Helen Mumma, a Sharpsburg, Md. resident, painted a scene of the Dunker Church on this original
shingle from the church. She sold the shingles to veterans who returned to the battlefield, according to Matt Reardon of the New England Civil War Museum. Below: Close-ups of front and reverse of shingle. (CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE.)
At the New England Civil War Museum in Rockville, Conn., there are plenty of wonderful artifacts as well as some weird and bizarre ones.
X-ray of a 16th Connecticut Infantry veteran who had a Civil War bullet embedded in his body?
Got it.
Flattened bullet removed from the above soldier?
Check.
In this 1884 photo, two men sit on the front steps of the Dunker Church in Sharpsburg, Md. (Mollus Collection)
Forage cap that belonged to 14th Connecticut veteran Benjamin Hirst?
It's there.
Bullet that mortally wounded 21st Connecticut colonel Thomas Burpee at Cold Harbor?
Ditto.
Also among the period letters, rifles, swords and photographs of soldiers is an unusual relic from the Battle of Antietam: a shingle from the Dunker Church, the small, whitewashed building around which savage fighting swirled during the first phase of the bloodiest day in American history.
In the decades after the Civil War ended, Sharpsburg resident Helen Mumma collected original shingles from the Dunker Church and then painted scenes of the small building on them. Mumma sold the shingles at a small souvenir stand in Sharpsburg, according to Matt Reardon, the very enthusiastic executive director of the museum. (See video below.)
Reardon isn't sure how the Dunker Church shingle ended up in the New England Civil War Museum, which is housed in the second floor of what once was the local Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) headquarters. Four Connecticut regiments fought at Antietam, so it's likely a veteran bought it from Mumma and brought it back from Sharpsburg after a trip to the battlefield, Reardon said.
This rare relic monument pyramid at the Connecticut Museum of History includes bullets. pieces of artillery and other artifacts from the Battle of Antietam.
In the decades immediately after the Civil War, relic collectors and veterans made displays of bullets, shrapnel, belt buckles, bayonets and the like to commemorate a battle. These relic monument pyramids are rare and highly collectible. In September, Dean Nelson, adminstrator at the Connecticut Museum of History in Hartford, gave me a behind-the-scenes tour of some of the Civil War relics in the museum's collection -- including this rare Antietam relic monument pyramid that belonged to a veteran of the battle. The Horse Soldier, a Gettysburg Civil War antiques store, offered a similar Antietam relic monument pyramid last fall for $22,500; Nelson said the one in the museum is probably worth $12,000 to $13,000. I don't think it will be added to my collection anytime soon.
A collage of close-ups of the gravestones of soldiers buried in Connecticut who were killed or
mortally wounded at the Battle of Antietam.
Made of brownstone or marble and weathered by the elements for nearly 150 years, the gravestones of Connecticut soldiers killed or mortally wounded at Antietam often make for interesting photos. Some of these markers, such as the one for John Griswold at Griswold Cemetery in Old Lyme, Conn., are works of art. In fact, the Hartford Courant on Aug. 5, 1863 raved about the captain's memorial stone, advising "lovers of art to examine it" at Thomas 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," the newspaper gushed.
I am often struck by the craftsmanship of these gravestones, especially the ornate writing. I took the close-ups above at cemeteries throughout Connecticut during the past five months. My favorite is the one at the top for Samuel Willard, a 39-year-old captain from Madison who was killed during the 14th Connecticut's attack near Bloody Lane. Willard had embraced religion nine years before his death, and on the side of his gravestone is a moving excerpt from one of his final journal entries before he was killed Sept. 17, 1862.
"My faith is in God if I die," it reads in part. "I die in the faith of my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."
The side of the gravestone for Captain Samuel Willard of Company G of the 14th Connecticut
includes an excerpt from one of his final journal entries. Willard, 39 years old when he
was killed at Antietam, is buried at West Cemetery in Madison, Conn., near Long Island Sound.
Private Henry D. Sexton of Canton, Conn. died of disease in Annapolis, Md. on Jan. 7, 1862.
This is the marker for the 25-year-old soldier in Canton Center Cemetery.
Suffering from a severe case of jaundice, Henry Sexton frothed at the mouth and thrashed about aboard the schooner Recruit in Annapolis Harbor during the early morning hours of Jan. 6, 1862.
Just three weeks earlier, the private in the 8th Connecticut and two other comrades from Canton, Conn. had written a note home to Sophronia Barber thanking her for sending mittens and stockings to help them keep warm during a harsh winter.
"...as we are engaged in helping to maintain the government and wear these to keep our bodies warm," the letter dated Dec. 16, 1862 read, "you may be assured that our hearts will warm toward those who have remembered the soldier in his need."
A teacher before the Civil War, Sexton was quite busy in the fall and winter of 1861. Ten days after he enlisted in the Union army on Sept. 9, Henry married Eliza Barbour, also a teacher from Canton, a small town about 20 miles northwest of Hartford. Six days later, he was mustered into Company A of the 8th Connecticut. And by mid-October, Sexton and the 8th Connecticut left the state for Annapolis, where the regiment prepared for a move to North Carolina as part of Burnside's Expeditionary Force in early January.
Sometime during late December and early January, Sexton became seriously ill. Nearly 72,000 cases of jaundice, often caused by the lack of hygiene in camps, were reported by the Union army during the Civil War. (1)
Henry Sexton was listed as a teacher in the 1860 U.S. census.
"I had no control of him as he could handle me like a child," Case wrote. "...It was very difficult to get anyone to take hold of him as they seemed to be afraid of him. It took five of us to hold him and keep him from tearing his face with his hands."
A lack of medical care on the ship appalled Case, who noted: "I never saw anything so horrible in my life."
Upon receiving word that her husband was deathly ill, Eliza made the 350-mile journey to Annapolis. But it was a futile trip. Only 25 years old, Henry died on Jan. 7 and was hurriedly buried. His wife never found his grave. (2).
Twenty-eight years later, at age 57, Eliza died and was buried in Canton Center Cemetery, across the road from the beautiful white-washed First Congregational Church. A 7-foot white marble memorial marker for the woman with the "attractive personality" (3) and her husband stands surrounded by a low iron railing. At the top of the marker are these words:
Henry Sexton died a martyr to his country in Annapolis, Md.
Twenty paces away from that obelisk stands another marker, this one muddy brown, cracked and weathered by the elements for nearly 150 years. Sophronia Barber, the woman who sent mittens and stockings to Sexton and his two friends, died two years after the teacher-soldier. She was 58 when she passed away on April 1, 1865.
Sophronia Barber, the woman who sent Henry Sexton and his friends mittens and stockings
in December 1861, is buried 20 paces from the obelisk for the soldier and his wife.
Each number on map corresponds to a story below of a soldier who was killed or
mortally wounded at Antietam. All but two soldiers below have known markers in
cemeteries in Connecticut. 4. Robert Hubbard: New Farm Hill Cemetery, Middletown;
6. John Doolittle, Miner Cemetery, Middletown; 13: Marvin Wait, Yantic Cemetery, Norwich.
As the Army of the Potomac approached Sharpsburg, Md., two days before the Battle of Antietam, Samuel Willard, a captain in Company G of the 14th Connecticut, added an entry in his journal. The 39-year-old from Madison, near Long Island Sound, had embraced religion less than a decade before the great battle.
Civil War memorial in West Cemetery in Madison. Captain Samuel Willard's marker is nearby.
"These may be my last words; if so, they are these: I have full faith in Jesus Christ my Saviour," he wrote. "I do not regret that I have fallen in defence of my country; I have loved you truly and know that you have loved me, and in leaving this world of sin I go to another and better one, where I am confident I shall meet you. I freely forgive all my enemies, and ask them for Christ's sake to forgive me. If my body should ever reach home, let there be no ceremony; I ask no higher honor than to die for my country -- lay me silently in the grave, imitate my virtues, and forgive all my errors.
"I prefer death in the cause of my country, to life in sympathy with its enemies." (1)
Willard's words were indeed prophetic: On that awful Wednesday nearly 150 years ago, he was one of two captains in the 14th Connecticut killed at Antietam. His remains were returned to Madison, where he is buried near a large, white memorial marker in West Cemetery. Etched in the left side of the marker is an excerpt from his moving journal entry.
Willard's final resting place is just one of scores of gravesites of Connecticut soldiers who died or were mortally wounded at Antietam within easy driving distance from my home in suburban Hartford. From Chaplin in the west to Bristol in the east, men from the 8th, 11th, 14th and 16th Connecticut regiments gave their lives to the cause.
Below are short vignettes of 20 of those men; 18 of them have markers that I have visited over the past three months. Before the war, one was a professor. Several were farmers. Another was a ropemaker, and one was a businessman/adventurer who quickly returned from Hawaii to enlist in the Union army in 1861. Another was a student at a Connecticut university. One young man hoped to practice law, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. Four were only teen-agers.
Tragically, their world and the world of their families changed dramatically on Sept. 17, 1862.
"It is seldom that we are called upon to bury so many braves in so short a space of time," the Hartford Courant reported nearly a month after Antietam. Here are the ugly, final results.
The marker for Captain Samuel Willard of the 14th Connecticut in West Cemetery in Madison, Conn. A stirring excerpt (right) from one of Willard's final journal entries is etched on the side of the marker.
1. Private Alvin Flint, 11th Connecticut (Center Cemetery, East Hartford): Only 17 years old, Alvin joined the 11th Connecticut as a private on Oct. 1, 1861. Less than a year later, he was dead, killed in the attack near Burnside Bridge.
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. In the winter of 1861-62, Alvin Flint Sr.'s wife and daughter died of consumption in East Hartford.
"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. Tragedy again visited the Flint family. Check out my video below to find out.
2. Captain Jarvis Blinn, 14th Connecticut (Center Cemetery, Rocky Hill): 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" -- was one of 38 men killed and mortally wounded in the 14th Connecticut at Antietam. Moments after he was shot through the heart, the 26-year-old captain shouted: "I am a dead man!"
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 1862. 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. He is buried near the back of Center Cemetery.
A decorative wrought-iron angel on the fence around the gravesite of Sergeant Wadsworth Washburn
at Denison Cemetery in Berlin, Conn.
3. Sergeant Wadsworth Washburn, 16th Connecticut (Denison Cemetery, Berlin): Washburn's father traveled to the battlefield to retrieve the body of his son, an orderly sergeant who was probably killed in farmer John Otto's field. After a funeral service at Berlin's Congregational Church, Washburn was buried in Denison Cemetery, now located in a residential area. His gravesite is surrounded by a beautiful ornamental wrought-iron fence.
4. Private Robert Hubbard, 14th Connecticut (New Farm Hill Cemetery, Middletown): A 31-year-old private in Company B of the 14th Connecticut, Hubbard was one of at least two soldiers in the regiment killed by friendly fire on William Roulette's farm. Nearly a month before his death, he wrote an impassioned letter to his brother.
"Must it be written that 360,000 slaveholders wielded such influence and power," he wrote Josiah Hubbard. "as to destroy a government which can place a million armed men in the field, and which has conferred greater blessing on its citizens than any other that has ever existed since the days when God was the direct ruler over His own peculiar people."
"I feel as if I could not forgive myself," Robert concluded in the letter, "if this government should be overthrown and I had no weapon in its defense."
5. Lieutenant George Crosby, 14th Connecticut (Union Hill Cemetery, East Hampton): A student at Wesleyan University in Middletown before the war, the 2nd lieutenant in the 14th Connecticut Infantry was mortally wounded at Antietam barely a month after he enlisted. Thirty-seven days later, Crosby, not quite 20 years old, died at home in Middle Haddam.
"From the beginning of the battle till he received his death wound, he fought nobly, encouraging his men and leading them on," the Middletown Constitution reported on Oct. 29, 1862. "And for a half hour after he was wounded, while he lay helpless on the ground, without regarding his own condition, he kept constantly exhorting his comrades to do their duty."
His funeral service at Middle Haddam's Episcopal Church was described at the time as "one of the largest funerals ever attended in that place."
My shadow eerily hovers near the markers for George Crosby in Union Hill Cemetery in East Hampton, Conn.
6. Private John Doolittle, 8th Connecticut (Miner Cemetery, Middletown): As the 8th Connecticut made a futile push on the Union left flank at Antietam, it was struck on three sides near Harpers Ferry Road. Wounded in the knee, Doolittle was treated at a Sharpsburg-area field hospital but died on Oct. 10, 1862. The final resting place of the 22-year-old soldier is in Middletown's Miner Cemetery, near a large brownstone marker memorial for his other family members
7. Captain Samuel Willard, 14th Connecticut (West Cemetery, Madison): In the last entry in his journal, dated the morning of Sept. 17, Willard wrote: “I pray God we may be successful, and that you may see me again ...”
After his death, Willard's body was taken to nearby Keedysville, and then sent to Madison, where a service was held in the Congregational Church. He was buried in West Cemetery six days after the battle. (2)
On the front of his well-designed white marker are these words:
"He fell asleep in Jesus on the battlefield of Antietam, Md."
8. Captain John Griswold, 11th Connecticut (Griswold Cemetery, Old Lyme): Under fire from the bluffs above, the 25-year-old captain from Lyme boldly led a group of skirmishers across the 4-foot deep creek Antietam Creek on Sept. 17, 1862.
"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." Griswold, who hurriedly returned to the mainland from Hawaii to enlist in the Union army in 1861, died the next day.
He is buried in a small private cemetery in Old Lyme (see video below) under a beautifully carved 8-foot gray marker. Near the bottom of the memorial are these words:
"Tell my mother I died at the head of my company."
9. Private John Bingham, 16th Connecticut (First Church Cemetery, East Haddam): Only 17, Bingham was killed at Antietam a little more than a month after he enlisted. 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. John and Eliphalet are buried at First Church Cemetery in East Haddam, about 50 miles southwest of Hartford. Apparently upset over a failing business, Wells committed suicide in 1904.
Close-up of weathered flag on the gravestone of S. Franklin Prior of the 16th Connecticut at Town Street Cemetery in East Windsor.
10. Corporal S. Franklin Prior, 16th Connecticut (Town Street Cemetery, East Windsor): The 16th Connecticut paid a terrible price at Antietam, its first battle of the war. Out of 779 men, the rookie regiment lost 161 wounded, 204 captured or missing and 43 killed, including Prior of Company B. Some of those killed never even fired a shot, and many of the survivors never got over the carnage at Antietam.
Hartford undertaker W.W. Roberts, who retrieved Captain Jarvis Blinn's remains from Maryland (see story above), also brought back Prior's body in early October, according to a report in the Hartford Courant on Oct. 11, 1862.
Prior left behind a wife, Emily, and two young children, Ella and Charles.
(Once probably surrounded by countryside, the cemetery where Prior is buried is now surrounded by suburbia, including a shopping center and a busy two-lane highway. There's no safe place to park at the cemetery, so I parked across the highway at a pizza joint.)
11. Privates Henry and Samuel Talcott, 14th Connecticut (Center Cemetery, Coventry): 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. 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.
"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 in Center Cemetery in his hometown of Coventry, about 25 miles west of Hartford. (See video below for more about the Talcott brothers and George Corbit, another soldier from Company D of the 14th Connecticut, who also was mortally wounded at Antietam.)
12. Sergeant Charles E. Lewis, 8th Connecticut (Carey Cemetery, Canterbury): A sergeant in Company F, Charles Lewis -- described as a man who "had always fought in the front ranks" -- was killed near Harpers Ferry Road as the 8th was struck on three sides. Lewis' 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."
Marvin Wait's marker in Yantic Cemetery in Norwich, Conn. Wait was only 19 years old when he was killed at Antietam.
13. Lieutenant Marvin Wait, 8th Connecticut: (Yantic Cemetery, Norwich):
A "brave, noble-hearted man and highly esteemed by all who knew him," Wait was killed late in the afternoon as the Ninth Corps made an ill-fated push toward Sharpsburg. Like George Crosby of the 14th Connecticut, Wait was only 19 years old.
"If Lieutenant Wait had left the battle of his own accord when first hit in the arm, all would have been well," Captain Charles Coit, also of Norwich, wrote after the battle, "but he bravely stood to encourage his men still further by his own example."
From a prominent Norwich family, Wait had an large funeral that was attended by the governor and other dignataries. The young man who planned to become a lawyer is buried under a beautiful white marker that includes the word "Antietam" in raised letters on the front.
14. Corporal John Holwell, 11th Connecticut (Final resting place unknown; hometown: Norwich): In his letters home during the Civil War, this soldier in Company H often mentioned his children.
"Kiss Edward and Henry for me and I hope they will be good boys," Holwell wrote his wife, Rebecca, in one letter "... I will bring them a handsome present when I come home."
"Your dagerreotype and the children's look very natural and I was very glad to receive them. ..." he wrote in another. "I hope little Eddy will keep on going to school and be smart. The men down here all like his picture and praise it up highly."
A ropemaker before the war, Holwell was probably killed near Burnside Bridge. His final resting place is unknown.
Buried in his hometown of Simsbury, Private Oliver Case
was only 22 years old when he died.
15. Private Oliver Case, 8th Connecticut, (Simsbury Cemetery, Simsbury): A day after the battle, Alonzo Case discovered his brother's body on the field. It was a gruesome sight.
"He was no doubt killed instantly the bullet having passed through his head just about the top of his ears," wrote Alonzo, a first sergeant in the 16th Connecticut. "We wrapped him in my blanket and carried him to the spot where the 16th dead were to be buried having first got permission from the Colonel of the Eighth and the 16th to do so.
"The 16th men were buried side by side in a trench and they dug a grave about 6 [feet] from them and we deposited the remains of my brother and that having first pinned a paper with his name and age on the inside of the blanket. Then they put up boards to teach with name and Regiment on them. His body lay there until December when father went there and brought the body to Simsbury where it now lies to mingle with the sole of his native town."
Case's final resting place is high atop the hill in Simsbury Cemetery, near the grave of his parents.
16. Private Martin Wadhams, 8th Connecticut: (Final resting place unknown; hometown: Canton): Wadhams' body was identified on the field two days after the battle, following the rebels' retreat into Virginia.
In a letter excerpted on this excellent 8th Connecticut Infantry site, Wolcott P. Marsh described the horrific scene where the Federals suffered hundreds of casualties.
"About 9 o'clock A.M. Friday we were ordered across the bridge and on to the field where the battle of Wednesday was," the captain in the 8th Connecticut wrote nine days after the battle. "The rebels having skedadled the night before and our forces were then following them up capturing many of their rear guard. We stacked arms and details were sent from different to pick up the dead so that could be buried together. I went up where our regit. was engaged and there what a sight. 30 men from our regit. alone lay dead in a little field and near by was 42 Zouaves (9th N. Y.) and many more from other regit.
"The first man I came to of my company was Charles E. Louis my acting orderly. (editor's note: probably Charles E. Lewis.) Then Corp. Truck my color corporal and close by them lay Dwight Carry, Herbert Nee, Horace Rouse and Mr. Sweet all of my company then passing on to Co. A. were the body's of Oliver Case, Orton Lord, Martin Wadhams and Lucius Wheeler then to Co. K. saw Jack Simons body the only one whose name remember had all body's brought from hill down by several straw stacks."
The out-of-the-way marker of Private William Hall of the 11th Connecticut in the interestingly
named Bedlam Road Cemetery in Chaplin, Conn., about 50 miles east of Hartford.
17. Private William Hall, 11th Connecticut, (Bedlam Cemetery, Chaplin): Serving in Company H with John Holwell (see above), Hall probably was killed in the assault on Burnside Bridge. Hall's post-war marker, tucked off to the side near an overgrown bush in a tiny old cemetery, looks lonely. It's unclear whether Hall is actually buried at Bedlam Road Cemetery or elsewhere.
18. Captain Newton Manross, 16th Connecticut (Forestville Cemetery, Bristol): A professor before the war, Manross was another of the unfortunate victims in this hard-luck regiment. A graduate of Yale, Manross was named acting professor of chemistry and botany at Amherst (Mass.) College shortly before entering the service.
"He was a man of great promise in science and rare nobility of character," an 1873 history of Amherst College noted. "A great favorite with officers and students, he stood up boldly for the Christian faith, and used all his influence for the highest good of the students and the prosperity of the Institution." (3)
After the war, surviving members of Company K of the 16th Connecticut placed a large brownstone memorial in Manross' memory near his grave in Bristol. Sadly, the marker is deterioriating and badly needs to be repaired.
A contemporary gravestone for Captain Newton Manross of the 16th Connecticut in
Forestville Cemeteryin Bristol. Badly in need of repair, a memorial obelisk placed by survivors of
Company K of the 16th Connecticut is nearby. The brownstone monument (right) is separating.
19. Sergeant Orville Campbell, 16th Connecticut (Fairview Cemetery, New Britain): Like Alvin Flint, Marvin Wait, John Bingham and George Crosby (see above), Campbell was just a teenager when he was killed at Antietam. The orderly sergeant's tall brownstone obelisk reads:
Was Killed while Bravely Defending the National Flag in the battle of Antietam Sept 17 1862 at the age of 19."
Close-up of Orville Campbell's marker at Fairview Cemetery in New Britain.
20. General Joseph Mansfield (Indian Hill Cemetery, Middletown): Mortally wounded near the East Woods, Mansfield is one of 110 soldiers with ties to Middletown, Conn., who died during the Civil War. His death was a huge shock to Connecticut, and his funeral in Middletown was one of the largest of the war.
"Flags were displayed at half mast," the Middletown Constitution reported on Sept. 24, 1862. "Many of the stores, public buildings, and some private dwellings were appropriately draped for the occasion. The Young Ladies' Seminary in Broad Street, which was under the especial patronage of General Mansfield and was founded by his liberality, was dressed in a most beautiful and becoming manner. During the passage of the procession the bells were tolled, and minute guns were fired. The funeral services at the grave were concluded at sundown."
After he was shot at Antietam, Crosby had surgery in this spring house on William Roulette's farm. The image of Crosby appears in the 1865 Wesleyan University album.
A teen-aged soldier's name appears on a beautiful stained-glass window in Wesleyan University's Memorial Chapel, fourth from the top and among the names of 17 other men from the school who died during the Civil War.
Prominently etched in elaborate script in the bottom window panels are these words:
Bottom panels of stained-glass windows at the Memorial Chapel at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn. The chapel was dedicated in 1871.
Alumni and Students Who Died for Our Country 1861 1865.
Inside the chapel on this cold Monday morning, an instructor gently admonishes her student choir. And outside a short time later, a young woman, perhaps 20 years old, stands in front of the beautiful brownstone chapel and points out landmarks on the bucolic Middletown, Conn., campus to a group of prospective students.
It's doubtful any of them know the story of another Wesleyan University student, 19-year-old George Heman Crosby, who died nearly 150 years ago and whose name is etched on that Memorial Chapel stained-glass window.
The son of a ship captain from Middle Haddam, Conn., about 20 miles southeast of Hartford, the 2nd lieutenant in the 14th Connecticut Infantry was mortally wounded at the Battle of Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862, barely a month after he enlisted. Thirty-seven days later, he died at home in Middle Haddam, his parents Heman and Mary likely by his side.
Before he joined the fight for his country, Crosby probably was like many of today's Wesleyan students. Full of promise and hope for the future, he enrolled at the university in the fall of 1861. A very good student, one of his former teachers wrote of the "enthusiasm and spirit of perserverance with which he pursued his studies. He was ever anxious to improve." Crosby, who twice was unsuccessful in obtaining an appointment to West Point, had a keen military mind and joined the Mansfield Guards, a local militia group named after General Joseph Mansfield of Middletown, while he was in college. (1)
The Memorial Chapel at Wesleyan University was completed in 1871 to honor Wesleyan students who died during the Civil War. Right, George Crosby's name is etched on a stain-glassed window.
When the Civil War started in April 1861, Crosby was eager to enlist, but friends apparently talked him out of it. Perhaps persuaded by the call of Connecticut governor William Buckingham and President Lincoln for volunteeers in the spring of 1862, Crosby opened recruiting offices in Middle Haddam and Middletown, recruited a company of men and finally joined the fight that summer. "I feel it is my duty to go," he told his mother. (2)
Despite his age, Crosby had the respect of his comrades, who elected him lieutenant on Aug. 18, 1862. Crosby -- who stood 5-8 and weighed 141 pounds, according to a Wesleyan University document -- undoubtedly earned more admiration when he purchased rations for his men because government supplies were deemed inadequate.
Antietam was the first fight for the 14th Connecticut, but unlike the 16th Connecticut, the regiment fought well. As the 14th Connecticut closed in on the Sunken Road bordering the William Roulette farm, Crosby was struck by a bullet that sliced into his side, just missing his spine, and through his lungs.
"From the beginning of the battle till he received his death wound, he fought nobly, encouraging his men and leading them on," the Middletown Constitution reported on Oct. 29, 1862. "And for a half hour after he was wounded, while he lay helpless on the ground, without regarding his own condition, he kept constantly exhorting his comrades to do their duty."
After he was severely wounded, Crosby endured surgery in this spring house on William Roulette's farm.
Crosby was eventually carried to William Roulette's springhouse, where doctors performed what surgery they could under extremely difficult battlefield conditions. (3) The severely wounded young soldier was sent back home, arriving by boat on Saturday, Oct. 4. Tended to by Dr. A.B. Worthington of Middle Haddam, Crosby was a "great but a very patient sufferer." (4)
His health failing, Crosby died on Oct. 22. Two days later, in a service at Middle Haddam's Episcopal church described as "one of the largest funerals ever attended in that place," Crosby was eulogized. His classmates from the Wesleyan Class of 1865 attended, as well as the president of Wesleyan University, faculty and the Mansfield Guard. Crosby's coffin then was borne a short distance up the road, to Union Hill Cemetery, where he was buried.
Today, the teenager from the small town along the Connecticut River rests near a cracked, brownstone memorial marker; his parents are buried in the same plot.
A funeral service for Crosby was held at this
Episcopal church in Middle Haddam, Conn.
In a lengthy article published in the weekly Middletown Constitution a week after Crosby's death, he was lauded as "generous, brave and ardent, and wholly devoted to the national cause."
"We believe no nobler spirit fell that day than he," the paper reported of his wounding at Antietam. "...he had every requisite for rising to a high and responsible place in the public service. But his career was short. From the halls of college to the field of battle was but a single step, and his young life was laid on the altar of his country." (5)
Two years after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, a campaign was started to build a memorial for Wesleyan undergraduates and alumni who died during the Civil War. In 1871, a memorial chapel was finally completed and dedicated. Thirty-one men from the school perished during the war, including one (Milton Butterfield) who served for the Confederacy. (6)
(4) Memorial of Deceased Officers of the Fourteenth Regiment, Connecticut Volunteers
(5) Middletown Constitution, Oct. 29. 1862
(6) Roster of Wesleyan University's Civil War Participants, Lesley Gordon, 1988 (unpublished report)
Cracked down the left side, the brownstone memorial marker for Crosby is in Union Hill Cemetery
in East Hampton, Conn. Crosby is probably buried under the nearby marker at right.
A Grand Army of the Republic marker and a tattered flag by Crosby;s marker.
Snow partially obscures an American flag near Marvin Wait's grave at Yantic Cemetery in Norwich, Conn. Wait was killed at Antietam.
Snow piled atop grave markers for Marvin Wait and his father, John, after a late January storm in Norwich, Conn. Marvin, a 19-year-old lieutenant in the 8th Connecticut, was killed at Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862. He is buried in Yantic Cemetery, the final resting place of many Civil War soldiers and Connecticut's Civil War governor, William Buckingham. My thanks to blog reader Dave Oat of Norwich for supplying this neat shot.
Mostly young men in their 20s, they stare back from the pages of a fragile, leather-bound memorial album compiled more than a century ago.
Some of the men appear in civilian attire; others proudly pose in military uniform, perhaps shortly before they were sent south to help extinguish the rebellion. Under nearly every image, the soldier's name, regiment and place of death appear in neat, cursive writing.
"Mortally wounded at Fredericksburg."
This fragile, old album includes images of 70 soldiers with ties to
Middletown, Conn. who died during the Civil War.
"Died in service April 2, 1862 in Falmouth, Va."
"Died at Andersonville prison."
Nearly 1,000 men from Middletown, Conn., a small, historic town along the Connecticut River, served during the Civil War; 110 of them died, perishing of battle wounds and disease (and at least one of suicide) far from home in such places as Alexandria, La., Chattanooga, Tenn. and Hilton Head, S.C. Some died in the major battles at Antietam, Fredericksburg and Gettysburg. Although many were returned to Connecticut for burial, some of the soldiers remains were never returned and today lie in unknown graves in the South.
In 1867, two years after Appomattox, a local Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.) organization began collecting photographs and sketches of Middletown men who died during the war. Copies were made, and sometime shortly before the turn of the century, an album of those who paid the ultimate price was compiled. Seventy images appear in the album, which today is in the collection of the Middlesex County Historical Society that is housed in the former home of Union Gen. Joseph K. Mansfield on Main Street in Middletown. Mortally wounded at Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862, Mansfield appears on the first page of the memorial album.
The images of four other soldiers with Middletown ties who were killed or mortally wounded at Antietam also appear in the album:
George Chamberlain, a private from nearby Berlin, was wounded on John Otto's farm when the 16th Connecticut was smashed in the left flank by A.P. Hill veteran troops. Discharged for disability on April 1, 1863, he died from his wound on May 11, 1865, nearly a month after war had ended. Born in Middletown, Chamberlain was just 18 when he enlisted -- after he received permission from his mother, Mary Ann.
Wearing his Sunday best and a Mona Lisa-like smile, John K. Doolittle posed for a photograph, perhaps shortly before he was mustered into the 3rd Connecticut as a private on May 14, 1861. After a three-month stint with the 3rd Connecticut, Doolittle was mustered into Company K of the 8th Connecticut as a private on May 1, 1862.
John Doolittle is buried in Miner Cemetery
in Middletown, Conn.
As the 8th Connecticut made a futile push on the Union left flank at Antietam, it was struck on three sides near Harpers Ferry Road. Wounded in the knee, Doolittle was treated at the German Reformed Church in Sharpsburg, but died on Oct. 10, 1862. The final resting place of the 22-year-old soldier is in Middletown's Miner Cemetery, near a large brownstone marker memorial for his other family members.
"Must it be written that 360,000 slaveholders wielded such influence and power," he wrote Josiah Hubbard. "as to destroy a government which can place a million armed men in the field, and which has conferred greater blessing on its citizens than any other that has ever existed since the days when God was the direct ruler over His own peculiar people."
"I feel as if I could not forgive myself," Robert concluded in the letter, "if this government should be overthrown and I had no weapon in its defense." (1)
George Crosby, a 2nd lieutenant in the 14th Connecticut, attended Wesleyan University in Middletown before the war. An excellent student, one of his former teachers wrote of the "enthusiasm and spririt of perserverance with which he pursued his studies. He was ever anxious to improve." (2)
Standing proudly in his officer's uniform in the photograph in the memorial album, Crosby served as an army recruiter before enlisting with the 14th Connecticut in August 1862. "I feel it is my duty to go," he wrote his mother.
As he encouraged his men in Company K at Antietam, Crosby was struck in the side by a bullet that passed through his lungs and close by his spine. Only 19 years old, Crosby died on Oct. 22, 1862. "He was a great but very patient sufferer," wrote the Middle Haddam, Conn., physician who attended to him. (3)
Crosby's funeral in Middle Haddam was attended by his Wesleyan classmates, the university president and many townsmen.
"He talked much of his country during his illness," a post-war account noted, "but little of himself." (4)
Left, George Chamberlain, a private in the 16th Connecticut, was wounded at Antietam. George Crosby, a 2nd lieutenant in the 14th Connecticut, was mortally wounded at Antietam. A student at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., before the war, he died on Oct. 22, 1862.
(Middlesex County Historical Society collection)
The Civil War memorial in downtown Indianapolis was completed in 1902. It stands 284 1/2 feet high, nearly as tall as the Statue of Liberty in New York.
A close-up of the Indiana Civil War Memorial in Indianapolis reveals intricate carving.
The Civil War is never too far away, even when I am in Indiana for the Super Bowl. During a short lunch break (Jimmy John's tuna fish sandwich with sprouts!), I left our ESPN headquarters and ventured into the heart of downtown Indianapolis to visit the Indiana Civil War memorial. As a work of art, the memorial is impressive, especially the intricately designed, mammoth statues of soldiers mounted on the south side.
Estes Wallingford, a lieutenant in the 33rd Indiana, died of smallpox in 1864. This small plaque in his memory is on a step leading to the top of the memorial.
As a venue for an afternoon workout, it's impressive too. Taking the advice of a friendly Indianapolis woman -- are there any other kind? -- I climbed the stairs of the 284 1/2-foot memorial to check out the view from the top of what once was the tallest structure in the city. Each step along the journey includes a small plaque denoting those who donated to repair the memorial or in memory of a soldier who fought during one of our wars.
Slightly winded and my heart pounding, I snaked my way past several people and through the small opening near the top to join about 20 other visitors. The city did a terrific job sprucing up the memorial in time for the Super Bowl. After enjoying the view, I squeezed into the small elevator with three other visitors and made the quick trip to the bottom.
At the base of the monument is a small Civil War museum that includes the usual assortment of cannons, guns and accoutrements of Indiana's Civil War soldiers. The memorial was built for $598,318. According to the official site, a similar structure would cost about a $500 million today. Next time you're in Indianapolis be sure to check it out.
These huge, amazingly detailed statues are on the south side of the memorial.
The Civil War memorial was once the tallest structure in Indianapolis.
