While snooping around ancient Green Cemetery in Glastonbury, Conn., on Sunday afternoon, I was struck by the beauty of the old gravestones there. The ornate designs on the cracked, crumbling and weathered markers, some dating to the mid-18th century, give the place the feel of an outdoor art gallery. I was there to research the story of William Wallace Porter, a private in the 16th Connecticut, who was killed at Antietam. The 27-year-old soldier was one of several men in his regiment who died in the days and weeks after Antietam at the Sharpsburg's German Reform Church, which was used as a makeshift hospital. Porter is buried next to his wife, Arazina, and his brother, John, who was killed near Petersburg in 1864. Both brothers served in Company H of the 16th Connecticut, which met its demise in farmer John Otto's cornfield. (Check out my video.) I'll post much more about the life and times of Private Porter in the near future. In the meantime, enjoy the artwork.
This one reminds of a sad light bulb.
Heh! Why so glum?
Close-ups of the tops of 18th-century gravestones at Green Cemetery in Glastonbury.
Although worn by the elements, this little girl still retains her beauty.
This marker reminded me of an old Beatles tune. "Dear Prudence... won't you come out to play?"
30-year old Thomas Kimberly of Glastonbury, Conn., met his maker in a powder mill explosion.
Samuel Thompson, a 19-year-old lieutenant in Company H of the 16th Connecticut, is buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery in Hartford. Mortally wounded at Antietam, he died at home.
Antietam-related history can be found nearly in my own back yard here in Connecticut.
In Greenwood Cemetery, just across the road from our house in Avon, rest the remains of 16th Connecticut private Austin Fuller, who served at Antietam. Captured at Plymouth, N.C., in 1864, Fuller was sent to the notorious rebel prisoner-of-war camp in Andersonville, Ga., and later paroled in "greatly emaciated" condition. The 23-year-old soldier died at home in Farmington, Conn., "suddenly and expectedly" on Jan. 8, 1865.
Buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery, Melancthon Storrs, a surgeon in the 8th Connecticut, amputated the right leg of 16th Connecticut captain Frederick Barber (above). Wounded at Antietam, Barber died on Sept. 20, 1862, three days after the battle.
In West Avon Cemetery, two miles over the hill from Banks manor, is the grave of Private Wallace Woodford of the 16th Connecticut. Wounded at Antietam, Woodford also was captured at Plymouth, N.C., in 1864 and sent to Andersonville. Tormented by his treatment by the rebels, Woodford found it difficult to talk about his prison experience. "When asleep he would throw his arms about, thinking he was in Andersonville .. endeavoring to obtain food," the Hartford Courant reported in January 1865. Like Fuller, the 22-year-old soldier from Avon died at home, on Jan. 10, 1865.
This morning, I drove about 20 minutes to the beautifully kept grounds of Hartford's Cedar Hill Cemetery, where 36 Connecticut men who fought at Antietam are buried. Cemetery sleuth and Antietam guru Mary Falvey, a friend of the blog, conducted a terrific two-hour tour for about 50 people. Mary tied up a lot of loose ends for me in my first visit to Cedar Hill, pointing out the final resting place of Antietam's unsung hero and other notables from the bloodiest day in American history. I especially enjoyed the stop at the grave of Melancthon Storrs (try saying that three times quickly.) A surgeon in the 8th Connecticut, Storrs amputated the entire right leg of 16th Connecticut captain Frederick Barber, who suffered a bullet wound in the hip in farmer John Otto's 40-acre cornfield at Antietam.
"Oh, my God," Barber shouted as he was wounded. "I'm killed. Good bye, boys. You've lost your Captain. Farewell. Farewell." (1)
Two days after Storrs' grisly operation in a barn near the battlefield, Barber died of his wounds.
(1) 16th Connecticut private Wells Bingham's letter to his father, Sept. 20, 1862
After Antietam, 16th Connecticut adjutant John Burnham supervised the burial of the dead in his regiment on the battlefield. Broken down physically and mentally, he died at the Connecticut Hospital for the Insane on April 10, 1883. He is buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery.
Sunrise at Antietam battlefield. (CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)
Up for an early-morning run on the Antietam battlefield Saturday, I shot this photo near the Visitors' Center. That's the beautiful New York monument in the background. With the 150th anniversary of the battle only 25 days away, take time out to check out my Antietam thread, which includes profiles of common soldiers and some quirky stuff, too.And if you're interested in Connecticut's role in the battle, here are posts that include mention of the 8th, 11th, 14th and 16th regiments that fought there. And don't forget: You can like my blog on Facebook. It could be a life-altering experience ... or maybe not.
Riddled with bullets, Captain Samuel Brown of the 16th Connecticut was killed
at the Battle of Antietam. The 26-year-old soldier was a teacher before the
Civil War. (Photo from George Whitney Collection/Connecticut State Library)
When Samuel Brown led his men of the 16th Connecticut into action in John Otto's cornfield during the Battle of Antietam, the 26-year-old captain briefly came face to face with another soldier in his company.
Richard Jobes, a 36-year-old corporal in Company D from Suffield, never forgot that day -- or that moment.
"I was the tallest corporal in the Co. and that brought me at the head of the Co. with Capt. Brown," Jobes wrote in a letter to Brown's sister nearly four decades after the Civil War. "A cannon ball passed between him and myself, but very close to him, so close he thought it passed through his long and beautiful whiskers. It was a 6 or 12 lb. ball. He was pale for a moment, rubbed his face and whiskers, then went on coolly giving his commands." (1)
Although Antietam was the first battle of the Civil War for the 16th Connecticut, Brown had already earned the respect and admiration of his men, who were mustered into the regiment in late August 1862. In fact, he didn't hesitate to admonish them, even using a profanity or two.
Like Jobes, Private William Relyea of the 16th Connecticut also never forgot Sept. 17, 1862. In a post-war account, the veteran wrote about forming in Otto's field, the moments just before the rebels opened a "murderous fire" on his regiment and the awful, deadly results of that musketry.
"We moved into the lot by the opening in the right-hand corner," Relyea, from Suffield, wrote in the recollection that included the map below. "We were then formed in lines directly in front of the opening and extending to the right a little beyond the pile of rails. Captain Brown was anxious that his company would give as good an account of themselves as any in this regiment -- he was cool but somewhat angry at us for not forming a line as we had been taught to do on dress parade and scolded at us some a few minutes after we had formed a little more to his satisfaction." (2)
According to one account, the captain urged his men on by saying, "Charge bayonets and come on, boys!," before the rebels rose up and fired through the corn from behind a nearby low, stone wall. But orderly sergeant Peter Grohman and Relyea instead remembered Brown yelling at the men in language Relyea described as "emphatic." (3)
"I believe I swear too much for a man in battle," the soldiers recalled him saying. (4)
Minutes later, rebel fire shattered Company D, tearing apart Jobes' left arm (later amputated), severely wounding Corporal John Tate of Enfield (also lost his left arm) and killing Private George W. Allen of Suffield. But it was the death of Brown -- who along with Newton Manross, John Drake and Frederick Barber was the fourth 16th Connecticut captain killed or mortally wounded at Antietam -- that was most keenly felt by the company. After being struck in the neck, hip and arm, he managed to crawl near the opening where the regiment entered Otto's cornfield. About six feet from that opening, Brown died.
Nearly 46 years after Antietam, Private William Relyea drew this map of where Samuel Brown's body was found in relation to the 16th Connecticut monument. See my video below. (George Q. Whitney Collection/Connecticut State Library) CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.
Two days later, after Robert E. Lee's army abandoned the field and crossed the Potomac River into Virginia, Brown's body was discovered by Relyea and Grohman. "He lay on his back properly strait (sic), feet toward the gap," Relyea noted. (5) (Watch my video above.)
Like the deaths of so many other young men with great promise during the Civil War, the passing of Brown was especially tragic. "He was a man of great bravery," Jobes wrote to Brown's sister, "and no doubt if he would have been spared the war would have been much higher than a captain of a company."
Brown's grave in Monumental Cemetery in Peabody, Mass.
(Photo: Jack Parker)
Born in Danvers, Mass. (now Peabody) on Feb. 16, 1836, Samuel was the son of Fanny and Samuel Brown, a stone mason, who helped build the Battle of Lexington monument on Washington Street in South Danvers. Young Samuel had seven other siblings, including a sister named Fanny, who greatly admired her older brother. A diligent student, Brown graduated in 1858 from Maine's Bowdoin College -- the same school that produced Gettysburg hero Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, the lieutenant colonel of the 20th Maine.
Following graduation from college, Brown became a teacher in 1860 at the Edward Hall School for Boys in Ellington, Conn., about 20 miles from Hartford. After a short stay at the Ellington School, Brown taught school in Beverly, Mass., before returning to teach at Ellington in the spring of 1862. Although war talk stirred many in Connecticut at that time, Brown at first was hestitant to join the cause there.
"He found the town in a high fever of patriotism and inbibing deeply of the patriotic spirit, changed his mind and became ambitious to enter the service of the U.S.," according to a Brown obituary. Brown recruited 40 men in nearby Enfield and was commissioned a captain in the 16th Connecticut on Aug. 1, 1862. Originally intending to join the cause in his native state, Brown gave up his spot to another 26-year-old man from South Danvers.
"You know I intended to enter the army and did get a chance as Lieut in the 19th Massachusetts Regiment in the course of the Fall (of 1861)," Brown wrote in letter to his family dated March 18, 1862, "but gave it to a friend of mine, a teacher in one of our public schools, who, having lost his young wife after a year of married life, felt so desirous of a change of scene and seemed so utterly miserable that I resigned in his favor."
Brown's friend, 2nd Lieutenant Charles S. Warner, was killed at the Battle of Fair Oaks on June 25, 1862. His funeral service was held at Old South Church in South Danvers. Nearly three and a half months later, Brown's funeral was held in the same church. During that well-attended service, Reverend William Barbour lamented the loss of a "professional man," a reference to Brown's profession before the war.
"The import of strife deepens around such an offering as this," said Barbour, pointing to Brown's casket. "And this leads me to hasten on by observing that we pay the highest price for principle when our educated men become the sacrifice for our country." (7)
After the service, Brown's casket was borne a short distance to Monumental Cemetery, where the young soldier was buried in a family plot, not far from the grave of his friend, Charles Warner.
(1) George Q. Whitney Collection, Connecticut State Library, Richard Jobes letter to Fanny Brown, Feb. 10, 1909
(2) George Q. Whitney Collection, Connecticut State Library, William Relyea letter to Whitney, Feb. 25, 1909.
(3) Ibid
(4) Ibid
(5) Ibid
(6) Hartford Courant, Sept. 30, 1862, Page 2
(7) Salem (Mass.) Evening News, Oct. 1, 1926
In 1912, this elementary school in Peabody, Mass., (formerly South Danvers) was named for
Brown, who grew up in the town near Boston. Right: Painting of Brown that hangs in the school's
lobby. (Photos courtesy Captain Samuel Brown Elementary School principal Elaine Metropolis)
Teenagers John and Wells Bingham served in Company H of the 16th Connecticut.
John was killed at Antietam. Wells survived and broke the news of his brother's death
to his father back in East Haddam, Conn. (Photos: Military and Historical Image Bank)
For the Bingham family of East Haddam, Conn., the Civil War was indeed a family affair. Six of farmer Elisha Bingham's sons served in the Union army. Two of them did not return home alive. Eliphalet Bingham died in Virginia in 1864, and John, only 17 years old, was killed at Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862. John and his younger brother, 16-year-old Wells, served in Company H of the 16th Connecticut. Fighting in its first battle of the Civil War, the regiment was battered by veterans of A.P. Hill's division at Antietam. Many of the men in the 16th Connecticut, scared out of their minds, simply ran for their lives. "The musket balls were falling among us like halestones (sic)," Wells wrote to his father.
Eliphalet Bingham.
(Photo courtesy Tad Sattler)
Wells Bingham survived Antietam, but the psychological burden of his brother's death undoubtedly stuck with him the rest of this life. It fell to the teenager to break the news of John's death to his father. In a letter that I surprisingly discovered at the Antietam National Battlefield research library on Friday afternoon, Wells writes vividly about the late-afternoon fight in John Otto's 40-acre cornfield, witnessing the wounding of his company's captain, his own narrow escape and of the agonizing realization that his brother was killed. For me, the discovery of the letter was exciting, especially after telling this story in November. Below is a transcript of Wells' seven-page letter to his father, including misspellings, punctuation mistakes and grammatical errors. The Herbert and Waldo mentioned in the letter are probably relatives of the brothers, although that relationship is unclear and merits further research. Context is provided by me in italics. X X X
Sharpsburg, Md Sep 20th/62
Dear Father
Having the opportunity, I thought I would write you. It is a sad tale which I am about to tell you. John, poor, poor John, is no more. We have had a serious time of it, the sixteenth. We arrived up with our Brigade that night. We marched (after dark) to within about a mile of the enemy, and slept on our arms. In the morning some of the soldiers went up on a hill, and exposed our position. We soon had shells from the rebbel battery in great plenty. We are briggadded with the 8th and 11th Conn and the 4th R.I. regiments. the shells killed 3 or 4 and wounded a number in the briggade. We were marched into a piece of woods and formed a line of battle, from there we were marched up onto a high hill. all this time the battle was going on only a short distance from us. we had a chance to witness some of the most splendid firing with artillery. we could see the shells and shot strike around the rebbel battery. It took but a short time for our battery to silence theirs.
"While we were sitting on the hill our forces took the bridge over the small river,"
Wells Bingham wrote of the capture of Burnside Bridge.
(Alexander Gardner photo/Library of Congress Civil War collection)
While we were sitting on the hill our forces took the bridge over the small river between us and the rebbels. our briggade forded the stream below the bridge. we had been across the stream but a short time when we had a rebbel battery throwing shells among us. but our battery silenced it in a few moments. About 4 o'clock we were marched over a hill, and down into a hollow, and lay down. We were in this situation about an hour, the shells from both batteries were playing over us. One man in our company lying just behind me was struck by a piece of shell. Cap't Manross was killed while we lay there. We marched from here up to a cornfield. The different companies in our regiment were placed around in different parts of the cornfield, out the way of the shells. We were here when we saw two regiments about a half a mile off. they were rebbels, but they had our uniform and flags so we thought they were all right, but they came on through the cornfield, out of sight, very still, and the first we know they were right upon us. They came right onto the left flank of our company. we jumped up, and fell back a little, and faced them. The officers told us not to fire, for they were our men. They came on with a yell and a rush. Our Cap't was struck down by a musket ball in the thigh. as it struck him he cried "Oh my God. I'm killed. good bye boys. you've lost your Captain. Farewell. Farewell."
Wells Bingham witnessed the death of 16th Connecticut captain
Newton Manross. (left). When Captain Frederick Barber of Bingham's Company H was shot, Wells heard him cry out:
"Oh, my God. I'm killed. Good bye, boys." (Manross photo courtesy Bristol Historical Society)
X X X
The captain Wells Bingham referred to was 32-year-old Frederick Barber of Manchester. Wounded in the right hip, Barber had his leg amputated in a field hospital set up in a barn. He did well after the operation at first, but died three days after the battle. Barber is buried in Green Cemetery in Glastonbury. Manross, the beloved captain of Company K, had his left arm blown off by cannon fire, a scene seared into the memory of a private in Company H. "I could look down inside of him and see his heart beat, his left shoulder all shot off," Lester Taylor recalled 39 years after the war. An acting professor at Amherst (Mass.) College when he enlisted, Manross is buried in Forestville Cemetery in Bristol.
X X X
This hollow is probably where the 16th regiment lay before going into battle at Antietam. Here, "the shells from both batteries were playing over us," Wells Bingham wrote to his father.
Our 1st Lieut tried to form us, but finding he could not, he left the field. all this time the musket balls were falling among us like halestones. The rebbels were then not more than 6 rods (blogger's note: about 33 yards) at the fartherest. While in the company two balls struck my canteen. one went through, the other stayed in. if it had not been for that, the balls would have gone into my thigh, but God ordered it otherwise. Some of our boys went one way and some another. I left the field with Lieut Thompson. I never saw John, Waldo, or Herbert, after we jumped up from the ground. I helped a wounded man from our company over to the Hospital about two miles from the battlefield. I put my blanket over him, and my tent I wound around a mans arm which was wounded, from Michigan. For about a mile after we left the cornfield the shells fell. It gave me a chance to see in reallity what I've pictured only A good many times before. They tried to form us A number of times, but in vain. the 8th 11th Conn 4th R.I. skedaddle as bad as we did. They said they never in their experience wer in such galling fire befor. I saw the coller bearer of the 8th Conn throw down the flag and run. the commander of the brigade threatened to run him through with a sword. he struck him on the arm, the man fell that was the last I saw of him. they led the Brigadde across the river only the way of the shells.
John Bingham and many others in his regiment didn't make it out of John Otto's 40-acre cornfield alive. The 16th Connecticut monument, dedicated Oct. 11, 1894, is in the distance.
Herbert joined the Regiment the nex morning. I have not seen Waldo, one of our Sergeants says he helped him to the Hospital. he says he was wounded through the wrist by A musket ball. Jhon was on the right side of the company. I had my place by his side till the day before the fight by some mistake I was placed on the left, I never heard A word from him till yesterday morn when they went out to bury the dead they found him. you can immagine my fealings better than I can describe them, they say he was shot through the left breast probably died instantly, the Rebbels stripped the dead & wounded of every thing they had, John had A good wach wich he bought at Hartford, not much money I guess.
16th Connecticut adjutant John Burnham supervised the burial of those killed in his
regiment at Antietam. John Bingham was among the dead.
They buried 40 I believe, from our reg all in one grave John among them they had boards placed at their heads with there names company & reg inscribed on it. I never saw John, I started to go over and see him once, but I had not gone but a little way before I thought that if he looked like any of them which I saw there, I did not want to see him, John Porter the dearest friend I have here is sick in the Hospital. Wallace, his Brother was shot through the kness but he is doing well.
I stuck to my blankets & tent through the fight but yesterday morning, some one stole it from me. I am without anything but what I have got on my back. A great many of them threw away every thing before & in the fight. Good by.
Remember me in your prayers, from your Son WAB.
X X X One of the unsung heroes of Antietam, 16th Connecticut adjustant John Burnham of Hartford supervised the collection of the dead in his regiment and their burial in well-marked temporary battlefield graves. John Bingham, of course, was among them. "The friends of the killed cannot be but deeply grateful to Adjutant Burnham for his thoughtful labors," the Hartford Courant reported nearly two weeks after the battle.
Neither John Porter nor William Wallace Porter, privates in the 16th Connecticut, survived the Civil War. John, Wells Bingham's "dearest friend," was killed in battle in 1864. William died of his Antietam wound 23 days after the battle. They are buried in Glastonbury, Conn.
A 27-year-old private in Company H of the 16th Connecticut, William Wallace Porter of Glastonbury suffered a severe wound in his left leg, which was amputated. Twenty-three days after the Battle of Antietam, Porter died at the German Reform Church in Sharpsburg. William's father traveled from Connecticut to Maryland to retrieve his son's remains. William is buried near Company H captain Frederick Barber in Green Cemetery in Glastonbury. John Porter, who later served in the 1st Connecticut Heavy Artillery, was killed in battle near Petersburg on Nov. 25, 1864. He's buried next to his brother.
HOFFMAN FARM: Probably the largest Union hospital at Antietam, this was headquarters for the Sanitary Commission, a private relief agency that tended to sick and wounded soldiers. (Images courtesy Richard Gold)
GERMAN REFORMED CHURCH: Amputated legs and arms formed piles as they were tossed
outside this church in Keedysville, Md., about four miles miles from Sharpsburg. The church was rebuilt after the war.
JACOB COST HOUSE: General Joseph Mansfield of Middletown, Conn., had the final meal of
his life here on Sept. 16, 1862. He was mortally wounded the next day. Wounded Union soldiers were treated in the parlor of this house.
WIDOW SNYDER HOUSE: Wounded soldiers from Pennsylvania were treated here,
near the Hoffman Farm.
SMOKETOWN ROAD: A large tent hospital was located near here after the battle.
SAMUEL POFFENBERGER FARM: Clara Barton, who became famous after the Civil War for founding the American Red Cross, tended to wounded soldiers here.
PHILLIP PRY FARM: Wounded soldiers were treated in the house and barn. Union
General Israel Richardson died in a second-floor bedroom of the Pry house.
GERMAN REFORM CHURCH: Many wounded solders of the 16th Connecticut were
treated at this church on Main Street in Sharpsburg.
After the Battle of Antietam, many houses, barns and farms in the Sharpsburg, Md., area were used as hospitals. Many of those sites still exist. Using John Schildt's book, Dim And Flaring Lights, as a guide, I did a quick drive-by tour of Antietam hospital sites recently.
Off-the-beaten path Keedysville is seldom visited by battlefield tourists, but it's well worth a visit. About four miles from Sharpsburg, the little town was home to several hospitals, including the German Reformed Church, where amputated arms and legs formed piles as they were tossed from the windows. Union General George McClellan had dinner at Jacob Hess' house in Keedysville on Sept. 15, two days before Antietam. Pleased with the meal there, McClellan, according to Schildt, gave his host a gold piece.
JACOB HESS HOUSE: Little Mac rewarded his host after a meal at this Keedysville house.
Stephen Recker's book will be available by the 150th anniversary of Antietam on Sept. 17.
Over a beer or two (Yuengling!) and sandwiches at Captain Benders Tavern in Sharpsburg, Md., the day before Connecticut Day in April, Stephen Recker gave Civil War blogger John Rogers (8th Connecticut private Oliver Cromwell Case blog) and me a sneak preview of his new book, "Rare Images of Antietam." If the preview is as good as the final result, you will be very impressed. A longtime history buff, Recker, 54, isn't new to the Civil War publishing scene. He produced Virtual Gettysburg, a cool interactive battlefield guide, several years ago, and Antietam Artifacts, a CD of pre-1930 postcards of the Maryland Campaign. But "Rare Images Of Antietam" may be his tour de force. For three decades, the ultimate Antietam photography book on my bookshelf has been William Frassanito's terrific "Antietam: The Photographic Legacy of America's Bloodiest Day." Thirty years from now, a well-worn copy of Recker's book may take a spot next to my dog-eared copy of Frassanito's work. In case you're wondering, "Rare Images of Antietam" will be available in time for the 150th anniversary of the battle next month. Earlier today, Recker, who lives near the battlefield, took time out to explain why he did the book, what's of interest in it for those of us who are fascinated with Connecticut's role in the battle and more.
Stephen Recker: "Collecting rare images
of Antietam was slow-going at first."
Why do this book on Antietam? Recker: Thanks for the interest. I moved out here from California 10 years ago with an eye on marketing Virtual Gettysburg and producing Virtual Antietam. At some point, though, my photograph collection got so huge and I found so many important images and so much info on the photographers that I changed my focus.
You've worked quite awhile on this -- several years, correct? Why did it take so long? Recker: Collecting rare images of Antietam was slow going at first. It was five years of collecting rare Antietam postcards -- the only place I could find images of Antietam -- before I bought my first important collection of photographs. I was then off and running. After that it has been five years of one huge find after another. Tom Clemens (a noted Antietam expert) once told me he would not trade my luck for a license to steal. I now either own or have scans of over 700 rare Antietam images, most unknown and unpublished.
I have a keen interest in the four Connecticut regiments that fought at Antietam. What will the reader find Connecticut related in "Rare Images of Antietam"?
Recker: My favorite regiment is the 16th Connecticut. At a show years back, I saw images taken on their dedication day, one of the monument with the flag on it, one just after the dedication with veterans standing nearby. To my dismay, someone bought them out from under my nose. After five years of hunting, I tracked them down and they are in the book. I also feature the first images of Mumma’s Cornfield, fought across by the 14th Connecticut. These were taken in 1891, and show 14th Connecticut veterans surveying the field. After the battle, people thought that Mumma’s Cornfield would be remembered as well as Miller’s, but instead it has been forgotten. I hope these images will revitalize interest. I also have "then and nows" for the images in the 14th Connecticut 1891 reunion book.
You have an extensive Antietam collection. Are some of the images from your collection in the book?
Recker: I would say the majority are mine, but I wanted to represent all of the major collections that I have found, both in private and public collections. It took me years to search out where some of the best Antietam images are, and I thought that instead of simply showcasing my images, it would be important to let other historians know about these collections so that they could use my book as a starting point, not the final word. It was initially my desire to do a huge opus and include everything in a comprehensive study, but I simply found way too much (a blessing and a curse) and decided that this first volume would be more meaningful (and publishable by the anniversary) if I narrowed the focus and featured some of my more important finds.
What was your most exciting find?
Recker: That has changed many times in the course of writing the book. When I do talks, people seem greatly moved by the only known photographs of the original wooden markers in Antietam National Cemetery, which I use to show that the bodies are not buried under the current stone markers. I found a photograph, previously thought to be Lincoln at Gettysburg, that is actually the only known photograph of the dedication of Antietam’s cemetery. Then I found the McFarland Album, Ezra Carman’s photograph collection, John Mead Gould’s ‘Kodaks’ of the East Woods, the list goes on. But the single-most exciting find for me personally is that the first post-Gardner photograph taken on Antietam Battlefield bears the backmark of a photographer named E.M. Recker.
Is there enough material out there to do another book like this on Antietam?
Recker: I figure that I have enough material for about five more volumes of A+ images. But I don’t want to simply fill up books with photographs. It took me 10 years of hunting to find the supporting info for each of the images that I feature in my book. And it took a lot of work to make a book that the casual observer would enjoy as much as the serious student. But now that I have the images scanned and I have the book template created, I am poised to publish multiple volumes in relative short order and get these photographs out where people can enjoy them. Thanks again for the opportunity to talk about this first volume.
After we pulled off the road in Haverhill, Mass., for much-needed grub on the return from R&R in Maine on Wednesday, I discovered the name of a familiar Civil War soldier etched on an old memorial. It was a nice surprise.
Van Buren L. Towle died after his release from a
Southern prisoner-of-war camp.
Van Buren L. Towle, a 26-year-old shoemaker, was among the nearly 1,500 men from Haverhill who served in the Union army during the Civil War. After I purchased four tintypes of Towle three years ago, I pulled records on the 1st Massachusetts Heavy Artillery private from the National Archives. Sadly, those records revealed details of a terrible fate.
Captured at the Battle of Harris Farm, near Spotsylvania Courthouse, Va., on May 19, 1864, Towle was sent to the infamous rebel prisoner-of-war camp in Andersonville. The young soldier with blue eyes, black hair and a dark complexion spent nearly six months in the southwestern Georgia POW camp before he was paroled around New Year's Day 1865. After his release, Towle, deathly ill from his prison experience, died aboard the U.S.S. Northern Light and was buried at sea.
Towle's teen-aged brother, also a POW, encountered his brother in a South Carolina camp just before he was paroled.
"I last saw him on the seventh day of December A.D. 1864 in Florence, S.C. in a rebel prison," 19-year-old Carroll Towle, a private in the 2nd Massachusetts Heavy Artillery, noted matter-of-factly in an undated pension claim affidavit. "He left said prison that day in feeble health. Since that day I have never heard from him. I was confined in said prison at that time and for several months subsequently. He was my brother. I was in prison with him from about the first of July 1864 until he was paroled. He was in prison first at Andersonville, Ga. and was transferred to Florence, S.C.
"I have no doubt that he died soon after leaving the prison."
Today, on a tiny island of concrete across from a CVS, Taco Bell and Kentucky Fried Chicken, a beautifully carved 20-foot Civil War memorial honors the men of Haverhill who died during the Civil War. Few probably pull off the heavily trafficked roads near the monument to read the names etched on the front -- including the name of Van Buren L. Towle in the bottom left corner.
A 24-year-old shoemaker from Haverhill, Mass., Van Buren Towle is one of many soldiers from the town who died during the Civil War. His name appears on the Haverhill Civil War memorial.
Orderly sergeant Wadsworth Washburn, 26, was killed at the Battle of Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862. His father retreived his body from the battlefield. (Connecticut State Library archives.)
Kristen Duke, a former graduate student at Central Connecticut State, researched and wrote this story on 16th Connecticut Orderly Sergeant Wadsworth Washburn, who was killed at the Battle of Antietam. If you have a photograph of Wadsworth Washburn, contact me here.
By Kristen Duke
As thousands met their deaths on Civil War battlefields, families back home faced a grim task: the retrieval of bodies of loved ones -- an effort that was often expensive and considered distasteful by some.
This grim list of those killed at Antietam in the
16th Connecticut -- including Wadsworth Washburn --
appeared in the Hartford Courant on Sept. 25, 1862.
“The desire to bring home from long distances the remains of deceased friends is, by some persons, regarded as evidence of a morbid sensibility, or a best an unreasonable expenditure,”Asahel Cornwall Washburn, a pastor noted for his deeply religious sensibilities, wrote in a letter published in the Hartford Courant on Nov. 12, 1862. “Others cherish that desire as a dictate of true love and in strict conformity with christian culture.”
Washburn himself faced the grim reality of death upon learning that his only son, Orderly Sergeant Wadsworth Washburn of the 16th Connecticut, had been killed at Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862, But for the pastor from Berlin, Conn., the decision about what he must do for his dead son was easy:
He had to bring Wadsworth home.
Thankfully for the Washburn family, Wadsworth’s temporary battlefield grave was well marked. John Burnham, the 16th Connecticut’s adjutant, supervised the recovery of bodies of soldiers in his regiment who had been killed at Antietam and carefully noted the location of their graves on the property of a 58-year-old farmer named John Otto.
"There is a stone road running due east from Sharpsburg to the Stone Bridge across the Antietam Creek, for possession of which hard fighting took place in the morning," Burnham wrote in a letter that was published in the Hartford Courant on Sept. 30, 1862. "It is about one mile from Sharpsburg to the bridge, and the spot selected for the grave is about midway between them on a hill on the south side of the road, just back of a white house with a high piazza in front, and opposite of which is a large house and a barn." Washburn was buried in a large trench along with Privates Henry Aldrich of Bristol, John Bingham of East Haddam and Theodore DeMarrs of Cromwell.
Describing his journey home to Connecticut with his son's body as a “sensation of relief,” Reverend Washburn was comforted by the idea that Wadsworth’s final resting place could be “planted with flowers, visited often by friends, moistened with their tears.”
“The dumb marble,” of his son’s gravestone, he added, “will warn his former associates to also be ready.” (1)
Wadsworth Washburn, an orderly sergeant in the 16th Connecticut, is buried in Bridge Cemetery
in Berlin, Conn. An ornate wrought-iron fence surrounds his grave.
The aftermath of Antietam was agonizing for the state, with scores of funerals held in Connecticut from late September through mid-October 1862. "It is seldom that we are called upon to bury so many braves in so short a space of time," the Courant reported on Oct. 13, 1862.
Born Aug. 15, 1836 in Vermont, Washburn was 25 years old when he enlisted as a private on Aug. 8, 1862. Sixteen days later, he was mustered into the 16th Connecticut's Company G -- known as Hayden’s Company, in honor of its captain, Nathaniel Hayden of Hartford. Like many from the 16th who signed the oath that summer, he was killed about a month later in Otto’s cornfield. Ill-prepared for a major battle, the 16th Connecticut suffered severely in a desperate effort to turn the rebels' right flank. Of the four Connecticut regiments engaged that awful Wednesday, the 16th Connecticut suffered the most killed, 42.
On Monday afternoon, Oct. 13, 1862, Washburn received a hero’s funeral in Berlin, a small town 15 miles from Hartford. Eight members of the 25th Connecticut carried his casket into the Congregational Church, which was filled with mourners. Reverend Wilder Smith, whose brother, Heber, had been killed at Cedar Mountain, Va., nearly two months earlier, conducted the services. A moving tribute was given by Lieutenant Jacob Eaton of the 8th Connecticut, who had suffered a leg wound at Antietam.
After a choir sang "America," Washburn's friends, who took a last glance at two photographs of him on the coffin, slowly filed past the dead soldier. The casket was then borne a short distance down the road to the cemetery, where Wadsworth Washburn was finally laid to rest. (2)
His grave surrounded by a beautiful, ornate wrought-iron fence, Washburn today lies buried beside his younger sister, Emma, at tiny Bridge Cemetery. Praised by the Hartford Courant for his “heroic bravery” on the “fatal field of Antietam,” the seldom-visited gravesite, now tucked into a suburban neighborhood, is a moving tribute to a fallen hero. (3)
Gravestone of 16th Connecticut captain Newton Manross in Forestville Cemetery in Bristol.
A professor before the war, Manross told his wife upon enlisting: "You can better afford to have
a country without a husband than a husband without a country." (CLICK HERE FOR STORY.)
Gravestone of William Sweet, a 20-year-old private in the 8th Connecticut, at Carey Cemetery in rural Canterbury, Conn. Three other soldiers killed at Antietam -- Sergeant Charles Lewis of the 8th Connecticut, Private Dwight Carey of the 8th Connecticut and Private Charles Morse of the 11th Connecticut -- are also buried at Carey Cemetery. (CLICK HERE FOR STORY.)
Gravestone of Daniel Tarbox, a private in the 11th Connecticut. Buried in South Cemetery
in Brooklyn, Conn., Tarbox was mortally wounded at Antietam at the assault on Burnside Bridge.
Only 18 years old, he died the day after the battle. (CLICK HERE FOR STORY.)
Two pennies on the gravestone of brothers Francis and Frederick Hollister of the 14th Connecticut. The Hollisters, who lost their blankets at Antietam, died within a half-hour of each other a little more than three months later, at Falmouth, Va. They are buried together in Union Hill Cemetery in East Hampton, Conn. (CLICK HERE FOR THE STORY.)
Gravestone of 16th Connecticut private Thomas DeMars of Cromwell, Conn. Killed at Antietam, he is buried at Kelsey Cemetery in Cromwell. He was only 19 years old.
For the past 15 months, I have traveled throughout Connecticut -- from Brooklyn in the east to Bristol in the west -- visiting the graves of solders with a connection to the Battle of Antietam. It's not hard to find them. Scores of men and boys from Connecticut were killed or mortally wounded in the fields and woodlots outside Sharpsburg, Md., on Sept. 17, 1862 -- the bloodiest day in American history. Each time I visit a cemetery, I place a penny, Lincoln side up, on the soldier's gravestone. I figure that's a neat way to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice nearly 150 years ago. As the 150th anniversary of Antietam nears, perhaps you'll want to do the same in a cemetery near you. (Lincoln side up, of course.)
