother, Eliphalet, died during the Civil War.
It's unclear which brother is which in these photos.
(Photo courtesy of Military and Historical Image Bank)

A little more than a month after he enlisted in the Union army on Aug. 7, 1862, 17-year-old John Bingham, a private in the 16th Connecticut, was killed at Antietam. Younger brother Wells, also a private in Company H of the 16th Connecticut, apparently survived Antietam physically unscathed, but the memory of that terrible day was probably seared into the 16-year-old boy soldier's brain the rest of his life. Three other Bingham brothers served during the Civil War, including Eliphalet, who died May 1, 1864 at Arlington Heights, Va. It's unclear whether he died of a battle wound, disease or another cause. John and Eliphalet are buried at First Church Cemetery in East Haddam, about 35 miles southeast of Hartford. Apparently upset over a failing business, Wells committed suicide in 1904.

8. CANTERBURY: The Lewis brothers

A sergeant in Company F of  the 8th Connecticut, Charles Lewis -- described as a man who "had always fought in the front ranks" -- was killed at Antietam. (5) His fiancee, 21-year-old Sarah Hyde, died nearly a month later, on Oct. 16, 1862, and is buried next to Charles at Carey Cemetery in Canterbury. "They had been brought up together in life, in death they were not divided," the Hartford Courant reported on Oct. 24, 1862,  "and together they sleep the last sleep."  Charles' brother, Albert, was a 28-year-old corporal in the 5th Connecticut. Captured at Winchester, Va., on May 24, 1862, he was a prisoner of war for four months before he was paroled. Like other Union POWs who were paroled or released -- see my blog post on  Wallace Woodford of Avon -- Albert no doubt was in poor health when he finally returned home to Canterbury. Discharged because of a disability on Dec. 15, 1862, he died on March 23, 1863.

Charles Lewis, a sergeant in the 8th Connecticut killed at Antietam, is buried next to his
fiancee, Sarah Hyde, at Carey Cemetery in Canterbury, Conn.

(1)  The Litchfield Times, June 1864
(2)  The Military and Civil History of Connecticut During the War of 1861-65, William Augustus Croffut, John Moses Morrism 1869, Page 175
(3) Barkhamsted And Its Centennial, William Wallace Lee and Henry Roger Jones, 1881, Page 175
(4) History of the Fourteenth Regiment, Conneticut Volunteer Infantry, Charles Davis Page, Page 43, 1906
(5) The Military and Civil History of Connecticut During the War of 1861-65, William Augustus Croffut, John Moses Morris 1869, Page 272, Page 277

Connecticut Day at Antietam on April 21, 2012

The 14th Connecticut monument at Antietam.

On April 21, 2012, Antietam National Battlefield is the place to be if you're interested in Connecticut's service during the Civil War. To honor the men of the 8th, 11th, 14th and 16th Connecticut regiments who fought in the farm fields and woodlots outside Sharpsburg, Md., "Connecticut Day at Antietam"  will be held that Saturday. Among the activities will be appearances by Connecticut reenactors, readings by descendants of letters of soldiers who fought at Antietam, a wreath-laying ceremony at Antietam National Cemetery and much more. For more information, click here, call 860-489-1618 or e-mail bpavlik@mac.com.

Faces of the Civil War: The Bingham brothers

The Bingham brothers of East Haddam, Conn.  Teen-age privates in Company H of the
16th Connecticut,  John (left) was killed at Antietam and Wells survived  the war. 
 (Photos courtesy Military and Historical Image Bank)

UPDATE: The Antietam secretary mentioned in this post was exposed in 2018 as a forgery.

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Just teenagers when they joined the Union army, the Bingham brothers fought at Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862. One brother was killed. The other survived, and 14 years later, he received a unique gift in memory of his dead brother: a piece of folk art that may hold a rare Civil War relic from the bloodiest day in American history.

The story of this secretary, recently purchased by a New England antiques dealer, starts with the Bingham boys, John and Wells. From East Haddam, Conn., about 30 miles southeast of Hartford, they enlisted as privates on Aug. 7, 1862. Seventeen days later, John, 17, and Wells, barely 16, were mustered into Company H of the 16th Connecticut Infantry. (1)

The secretary was given to Wells Bingham by friends in 1876
 to honor the memory  of his brother, John, who was killed 
at Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862.

The physical and mental burden of having two teenage sons in the army undoubtedly took a toll on Elisha and Martha Bingham, who had seven other children ranging in age from 3 to 24 by August 1862.  Elisha, who married Martha in 1857 after his first wife died, supported his large family as a farmer, and his sons were likely an integral part of the farm. By August 1864, four other Bingham sons were in the Union army: Eliphalet,  21; Charles, 22; William. 24; and Alonzo, 26. (2)

Like most Civil War soldiers, the Bingham boys probably knew little of the rigors of army life before the war. In fact, before the 16th Connecticut shipped off for New York on Aug. 29, 1862, en route to its final destination in Washington, they probably never had traveled far from East Haddam. Barely trained and unfamiliar with how to use weapons, the Bingham brothers' rookie regiment found out soon enough about the horrors of the Civil War.

In early September 1862, John and Wells marched with the 16th Connecticut from their camp at Fort Ward outside the capital to join the Army of the Potomac in Maryland. The regiment was under sporadic artillery fire at Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862, until it was ordered to attack the Confederates left flank late that Wednesday afternoon.

The result was disastrous.

After marching 17 miles from Harper's Ferry, A.P. Hill's veterans struck the raw 16th Connecticut in the left flank in the 40-acre cornfield of a farmer named John Otto. In the massive confusion of their first battle, many Connecticut soldiers broke and ran, a stigma the regiment never erased. Out of 779 men and boys, the 16th Connecticut suffered 43 killed, 161 wounded and 204 captured or missing.

The clock on top of the secretary includes
the words "The Union Preserved."

Among the dead was a farmer's son, 17-year-old Private John F. Bingham. (He is buried East Haddam, Conn.)

Although the memory of the death of his brother and many other comrades probably was seared into his brain the remainder of his life, Wells Bingham apparently escaped physically uninjured.

Fast forward to April 20, 1864.

Part of a hugely outnumbered Union garrison at Plymouth, N.C., most of the 16th Connecticut men surrendered and were sent to the notorious Confederate prisoner-of-war camp in Andersonville, Ga. But just before they waved the white flag that Wednesday, Professor Lesley Gordon wrote in a terrific account, "Lt. Col. (John) Burnham ordered the regimental flags destroyed, and the poles buried. It was one thing to have an entire regiment captured; but to have one’s colors seized was especially dishonorable. Burnham dispatched Color Cpl. Ira Forbes and Color Sgt. Frank Latimer to tear the flags into shreds and distribute them to the men."

The Connecticut men who survived kept the pieces of flag throughout their imprisonment in Andersonville.

Fast forward again to the end of the war.

In a huge stroke of luck, Wells Bingham escaped the hell of imprisonment in the South because he had returned to Connecticut to recruit soldiers and was not in Plymouth when the 16th was captured.  "Could not have been happier or more envied if I had been chosen to be a Major General," he wrote in a post-war assessment of that period. Wells was discharged from the army on July 8, 1865. His older brother, Eliphalet, wasn't as lucky. According to one account, he died in Arlington Heights, Va., on May 1, 1864. (Another account indicates he died in Fredericksburg.)

In a post-war assessment of his Civil War service, Wells Bingham expressed his happiness
at avoiding capture at Plymouth, N.C. (CLICK TO ENLARGE.)

On July 4, 1876, a little more than 11 years after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, friends of Wells Bingham presented the Civil War veteran with a one-of-a-kind gift in memory of his dead brother, John. Evidently sparing no expense, the handcrafted 8-foot secretary is made predominantly of walnut and oak. Spelled out in cattle bone on the ornate front are the words "Antietam" and "Sept. 17, 1862," as well as John F. Bingham's name. A Ninth Corps badge is mounted between the "18" and "76." The knobs are bird's-eye maple with bone inset circles. A clock, crowned with an eagle and including the words "The Union Preserved" near the base, is mounted on top. When the inside right front door is opened, "Yankee Doodle Dandy" plays on a music box.

And on the plaque just below the bookshelf are these words:

Is this a piece of the 16th Connecticut regimental
flag that was carried at Antietam? This star on a
cloth is encased in a tin on the front of the secretary.

"Presented to Wells A. Bingham by his friends. The secretary a rememberance of his brother John F. Bingham who offered up his life at Antietam, Maryland Sept. 17, 1862. The encased star a remnant of the colors carried that day by the 16th Infantry. The memory plaque made from a shard of his knife."

After the war, the remaining pieces of the 16th Connecticut's regimental flag were reassembled by Andersonville survivors. That flag, now on display in the Hall of Flags at the State Capitol building in Hartford, is missing stars. Could the star from the secretary be one of the stars missing from the cherished flag that was carried through the smoke of battle at Antietam? Or does it belong to another flag?

It merits further research ... or it could remain one of history's small mysteries.

A footnote: Wells A. Bingham died on Aug. 16, 1904. He was 58.

His death was ruled a suicide. (3)

(1) American Civil War Research Database
(2) Some Account Of The Cone Family in America: Principally Of The Descendants, William Whitney Cone, 1903, Page 111
(3) New York Times, Aug. 17, 1904

A plaque on the front of the secretary notes that John F. Bingham "offered up his life at Antietam."

Detail of the front of the secretary, including images of Lincoln and Washington.

John F. Bingham's name is prominent on the front of the secretary.



Faces of the Civil War: Captain David Acheson

David Acheson (right), pictured with his friend,  George Laughlin (left), and Alexander Sweeney,
another member of the 140th Pennsylvania. Acheson was killed at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863.

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Killed at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863, David Acheson was buried on the battlefield in a temporary grave next to a rock on which a comrade carved the 22-year-old captain's initials. After traipsing through a soggy field, I found that off-the-beaten path site in early May 2011. On a foggy Thanksgiving morning, I located Acheson's final resting place in a cemetery in Washington, Pa.

One of nine children of Alexander and Jane Acheson, Acheson served in 12th Pennsylvania Infantry, a three-month regiment, until he was mustered out on Aug. 5, 1861. Nearly a year later, Acheson, a popular student at Washington College (now Washington & Jefferson College), re-enlisted and helped raise a company of men for the 140th Pennsylvania Infantry.

Acheson is buried in Washington Cemetery in Washington, Pa., near Pittsburgh.
He attended Washington College before the war. (Photo at right courtesy donnan.com)

One of the most promising young men in his college class, Acheson recruited "the names of many of the best and brightest young men of the town and its environs, a large number of whom were college students or men of more than ordinary education and intelligence." He was elected captain of Company C and two friends who had served with him in the 12th Pennsylvania -- Isaac Vance and Charles Litton -- were named first and second lieutenants.

During the intense and confusing fight in the Wheatfield at Gettysburg on July 2, Acheson was shot twice and killed. "A man of fine physique and of rare nobility of character, he was greatly beloved by all who knew him," a post-war history of the 140th Pennsylvania noted. "His First Lieutenant, Isaac Vance, lost his left hand in the same engagement."

In the 1860 U.S. census, David was listed as one of nine children of Alexander and
Jane Acheson. Three of David's brothers also served during the Civil War.
Alexander Acheson was a judge and prominent attorney in Washington, Pa.
(CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)

After the Wheatfield fighting was over, Acheson was left behind Confederate lines, but his comrades recovered his body after the battle and buried him in shallow grave on the John Weikert Farm. To mark the spot so his body could be recovered later, a soldier carved the initials "D.A." on a large rock next to Acheson's temporary grave.

To mark David Acheson's temporary gravesite, a soldier
carved the 22-year-old captain's initials on
this rock on the John Weikert Farm at Gettysburg.

Thanks to that man whose name is lost to history, Acheson's family was able to locate the gravesite 10 days after the battle and take his body back to his hometown in Washington, Pa., about 25 miles south of Pittsburgh. One of four Acheson brothers to serve during the Civil War, David was later re-buried on a hillside in Washington Cemetery, about a mile from the center of town and Washington & Jefferson College.

On the front of Acheson's grave is a verse from the 23rd Psalm:

"Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me."

Several years after the war, a veteran from Company C deepened the initials in the rock at Gettysburg and carved 140 PV, a reference to their regiment.


(As I shot the video above, I was watched intently by several nosy cemetery guests: three deer and several wild turkeys.)

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Have something to add (or correct) in this post? E-mail me here.

SOURCES

-- American Civil War Research Database
-- History of the One Hundred and Fortieth Reigment Pennsylvania Volunteers , Robert Laird Stewart,Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: The Regimental Association, 1912.

This doe was interested in my work at Washington Cemetery.

JFK at Antietam in April 1963

This April 7, 1963 photo, included in a wayside exhibit at Antietam, shows JFK
 at Burnside Bridge with acting Antietam superintendent Robert Lagemann.

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On April 7, 1963, seven months before he was assassinated in Dallas, President Kennedy flew by helicopter from nearby Camp David to visit the Antietam battlefield. JFK spent about 90 minutes there with a small party that included his brother, Sen. Ted Kennedy, and the senator's wife.

A remarkable, seven-minute silent film of Kennedy's visit --- posted on the JFK President Library site -- shows the president, in an open car, tour the battlefield without drawing a huge crowd. Visitors stood steps from Kennedy and his convertible as it heads down Cornfield Avenue. Before leaving, Kennedy and acting Antietam battlefield superintendent Robert Lagemann visited iconic Burnside Bridge, which wasn't closed to vehicular traffic until 1966.

The president, an avid student of history and a World War II veteran, had visited Gettysburg the previous Sunday with his wife, Jackie. 

Frame grab from 2:58 mark in video: Visitors shoot film of JFK's Antietam visit
as his car moves down Cornfield Avenue.

Frame grab from 3:03 mark of video: JFK examining wayside exhibit at Miller Cornfield.

Frame grab from 3:26 mark: While battlefield visitors stand steps away,
acting Antietam superintendent Robert L. Lagemann explains action at Miller Cornfield.

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-- Have something to add, correct? E-mail me at jbankstx@comcast.net

Faces of the Civil War: Captain John McCall

John McCall, a captain in Company K in the 8th Connecticut, was killed
at Drewry's Bluff, near Richmond, on May 16, 1864. He is buried in
Yantic Cemetery in Norwich, Conn.

McCall was wounded and captured at
Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862.
 (Photos Mollus collection)

In researching backgrounds of Civil War soldiers, I often find accounts of the last words of dying men.

After he suffered a mortal wound at South Mountain, Union General Jesse Reno told his friend, General Sam Sturgis: "Hallo Sam, I am dead.!" Sturgis thought Reno was  joking and replied: "Oh, no, General, not so bad as that I hope" Reno reponded: "Yes, yes, I'm dead. Goodbye!"

Captain Edwin Lee of the 11th Connecticut, after being struck by an artillery shell at New Bern (N.C.), said:  "Tell my brother I died at the post of duty. Good-by. Go on for your country!"

Mortally wounded at Antietam, Captain John Griswold of the 8th Connecticut  told General Ambrose Burnside: "I am happy, general. I die as I have ever wished to die, for my country."

And Captain John McCall blurted out after he was shot through the heart at Drewry's Bluff in Virginia: "I shall be dead in a minute!" McCall then fell backward and died. (1)

Are these stories romanticized, spot on or a mix of truth and fiction? History can often be untidy, but it's another reason I find the Civil War so riveting.


The Civil War story of John McCall, whose grave I visited this afternoon, is compelling too.

Born in Bozrah, Conn., on June 3, 1835, McCall was the second of four children of Stephen and Judith Ann McCall.  The McCalls resided in Norwich, a major manufacturing town about 60 miles southeast of Hartford. A burgeoning textile and armaments industry, as well expansion of New England railroads, fueled the town's economy during the Civil War.

A year before the first shots of the war were fired at Fort Sumter in South Carolina, the McCalls apparently were gainfully employed. Stephen supported his family as a carpenter, perhaps working in one of Norwich's many mills, and John was an engineer. His younger brother, Asa, was a machinist while oldest sister Amoret was a teacher. John's youngest sister, Sarah, was an 18-year-old student. (2)

In the 1860 U.S. census, John McCall's occupation was listed as engineer.  He was the second
of four children of Stephen and Judith Ann McCall. (CLICK TO ENLARGE.)

Like thousands of other Connecticut men, John McCall heeded the call of his country and on Aug. 28, 1861 enlisted in the Union army. Well-regarded by his peers, McCall was elected sergeant and mustered into Company D  of the 8th Connecticut Infantry on Sept. 21, 1861. After the 8th Connecticut fought in two battles in North Carolina in the spring 1862, it was assigned to the Army of Potomac on July 2, 1862.

On Sept. 17, 1862 at Antietam, McCall, promoted to lieutenant a month earlier, and the 8th Connecticut advanced farther than any other Union regiment on the left flank. But the Connecticut men were unsupported and soon crushed by a Rebel counter-attack.

"No reinforcements come. Twenty men are falling every minute. Col. Applemen falls bleeding. John McCall falls bleeding," a book published in 1869 on Connecticut's role  in the war noted. "...Men grow frantic. The wounded prop themselves behind the rude stone fence, and hurl lead vengeance at the foe. Even the chaplain snatches the rifle and cartridge-box of a dead man, and fights for life." (2)  Wounded in the leg, McCall became a prisoner of war but was later paroled and exchanged, although I have been unable to uncover more details.==


In the video, I should have noted McCall was indeed a captain by the end of the war. Also, McCall was 28 when he died, not 27.

 the final months of his life, McCall -- described as an officer who "possessed all the prominent characteristics of a good soldier" -- continued to distinguish himself. (3) He was promoted to captain of Company K on Feb. 7, 1863. During the siege of Suffolk, Va., he led an attack on Fort Huger on April 19, 1863, crossing the Nasemond River in a daring daylight attack.

After he was killed May 16, 1864 at Drewry's Bluff -- "a battle fought in the midst of an Egyptian fog" -- McCall's body was returned to Norwich, where he was buried with military and Masonic honors in Yantic Cemetery. Hartford, Fishkill and Providence Railroad employees who worked with McCall before the war helped cover expenses for his beautifully carved tombstone, now well-worn by the elements. (4)

On the back it includes these words:

"He sacrificed his life upon the altar of his country."

(1) The  Descendants of Veach Williams, of Lebanon, Conn, Alexander Hamilton Wright, Page 86
(2) 1860 U.S. Census.
(3) The History of Norwich, Connecticut: From its Possession by the Indians, to the Year 1866, Frances Manwaring Caulkins, 1866, Page 665
(4) The Descendants of Veach Williams, of Lebanon, Conn, Alexander Hamilton Wright, Page 86

Close-up of the intricate carving on the reverse side of  McCall's grave.

On the back of McCall's tombstone: "He sacrificed his life upon the altar of his country."

McCall's grave is among many Civil War graves at Yantic Cemetery in Norwich Conn.,
about an hour southeast of Hartford.

Faces of the Civil War: Captain John D. Griswold

John Griswold's final resting place in Griswold Cemetery in Old Lyme, Conn. His
monument was described as "strikingly beautiful" in the Hartford Courant on Aug. 5, 1863.

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Up to his armpits in swift-moving Antietam Creek and under fire from Georgians in woods and on the bluff above, John Griswold must have known he was living on borrowed time.

Captain John Griswold of Lyme, Conn., 
was mortally wounded at Antietam
 on Sept. 17, 1862.

The 11th Connecticut Infantry had been ordered to storm Rohrbach Bridge and the Confederate position beyond during the Battle of Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862, but their progress was frustratingly slow. Impatient, Griswold, a 25-year-old captain from Lyme, boldly led a group of skirmishers across the 4-foot deep creek.

It was a deadly move.

"In the middle of the creek a ball penetrated his body," Griswold's friend, Dr. Nathan Mayer of the 11th Connecticut, wrote in a letter from Sharpsburg to his brother on Sept. 29, 1862. "He reached the opposite side and lay down to die." (1)

Mayer quickly summoned four privates, and together they forded the creek and climbed a fence while under fire to reach Griswold. The men carried the soaked and bloody captain to a nearby small shed, where the surgeon from Hartford gave his "ashly pale" friend morphine to ease his pain. But they both knew the wound near his stomach was mortal.

"He thanked me for my services in elegant phrase," Mayer wrote, "and attracted my attention to the number of wounded that now filled the shed, intimating that he feared that he had monopolized too much of the time of so good a surgeon on the day of battle." (2)

General Ambrose Burnside, commander of the Union left wing at Antietam and an acquaintance of Griswold, later visited. "I am happy, general," the captain said. "I die as I have ever wished to die, for my country."

Famed Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner shot this image after the battle. Soldiers
from the 11th Connecticut crossed this ground from right to left. Shot in the middle of
Antietam Creek, Griswold struggled to the opposite bank. (Library of Congress collection)

On Sept. 18, Griswold finally succumbed from his wounds, perhaps a quarter-mile away at the Henry Rohrbach farm that was used as a Federal field hospital. Griswold's death apparently had a strong effect on Burnside, who spoke about it years afterward, according to one account.

An uncommon soldier, John D. Griswold was a Renaissance man. From a prominent Connecticut family, he graduated from Yale in 1857.  (He was one of many Yale men, from both sides, to die during the Civil War.) Fluent in Spanish and French, he had studied chemistry and mineralogy, enjoyed reading classical literature and was described as a skilled athlete, swordsman and draughtsman. After graduating from college, he went to Kansas to work as a surveyor and later traveled to Hawaii, where he had business, and other Pacific islands.

On July 31, 1863, the Hartford Courant  included 
Griswold in a list of Yale graduates who died 
during the Civil War.
Yale men served the North and South. 

When the Civil War broke out, Griswold hurriedly returned to the mainland in September 1861. He intended to join the Union army as a private, but friends insisted he see Gov. William Buckingham, who promised him a commission and encouraged him to return to Lyme to raise a company. (3) Griswold enlisted in the Union army on Dec. 16, 1861, eight months after the Rebels fired on Fort Sumter, and was commissioned in Company I of the 11th Connecticut Infantry 15 days later.

Like many men of the era, Griswold was described as fiercely patriotic. A major recalled walking with him to place flowers on the battlefield grave of  Edwin Lee, a captain in the 11th Connecticut who was killed at New Bern, N.C. on March 14, 1862. (I posted last month about Lee's death and funeral.)  "Poor Lee," the major said. "Not so," Griswold said. "I say happy Lee, fortunate Lee. What life could he or any of us lead better than to die for our country! Fortunate Lee!" (4)

As he admired the beautiful countryside on the march to Antietam in September 1862, Griswold discussed with Mayer philosophy and classic literature, from De Civatate De to Les Miserables. "Whoever approached him," Mayer wrote, "felt that he had entered a circle of refinement." Despite his affluent upbringing, Griswold "was particular in extending the same courtesies to the soldiers under his command," the surgeon wrote. (5)

Perhaps it's no surprise then that a refined gentleman such as Griswold has a tombstone that is a work of art.



Griswold Cemetery is small cemetery nestled in a strip of woods in Old Lyme, an historic town about an hour southeast of Hartford on Connecticut's coast. Generations of Griswolds are buried there, including John's grandfather, an early 19th-century Connecticut governor.  A flood of bodies returned to Connecticut in late September and early October after Antietam, and sometime during that timeframe, Griswold was buried in his family cemetery. Months afterward, a permanent memorial created by Thomas Adams in Hartford was placed atop his grave.

The Hartford Courant raved about the work, advising "lovers of art to examine it" at Adams' Hartford establishment on the corner of Market and Temple streets before it was placed on Griswold's grave.

"We have never seen a monument more strikingly beautiful; more earnestly expressive in the design contemplated," the newpaper gushed on Aug. 5, 1863. "It is truly a finished production, giving evidence of the wonderful skill of the artist."

Thanks to a Griswold ancestor who still lives in the Lyme area, I gained access to the private cemetery this morning. The Courant nailed it nearly 150 years ago. Griswold's 6 1/2-foot gray marker is indeed special, one of the more ornate and beautiful Civil War memorials I have seen in Connecticut.

Especially poignant are the words carved near the bottom.

"Tell my mother," it reads, "I died at the head of my company."

John Griswold reportedly utttered these words, which are carved into the bottom of his
memorial, after he was mortally wounded at Antietam.

(1) Hartford Courant, Oct. 6, 1862, Page 2
(2) The Military and Civil History of Connecticut During the War of 1861-65, William Augustus Croffut, John Moses Morris 1869, Pages 280-81
(3) Edward Elbridge Salisbury, Family histories and genealogies. A series of genealogical and biographical monographs on the families of MacCurdy, Mitchell, Lord, Lynde, Digby, Newdigate, Hoo, Willoughby, Griswold, Wolcott, Pitkin, Page 12.
(4) Ibid
(5) The Military and Civil History of Connecticut During the War of 1861-65, William Augustus Croffut, John Moses Morris 1869, Pages 280-81

Close-up of the top portion of John Griswold's memorial. After he was mortally wounded,
he told  General Ambrose Burnside: "I die as I have ever wished to die, for my country."
Those words are carved on his memorial.

Close-up of the bottom of Griswold's memorial. The 25-year-old captain was mortally
wounded while  crossing Antietam Creek on Sept. 17, 1862.

A close-up of the back of Griswold's memorial. He hurried back from Hawaii
to join the Union army in late 1861.

Antietam visit: 'Old Simon' at National Cemetery

The Civil War memorial at Antietam National Cemetery, one of my favorite spots at the battlefield.

On a crisp fall day in October, I took this picture of the beautiful 44-foot Civil War monument at Antietam National Cemetery in Sharpsburg, Md. The monument was designed by a Hartford man, James Batterson, and formally dedicated on Sept. 17, 1880. The 21-foot soldier on the memorial was nicknamed "Old Simon" by local residents. His journey to Sharpsburg from the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876 was delayed a few months when he fell into the Potomac River.

The remains of 4,776 Union soldiers -- about 1,800 whose names are unknown -- are buried at the cemetery, one of my favorite places at Antietam. Perhaps Justus Collins Wellington, whose body was not returned to his hometown in West Brookfield, Mass, is buried here under a gravestone marked "Unknown." A private in Company F of the 15th Massachusetts, Wellington was killed in the fight in the West Woods.

Antietam visit: A time to reflect

I took this photo at the off-the-beaten path 11th Connecticut monument at Antietam.

In this photo taken in October, the reflection of my outstretched hand holding my Blackberry pointed to Alvin Flint's name on the 11th Connecticut monument at Antietam. Throw in the sun rays, and that's a pretty neat shot. Flint, an 18-year-old private, was killed at Antietam. I will drive to Old Lyme, Conn., later this morning to find the grave of one of Flint's comrades, Captain John Griswold, who was mortally wounded near Burnside Bridge at Antietam.

A Connecticut soldier's gruesome Antietam death

In the Chicopee Soldiers Record, handwritten accounts of the Civil War service of 600 men
from Chicopee, Mass., the gruesome cause of Private William P. Ramsdell death
at Antietam is noted. (Click on image to enlarge.)

As the 14th Connecticut was under fire during the Battle of Antietam, William Ramsdell quietly talked about how he preferred a quick death if he were shot. A short time later, he was killed, struck in the back of the head by a fragment of artillery shell.

In reporting a blog post that included an account of  Henry and Samuel Talcott, brothers from Coventry, Conn., who died of wounds suffered at Antietam, I discovered the story of the gruesome -- and unusual -- death of one of their Company D comrades.

Benjamin Hirst (above):  "The first man I
recognized  was W. P. Ramsdell with the
top of  his head blown off." (Company G
14th Regiment  Conn. Volunteer Infantry, Inc.)

A 28-year-old private, Ramsdell was born in Belchertown, Mass., and apparently lived most of his life in that state. The son of Porter Ramsdell, William, a machinist, enlisted for three years in the 14th Connecticut on July 28, 1862. (1) His residence during the war was Vernon, Conn., about 15 miles northeast of Hartford.

On Sept. 17, 1862 -- a little more than a month after breaking camp in Hartford -- Ramsdell and the 14th Connecticut fought in the farm fields of Samuel Mumma and William Roulette on the outskirts of Sharpsburg, Md. Antietam was the first battle of the Civil War for the 14th Connecticut, which had marched from its camp near Washington only 10 days earlier.

As Company D hugged the ground by a stone wall near a lane on Roulette's farm, a sergeant overheard Ramsdell softly remark "that if he was going to be hit, he would prefer to have the top of his head blown off." (2)

"When midway between the wall and the position assigned to us, I was about the center of Fourteenth Regiment, C. V. Infantry company, urging the boys to close up, when a rebel shell came whizzing by and struck about two files in my rear," Company D Sergeant Benjamin Hirst of Vernon recounted. "As soon as I could turn I saw about a dozen men lying in a heap and the first man I recognized was W. P. Ramsdell with the top of his head blown off."

In this engraving in the Oct. 18, 1862 edition of Frank Leslie's 
Illustrated, a popular newspaper during the Civil War,
 civilians watch as Antietam dead are 
buried near Bloody Lane.

Besides Ramsdell, Company D soldiers Henry Tilley and Russell Griswold were killed by the shell and four others were wounded -- including Henry Talcott of Coventry, who died of his injuries on Nov. 10, 1862.

"Although the bursting of the shell was a great shock to regiment," the regimental history noted, "it closed up and moved on." (3)

I found a corroborating account of the circumstances of Ramsdell's ugly demise in the Chicopee Soldiers Record, a late-19th century compilation of the Civil War experiences of 600 men from Chicopee, Mass. The Chicopee Public Library recently digitized the entire handwitten ledger, a terrific resource for Civil War researchers. Although unclear, Ramsdell, who was single, apparently had ties to Chicopee.

According to the Soldiers Record, a fragment of artillery shell struck the back of Ramsdell's head and "literally tore his head in pieces." Along with his two other dead comrades, Ramsdell was buried on the battlefield -- one of at least 700 soldiers buried on farmer William Roulette's property after Antietam. Soon after the battle, Ramsdell's remains were disinterred and re-buried in Maple Grove Cemetery in Chicopee, Mass. Unfortunately, I could not find his final resting place among the many well-worn and tipped-over markers in the cemetery that dates to 1836.

In an interesting twist, a veteran from the 14th returned to the Roulette farm a few years after the battle and spotted in the ground a piece of artillery shell he believed killed his comrades.  "It does not require much imagination," the 14th Connecticut regimental history noted, "to conclude that this was the same deadly missile." (4)

William Ramsdell is buried in Maple Grove Cemetery in Chicopee, Mass.

(1) Chicopee Soldiers Record, Town of Chicopee, Page 220
(2) History of the Fourteenth Regiment, Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, Charles Davis Page, Pages 43-44, 1906
(3) Ibid, Page 44
(4) Ibid, Page 44

Faces of the Civil War: Jarvis E. Blinn

Jarvis E. Blinn, a captain in the 14th Connecticut, was killed at Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862.
This is a copy of an albumen. (Courtesy Rocky Hill Historical Society)

Pierced through the heart by a bullet, Jarvis E. Blinn knew it was time to meet his maker.

"I am a dead man!" the 26-year-old captain in the 14th Connecticut Infantry said moments after he was shot during fighting on the Samuel Mumma or William Roulette farms at Antietam on the morning of  Sept. 17, 1862. (1)

Jarvis Blinn is buried in Center Cemetery in Rocky Hill,
Conn., about nine miles from Hartford. Blinn was born in
Rocky Hill on July 28, 1836. He later moved to New Britain.

Barely a month after he enlisted in the Union army, Blinn -- a man who had an "expression of quiet but earnest resolve tinged with a dash of sadness in his air" (2) -- was one of  38 men killed or mortally wounded in the 14th Connecticut on the bloodiest day in American history. A mechanic from New Britain before the war,  Blinn left behind a wife, Alice, and two young children.

Well-liked by his peers, Blinn was unanimously selected captain of Company F on Aug. 15, 1862, one week after he enlisted. After his death, his fellow officers in the 14th Connecticut described him and captain Samuel F. Willard of Madison -- also killed at Antietam --as "two brave and devoted citizen soldiers." In fact, on Sept. 27, 1862, the Hartford Courant printed a resolution submitted by 37 officers in the 14th Connecticut that eloquently praised Blinn and Willard.

"Resolved," the statement written on Sept. 20 from a camp near Sharpsburg, Md., began. "That we, their fellow officers and comrades in battle, are doing but bare justice to the memory of these brave and devoted officers, in testifying, in this public manner, to their efficiency in every public and private duty; to their earnestness and zeal in the patriotic cause for which they drew their swords; to their watchful kindness and care over the soldiers of their respective companies; and to their fraternal courtesy ever manifested in their intercourse with ourselves."

Jarvis Blinn's cracked, well-worn gravestone includes his date and place of death.

A Hartford undertaker named W.W. Roberts brought Blinn and the bodies of seven other soldiers killed at Antietam back to Connecticut in the second week of  October. (3) His funeral was held at Center Church in New Britain on Oct. 14, 1862. Afterward, his body was escorted to Rocky Hill, about 10 miles away, in "one of the largest processions ever seen" in New Britain. (4) After a short service at the Congregational Church in Rocky Hill, where he was born, Jarvis E. Blinn was buried in Center Cemetery, about a quarter-mile from the church.

Today, he lies there under a cracked, well-worn tombstone, the date and place of  his death still easily seen on the marker.

After a funeral service in New Britain, where Blinn resided, another service was held for him at the
Congregational Church in Rocky Hill, where he was born. Afterward, he was buried in
Center Cemetery, about a quarter-mile away. The church was built in 1808.

(1) Memorial of Deceased Officers in the Fourteenth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers, Henry P. Goddard, 1872, Page 7
(2) History of the Fourteenth Regiment, Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, Charles Davis Page, Page 51, 1906
(3) Hartford Courant, Oct. 11, 1862, Page 2
(4) Memorial of Deceased Officers in the Fourteenth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers, Henry P. Goddard,  1872, Page 7