Connecticut's Photographic 'Album of the Dead'



Left: Captain Charles Tennant of the 16th Connecticut was mortally wounded in battle
near Suffolk, Va., in 1864. Captain Henry C. Smith of the 20th Connecticut was
 killed by a falling tree. (Photos: Connecticut State Library archive)
CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

Private William T. Loomis died a gruesome death, crushed by railroad cars near Alexandria, Va.

Private Charles Comstock met his demise on the Washington turnpike, shot by a civilian "residing near the road."

Captain Charles Tennant and Lieutenant Charles Greenleaf were mortally wounded in battle, each dying far from their homes in Hartford.

Sergeant George H. Marsh was killed by the concussion of a Rebel artillery shell.

Captain Henry C. Smith was the victim of a falling tree.

Photographs of each of these soldiers appear in a small, fragile Civil War-era album, its front cover barely attached, found in the Connecticut State Library archives. Clearly, this is no ordinary family photo album. Rather, it's an “Album Of The Dead” -- an effort by its long-ago owner, whose name is lost to history, to memorialize a few of the more than 5,000 soldiers from Connecticut who died during the Civil War. A short newspaper account of each man's demise is pasted under many of the images, mostly carte de visites. Poems about death and remembrance are glued inside the front and back covers.

Oh comrades dead, whose spirits bright

Are gazing from the skies above

You've bravely done your deeds of might

Gaze down upon your work of love

The millions, whom ye freedom gave,

Hold equal rights eternal lease;

The land that you have died to save

Rests in the glorious light of peace

Comrades, each year these graves will still increase

And every year our numbers will be less

Until in distant times, with tottering knees,

The last survivors, bent with age's distress

Will throw a handful of the springday flowers

Upon our graves -- while yet they may --

But the memory of these deeds of ours

Will never, never, pass away!

Photos of dead soldiers from Connecticut are found in this tattered, old photo album in the 
Connecticut State Library archives.

During the Civil War, a constant drumbeat of death was reported in Connecticut newspapers, especially the Hartford Courant and Hartford Evening Press. Usually under the headline "Military Items," the Courant published reports of funerals and lengthy lists of the dead and wounded after major battles such as Antietam, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg and Drewry’s Bluff. Connecticut soldiers died of disease, wounds suffered in battle or, in the case of William T. Loomis of Hartford, by accident.

"Young Loomis was an excellent soldier and was much liked by the members of his company," notes the blurb under the album image of the 1st Connecticut Heavy Artillery soldier, who was killed Jan. 28, 1863. Only 23 years old, he was stationed at Fort Blenker, one of the many defensive fortifications ringing Washington.

A little more than four months later, Loomis’ Company A tentmate, Charles Comstock, suffered the same fate. He was killed instantly when he was shot by an Alexandria civilian named Isaac Welburn, who was quickly arrested by military authorities. Whether by accident or malice, the circumstances of Comstock’s death are unknown. “The company have thus been deprived of two of their much loved friends,” the Courant reported, “and fellow soldiers who deeply mourn their loss.” (1)

When the prayer was said, and the requiem played;

In the bosom of earth the warrior laid,

About the spot the soldiers pressed

Where the bones of their comrades were put to rest

And eyes grew dim, and tongues were mute,

As they fired their thrice farewell salute,

That meed was his due, and they paid the "brave,"

And then left him alone in his soldier grave

After he was wounded the right leg in battle near Suffolk, Va., Charles Tennant “expressed a strong desire to see his mother,” who traveled from Hartford to Fortress Monroe  on the southern tip of Virginia peninsula, where her son’s health was rapidly failing. The young man's wound had been probed up to 8 1/2 inches, but the bullet couldn't be found. (2) Tennant, who replaced Samuel Brown as captain of Company D of the 16th Connecticut after Brown was killed at Antietam, died May 24, 1863. His church service in Hartford was so well attended – 50 soldiers arrived on the noon train from Knight Hospital in New Haven -- that many were forced to stand outside.

“There has not been a burial in this city since the war began of one of its heroes,” the Courant reported. “which called out a larger number of people than were attended on this occasion.” (3) Under Tennant’s image in the photo album is a crinkled report, brown with age, of his death. "He was but about 23 years of age,” it notes, “and was a highly esteemed member of the North Baptist church."

Left: Private Charles Comstock of the 1st Connecticut Heavy Artillery was killed
by a civilian near Alexandria, Va. Charles Greenleaf, a lieutenant in the 5th New York
Cavalry, was mortally wounded at Kearneyville, W.Va. He was from Hartford.
(Photos: Connecticut State Library archives)
CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

Enlisting on April 18, 1861, as a private in the 1st Connecticut, Charles Greenleaf was among the first from the state to join the Union army. After his three-month term of service elapsed, he re-enlisted in a cavalry unit and was later transferred to the 5th New York Cavalry, also known as the Ira Harris Guard. Three days after Antietam, Greenleaf viewed the horrors of that battlefield. “On our way here we marched through that part of the field where the right wing fought,” he wrote in a letter home on Sept. 20, 1862. “ I have been in the service a year but I never knew what war meant till to day. All along both sides of the road for two miles dead rebels lay piled up like cord wood. They have lain there two days in the sun and are all bloated.... I was also up to one of the hospitals and saw over a hundred arms and legs in the yard." (4)

A little more than two years later, Greenleaf also became part of the grim Civil War body count. Wounded in a skirmish near Kearneyville, W.Va., the 22-year-old soldier died at U.S. General Hospital in Sandy Hook, Md.., on Aug. 27, 1864. "The funeral of Lieut. Greenleaf will take place from the residence of his father, Henry Greenleaf, on North Main street to-morrow (Sunday) at 1 o'clock," the newspaper account beneath his photo notes.

May heaven spread amaranths over each grave

Or plant these some evergreen tree;

May corals grow round and anemones wave

Where they’re lying down in a deep sea

May billows dash lightly against the lone shore,

And sing a low, mournful refrain;

May flowers of spring-time bloom evermore

And be wet by the tears of the rain

Left: William T. Loomis, a private in the 1st Connecticut Heavy Artillery, was killed in
a railroad accident near Alexandria, Va. George Marsh, a sergeant in the 8th Connecticut,
was killed at the Battle of Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862.
(Photos: Connecticut State Library archives)
CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

If he had to meet his maker, Captain Henry C. Smith, a member of the Hartford Fire Department before the war, probably would have preferred a glorious death in battle. Never in his dreams could the 20th Connecticut soldier have expected what happened to him on Jan. 28, 1863, while camped near Stafford Court House, Va.  A tree fell on him, killing the man whom "everyone with the regiment loved and respected."

"A spirit of gloom was thrown over all by the sudden death of Captain Henry C. Smith of Co. C.," according to a regimental history. "He was a genial companion, a devoted friend, a thorough soldier, and his loss was severely felt by all. ... The best and only tribute which his fellow officers could now pay was to gather up his remains and forward them to his sorrow-stricken wife and children that he might be buried among friends, and not in the land of the stranger." (5)

Ill but determined to fight, George Marsh was resting about sunrise on Sept. 17, 1862, as the 8th Connecticut prepared for battle. Suddenly, Rebel artillery across Antietam Creek lobbed three solid shots into the regiment, wounding four and killing three -- including Marsh.

"He was lying on the ground when a ball entered the ground in front of him and came out of the earth a few feet from where he lay," notes the newspaper account below his photo in the "Album Of The Dead." "The concussion caused his death, as he was not hit by anything."

In late September, Marsh's brother-in-law traveled to the battlefield to retrieve George's remains. Marsh's body arrived back in Hartford on Sept. 30, and a funeral service was held at his father's residence at 77 Main Street at 3 p.m. (6)

"He died a trusty soldier with a spotless reputation," a post-war history noted about Marsh, one of scores of Connecticut victims at the Battle of Antietam. (7)

(1) Hartford Courant, March 9, 1863, Page 2
(2) Hartford Courant, May 23, 1863, Page 2.
(3) Hartford Courant, May 29, 1863, Page 2
(4) Charles Henry Greenleaf letters, Civil War Manuscripts Project, Connecticut Historical Society
(5) The Twentieth Connecticut, A Regiment History, John Whiting Storrs, Ansonia, Conn, Press of the Naugatuck Valley Sentinel, 1888, Page 278
(6) Hartford Courant, Sept. 29, 1862, Page 2
(7) The Military and Civil History of Connecticut: The War of 1861-1865, W.A. Croffut and John M. Morris, Ledyard Bill, New York, 1868

Antietam: Connecticut connection to 'Lost Order'

Above: A post-Civil War photo of the Platner & Porter paper mill in Unionville, Conn.
Union School is on the site today. (Top photo courtesy Cliff Alderman/Unionville Museum)

In a quirk of history, the infamous "Lost Order" that could have led to the demise of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia at the Battle of Antietam was printed on paper made in a Northern factory, according to a Connecticut museum president.

A Northern factory in Unionville, Conn.

Samuel Porter
(Photo courtesy Cliff Alderman/
Unionville Museum)

Samuel Porter, an ardent supporter of Abraham Lincoln, owned the Platner & Porter paper mill in Unionville from 1848 until the late 1870s. The factory, which was torn down in 1933, printed high-quality writing paper that was often purchased by the U.S. government. Porter was one of the most prominent citizens in Unionville, a sleepy village along the Farmington River, about 15 miles west of  Hartford. In a glowing obituary in the Hartford Courant the day of his death on Feb. 22, 1903, the newspaper noted that "no (Unionville) citizen was ever more highly respected or more universally beloved than he."

Cliff Alderman, president of the Unionville Museum, answered a few questions about the mill, Porter and the Lost Order.

When did you first come across the Lost Order connection to Unionville and what was your reaction?


Alderman: I first came across the information on the Lost Order and that it was printed on paper embossed "Platner & Porter, Congress" when I was browsing for Unionville historical information online.  I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the reference to it.

Who was Samuel Porter, the owner of the mill?

Alderman: Samuel Quincy Porter (1821-1907) was a fascinating local figure.  A native of Lee, Mass., he came to Unionville in the late 1840s when he and his business partner, William Platner, purchased a Unionville paper mill.  He and Platner turned the business into one of the preeminent paper manufacturers in the country.  Porter was a delegate to the 1860 Republican National Convention in Chicago, which nominated Abraham Lincoln for president. He supported local abolitionist causes, represented Farmington and Unionville in the state legislature and was later a state banking commissioner.  During his term of service in the state legislature in 1869, he cast his vote in support of the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guaranteed the voting rights of former slaves.  Porter's first wife died at a young age; his second wife, Frances Smith, was a first cousin of J. Pierpont Morgan, who at the time was considered one of the wealthiest men in America.

A post-Civil War view of the Platner & Porter paper mill in Unionville, Conn. The mill
is in the upper left. (Photo courtesy Cliff Alderman/Unionville Museum)

What do you know about the paper mill that printed the Lost Order?

Alderman: Porter and Platner purchased the Stone & Carrington paper mill in Unionville in 1848.  We know from James Cowles' essay on Unionville published  in John Hammond Trumbull's 1886 work, The Memorial History of Hartford County, that Platner and Porter leased additional power and within a few years built an additional mill. Cowles noted that the new mill and tenements erected by Messrs. Platner & Porter were models of neatness and good taste and that these gentlemen gave a tone and character to the village that up to that time had been wanting.  In 1860, they reorganized as The Platner & Porter Manufacturing Co. with a capital of $85,000 and were known as manufacturers of fine writing and book papers.  Platner left the mill in the 1860s, but Porter remained on as president until the late 1870s, when the mill was sold; it later became part of the American Writing Paper Co. The mill made fine writing and book papers and supplied paper to the U.S. government. Walt Whitman's handmade notebooks in the Library of Congress and some of Mark Twain's personal correspondence and manuscripts used Platner & Porter paper.

Are the any other notable Civil War connections to the paper mill?

Occasionally significant letters from Civil War era figures come up for sale at auction. Several years ago, a letter written by Confederate president Jefferson Davis on Platner & Porter paper was sold at auction for a high price.  Southern state government archives supposedly are full of documents written on Platner & Porter paper.

A copy of Robert E. Lee's infamous Lost Order, also known as Special Order No. 191. 
Discovered  by Union soldiers in an envelope with two cigars in a field on the Best Farm,
 near Frederick, Md., on Sept. 13, 1862, the order was turned over to Major General George McClellan.
"Here is a paper with which, if I cannot whip Bobby Lee, I will be willing to go home,"  McClellan said.
 (Image Library of Congress site)

Antietam: Seeking the elusive story of Captain John Drake

Captain John Drake of the 16th Connecticut was killed at the Battle of Antietam
on Sept. 17, 1862. (Photo Connecticut State Library archives)

Of the four Connecticut regiments that fought at the Battle of Antietam, I find the story of the 16th to be the most compelling -- and heart-rending. Fighting in its first battle of the Civil War, the ill-trained regiment was cut to pieces at Antietam, where four of its captains were killed or mortally wounded. While I have been able to dig up information on Frederick Barber of Company H, Newton Manross of Company K and Samuel Brown of Company D, an in-depth story of Captain John Drake of Company I proves elusive.

Drake's grave in Hartford's Spring Grove Cemetery. 
Antietam  is barely legible on the marker. 
(Photo courtesy Mary Falvey)

Born in New Hampshire, Drake spent part of his life in Cincinnati before moving to Hartford. On June 23, 1860, he married Anna Very, who worked for many years as a book keeper at Phoenix National Bank in Hartford. Like many men who served in the Union army -- including Captain Edwin Lee of the 14th Connecticut -- Drake was employed at the Colt Arms factory in Hartford. He was "much interested in the religious work of Warburton Chapel,"  which served immigrant families on Temple Street in Hartford. (1) After President Lincoln called for 300,000 volunteers in July 1862, Drake enlisted on Aug. 8 and helped raise a company, which was mustered into the Union army on Aug. 24, 1862. Not quite a month later, Drake was dead, killed in farmer John Otto's cornfield.

"Captain Drake was the most gentlemanly man in the regiment," Surgeon Nathan Mayer noted. "He was the very soul of courtesy and unaffected dignity of deportment. He always had a quiet care for his men, when they were sick, and was a marked favorite with them, as well as with comrades in the line." (2)

Regiment adjutant John Burnham, Antietam's unsung hero, supervised the burial of 16th Connecticut soldiers, ensuring that the graves of soldiers such as Drake could be found later. Along with the bodies of Brown and 16th Connecticut privates William Nichols and Seth Franklin Prior, Drake's remains were returned to Hartford by undertaker William Roberts on Oct. 10, 1862. Advertising his ghastly services in the Hartford Courant, Roberts made a good living retrieving bodies of soldiers throughout the South during the Civil War. Drake had a military funeral in Hartford, where he was buried in Spring Grove Cemetery.

If you can help me find out more about Drake, send me an e-mail at jbankstx@comcast.net.

(1) George Q. Whitney Collection, Connecticut State Library, Biographical Sketches of 16th Connecticut soldiers
(2)  History of the Sixteenth Connecticut Volunteers, B.F. Blakeslee, Hartford, The Case, Lockwood & Brainard Co., 1875

Antietam: If only we could be a fly on the wall ...

Veterans of the 16th Connecticut gathered for this photo on Sept. 17, 1921 -- 
the 59th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam. It was published in the
 Hartford Courant on Oct. 2, 1921. 
(Photo: Connecticut State Library archives; CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)  

With large pictures of  Civil War generals Grant and Sherman looming in the background, 18 veterans of the 16th Connecticut gathered for this photograph in the Grand Army Hall in Hartford on Sept. 17, 1921 -- the 59th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam.  Nearly all these men fought at Antietam, where their regiment was routed in farmer John Otto's 40-acre cornfield. Just imagine the stories these old men, in their late 70s or early 80s, swapped as they smoked cigars, sipped a little whiskey and kicked back in leather-bound chairs.

Robert Kellogg (right) , a private in the 16th Connecticut, 
 described the horrors of Andersonville in a book published  
in 1865.
(Photo courtesy Connecticut History Online/
Connecticut State Library.)

Henry Adams, seated and clutching a cane in his right hand in the center, suffered gunshot wounds in his legs and then lay on the battlefield for at least 17 hours before he was discovered by comrades. His mother traveled south from Connecticut to help nurse him back to health, but he was not released from a Maryland hospital until April 1, 1863, nearly seven months after the battle.  "Was no April Fool day to me, when my mother and her cripple boy on crutches started 'Homeward Bound.' " he bitterly noted about that day. "I received my discharge papers at Hagerstown (Md.) and my full pay for doing ... nothing -- except to be maimed for life and to draw a U.S. pension." (1)

Four other veterans in this photograph also were wounded at Antietam: George Whitney (seated at far left); Maranthon Keendey (seated at far right); Walter Smith (standing behind Adams); and Jasper Harris (standing, third from right). Harris became a prisoner of war at Antietam and was not paroled until Oct. 6, 1862.

After Antietam, at least 13 of these men suffered further trauma. On April 20, 1864, nearly the entire 16th Connecticut was captured at Plymouth, N.C., and sent to rebel prisons. Many men in the regiment died in Andersonville, the most notorious prison camp of the Civil War. Robert Kellogg, seated third from the right in the front row, was a private in Company A when he captured. After the war, he wrote a book about his experience at Andersonville.

"I ... wished that the President, under whose banner we had fought, could look in upon our sufferings, for surely the sight would move him to help us, if anything could be done," Kellogg wrote. "Live worms crawled upon the bacon that was given us to eat. 'It is all right,' we said; 'we are nothing but Yankee prisoners, or, as the rebels usually speak of us, 'damned Yankees.' " (2)
 
Some of the 16th Connecticut soldiers released from rebel prisons never recovered, including Wallace Woodford of Avon and Austin Fuller of Farmington, both of whom died at home. I often wonder what terrible war memories some of the ex-POWs in this photograph carried with them for the rest of their lives.

(1) George Q. Whitney Collection, Connecticut State Library
 (2) "Life And Death In Rebel Prisons," Robert H. Kellogg, 1865, Page 166

Director Q&A: Another Abraham Lincoln movie

Judging from reviews in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Los Angeles Times and on CNN, Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" may be the best movie ever made about our 16th president. I'll reserve judgment until I see it Friday. But there's another film in the works on Lincoln, this one an independent feature, that may also merit your attention. Directed by Salvador Litvak and scheduled for release in February, "Saving Lincoln"  explores this remarkable man through the eyes of his bodyguard, a little-known figure named Ward Hill Lamon. Unlike Spielberg's movie, Litvak's film covers a huge swath of Lincoln's presidency, and it may look like no other historical film you've ever seen.  Litvak used a process he invented called CineCollage, incorporating period photos into the film. The director took time out today to discuss how his film compares to Spielberg's, Lincoln's personality and more.

Steven Spielberg's big-budget "Lincoln" is grabbing all the headlines now. Why do another movie about the 16th president and what's different about your movie?

"As much as Lincoln brought a lightness to every situation, the 
darkness  he passed through is nearly unimaginable," director 
Salvador Litvak notes. (Library of Congress collection)

Litvak: Mr. Spielberg's movie focuses on the last four months of Lincoln's life, when the war was all but won. It is a brilliant and focused study of Lincoln the lawyer/politician harnessing tremendous skill and experience to get the 13th Amendment passed. "Saving Lincoln" explores Mr. Lincoln's entire tenure as Commander-in-Chief, and we do it from the unique perspective of his closest friend and protector, U.S. Marshal Ward Hill Lamon. We explore the Sumter crisis (how do we keep cotton-hungry Europe from rushing to the CSA's defense?); the personal losses of Elmer Ellsworth, Ned Baker and most tragically Willie Lincoln; the McClellan problem, the lost opportunity at Antietam; the decision to Emancipate; the Gettysburg Address and its aftermath, the choice to promote Grant and the terrible arithmetic it brought, Fort Stevens, the '64 Election and more. The Lincoln story is huge, and of course we can not tell it all, but these chapters are crucial and no audience has ever experienced them from Lamon's unique vantage. He not only heard the President's thoughts on these matters -- he was also working night and day to protect Lincoln from assassination attempts that began in 1861 and continued throughout the war.

In addition, no movie has ever been made as ours was made, nor looks like ours looks. We made all our sets and locations out of vintage photographs from the Library of Congress, using a process I invented called CineCollage. You can get a sense of that look from our Motion-Poster/Teaser at www.SavingLincoln.com

Lincoln is among the most studied men in American history. What new did you learn about him in the course of making this film?

Salvador Litvak: "Telling the whole story would require
 at  least a six-season TV show."

Litvak: His sense of humor for one. We're thankful he had so many stories and jokes that the ones he tells in our film do not overlap with the other Lincoln movie at all. But as much as Lincoln brought a lightness to every situation, the darkness he passed through is nearly unimaginable. One simply cannot grasp it from facts and figures. You have to spend time with the man to understand what each Union loss meant to him, including the loss of  [his son] Willie, whose illness arose from the transformation of Washington into an army camp. Perhaps most surprising for us was the moment that President Lincoln willfully stepped into the line of fire at Fort Stevens (in July, 1864). He was not there to give orders, and he was extremely reckless with his own safety. Why? What brought him to that juncture? That's one of the biggest questions we explore in "Saving Lincoln."

Tell me about Ward Hill Lamon, Lincoln's bodyguard and one of the main characters in the movie. What was he like?

Litvak: Lamon is the only friend Lincoln brought to Washington from Illinois. The position was unspecified -- Lincoln simply enjoyed having Lamon around. Lamon played banjo, told jokes, and had a unique ability to amuse the man who so amused others. He was also a Southerner, who'd left Western Virginia at 19 to pursue law in what was then the wild, untamed West, i.e. Illinois. Lamon was almost as tall as Lincoln and much more solid. As soon as Lincoln was elected in 1860, the death threats began pouring in. Lincoln's friends entrusted Lamon with getting Lincoln to Washington safely, but Lamon took that trust to a whole other level, appointing himself the presidential bodyguard. Remember that there was no Secret Service then as we know it today. No president had ever been assassinated. Lamon took to carrying two revolvers, a Bowie knife, brass knuckles and more. He was a character.

President Abraham Lincoln, seen just to the left of  bodyguard Ward Lamon (man with top hat), 
gives  his Gettysburg Address on Nov. 19, 1863 -- 149 years ago today. 
(Library of Congress collection; CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)

It's not generally known that there were other attempts on Lincoln's life during his presidency. Tell us about them.

Litvak: The Baltimore Plot was the first, and a true conspiracy that included the Baltimore Chief of Police. In 1861, a large group of men planned a melee at the train station where Lincoln would pass on his way to D.C., so that assassins could plunge their knives into his side during the confusion. This was avoided with the help of Lamon and Allan Pinkerton. Other attempts included shootings on the road to the President's summer residence at the Soldier's Home (a bullet actually passed through his hat!), a bizarre attempt to infect him with yellow fever, a plan to blow up the White House, and the sabotage of his carriage which resulted in a serious injury to Mary. That injury, by the way, had consequences beyond the pain suffered by Mrs. Lincoln, as we show in our film.

Lincoln's bodyguard: Ward Hill Lamon

And finally, what's the biggest challenge in making a movie about Lincoln?

Litvak: Finding the right limiter. Telling the whole story would require at least a six-season TV show. Mr. Spielberg did it by focusing on a unique chapter. We did it by by focusing on a unique character. Lamon was an emotional man -- his tale is not objective. It is a memory piece, recollecting Lincoln's journey as he experienced it. But Lamon knew Lincoln for 18 years, perhaps none better.  Lamon loved his friend with all his heart and that love was requited. As Lincoln himself said, "The better part of one's life consists of his friendships."

'Saloons and fast women' for old Civil War veterans

Orrin Gaylord, a private in the 16th Connecticut during the Civil War, explained
what old soldiers did with their pension money from Uncle Sam in this 1906 letter.
(Connecticut State Library archives)

You never know what surprises will turn up in the Connecticut State Library archives. Last Saturday, I found an entertaining letter from Orrin N. Gaylord to former 16th Connecticut comrade Ira Forbes. A private from Hartford, Gaylord was discharged from the Union army because of disability on March 17, 1863. In the letter dated Aug. 26, 1906, Gaylord wrote that he got married in 1865, had seven children, moved to Ohio from Hartford in 1866, lived for a brief time in the South and worked in the mercantile business before taking a job with an insurance company. And then, out of the blue, Gaylord threw his fellow Civil War veterans under the bus. "We have 6000 soldiers at the home here who for the next week or two after pension day distribute Uncle Sams money between the saloons and fast women pretty freely," he wrote. (Perhaps the old soldiers wasted the rest of that money. ) Wow. Even 106 years ago, they lived the high life off The Man!

Captain John Thompson: An old soldier who faded away

Shown in a post-war photo, John Steven Thompson served in the 3rd Vermont.
(Photo courtesy Richard Clem)

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In the fall of 1985, longtime relic hunter Richard Clem of Hagerstown, Md, uncovered a small identification disc that belonged to a Civil War soldier named John Steven Thompson. The rare find was the start of Clem's nine-year journey to discover more about Thompson, who served in the 3rd Vermont until the end of the war. Clem and his brother, Don, have hunted for Civil War relics in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland for four decades. Here's his story on Thompson:

By Richard Clem

Early on the morning of July 22, 1899, a body was discovered floating face down in Plum Creek, Rice County, Kan. A small crowd slowly gathered from nearby Bushton as the bloated, unrecognizable corpse was pulled from the muddy water. A local newspaper reported  that “the body was a horrible sight, having been in the water for a week. Upon examination, a pension voucher was found in one of the pockets which showed it to be the body of an old soldier, once a member of the 3rd Vermont Infantry -- John Thompson.” A coroner rendered a report: “Cause of death -- unknown.” The Civil War veteran was buried in the Bushton Cemetery beneath soil he had farmed for so many years.

Richard Clem told tales of his relic
 hunting exploits  at Connecticut Day at
 Antietam in April 2012.

To trace Thompson’s journey from Vermont to Kansas, let’s turn the clock to Oct. 11, 1985. On that beautiful fall afternoon, my brother Don and I were searching for Civil War relics with metal detectors just west of Antietam Creek in Washington County, near Funkstown, Md. The land we were searching was camped on by the Army of the Potomac following the Battle of  Gettysburg. On this line in July 1863, General George G. Meade’s blue-clad soldiers carefully watched General Robert E. Lee’s retreating Army of Northern Virginia at Williamsport. Lee nervously waited for the flooded Potomac River to recede for a safe crossing to Southern soil.

Around 6 inches deep, beside a flat limestone ledge, I dug up a brass disc about the size of a quarter. Although traces of gold lettering appeared, it was determined the strange object was not a U.S. coin. While cleaning the small medallion that evening with a standard household cleaner applied with a toothbrush, I could read “J. S. Thompson, Co. B, 3rd Reg., VT. VoL., Glover.” The front of the Civil War ID tag displayed an American eagle with raised words, “War of 1861 -- United States.” The medal contains approximately 50 percent original gold-plate. These keepsakes were sold by enterprising sutlers who competed for a soldier’s $13-a-month pay. Once purchased, the sutler would stamp the soldier’s name and regiment on the back, driving the letters into the brass, thus preserving the gold inscription as the surface or face wore away.

Who was J. S. Thompson? Did he survive the war? Where was he buried? Extensive research provided answers to these questions far more interesting than ever anticipated.

John Steven Thompson was born on Feb. 29, 1835, to John Thompson Sr. and Sarah Ann Wells near the Canadian border at Wheelock, Vt. At age 15, he had taken up residence in Glover, Vt., where he worked on a farm. The small, peaceful village remains about the same today as in the 1800s.

Vermont is known for producing good fighting men, dating to the “Green Mountain Boys” of the Revolutionary War. When clouds of civil war began to appear, that same patriotic fire was rekindled in the souls of those famed warriors from the Green Mountains; John Thompson would uphold that tradition.

Reverse and front of
 John Thompson's 
Civil War ID disc.
(Photos courtesy Richard Clem)

On May 10 1861, the 26-year-old Thompson enlisted for three years at Coventry, Vt., to serve and preserve the Union. He was described as 5 feet, 9 1/2 inches tall with blue eyes and auburn hair. Receiving the rank of  corporal, he became a member of Company B, 3rd Regiment Vermont Volunteers. The 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th Vermont regiments comprised the Vermont Brigade, attached to the 6th Corps, Army of the Potomac. Early in the war, Corporal Thompson fought in every major engagement of the Army of the Potomac without serious injury; however, in the fall of 1862, near the town of Sharpsburg, Md., he received his first “red badge of courage.”

Fought Sept. 17 1862, the Battle of Antietam (called Sharpsburg in the South) became known as the bloodiest day of the Civil War. A casualty list of more than 23,000 killed or wounded included Corporal John S. Thompson. According to official records, while under heavy fire from sharpshooters and artillery near a sunken farm lane (Bloody Lane), Thompson was struck by a musket ball just below the right shoulder blade. Luckily, the slug had lost most of its force -- otherwise death would have been the result. The wound was serious enough to have the Vermonter admitted to a field hospital near Hagerstown, 10 miles north of Sharpsburg. It was there following Antietam that the Vermont Brigade served as provost guard as recorded in one Federal soldier’s diary: “The duty on picket by no means severe, and the boys found little difficulty in procuring abundant supplies of luxuries, such as soft bread, hoecakes and other articles, from the farmers; and as the enemy was at Winchester, they were not in great alarm from Rebel raids. There was little duty, and the invalids had time for recovering their exhausted strength.” Federal archives records state three months after Antietam, John Thompson fought in the First Battle of Fredericksburg (Dec. 13, 1862), indicating a full recovery from his wound.

On July 4 1863, General Robert E. Lee’s battle-weary Army of Northern Virginia retreated from the bloodstained fields of Gettysburg. During the “exodus of grief,” on July 10, the Vermont Brigade distinguished itself in a costly encounter with enemy troops near the hamlet of Funkstown, Md. In a stretch of woods southeast of Funkstown, the Union battle line was quickly formed. After three consecutive attacks from a larger Confederate force, the Green Mountain Volunteers, including Thompson, stubbornly held their ground. Two days later, while camped in view of Funkstown, Thompson lost the ID disc that was  recovered 122 years later by the author of this article.

In the spring 1864, flowering dogwood and redbud lined the path of the 6th Corps marching into the Wilderness in Virginia. Knowing the reputation of the veteran Vermont Brigade, General John Sedgwick cried aloud, “Keep the columns closed, and put the Vermonters ahead!” Fought in May 1864, the battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House proved to be the bloodiest contests of the war for the boys from Vermont. “Uncle John” Sedgwick was among those killed, struck by a sharpshooter's bullet at Spotsylvania Courthouse. 

General John Sedgwick, a Connecticut
 native, admired the fighting skills
of his Vermont troops.
(Library of Congress collection)

During the Union slaughter at Cold Harbor on June 3, 1864,Thompson, who had been promoted to sergeant, had the middle finger of his left hand broken by a rifle ball. Thompson's injury wasn’t nearly as painful as the sorrow carried in his heart after he received  news that his older brother, Sam, had  recently been killed at Spotsylvania Court House.

The Federal 6th Corps was ordered to report for duty in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia in the autumn of 1864. The ever-growing list of casualties forced the 3rd Vermont to reorganize. On Aug. 28, Thompson was transferred to Company E and justifiably earned the rank of lieutenant. A battle-scarred Thompson was promoted to captain on March 23, 1865, in command of Company E, 3rd Regiment Vermont Infantry.

After Gettysburg, it was an uphill struggle for the Confederacy. Fighting out of desperation against superior numbers, Southern forces made several gallant stands in the Shenandoah Valley, but the end was near. No one knew this better than General Lee, who surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. When the war ended, Captain Thompson was mustered out at Bailey’s Crossroads, near Alexandria, Va. A few days later, the veteran campaigner started the long trip north to Vermont.

At this point, my research on Captain Thompson was difficult. No obituary or grave registration for a John S. Thompson could be found in Vermont. A pension file from the National Archives, however, listed a Captain John Thompson from Vermont homesteading near Bushton, Rice County, Kan. Immediately, letters requesting any information on Thompson were mailed to a newspaper in the Bushton area. In a matter of days, I received numerous replies filled with material on the Thompson family along with my first photo of Thompson, taken from a mural hanging in a Rice County museum. Some of the greatest people on Planet Earth living in central Kansas made it possible to continue the Vermont veteran’s story.

His military career over, John lived in Cabot, Vt., where he was employed as a merchant, but it seemed his soul was still bent on planting the soil and raising a family. Being serious on “family matters,” John married a local Cabot girl, Alma Dell Stone, on Nov. 23, 1869. Two years later, on Feb. 14, 1871, Alma gave birth to a son, Johnnie Jr.

The Homestead Act of 1862 provided a man 21 years old could acquire 160 acres of land in some Midwestern states for a modest fee; he was then to occupy and cultivate the land for a period of five years. The generous offer attracted countless settlers to the open plains. Among these early pioneers making the westward journey were John Thompson and traveling companion Frank Shonyo, also from Vermont. Shonyo was a close friend of John’s and a comrade in the army. The plan once the men claimed ownership on their new property and “toughed it out” the first winter was for their wives to make the journey in the spring.

When John and Frank eventually reached Rice County, Kan., they selected adjoining homesteads just south of Bushton. John’s first winter was spent in a hole in the ground appropriately called a dugout, the entrance of which is still visible today. Land records of the Receiver’s Office in Larned, Kan., reveal John S. Thompson paid $8 and received a deed to his homestead. Not a bad price for 160 acres of fertile farm land.
According to old Rice County documents, “Alma Thompson taught school in her sod home until a frame school house was erected in 1880.” During the early days as the first teacher in the “Eldorado District,” Alma also had her hands full raising three children -- Johnnie; Olivia, born 1873, and Pearl in 1877.

On Oct. 7, 1994, nine years after discovering the Thompson ID tag, I received a letter from a Marie Theilken of Black Diamond, Wash. Marie’s great-grandfather was Captain John Steven Thompson; her grandmother was Thompson’s youngest daughter, Pearl Thompson Barner. Theilken's genealogy research revealed her great-grandfather had homesteaded in Kansas. She had sent a letter to Bushton requesting information on the Thompson family. One of the good citizens of the little prairie town mailed her a copy of an article published in the Bushton Centennial based on Thompson’s ID tag that I had found in 1985. After several phone calls and letters, Marie came to Maryland and shared stories handed down through the family with this ever-grateful writer. This new material, including the second post-war photo of Thompson, made it possible for the Vermont veteran’s legacy to be completed.

Like many patriotic Civil War veterans, John refused to accept charity or a government pension. He would bitterly explain to Alma, “I didn’t fight the war for money; I fought it to keep the country together.” When John finally applied for his pension after Alma’s persistence in 1884, he would take his monthly check, slam it on the kitchen table in front of his wife and say, “Woman, there is your damn blood money!”

Relic hunter Richard Clem found Vermont soldier John Thompson's Civil War ID disc at 
this site near  Funkstown, Md., in 1985. The U.S. flag, next to a photo of Thompson,  marks 
the spot of his discovery.  (Photo courtesy Richard Clem)

In a correspondence to his wife’s brother living in Vermont, Thompson wrote about a harsh winter on the plains when the family had absolutely nothing to eat at Christmas. As he returned from the well with a bucket of water early in the morning before the holiday, he spotted a large Canadian goose beside the sod house. There wasn’t a mark on the apparently lost, exhausted bird. It doesn’t take long to guess what the Thompsons gratefully prepared for Christmas that year.

Suffering from wounds received during the war, Thompson turned bitter. The once-proud army captain and his wife slowly drifted apart. John would spend hours wandering aimlessly across the vast Kansas plains.

“Was it suicide?” This question appeared in the Bushton newspaper after Thompson’s body was found in Plum Creek. Edwin Habiger of Bushton wrote me, “It was my father who helped recover the body of Mr. Thompson. There was no determination on what caused the drowning.” The 90-year-old Habiger explained how this story was told to him by his father, who came to Rice County in 1880. This would have put Edwin’s father around 19 years old when Thompson’s body was discovered.

In earlier days on the western plains, farmers would help their neighbors at harvest time; long before the age of modern agricultural machinery, crops had to be harvested by hand. Marie related how her great-grandfather Thompson and several neighbors had finished harvesting one of the farms, and while walking to the next property, John said he would “cut across the fields” and meet them at the next job site. Unfortunately, he never showed. Because of the July heat, some believe the aging farmer may have tried to get a drink from Plum Creek but suffered a stroke or heart attack. Cause of the mysterious death was never determined. One thing was certain: The war was finally over for Captain Thompson.

Richard Clem has a jar
of dirt from John Thompson's 
Kansas grave on his bookshelf at home.
(Photo courtesy Richard Clem)

A local newspaper carried the following:

The death of Mr. Thompson has caused sadness over this community. Mr. Thompson was known and loved among his acquaintances as a  faithful friend, and a kind and pleasant associate. Though of a retiring nature, he was a well read man. There were three brothers in the Thompson family, and not one of them died a natural death. One was killed by a falling tree, and another was killed in the Battle of the  Wilderness, and the last one in the way known. Mr. Thompson was 65-years-old. His wife and three children are residents of this place.

Alma placed a beautiful black, granite tombstone, the largest in Bushton Cemetery, on her husband’s grave. Olivia Thompson married George Jefferies and moved “somewhere” in southern Kansas; Pearl (Marie Theilken’s grandmother) married Ira C. Barner and relocated to Oregon Territory in the Northwest. With her daughters and husband gone, Alma and Johnnie moved into a new two-story home in Bushton. Johnnie Thompson Jr. never married and took care of his mother until her passing in 1919.

Sitting on my bookshelf next to Civil War volumes rests a small jar labeled “Soil from grave of Capt. John S. Thompson, 3rd Vermont Regt. -- Buried: Bushton, Kansas.” This sacred ground was taken from  Thompson’s grave years ago by Marie Theilken, who generously shared a handful with me. When I examined this black dirt from the Kansas plains and held Thompson’s personal ID disc, words of General Douglas MacArthur came to mind:

“Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.”

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'Excruciating' reminder of Antietam for Connecticut veteran

Richard Jobes of  the 16th Connecticut suffered a bullet wound in his left arm at Antietam. 
Right: Jobes, pictured with grandson Herbert and  daughter Mina, holds his great-granddaughter Dorothy 
 in 1905.  The photo at left was  taken in 1909, shortly before he died. (Courtesy Roger Spear)

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Surrounded by chaos in a field of head-high corn, Richard Jobes reached for a cap to place on his musket to fire at a hidden enemy. Then a Rebel bullet tore into his left arm above the wrist, ripping the bone away and staggering the 36-year-old corporal in Company D of the 16th Connecticut.

According to family lore, Jobes carried
this 1777 Spanish silver coin at
the Battle of Antietam.
(Photo courtesy Roger Spear)

Nearly two decades later, Jobes, a cigar maker from Suffield before the Civil War, lived with a constant reminder of the Battle of Antietam:

Pain.

That Rebel lead that sliced into Jobes necessitated at least two surgeries -- one the night of Sept. 17, 1862, to amputate his left forearm and another months later to help ease his suffering from the first operation.

Jobes' wounding wasn't the only Antietam memory seared into his brain. His younger brother Asbury, a sergeant in Company D in the 16th Connecticut, was captured during the bloodiest day in American history. (He was paroled 19 days later.) And shortly before he was shot, Richard was face-to-face with Samuel Brown, the regiment's popular 26-year-old captain, when a cannon ball whizzed between the men.

"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."

A cannonball passed between Richard Jobes and
16th Connecticut  captain  Samuel Brown. "He was
pale for a moment, rubbed his face and whiskers, then
went on coolly giving his commands," Jobes wrote
after the war about Brown. 
(Connecticut State Library archives)

Minutes later, Brown was riddled with bullets and killed. (After the battle, his body was stripped of his outer clothes and shoes by the Rebels.) Henry Barnett, another cigar maker from Suffield, was also killed near Brown and Jobes. The body of the 16th Connecticut private, who entered the 40-Acre Cornfield singing, was found after the battle on a pile of fence rails.

Unable to serve in the regular army because of his terrible injury, Jobes was transferred to the Veterans Reserve Corps on Dec. 2, 1863. Discharged from the Union Army because of disability a little more than three months later, he returned to Suffield, where he struggled to make a go of it again in the cigar-making business. After the war, Jobes, the father of four children, was rocked by another tragedy when his wife Angene died on Aug. 29, 1866.

Nearly a year later, he married another Suffield woman, Emily Barnett, the wife of his Company D comrade who was killed at Antietam. Using the back part the Barnett home to churn out smokes, he sold cigars in Massachusetts in nearby Fall River and Springfield. On July 12, 1869, Jobes was gainfully employed as Suffield's postmaster, a prestigious position he held almost continuously under five presidents until 1908.

But the physical pain from Antietam was never far from Jobes' mind.  Seeking an increase in his $18-a-month government pension in the spring of 1882, Jobes took his case before the House Committee on Invalid Pensions in Washington. In stark language, the committee's report described the veteran's  condition:

After his first wife died, Richard Jobes married the
 wife of  16th Connecticut private Henry Barnett,
 who was killed at the Battle of Antietam.
(Connecticut State Library archives)

"At the first amputation a nerve was tied in with the ligatures so as to cause the pensioner excrutiating pain and in a year afterwards a second operation was determined upon after a consultation of the post surgeons at Knight Hospital, New Haven, Connecticut, and the nerve was then cut out for some distance above the point of amputation. This failed to give any relief, and this pensioner has since then suffered very great pain on account of said wound, and is for a great part of the time unable to take any exercise or do anything that tends to create heat without great suffering.

The facts are certified to by four respectable physicians of Suffield, Conn., who are well acquainted with the petitioner and have treated him a various times. In addition to this, 102 citizens of said town unite in a petition stating substantially the extent of his disability and the facts of his extreme suffering, and certifying to his good character." 

Calling Jobes circumstance an "exceptional case," the committee approved an increase in the veteran's pension.

Jobes, who sometimes dipped his injured arm in cold well water to relieve the pain, lived out his life in Suffield. He enjoyed reading the daily newspaper and tending to his flock of 80 chickens. Especially proud of his hens, he sold their eggs once a week in Springfield. The old man also marveled at that new contraption called the automobile, writing his 18-year-old grandson Howard in 1908:.

Richard Jobes lived out his days in this house in Suffield, Conn.

"... if I were as young as you are and understood the automobile as well as a believe you do, it would be my glory to run such a machine as you have. Not only that, but I should make myself a perfect master of it. I think I should study the machine from center circumference, for Howard, it is the most enchanting thing ever made. I do not say the most useful, for it is not, but the most enchanting and bewitching thing ever made. ... it can kick up more dust, and kill off more rich men and women than any other machine ever invented."

On Jan. 28, 1909, 12 Grand Army of the Republic members surprised the 83-year-old veteran with a party at his house in Suffield. "The evening was spent in telling old war stories and other experiences since the war," the Hartford Courant reported. Antietam undoubtedly was a prime topic.

Jobes' health worsened in the late fall 1909, especially after he suffered a fractured hip in a fall in November. On Nov. 21, 1909, one of Suffield's oldest Civil War veterans, died at 7 p.m. of Bright's disease. He was buried in Zion's Hill Cemetery behind 1st Baptist Church, a short distance down the road from the small house where he lived most of his life.

Jobes, buried in Zion's Hill Cemetery in Suffield, Conn., died in 1909 at age 83.

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SOURCES:

-- George Q. Whitney Collection, Connecticut State Library, Richard Jobes letter to Fanny Brown, Feb. 10, 1909.
-- 16th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, Sergeant William H. Relyea, John Michael Priest Editor In Chief, 2002, Page 36.
-- House Committee on Invalid Pensions, May 12, 1882.
-- Hartford Courant, Jan. 29, 1909, Page 14.

Antietam: Where's Bridgeman Hollister really buried?

Gravestone for Private Bridgeman Hollister of the 16th Connecticut in tiny Wassaic Cemetery 
in Glastonbury, Conn. Bridgeman was mortally wounded at the Battle of Antietam.

On Sept. 17, 1862, Private Bridgeman J. Hollister of the 16th Connecticut was shot in the throat in the 40-Acre Cornfield during the Battle of Antietam. Eight days later, the 30-year-old soldier from Glastonbury died, perhaps at the German Reform Church in Sharpsburg, where many soldiers in his regiment were cared for, or at Smoketown or Big Spring hospitals near the battlefield. Today, a gray marker, gravestone No. 1,104, marks Hollister's final resting place at Antietam National Cemetery.

The gravestone for Bridgeman J. Hollister in
Antietam National Cemetery.

Or maybe not.

In tiny Wassaic Cemetery in Glastonbury, two markers for Hollister may be found: a small, state-issued gravestone placed in the 1930s and a large, slate-gray gravestone on which family members' names are inscribed.

A document in the Glastonbury (Conn.) Historical Society indicates Hollister's remains were indeed returned to Connecticut. Signed by town sexton Holcey Buck, it notes that Brigman (sic) Hollister was buried at Wassuc (also known as Wassaic) Cemetery on Jan. 17, 1863. Under place of death, Buck wrote "The Battle Antitum."

So if Hollister is buried in Glastonbury, who's really buried under marker No, 1,104 at the national cemetery in Sharpsburg? Or is that grave really empty?

Of course, this wouldn't be the first misidentified gravestone at Antietam. Private Oliver Case of the 8th Connecticut was shot through head and killed as his regiment was overwhelmed near Harpers Ferry Road, just outside Sharpsburg. His father, Job, retrieved his body from the battlefield and returned his son's remains to Simsbury for burial in the town cemetery. But in the Connecticut section at the national cemetery in Sharpsburg, the name O.C. Case is carved on gravestone No, 1,090. Who's really buried under that tombstone?

According to this document,  Bridgeman Hollister's remains were buried by Glastonbury sexton
 Holcey Buck in Wassaic Cemetery on Jan. 17, 1863.
(CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)

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Antietam: Hidden history in Connecticut chapel

Stained-glass window honoring Wesleyan University students who served in both Civil War armies.

If you look hard enough, you can find a connection to the Civil War almost anywhere here in the miniature state of Connecticut. Across the road from our house is the grave of 16th Connecticut captain Nathaniel Hayden; a mile down the road is the Civil War memorial that Hayden funded and helped dedicate in 1915; and just over the hill is the grave of this Civil War Medal of Honor winner. During a research trip to nearby Middletown, Conn., on Saturday, I stopped by the Memorial Chapel on the Wesleyan University campus to take another look at a hidden gem: a stained-glass window that honors soldiers from the school who served in both armies during the Civil War. The beautiful window is in the brownstone Memorial Chapel, which was completed and dedicated in 1871 to honor the Wesleyan's Civil War soldiers. Lieutenant George Crosby, who was mortally wounded at the Battle of Antietam, is among the men represented on the window. The son of a ship captain, Crosby was only 19 years old when he died at the home of his parents in nearby Middle Haddam, 37 days after he was shot through the side on William Roulette's farm.

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FACES OF THE CIVIL WAR: Stories and photos of common soldiers who served during the war.
16TH CONNECTICUT SOLDIERS: Tales of the men in the hard-luck regiment.
MORE ON ANTIETAM: Read my extensive thread on the battle and the men who fought in it.