Faces of the Civil War: George Warner (continued)

Double-amputee George Warner,  his wife and six of his children pose for a photo, probably
in the early 1870s. Right, Warner and his wife, Catherine, in old age. Bottom right: Headline
 in New Haven Sunday Register noting Warner's death in 1923. (Photos courtesy Bob O'Brien)

Catherine Warner holds her baby and
a cannonball.

Former New Haven (Conn.) prosecutor Bob O'Brien, now retired, has really dug into the remarkable story of George Warner, a private in the 20th Connecticut, who lost both his arms to friendly fire at Culp's Hill at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863. O'Brien kindly supplied the two photos above, the one on the left showing Warner posing with his wife and young children and the other showing the double amputee with his wife, Catherine, probably about 1910. In the photo at left, Catherine holds baby Ruby and a cannonball that, according to O'Brien, may have been of the type that severely disfigured her husband. After the Civil War, the enterprising Warner supported his family in part by selling carte de visites of himself. Interestingly, Warner outlived five of his eight children and his wife, who died in 1913. The old soldier, who unveiled two Civil War monuments using his teeth, died in 1923 at age 92. He's buried in Evergreen Cemetery in New Haven.

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FACES OF THE CIVIL WAR: Read my extensive thread.

Faces of the Civil War: Private George Warner

Private George Warner of the 20th Connecticut lost both his arms to friendly fire at Gettysburg.
(Photo courtesy Mary Falvey via Connecticut State Library George Washburn Collection)

Empty sleeves of his coat dangling by his side, a forlorn George Washington Warner posed for this photograph several years after he was discharged from the Union army because of disability on Oct. 17, 1863.

The carte de visite image, taken in Henry Peck's studio in New Haven, is compelling, disturbing, shocking -- and a sad reminder of  a civil war that not only killed at least 620,000 Americans but also maimed thousands of others. Warner's inspiring story has been told often over the years, including here, here, here and most recently here. But until Connecticut Civil War researcher Mary Falvey, a friend of the blog, e-mailed me the photograph of Warner, I knew nothing about the double-amputee from Bethany, Conn.

Colonel William Wooster

A 31-year-old private in the 20th Connecticut, Warner had his arm blown off by friendly artillery fire on Culp's Hill at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863. His other arm, probably shattered by the same shell, was amputated an hour later. As the story goes, 20th Connecticut colonel William Wooster was so incensed by the incident that he threatened to turn his regiment on the Union artillery battery responsible for maiming Warner.

According to the 20th Connecticut regimental history, Warner was unaware that he had lost both arms until he came under the care of a Surgeon J. Wadsworth Terry. "Why, surgeon, I've lost my right arm too," he said. "I thought I had only lost my left!"

A report in Warner's pension file nearly a month after the battle provides interesting details:

July 29th: General condition good. Walks about the grounds. Patient was wounded July 3. Was sitting at the time by a tree when a shell burst directly over him. One fragment struck the right arm a few inches below the shoulder -- entirely severing it from the body and carrying it several feet from him.The shell was from a Federal Battery. Another fragment struck the left unit and forearm lacerating the soft parts badly and breaking the bones. Amputation made an hour after receipt of injury. The wounds at this date quite open and discharging freely.

20th Connecticut monument dedication at Gettysburg on July 3, 1885. Can you find
 George Warner? CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE. (Photo courtesy Bob O'Brien)

George Warner, sitting on rock, in close-up of photo of 20th Connecticut monument
dedication. (Photo courtesy Bob O'Brien.)

At the dedication of the 20th Connecticut monument in Gettysburg on July 3, 1885, Warner, well liked by his war comrades, was given the task of raising the veil from the monument. A special pulley was constructed that allowed him to do the honors by simply moving backward with a rope tied around his waist. Warner was called upon to do the unveiling honors again for the dedication of the Soldiers and Sailors monument in East Rock Park in New Haven on June 17, 1887. A crowd of perhaps 175,000 people, including Civil War heroes William Tecumseh Sherman and Philip Sheridan, looked on as Warner, again using a special pulley and a rope, removed the drapery covering the monument ... with his teeth!

Married with five children before the war, Warner fathered three more children after he was discharged from the army. After his death at age 92 on Oct. 12, 1923, the New Haven Sunday Register ran a front-page story under a large headline and photo of the old soldier.

"On account of the loss of his arms and the handicap that he suffered, the government allowed him a pension of sufficient amount to enable him to have such service and comforts and conveniences that his crippled condition demanded," the newspaper obituary noted. "He was a man of soldierly appearance and was a familiar figure for many years since the civil war days in Memorial Day parades ..."

This front-page headline in the New Haven Sunday Register noted Warner's death in 1923.

Antietam: Where Uncle Loren left his arm

Private Loren Griswold "lost his arm" at  the Roulette Farm at Antietam, according to a notation 
on the reverse of this cabinet card. (New England Civil War Museum collection)

The New England Civil War Museum is on the second floor of the
 building that also serves as Vernon Town Hall. The museum
 has a cool Facebook page here.

As Company D of the 14th Connecticut scurried into a farmer's lane during the Battle of Antietam, an artillery shell burst among its ranks, killing three men and tearing apart Loren Griswold's left arm. A 20-year-old private from Vernon, Griswold was never quite the same after suffering the grievous wound on William Roulette's property. Not only did the young soldier later lose his arm to amputation, he also lost his brother, 30-year-old Russell, who was among those killed by the shell burst. (1) Loren was discharged from the Union army because of disability on Jan. 3, 1863, a little more than three months after the bloodiest day in American history.

Years later, a relative of the private noted Loren's misfortune on the back of a cabinet card  -- a late-19th century image the size of an oversized postcard -- that depicts a plowed field, large barn, farmhouse and spring house that once were Roulette's property. "Field at Antietam where Uncle Loren Griswold left his arm during Battle of Antietam -- Civil War," the ink script reads. Perhaps Uncle Loren had his arm amputated in Roulette's barn or spring house, both used as Federal field hospitals during and after the battle.

14th Connecticut sergeant Benjamin Hirst of Vernon wore this forage cap during the Civil War.
It's part of the collection at the New England Civil War Museum.

14th Connecticut regimental badge donated 
to New England Civil War Museum.

The cabinet card is just one of many Antietam-related items in the collection of a little gem of a Civil War museum in Rockville, Conn., an old mill town about 25 minutes east of Hartford off I-84. The New England Civil War Museum includes the strange (Dunker Church shingle), bizarre (X-ray of bullet in ankle of 16th Connecticut soldier) and fascinating (bullet that mortally wounded 21st Connecticut Colonel Thomas Burpee at Cold Harbor). Once a Grand Army of the Republic hall where area Civil War veterans gathered, swapped war stories and undoubtedly shared a pint or two, the museum takes up the second floor of a building that also houses the Vernon Town Hall.

My focus this afternoon was Antietam, so I enjoyed perusing the mirror picked up by the brother of 14th Connecticut sergeant Benjamin Hirst in Bloody Lane after the battle. Benjamin  later sent it to his wife, Sarah, back in Vernon. "When you look at yourself in it remember me always," he wrote her. I also enjoyed an up-close-and-personal view of Hirst's old forage cap and a silver 14th Connecticut regimental badge with its distinctive clover design.

Matt Reardon, the museum's enthusiastic executive director/archivist/acquistion director/jack-of-all-trades,  cheerfully answers all questions about the wide-ranging collection. Most of the relics were donated by Civil War veterans. Other items were acquired from collectors. And some, such as the Roulette farm cabinet card, just seem to turn up in nooks and crannies of the former GAR hall. 

The museum, which also has a Facebook page, is staffed by volunteers, so it's open infrequently. Check it out the second and fourth Sundays of every month from noon to 3 p.m. There's no admission fee, but donations are appreciated. (I got a dandy Civil War coffee mug for a $5 donation today.) And unlike a certain Civil War museum in New Orleans, photography is allowed.

(1)History of the Fourteenth Regiment, Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, Charles Davis, The Horton Printing Company, 1906, Page 43

14th Connecticut sergeant Benjamin Hirst's brother, John, picked up this mirror in 
Bloody Lane after the Battle of Antietam.

New Orleans museum: Look, don't shoot (photos)

New Orleans' Confederate Museum, also known as Memorial Hall,  has an impressive collection
 of Civil War relics, but don't expect to take a lot of photos there.

Here in New Orleans, the city conquered by the Union army in April 1862, there's an old museum that presents an entirely different picture of the Civil... err ... War of Northern Aggression/War for Southern Independence.

The Confederate Museum -- located a few blocks down the street from where Lee Harvey Oswald may have had mysterious dealings with former FBI agent Guy Banister in the summer of 1963 (that's a whole 'nother blog) -- has a collection that would make any Civil War buff woozy.

Your admission fee (eight bucks for adults) allows you to gaze upon Jefferson Davis' gloves, the wooden chest the president of the Confederacy once used and the crown of thorns an admiring Southerner sent to Davis while he was imprisoned by the Union army. And you may also ogle the jaw-dropping collection of  rebel battle flags (including at least one that was at Antietam), as well as the fabulous collection of identified Confederate hard images, CDVs and muskets.

But don't expect to shoot many photos.

Confederate Museum in New Orleans.

With the exception of allowing visitors to take an overall image of what once was a gathering place for Confederate veterans, no photography is allowed. Something about copyright or some such. That's too bad. Opening its doors in 1891, the museum billed as the oldest in Louisiana is easily one of the better Civil War museums that I have visited.

Louisiana philanthropist Frank Howard constructed the red-brick building, also known as Memorial Hall, as a meeting place for Civil War veterans and to house and protect the old soldiers' relics. According to a museum brochure, Howard wanted the hall to show "how a brave people and their descendants hold the name and fame of their heroes and martyrs with admiration undiminished by disaster or defeat and with love unquenched by time." (I can almost hear Shelby Foote's voice in my head reciting that line.)

If you do go, spend a little more time that the 45 minutes I did today. There's plenty to see, albeit from a strictly Southern point of view. (Lincoln? Who's that guy?) The collection includes personal items from Robert E. Lee, Braxton Bragg and other Southern heroes. Many of the relics were donated by the soldiers who used them.

Among the more interesting items are hard images of black soldiers who allegedly fought for the Confederacy. There's plenty of doubt about that, as Andy Hall over at the Dead Confederates blog could attest. And I got a kick out of offerings in the museum book store. I doubt you will find "War Crimes Against Southern Civilians" and "To Die in Chicago: Confederate Prisoners at Camp Douglas" in any Civil War museum in Connecticut, Massachusetts or anywhere else in the North, for that matter.

I also enjoyed the conversation with a museum visitor from the South, who quickly pointed out that he was "no redneck" when I told him I was from Connecticut. Probably in his late 50s, the recent retiree claimed he had ancestors who fought in the 18th Louisiana at Shiloh. "They were just poor farmers," he said, "and they both lost their guns at the battle." Love bumping into folks with stories about Civil War ancestors.

Around the corner from museum the ultimate Southern hero is honored. In Lee Circle is a 60-foot marble column topped with a 12-foot statue of a stern-looking Robert E. Lee, his arms folded. On this day, it was best that the general, who has been in place here since 1877, could not gaze down and to his left. That's where a disheveled man, his face weathered by the sun, sipped a Miller beer before I startled him.

Robert E. Lee gazes over New Orleans from high atop a 60-foot piece of marble.

Faces of the Civil War: Eliphalet Bingham

Eliphalet Bingham, one of six brothers from an East Haddam, Conn., family 
who served in the Union army during the Civil War, died in Virginia in 1864.
 (Photo courtesy Tad Sattler)

Wells and John Bingham of East Haddam, Conn. John
 was killed  at Antietam. Wells survived the Civil War. 
(Photos courtesy Military and Historical Image Bank)

In late November, I told the story of brothers John and Wells Bingham, teenagers from East Haddam, Conn., who served as privates in the 16th Connecticut. John was killed in farmer John Otto's 40-acre cornfield at Antietam; Wells survived the war but committed suicide in 1904, apparently distraught over business dealings. The brothers are among six sons of farmer Elisha Bingham who served in the Union army during the war.

Tragically, another Bingham son also died during the Civil War: 21-year-old Eliphalet, a private in the 1st Connecticut Heavy Artillery. Thanks to Connecticut reenactor Tad Sattler, I now have a have a photo of Eliphalet, who died in Virginia on May 1, 1864, not quite four months after he enlisted. The cause of his death merits more research.

John and Eliphalet are buried side-by-side in East Haddam's Little Church Cemetery, a short distance from the beautiful First Church of Christ. Perhaps that's where both of the Bingham brothers' funeral services were held nearly 150 years ago. (I shot the video below of my November visit to Little Church Cemetery.)

I have found 15 sets of brothers from Connecticut who died during the war, including most recently the Porter brothers of Glastonbury. If you know of other sets of brothers from the state who perished during the Civil War, drop me a line.

Help wanted: Antietam graves in Connecticut

Close-up of Theodore DeMars' gravestone.

Theodore DeMars of Cromwell, Conn., was only 19 when he was killed at Antietam.
He is buried in Kelsey Cemetery in Cromwell, Conn.

Antietam casualty listed printed in the
Hartford Courant on Sept. 27, 1862. 
This list continued elsewhere on the page
 and did not include the 14th Connecticut.
(CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)

For a pretty cool project, I'm aiming to find graves of Connecticut soldiers killed or mortally wounded at the Battle of Antietam who are buried in the state. A little odd, yes, but it beats what these people do.

Using the casualty list from the Sept. 27, 1862 Hartford Courant as a macabre checklist,  I have visited many Antietam graves in Connecticut during the past year and told the heart-rending stories of men such as Captain Newton Manross of Bristol, Lieutenant Marvin Wait of Norwich and Private John Bingham of East Haddam. (Find A Grave also is a terrific resource, by the way.)

Four regiments from Connecticut -- the 8th, 11th, 14th and 16th -- fought in the fields and woodlots outside Sharpsburg, Md., on Sept. 17, 1862. Scores of Connecticut men, including 19-year-old Thomas DeMars of Cromwell, were killed there. A private in Company A of the 16th Connecticut, DeMars is buried (above) in Cromwell's Kelsey Cemetery, once a quiet country graveyard but now airport runway loud thanks to nearby I-91.

Funerals for soldiers were a common occurrence in Connecticut  in the days and weeks after Antietam.  "It is seldom that we are called upon to bury so many braves in so short a space of time," the Hartford Courant noted on Oct. 13, 1862, nearly a month after the battle.

If you can help with my unusual detective work, shoot me an e-mail here.

A penny atop the gravestone of 19-year-old Theodore DeMars, killed at Antietam.

Antietam: Private Horace Lay's death

Horace Lay was wounded in John Otto's cornfield (top) during the Battle of Antietam and later
 treated at the German Reform Church  (bottom left) in Sharpsburg, Md.  Lay  died there nearly
 two months after the battle and is buried in the national cemetery in Sharpsburg. 

Bleeding profusely from gunshot wounds in each leg, Private Horace Lay was carried from John Otto's field to a chaotic, makeshift field hospital in a nearby barn. For men in the 16th Connecticut such as Lay, a 36-year-old soldier from Hartford, the Battle of Antietam was a nightmare.

For Lay's wife back in Connecticut, her husband's extreme misfortune in a farmer's cornfield near Sharpsburg, Md., set the course for several tragedies during her lifetime.

Nearly three weeks after the battle, Lay was moved to Sharpsburg's German Reform Church on Main Street, a Federal hospital where many 16th Connecticut men were treated. According to two comrades in his regiment, Lay was shot in the right leg between the ankle and knee and in the left leg between the knee and hip. (1) A surgeon at the church wrote in his casebook that a bullet had fractured Lay's left femur, probably making amputation necessary.

"...his thigh being quite small, would seem to invite the knife," the doctor noted, "but I am sick today myself and cannot pursue action." (2)

In his casebook, a surgeon who treated Lay at the German Reform Church in Sharpsburg
 noted that the soldier had a "fracture of the left femur by a ball..."

Upon receiving news back in Connecticut that her husband was wounded, a worried Charlotte Lay faced agonizing questions:

Like many loved ones of wounded soldiers, should she travel nearly 400 miles to Sharpsburg, a small town she probably never had heard of weeks earlier, to help her husband? Who would care for her young son if she were to go? Where was her husband wounded? Were his wounds mortal?

How would she survive if her husband of 14 years died?

Charlotte and Horace Lay were married on Jan. 3, 1848, and their union had produced one son, an 11-year-old boy named Horace Edward Lay. A shoemaker, Lay had enlisted in the Union army on Aug. 5, 1862, mustering into the 16th Connecticut 19 days later. Less than two weeks later, he was on the march from Washington with the rest of his untested regiment to join the Army of the Potomac.

In perhaps his final letter home to his wife before the Battle of Antietam, Horace Lay
closed a letter with these words. (Connecticut Historical Society Civil War Manuscripts Project)

During a break after the 16th Connecticut left its camp near Fort Ward on the outskirts of Washington, Horace wrote perhaps his final letter home to his wife before the Battle of Antietam.

"We are about 8 miles north from Washington and expect marching orders at any hour," he noted in the  letter, dated Sept. 8 from Leesboro, Md. "My health is first rate but one foot is so sore that I cannot bear my boot. In case we march before it gets well I shall ride on the baggage train.

"I feel anxious to hear from you," he continued. "No doubt you have written before this, but I have not got it. I shall write you as often as I can but if that is not often as you expect don't be too much alarmed. I may be too busy or I may not have the conveniences, but I expect they mean to keep us pretty busy at present and for some time to come.

"So Good Bye," he concluded. "Write soon. From your affectionate Husband. Horace Lay." (3)

Nine days later, Lay and the 16th Connecticut met disaster. Many of the men in his regiment had never fired their weapons before Antietam, their first battle of the Civil War, and most were unfamiliar with complicated battlefield maneuvers. Routed in Otto's 40-acre cornfield by veterans of A.P. Hill's division, the regiment suffered 43 killed and 161 wounded. Many in the regiment, scared out of their minds, simply ran for their lives.

In an affidavit in Charlotte Lay's widow's pension file, 
 Henry Tracy of the 16th Connecticut  described Horace Lay's 
injuries at Antietam. "Was wounded severely in  the right leg 
between the  knee and ankle," the private noted, " and in 
the left leg between the knee and hip."
(CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)

Ultimately, Charlotte Lay decided to make the journey to Sharpsburg to tend to her husband. (3). Although the record is unclear, Lay probably had his left leg amputated, typical with severe wounds such as his. He lingered at German Reformed Church for weeks, but died with Charlotte by his side on Nov. 16, 1862, almost two months after Antietam.

Charlotte Lay undoubtedly grieved for her husband, but a little more than a year later, she decided to move on with her life. On May, 8, 1864, she married an Englishman named John Oldershaw, a photographer from Old Lyme, Conn. That marriage lasted until Dec. 5, 1876, when Oldershaw died of a stroke. A widow once more, Charlotte married again on Nov. 15, 1894, this time to an old farmer named Harvey Buell. But he died of natural causes in South Windsor, Conn. on April 23, 1899. He was 82 years old. (4)

A three-time widow, Charlotte lived out her days in Connecticut. She re-applied for a Civil War widow's pension after Buell's death, and received $12 a month. Those payments ceased when 78-year-old Charlotte died of heart failure on May 25, 1909. (5)

Perhaps because his wife could not afford to transport her first husband's body back to Connecticut in 1862, Horace Lay was buried near the German Reform Church. His remains were later disinterred, and today he lies buried in the Connecticut section at Antietam National Cemetery under a weather-worn marker that simply notes his name, state and Civil War allegiance.

(1) Widow's pension file affidavit
(2) Report Surgical Cases in German Reform Church Hospital, Sharpsburg, Md., 1862
(3) Connecticut Historical Society, Civil War Manuscripts Collection, MS Civil War Box II, Folder 2
(4) Widow's pension file affidavit
(5) Ibid

Fresh discovery: Treating Abraham Lincoln

An image that never gets old: Lincoln Memorial in Washington. 

I'm a sucker for stories on newly discovered historical documents or artifacts (see Oliver Case Bible post), so I couldn't resist this story on the discovery of a report by a 23-year-old doctor named Charles Leale on his treatment of Abraham Lincoln shortly after the president was shot at Ford's Theatre. (And besides, it gave me a chance to try the Mathew Brady effect from picmonkey.com on the Lincoln Memorial photo I shot last summer.)

Dr. Charles Leale  (Library of Congress)

The report by Leale, the first doctor to treat the president in his box after he was shot, is a fascinating first draft of history. John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln in the back of the head with a single-shot .44-caliber Deringer, which may be viewed today at the small Ford's Theatre museum.

Leale wrote that after Lincoln was wounded, he "heard cries that the ‘President had been murdered,’ which were followed by those of ‘Kill the murderer’ ‘Shoot him’ etc. which came from different parts of the audience."

"I immediately ran to the Presidents box," wrote the young doctor, who also was in the theater, "and as soon as the door was opened was admitted and introduced to Mrs. Lincoln when she exclaimed several times, ‘O Doctor, do what you can for him, do what you can!’”

Leale examined the bullet wound in the back of the president's head and noted a "perfectly smooth opening made by the ball" from Booth's pistol. Although Lincoln died early the next morning, Beale is credited with resuscitating the president shortly after he was shot.

The complete original documents are here. Great stuff.

In this newly discovered report, Dr. Charles Leale described his treatment of  President Lincoln
 after he was shot in Ford's Theatre. (Read the complete original documents here.)