Faces of the Civil War: Lost arm at Antietam

8th Connecticut captain Eleazur Ripley of Windham was wounded 
at Antietam. His name is often misspelled Eleazer. This image, in
 the Connecticut State Library collection, was probably taken before the battle.

While researching the story of  a 16th Connecticut soldier at the Connecticut State Library on Saturday, I found an old, tattered album of soldier carte de visites. Among the Connecticut officers was the CDV above of Eleazur Ripley, a captain in Company C of the 8th Connecticut. From Windham, about 35 miles east of  Hartford, Ripley suffered the amputation of his left arm at Antietam.

Image of Ripley after Antietam, where he 
suffered a wound in his left arm, which was 
amputated. (Conn. Historical Society)

Ripley was wounded in the latter stages of the battle, his regiment at the vanguard of the Ninth Corps' attack before it was routed.

"Twenty men are falling every minute," a history of Connecticut's service in the war noted about that part of the battle. "Col. (Hiram) Appelman is borne to the rear. John McCall falls bleeding. (Jacob) Eaton totters, wounded, down the hill. (Marvin) Wait, bullet-riddled, staggers a few rods, and sinks. (Eleazur) Ripley stands with a shattered arm. (James) Russell lies white and still. (Henry) Morgan and (Edwin) Maine have fallen. Whitney Wilcox is dead.

"Men grow frantic. The wounded prop themselves behind the rude stone fence, and hurl leaden vengeance at the foe. Even the chaplain snatches the rifle and cartridge-box of a dead man, and fights for life." (1)

A Willimantic (Conn.) Journal correspondent made note of Ripley's condition in early October 1862 as the captain lay in a field hospital near Sharpsburg, Md.:

"I saw Capt. Ripley, of Windham, of whom you speak in your last number, in his temporary hospital, on the field of Antietam. He was lying on the straw-littered floor of a barn, by the side of Lieut. Mayne, of Brooklyn, your county, and among as many more of our wounded soldiers, mostly of the rank and file, as the floor could hold. On the outside, again, wherever in the barn-yard, stacks of straw, sheds, trees, or fences, could afford shade and obstacles to the unadvised footsteps of man and beast, there our wounded lay. Our two officers lay quietly abiding their fate, taking their soldier's fortune with soldierly fortitude. I was obliged to leave them hastily, as I left more than a thousand others of our brave patriot soldiers."

Disabled, Ripley was transferred out of the 8th Connecticut on Oct. 8, 1863, and joined the Veterans Reserve Corps. A friend of the blog owns Ripley's inscribed sword.

(1) The Military and Civil History of Connecticut During the War of 1861-65, William Augustus Croffut, John Moses Morris, 1869, Page 272-73

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MORE FACES OF CIVIL WAR: Stories and photos of common soldiers who served during the war.
MORE ON ANTIETAM: Read my extensive thread on the battle and the men who fought in it.

Faces of Civil War: Antietam's unsung hero

Henry Barnett, a private in Company D of the 16th Connecticut, was killed at Antietam. 
Born in England, he was employed as a cigar maker before the Civil War.
(Photo courtesy Tad Sattler via Connecticut State Library)

Thanks to John Burnham -- an unsung hero of the Battle of Antietam -- the remains of Private Henry Barnett and other Connecticut soldiers killed during the bloodiest day in American history could be recovered by loved ones.

"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.

16th Connecticut adjutant John Burnham 
carefully noted where the dead of his regiment 
were buried  after the Battle of Antietam.
(Mollus Collection)

In a letter from Burnham to A.N. Clark published in the Courant on Sept. 30, 1862, the 16th Connecticut adjutant meticulously described the location of the large battlefield grave site for soldiers in his regiment. Each soldier's temporary resting place was marked by a small headboard that noted his name and company.

"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 noted in a letter dated Sept. 19, 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."

The bridge Burnham referred to was the Rohrbach Bridge, which after the battle famously became known as Burnside Bridge. The large "white house with a high piazza" belonged to a 58-year-old farmer named  John Otto, whose 40-acre cornfield was a scene of slaughter for the 16th Connecticut, which suffered 43 killed and 161 wounded during its first fight of the Civil War.

"The bodies lie near a large tree standing alone, and which I had blazed on all sides so it can be easily discovered," Burnham's letter continued. "With the exception of Capt. (Newton) Manross, who was killed earlier in the fight and carried to the rear, they are all together ..."

In John Burnham's letter published in the
Hartford Courant on Sept. 30, 1862, the location
of the Antietam battlefield grave of
Private Henry Barnett was noted.

A 30-year-old cigar maker from Suffield, Conn., Barnett was buried on the north side of that large tree along with his Company D comrades: corporals Horace Warner and Michael Grace and privates Nelson E. Snow and George Allen. (Privates Henry Aldrich of Bristol, John Bingham of East Haddam and Theodore DeMarrs of Cromwell and Sergeant Wadsworth Washburn of Berlin were also buried in the large trench.)

"I have been particular to mention the precise locality of each (body)," Burnham wrote in the letter, "so that in the event of the signs being displaced by the elements or otherwise, they may be found; and I trust that anyone who comes to the spot will be very particular and disturb none but those of whom they are in search."

Added Burnham: "The collection of the bodies was conducted under my own personal supervision, and after the men had reported them all picked up I examined the whole field myself, so that I am confident none were left on the ground."

Barnett was listed as a cigar maker in the 1860 U.S. census. He was married with two children.

Burnham's description undoubtedly made it easier for Barnett's wife, Emily, to have Henry's remains retrieved and returned to Suffield, a small town in northwestern Connecticut near the Massachusetts border. She buried her husband in Old Center Cemetery in Suffield. The young soldier who was born in England left behind two young children, Catherine, 8, and Morris, 5. Emily was pregnant with the couple's third child, a girl she named Rosetta, who was born Jan. 30, 1863.

Promoted to lieutenant colonel shortly after Antietam, John Burnham was described as a "perfect soldier" in the 16th Connecticut regimental history. Even his mother was beloved. During a camp visit, the 70-year-old woman "advised and comforted those in trouble, listened to complaints and nursed the sick. She was regarded as a representative of the good respectable home life which we had left, and to which we would sooner or later return, and the veneration and affection of the regiment for her was unbounded." (1)

After the Battle of Antietam, 16th Connecticut soldiers were buried near John Otto's farmhouse, 
described by John Burnham as a "white house with a high piazza in front."

But Burnham also suffered misfortune during the Civil War. He was slightly wounded at Suffolk, Va., on May 3. Captured with nearly his entire regiment at Plymouth, N.C., on April 20, 1864, he was imprisoned at infamous Libby Prison in Richmond and in South Carolina and Georgia before he was exchanged in June 1864. Captured again in September 1864, this time by guerrillas while he was on the steamer Fawn in North Carolina, he was exchanged on Oct. 15, 1864.

"Regarded with as much love as can find room beside the respect due to a regimental commander,"  Burnham survived the war. (2) But broken down physically and mentally, he died at  the Connecticut Hospital for the Insane in Middletown on April 10, 1883. He was 43 years old.

(1) History of the Sixteenth Connecticut Volunteers, B.F. Blakeslee, Hartford, The Case, Lockwood & Brainard Co., 1875, Page 45

(2) The Military and Civil History of Connecticut During the War of 1861-65, William Augustus Croffut, John Moses Morris, 1869, Page 475.

The toppled gravestone of Henry Barnett in Old Center Cemetery in Suffield, Conn. 
Below: Gravestone close-up with Antietam misspelled.

Antietam: Macabre memento of a dead soldier

Rufus Chamberlain, a 43-year-old sergeant in Company I of the 16th Connecticut, was
mortally wounded at Antietam.  He is buried in Hillside Cemetery in Stafford, Conn.
His name is more commonly spelled Chamberlain, not Chamberlin, in records.
(Photo courtesy of Matt Reardon, New England Civil War Museum executive director)

Shortly after Rufus Chamberlain died of a wound suffered at the Battle of Antietam, a family friend made the sad 450-mile journey from Connecticut to a Maryland hamlet to retrieve the 43-year-old soldier's remains. Not only did Ashley D. Studley return with the body of the 16th Connecticut sergeant, he also took back a macabre memento to give to Chamberlain's wife:

The mangled bullet that killed her husband.

"I went into the hospital at Smoketown where Mr. Chamberlain died and made some inquiries in reference to his wound and death," noted Studley, a mill worker from Chamberlain's hometown of Stafford, Conn. "I was informed by persons employed there that Mr. Chamberlain was wounded by a ball in the knee. The ball was given to me that was extracted from his limb and I brought it home and gave it to his widow." (1)

During the Civil War, families often wanted tangible reminders of the death of a loved one -- a bloody shirt,  a piece of a uniform or even the bullet that ended a life. At the New England Civil War Museum in Rockville, Conn., the splattered sharpshooter's bullet that killed Thomas Burpee at Cold Harbor, handed down through the generations, is displayed along with a tintype and other effects of the colonel in the 21st Connecticut. The family of Union General Philip Kearny was given the bullet that killed that renowned soldier at the Battle of Chantilly, near Washington.

In this widow's pension affidavit, Ashley Studley of Stafford, Conn., recalled obtaining the 
bullet that mortally wounded Rufus Chamberlain. He gave it to Rufus' widow. 
(CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)

What Amanda Chamberlain did with the bullet that killed her husband, a mill worker before the war, is lost to history.

16th Connecticut monument at Antietam.

Nearly 3,500 men in blue and gray were killed at Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862 -- the bloodiest day in American history. But many soldiers like Rufus Chamberlain died in the days, weeks and even months after the battle -- including 16th Connecticut captain Frederick Barber of Glastonbury, 16th Connecticut privates Gideon Barnes of Burlington and Horace Lay of Hartford and 14th Connecticut private Henry Talcott of Coventry.

At Antietam, Chamberlain was shot in the right leg, probably in farmer John Otto's 40-acre cornfield, during the Ninth Corps' disastrous attack on the Confederates' right flank. Carried from the field, he was first taken to a hospital in Sharpsburg, perhaps the German Reformed Church on Main Street, where many soldiers in Chamberlain's regiment were treated. Later, he was taken to Smoketown, a non-descript speck on the map near Sharpsburg that was the site of a large Federal field hospital. Conditions there were terrible.

"This place is in a most miserable condition, the men complain very much,"a member of the Maine Soldiers Relief Agency reported in early November 1862. "The effluvia  arising from the condition of these grounds is intolerable, quite enough to make a man in perfect health sick, and how men can recover in such a place is a mystery to me."

Rufus Chamberlain Jr. in 1900.
(Photo courtesy Tad Sattler via 
Connecticut. State Library)

Private Harvey Moore of  the 16th Connecticut, who worked with Chamberlain in a mill before the war, tended to his comrade at Smoketown.

"I see him in a hospital near Sharpsburg the next Sunday after the battle," Moore noted. "He was afterwards removed to a place called Smoketown. I remained in the hospital where said Chamberlain was (for) seven days. I was in his room several times a day and frequently bathed his limb which was badly swollen and very painful." (3)

In mid-October, Chamberlain's leg was amputated above the knee joint at the Smoketown hospital. But on Oct. 21, about a week after the surgery, the "man of good habits and a true and faithful soldier," died. (3) His son, Rufus Jr., a private in Company I who served as his father's nurse, was likely by his side.

Thanks to Rufus Jr., Studley easily found Chamberlain's grave when he arrived at Smoketown.. "At the head of a grove a board was placed  with his name plainly marked on it," he noted. "The son of Mr. Chamberlain, Rufus Chamberlain, showed me the place where his father was buried." (4)

The site of Smoketown Hospital today. Rufus Chamberlain died here on Oct. 21, 1862. 
South Mountain can be seen in the distant background of the bottom photo. 
(Photos courtesy Richard Clem)

For Amanda Chamberlain, who married Rufus on Dec. 20, 1840, when she was a teenager, tragedy was  embedded in the fabric of her life. She and Rufus had six children, two of whom preceded their father in death. Rufus Jr. was captured at Plymouth, N.C.. on April 20, 1864, along with nearly the entire 16th Connecticut, and sent to a rebel prison. He was paroled in December 1864 and survived the war.

Amanda buried her husband in Hillside Cemetery in Stafford, Conn., about 30 miles northeast of Hartford. After Rufus' death, she applied for a Civil War widow's pension from the U.S. government. Her claim approved in the fall of 1862, she received $8 a month and an additional $2 a month for each of her two children under the age of 16. She continued to receive a widow's pension until her death on Oct. 9, 1876. (5)

(1) Widow's pension document, Ashley D. Studley account, Nov. 10, 1862
(2) Widow's pension document, 16th Connecticut private Harvey Moore account, Nov. 22, 1862
(3) Widow's pension document, 16th Connecticut 2nd lieutenant John M. Fisk account, June 11, 1863
(4) Widow's pension document, Ashley D. Studley account, Nov. 10, 1862
(5) Amanda Chamberlain's widow's pension file

Do you have a photo of Rufus Chamberlain? If so, e-mail me.

Chasing ghosts: Why I do this stuff

Here's an excerpt from a piece I wrote for Bryna O'Sullivan over at her Explorations in Connecticut Genealogy blog. It explains why I blog about the Civil War and includes some of my favorite research resources. (Pardon the "air was thick as hominy grits" line. I blame that on the brain transplant.) Of course, there are several folks whose help is invaluable to me in telling stories of Connecticut Civil War soldiers. My list includes Connecticut Civil War reenactor Tad Sattler, Connecticut researcher Mary Falvey and New England Civil War Museum executive director Matt Reardon.

Remains of trenches at the Cold Harbor battlefield.

It was a scorching hot summer evening and the air was thick as hominy grits as I slowly drove around Cold Harbor National Battlefield, near Richmond, Va., two summers ago. Much of the great battlefield where men in blue and gray killed and maimed each other in June 1864 is in private hands, but the National Park Service-owned sliver, still pockmarked with trenches dug by soldiers nearly 150 years ago, is very much hallowed ground.

It was at Cold Harbor that the 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery, men from towns such as Litchfield, Waterbury, Goshen and Norwich, discovered a hell on earth. On June 1, 1864, the regiment suffered 85 killed and 221 wounded in an ill-advised assault on Confederate breastworks. "You cannot conceive the horrors and awfulness of a battle," wrote Chaplain Winthrop Phelps of the regiment's first major battle. "I never wish to hear another much less see it. I went out to see this but found myself in such danger I soon fled ... Pray for me. I cannot write -- am not in a fit state of mind." (1)

I can still recall the first time I saw the monument at Cold Harbor to honor the memory of those men from Connecticut. As I walked ground that was heavily contested by both armies, I came upon a small clearing where I discovered three blocks of light gray granite. Mounted to the front of that 2nd Connecticut monument is a bronze plaque that includes names of Connecticut men killed at Cold Harbor. When I read the names aloud, hair on my neck stood up and goose bumps covered my arms.

2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery monument at Cold Harbor.

Like most Civil War battlefields, Cold Harbor holds a special sway over the those like me who still hear the guns.

As darkness settled over the Virginia battlefield that summer day in 2010, I met a local couple on a walk with their large dog. They said they often walked the battlefield to enjoy the now-peaceful setting.

"This was an awfully bloody place," the man said matter-of-factly. The woman nodded and then glanced at their dog.

"He often goes into the woods," she said, "to chase the ghosts."

This photo of Confederate dead near Dunker Church after the Battle of Antietam was
taken by famed Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner.
(Library of Congress collection)

Chasing ghosts.

In an odd way, that’s an apt description of what I have been doing the past 18 months.

My passion is the Battle of Antietam, where four regiments of men and boys from Connecticut fought in woodlots and farm fields in Sharpsburg, Md., on Sept. 17, 1862. Scores of soldiers from the 8th, 11th, 14th and 16th Connecticut regiments were killed or mortally wounded during that battle -- the bloodiest day in American history. In the days and weeks after Antietam, funerals for Connecticut soldiers were common in the state.

Soldiers from Connecticut who were killed or
 mortally wounded at Antietam.

"It is seldom that we are called upon to bury so many braves in so short a space of time," the Hartford Courant reported nearly a month after the battle.

Many of the stories of Connecticut soldiers who fought at Antietam have never been told. Crisscrossing Connecticut -- from Brooklyn in the east to Bristol in the west to Madison in the south -- I have mined information, including many primary sources, at historical societies, libraries and cemeteries for Connecticut Antietam stories. Resources such as the Connecticut Historical Society's Civil War Manuscript Project and collections at the Connecticut State Library are invaluable. Google has digitized many regimental histories (i.e. 14th Connecticut), making previously hard-to-access resources available only a couple clicks away on the Internet. Find A Grave is also a terrific starting point for information on soldier graves. The research department at the National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick, Md., proved helpful in uncovering the casebook of surgeons who treated 16th Connecticut soldiers at a small Sharpsburg church. And many Connecticut libraries provide digital access dating to 1724 for the Hartford Courant. I have found excellent accounts of funerals by tapping into that resource.

Of course, there’s no substitute for boots-on-the-ground reporting at cemeteries. (Hmmmm, sounds a little strange, doesn’t?) For posts on my blog, I often come up with good color by checking out graveyards and gravestones myself.

I didn't mention in the piece another resource that also is invaluable: fold3.com, a premium web site for military documents. It includes access to Civil War widows' pension records, which can be hugely valuable. (I used fold3.com to report stories on 16th Connecticut private Gideon Barnes and 16th Connecticut sergeant Rufus Chamberlain.) Fold3.com has saved me a trip or two or three to the National Archives in D.C. The results of some of my reporting can be found by clicking the links below. Enjoy.

(1) "Not War But Murder," Ernest B. Furguson, 2000, Page 102

From left, graves of Connecticut soldiers killed or mortally wounded at Antietam:
Captain John Griswold of Lyme; Private Henry Aldrich of Bristol; 
and Captain Jarvis Blinn of New Britain.

Faces of the Civil War: Private Gideon S. Barnes

A private in the 16th Connecticut from Burlington, Conn., 
Gideon Barnes was wounded at Antietam.  He died two months later.
(Photo courtesy Lester Larrabee)

Unlike many Civil War soldiers who died far from home, Gideon S. Barnes spent the final days of his life in his home state, where he suffered an agonizing death.

A laborer from Burlington, Conn., Barnes had been married for a little more than six years to a woman named Lydia Ann Hall (they had no children) when he made a life-changing decision to enlist in the Union army on July 26, 1862. Nearly a month later, he was mustered into the 16th Connecticut Infantry's Company K, commanded by well-respected Captain Newton Manross of Bristol, Conn.

Gideon Barnes was among the many 
16th Connecticut  Antietam casualties 
listed in the Hartford Courant
on Sept. 23, 1862, six days after the battle.

Events moved swiftly for Barnes and the 16th Connecticut.

After organizing near Hartford, the regiment was sent to Washington in late August, where it was attached to the Ninth Corps of the Army of the Potomac. The 700-plus barely trained soldiers of the regiment found themselves on the front lines at the Battle of Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862.

As the 16th Connecticut was routed late that Wednesday afternoon in farmer John Otto's 40-acre cornfield, Barnes took a bullet in the left thigh and was carried from the field. Timothy Robinson, a 2nd lieutenant in Company K, recalled that Barnes was shot "through the leg above the knee, which disabled him from service, and he went home on a furlough." (1)

By Oct. 9, 1862, Barnes had arrived back in Connecticut, along with four other soldiers wounded at Antietam, to continue his recuperation in Burlington at the home of his father, Sherman, a War of 1812 veteran, who enjoyed making telescopes. Barnes' grandfather, Joel, served in the militia during the  Revolutionary War. (Interestingly, Sherman suffered a broken thigh bone when the breech of his cannon exploded when it was fired during an 1838 Fourth of July celebration in the Whigville section of Burlington. (2) The wound never healed properly, according to a Barnes descendant.)

Gideon Barnes' wife received an 
$8-a-month pension
from the government after his death.

Gideon Barnes never recovered from his wound, and exactly two months after Antietam, the 32-year-old soldier died. In an affidavit supporting Lydia Ann's widow's pension claim, the Bristol physician who treated Barnes noted a grisly combination of factors that caused his demise.

"Wounds and injuries received in the battle of Antietam by rifle ball through the thick portion of the thigh causing explosive separation with sloughing," Dr. T.W. Camp noted. "This in connection with an uncontrollable camp diarrhea accompanied with delirium and typhoid fever were more than sufficient to cause death." (3)

Twenty-four-year-old Lydia Ann applied for a widow’s pension shortly after Gideon’s death, eventually receiving $8 a month from Uncle Sam. On Oct. 1, 1865, she married a clockmaker from Bristol named Valentine Atkins, who died in 1895. Financially supported only by her son-in-law and meager income from a rental property, Lydia applied for the restoration of her Civil War widow’s pension in 1901, and at the time of her death on Feb. 26, 1918, she was receiving $25 a month. (4)

Gideon Barnes is buried under a plain, gray state-issued marker in Bristol's Forestville Cemetery, 25 feet across the cemetery road from the gravestone of Manross, who was killed at Antietam when his arm was blown off by artillery fire, exposing his beating heart.

(1) Widow's pension affidavit, Timothy Robinson, Aug. 14, 1863
(2) 1838 diary of Leavett Mills, Whigville, Conn.
(3) Widow's pension affidavit, Dr. T.W. Camp, Oct. 3, 1863
(4) Lydia Barnes' widow's pension file

Gideon S. Barnes' gravestone in Forestville Cemetery in Bristol, Conn.

Gideon Barnes' name appears on the Burlington (Conn.) Civil War memorial, which honors the
 88 town residents or natives who served during the war. A star next to a name denotes those who 
died in service in the Union army.  (Visit ctmonuments.net for more on Connecticut war memorials.)

Antietam: Revisiting Newton Manross' monument

Newton Manross was killed at Antietam. I got pricked
 by the sword in the photo.  (Photo: Bristol Historical Society)

Curious about the condition of the monument for Civil War soldier Newton Manross, I stopped by Forestville Cemetery in Bristol, Conn., tonight on my way home from work and shot the video above. Sadly, the tall brownstone memorial to the 16th Connecticut captain who was killed at Antietam remains in poor shape. If repairs are not made soon to the monument placed by the survivors of Manross' Company K, the damage may be irreversible and too costly to fix.

To stir up publicity several months ago, I contacted the Bristol Press, which made brief mention in a column (no longer available online), and twice left messages with the woman in state government who handles such matters, but she didn't return my calls. In tough economic times, it's probably difficult to justify spending thousands of dollars to repair a monument for a soldier who was killed nearly 150 years ago. Perhaps there's another way. I'm up for your ideas. E-mail me here or hit the comments section below.

When he enlisted in the Union army on July 22, 1862, Manross told his wife:  "You can better afford to have a country without a husband than a husband without a country." Terrific quote from a great man who deserves to be remembered.

In this photo taken in 1887, Civil War veterans from the Manross G.A.R. post gather by the
Newton Manross monument in Forestville Cemetery in Bristol, Conn. The monument was
placed there by survivors of Company K of the 16th Connecticut.
(Photo courtesy Bristol Historical Society via Tom LaPorte; CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)

East Hartland (Conn.) Cemetery: Sign of times

Words under John Banning's name on a memorial in East Hartland, Conn. 

The Civil War obviously stirred emotions in people in the North and South, perhaps none more so than among families who lost loved ones. In late April, I told the story of John Banning and Rodolphus Rowe, soldiers in the 16th Connecticut from Hartland, who became prisoners of war at Plymouth, N.C. Both were sent to Andersonville, the most notorious Civil War prison camp. Rowe died aboard a ship heading north, shortly after his release from Andersonville, and is buried in the national cemetery in Beaufort, S.C. Banning died at Andersonville, where he is buried under Grave No. 7742.

In the small, tidy East Hartland Cemetery, among graves for Revolutionary War soldiers, a brownstone memorial to Banning and Rowe was placed, probably shortly after the Civil War. These words, worn by the elements but still easily read, appear under Banning's name and place of death:

A Martyr To This Unholy Rebellion 

Perhaps Banning's mother, who depended on her son for financial support, had those words etched on the 8-foot memorial. Perhaps someone else in the small farming community that lost at least 15 men to the "unholy rebellion" had the words carved in stone. We may never know for sure.

Faces of the Civil War: Corporal Lafayette Hunting

Corporal Lafayette Hunting of the 49th New York was mortally wounded 
at Spotsylvania Courthouse on May 12, 1864.  The 28-year-old soldier
 died June 3, 1864. 
 (Photo courtesy Richard Clem)

I first met relic hunter extraordinaire Richard Clem at Connecticut Day at Antietam on April 21, 2012. The 72-year-old retired woodworker from Hagerstown, Md., held a group of Civil War enthusiasts spellbound in front of the Antietam Visitors' Center that morning with tales of his many relic hunts with his brother, Don, in Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia during the past four decades. The brothers have unearthed 30,000 bullets (they sold 15,000 of them to a New York man), and Richard's impressive finds include three rare Civil War soldier ID discs (see photos below), including one that belonged to Corporal Lafayette Hunting of the 49th New York. Part-detective, part-amateur historian, Clem is a terrific storyteller who relishes telling the tale behind the relic. He kindly shared this story of his discovery of Hunting's ID disc and his painstaking research into the life of a soldier who died nearly 150 years ago.


By Richard E. Clem

George T. Stevens, 6th Corps surgeon with the Army of the Potomac, wrote after the war: “Under a canopy of redbud and dogwood, the 6th Corps marched into the Wilderness -- May 4th 1864.” This scene of natural and military beauty would soon be turned into one of bloody human slaughter. In fighting so fierce that a 22-inch oak tree was shot in half by small arms fire, Corporal Lafayette Hunting, 49th New York Volunteers, gave his all to preserve the Union. The Wilderness Campaign would be his last.

Relic hunter Richard Clem unearthed this identification 
disc for  Corporal Lafayette Hunting of the 49th New York in
 a cornfield near Hagerstown, Md., in 1980. The  reverse  lists the 
battles in which he fought.
 (Photos courtesy Richard Clem)

On Oct. 24 1980, while using a metal detector in an old cornfield several miles south of Hagerstown, Md., I dug up what most relic hunters only dream of finding: a Civil War identification disc. About the size of a quarter, retaining 50 percent of its original gold plate, the brass disc is inscribed:

Cpl. L. Hunting / Co. I / 49th Reg. / NY Vols. / Pembroke NY.” 

The back bears the legend:  

“Fought In Battles / 1861, 2 & 3 United States / Antietam / Williamsburg / 7 Days Fighting Before Richmond / Fredericksburg 1 & 2 / South Mountain / Mechanicsville / Bull Run 2nd

After discovering one of these historical gems personally inscribed to a soldier who had fought in the conflict, questions naturally surface:

Did he survive the war? 

Where was he buried? 

Years of research at state and national archives produced extensive material on L. Hunting, this soldier from the past. Ads placed in various Civil War publications “searching for any information on Cpl. Hunting” made it possible to contact Hunting descendants from New York to the West Coast.

Lafayette Hunting was born in 1836, in Monroe County, N.Y. In 1845, he moved with his family to Pembroke, Genesee County, just northeast of Buffalo. An 1850 census for Genesee County shows living in the Sidney and Sally Hunting household seven children, including Mary, Asa, Lafayette, Sidney Jr., Alva, Lydia and Sarah. An older daughter, Laura, had married a year earlier -- Feb. 23, 1849 -- to a Robert Swift and left home.

With the outbreak of civil war, in August 1861, 25-year-old Lafayette and his 18-year-old brother, Alva, enlisted at Forestville in the 49th New York Regiment -- both mustered in as privates in Company I. Enlistment records describe Lafayette as being of “German decent -- blue eyes -- blonde hair -- 5 foot-10 inches tall.” The younger brother was listed as “ 5 foot-10 inches tall – blue eyes – light hair.” Unfortunately, Alva’s military career was cut short suddenly by diphtheria. He died Sept. 16 1862, at Patterson Park Hospital in Baltimore. The next day -- Sept. 17 1862 -- as Lafayette was fighting Confederate forces around Dunker Church during the bloodiest day of the war at Antietam, Alva was being buried in Loudon Park Cemetery in Baltimore. Of course, the surviving Hunting had no knowledge of his brother’s death or burial.

As stamped on the ID disc, Lafayette Hunting fought in every major engagement of 1862 with the 6th Corps attached to the Army of the Potomac. On Nov.  26, 1862, he was promoted to the rank of corporal. Fought May 3 1863, the last battle to take place as listed on the tag was 2nd Fredericksburg. This indicates Corporal Hunting had purchased his keepsake in May or June 1863. There was no official ID or called in the military “dog tags” during the Civil War. This type of war medal was sold and inscribed by enterprising sutlers who followed the armies competing for the soldier’s $13-a-month pay. More of a patriotic nature, they were normally bought for 25 cents a pair -- one being sent home to wife or sweetheart, the second carried by the soldier.

Clem unearthed Hunting's ID disc near the hay bale in this field near Hagerstown, Md., in 1980. 
(Photo courtesy Richard Clem)

Regarding the Gettysburg Campaign -- July 1863 -- the 49th regimental history records: “The 6th Corps marched nearly all night, July 1st, and most of the day of July 2nd. They arrived on the battlefield at about 5 P.M. of the 2nd day, having marched from 35 to 37 miles over hot, dusty roads, and were well nigh exhausted.” Corporal  Hunting saw little action at Gettysburg, the 49th NY being held in reserve, yet it was after the decisive Union victory he lost his ID disc in Washington County, Md.. It was here the Army of the Potomac paralleled the retreating Army of Northern Virginia nervously, anxiously waiting for the flooded Potomac River to recede for a safe crossing to Southern territory. The open field where the ID tag was found remains as it was in 1863, but like other Civil War sites, the threat of destruction from development exists on the horizon.

To escape the boring routine of winter camp life, soldiers took advantage of the time to keep in touch with folks back home. In a letter from Brandy Station, Va., dated Nov. 21, 1863, the New York soldier wrote to his family:

“Dear Parents

 It has been a long time since you wrote to me – as if you have forgotten me entirely. A few days ago I got a letter from Laura. That picture is yours mother is it not. I am much pleased with it. I shall try to keep it as long as I can. Today is Saturday it has been raining all day.”

The Hunting note revealed respect for “Uncle John” Sedwick:

Hunting was a fan of Union General John Sedgwick, 
whom he described as a "good and brave man." 
Killed by a sharpshooter's  bullet, Sedgwick
 is buried  in Cornwall Hollow, Conn. 
(Library of Congress collection)

“Our Corps (6th Corps) was reviewed yesterday by General Sedwick our own corps general. He is a good and brave man – true to his country and cause. He goes in with energy and faith that he can whipp the cursed Rebels and he can to.”

Like so many Northern soldiers, Lafayette had nothing good to say about Washington politicians, but high praise for President Lincoln:

“If old (Henry) Halleck was out here I could shoot him with a good will. He is a traitor to the heart. So is over half of those representatives and congressmen. But we trust and believe Old Abe is alright. He is sound but has so many working against him. Father if you send those boots please direct in this way to the 6th Corps, company I, 49th Regt. NY Vols, Washington, D. C. This is all so goodby from your son. . . Lafayette Hunting.”

The correspondence ends with an "afterthought" of bitterness directed toward an 18-year-old sister, giving evidence of loneliness found in a homesick heart:

“Sarah -- I was glad to know you are well. You spoke of exchanging an old friend for a new one. I think that is what you have done. You do not seem to write to me as if you cared anything about me. If you do not take a little more pain and write oftener you will look a good while before you hear from me again. I can not do all the writing. My health is good. You must write soon – Your Brother Lafayette.” 

"We trust and believe Old Abe is alright," 
Hunting  wrote in a letter home.
 (Library of Congress collection)

I received from Michigan a copy of this original hand-written letter from a great-great-grandson of Laura Hunting Swift – Lafayette’s oldest sister. On Dec, 16 1863, a little over a month after mailing this letter, Lafayette re-enlisted as a veteran in the 49th NY Infantry at Brandy Station, Virginia.

In spring 1864, President Lincoln called for Gen. Ulysses S. Grant to take control of all Union armies. Hopefully, the new commander with a major campaign advancing south would force Richmond to its knees and bring an end to the war. Grant’s one big problem: Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia would make a stubborn stand in his path to the Confederate’s capital, contesting every inch of ground at places called the Wilderness, Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor.

With a battle cry “On to Richmond,” the Army of the Potomac pushed deeper into the core of the Old Dominion. At a hamlet called Spotsylvania Court House, Lee constructed strong log and earth breastworks to slow down Grant’s determined thrust. On May 12, on what some referred to as the “killing ground,” the 49th NY lost 52 members killed or mortally wounded, its greatest number of casualties for a single battle during the entire war. A Federal soldier who witnessed the brutal engagement remembered: “Skulls were crushed with clubbed muskets and men stabbed to death with swords and bayonets thrust between the logs in the parapet which separated the combatants.”

Although a steady rain began, the deadly ordeal continued under what some historians consider “a volume of fire unprecedented in the history of warfare.” That night as both sides tried to catch their breath from fighting, several oak trees more than a foot in diameter, fell into the breastworks being shot off by musket fire. In 1902, survivors of the 49th New York Infantry placed and dedicated a monument on this sacred soil that has become known as the “Bloody Angle.” One side of the granite structure contains a list honoring those departed comrades who perished there, including the name . . . Corporal Lafayette Hunting.

According to military records, after two weeks the critically wounded Corporal Hunting was transferred from the muddy field to a hospital in Alexandria, Va. In all probability, the 28-year-old corporal never regained consciousness. Hospital records describe the fatal wound as “hit in right shoulder by minie ball -- lodge next to spine.”

An army surgeon unsuccessfully attempted to remove the bullet and noted: “When admitted patient was suffering from pneumonia. An incision was made along the track of the wound -- many pieces of bone and dead tissue removed -- patient died June 3, 1864.”

As Connecticut Civil War Roundtable member Blair Pavlik and others listen, 
Richard Clem tells  Civil War relic hunting tales at Connecticut Day at
 Antietam National Battlefield on April 21, 2012

When news of Lafayette’s death reached New York, his brother, Asa, boarded a train for Virginia to bring the body home. Once reaching Alexandria, the older brother signed for the remains and on rails of steel began the sad journey north. Returning to Pembroke, the body was buried in the Brick House Cemetery next to a 21-year-old sister, Lydia, who had passed away in 1853. Before the war ended, the Hunting family moved to Evanston, Ill.. Normally this is where the Hunting saga would end; every piece of available material on the soldier from the Empire State had been compiled. However, one question kept surfacing: Was it possible that a picture or an image of Cpl. Hunting existed? If so, where? Federal documents disclose the effects found in the New York soldier’s knapsack at the time of death: “one silver watch -- $95.80 Government money -- one pocket knife -- memorandum book containing letters and photographs."

Undoubtedly, one of those photos was of his mother as mentioned in the letter, and one was of Corporal. Hunting himself. It was my guess any soldier proud enough of his military service to have purchased an ID tag, would have had pictures taken of himself.

Also found on the body was a "small silver chain." I’ll always wonder if this was the very same chain that once held the ID tag, considering the small hole found on its edge. Some things are known only to God.

At first, searching for Lafayette’s photo seemed like “searching for a needle in a haystack.” At least the needle does exist somewhere in the haystack, but in this case an image of Hunting may never have xisted. On April 17, 1985, five years after digging up the ID tag, I received a phone call from Glaphry Duff of Fallbroke, Calif.. With an excited voice, she explained: “Lafayette Hunting was my great-great-great uncle and we have a Civil War photograph of him!” The needle had just found me.

This miniature bible belonged to Private Alva Hunting of the 
49th New York, Lafayette Hunting's younger brother. A Hunting
descendant gave this as a gift to Clem. who treasures it. Alva died
 of disease on Sept. 16. 1862, one day before Lafayette fought
in the Battle of Antietam.
 (Photo courtesy Richard Clem)

Doing Hunting family research, Mrs. Duff had been in contact with Lois Brockway, historian of Corfu/Pembroke, N.Y., who gave her my phone number. Contact had been made with Lois Brockway by the author after an ad was placed in a Buffalo newspaper searching for: “. . . any information on Corp. Lafayette Hunting – 49th New York Vols.” Lois had found Lafayette’s grave and shared with me extensive material on the Hunting family. Mrs. Duff then said her cousin, Ione Goode, living in Eugene, Ore., had possession of the Hunting photo. When I called Mrs. Goode that evening, she mentioned having two sons in the U.S, Marine Corps, but neither had an interest in the Civil War and she wanted to give me Lafayette’s picture.

Several weeks later, I received by registered mail from Eugene, Ore., the “original” tintype photo of Lafayette. The same package contained another gift Mrs. Goode wanted me to have -- one I’ll cherish forever. Almost lost down in the corner of the heavy, brown envelope was a small New Testament slightly larger that a postage stamp. A note in the package explained that when Alva Hunting died in Baltimore, he was carrying this very same Bible. Somehow, the tiny book had been returned to New York and stayed in the family more than 123 years. The little heirloom made its way from Baltimore to Pembroke, N.Y., to Evanston, Ill., to Eugene, Ore., and finally back to Maryland. Inside the back cover a member of the family had written: “Alva H. Hunting -- Cherry Valley, New York -- Died in Baltimore.” An 1860 census indicates Alva was living and working on a farm in Cherry Valley, N.Y., at the time of enlistment.

During the quest to bring the 19th-century warrior to life, I journeyed to New York. On a beautiful June morning while kneeling over Lafayette’s grave in the Brick House Cemetery, I experienced a strange feeling of personal loss and grief. It was hard to accept reality that the man I had come to know was gone. Just below the surface was a soldier who had fought, suffered and died in the War Between the States for a cause he considered worthy of the supreme sacrifice. Perhaps now, the Ruler of All Battles will grant peace unto his soul until the day when all swords are broken, all artillery dismantled and they shall speak of war no more.

Richard Clem's prized Civil War relic hunting finds: 1) Staff officer's button;
2) 1852 gold 2 1/2 dollar coin; 3) Silver ID badge of Consider Willett in the 44th  New York;
4)  ID tag of John Thompson of 3rd Vermont;  5) ID tag of Lafayette Hunting of 49th New York; 
6) Officer's button; and 7) ID tag of William Secor of 2nd Vermont.

Photo journal: Hartford's Old North Cemetery

A tattered American flag in the grass at Hartford's Old North Cemetery.

Toppled memorial for Private Joseph Matthewson
 of the  12th Connecticut. He was 22 when he
 died in New Orleans. 

Neglected for decades, historic Old North Cemetery, the final resting place for many of Hartford's leading citizens and Revolutionary War hero Nathan Hale's fiancee, may be the city's finest outdoor museum. Scores of Civil War soldiers are also buried in the 204-year cemetery, including brothers Charles and Lewis Weld and many African-American soldiers from the 29th Connecticut.

On a quick drive-by visit to the cemetery Monday to check out the Weld brothers memorial,  I was stunned by the state of neglect. A more extensive visit this morning -- and really, what's a Fourth of July without a cemetery visit in hot, humid weather? -- only confirmed my first impression. Trash, including drug paraphernalia, littered the property, and weeds and uncut grass obscured  gravestones, many of which were toppled or broken. The good news: The city is making an effort to clean the place up. New benches were added and paths have been re-paved. The bad news: It's definitely going to take awhile.

Nearly obscured by vegetation, the toppled gravestone of Sidney Basey, a private in
 Company F of the 29th Connecticut, a black regiment that served in Virginia and
 South Carolina.  His marker is one of  many neglected gravestones in
 Old North Cemetery.  Basey was from Wethersfield, Conn.



The broken tombstone for Orrin J. Williams, a private in the  29th Connecticut, 
a regiment  of  black soldiers. Williams was from Madison, Conn.






The fiancee of Nathan Hale, the Revolutionary War hero hanged by the 
British, is buried in Old North Cemetery.






ABOVE AND BELOW: Close-ups of the artistry on tombstones
 at Hartford's Old North Cemetery.

Faces of the Civil War: Hartford's Weld brothers

This memorial to the Weld brothers, Charles and Lewis, is in Hartford's Old North Cemetery.
Charles was mortally wounded at Chancellorsville; Lewis died of a severe cold. I used the
 daguerreotype-effect  on  picmonkey.com to give these photos a Mathew Brady-like feel.

Worn by the elements, this beautiful female figurine is carved on the front of the monument.

A dagger and shoulder scales adorn the right side of the Weld brothers' monument.

Charles Weld was a 1st lieutenant in the 17th U.S. Infantry. Lewis Weld was a lieutenant
colonel of the 41st U.S. Colored Troops, a branch of the service with the "least repute," 
according to an account in the Hartford Courant on July 15, 1865.

Surrounded by weeds, toppled headstones, construction and urban decay, the impressive pearl-white memorial made of Italian marble seems out of place in Hartford's 200-year-old Old North Cemetery. On the front of the 6 1/2-foot marker, a 30-inch female figurine, her left arm resting against a column, retains her beauty despite nearly 150 years' exposure to the elements. An ornately carved American flag drapes the memorial, while a carbine, dagger, sword and military shoulder scales are still distinct along the sides and the names of these two men etched long ago are plainly visible at the top:

Charles Theodore Weld

1st Lieut

17th U.S. Infantry

Died May 14, 1863

Aged 32 years

------------------

Lewis Ledyard Weld

Lieut. Col.

41st U.S. Colored Troops

Died Jan. 10, 1865

Aged 31 years

The Weld monument was commissioned
 by friends of the brothers.

Eager to honor the memory of the brothers from Hartford who died during the Civil War, "early friends" of the Welds commissioned the memorial, probably  before Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox. Not long after the monument was placed near the brothers' gravestones in the summer of 1865, a reporter for the Hartford Courant wrote a glowing account.

"This beautiful monument, so full of sentiment, and telling so much, even to the stranger who attracted by its grace stops to examine it, is another of the chaste designs of our gifted fellow townsman, James G. Batterson, and was executed under his direction in Italy," the newspaper gushed on July 15, 1865.

Whether Batterson, a prominent Hartford citizen/monument maker who designed the famous soldier monument in Antietam National Cemetery, designed the Weld brothers' memorial or someone else did is unknown. There's no doubt, however, that the men the memorial honors were highly regarded in Hartford.

Charles Weld enlisted in the Union army as a private on April 18, 1861, only six days after the rebels began their bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor in South Carolina. On April 22, he was mustered into the 1st Connecticut, a three-month regiment that was quickly sent to Washington to defend the capital against the expected Confederate invasion. A member of Captain Joseph Hawley's company, Weld once was accidentally wounded by the discharge of his own pistol, but that did not stop his rapid rise through the ranks. (1) He was promoted to lieutenant colonel in the regular army's 17th Infantry on May 14, 1861.

Charles Theodore Weld
(Photo courtesy Mary Falvey)

Nearly two years later, at the Union's disastrous defeat during the Chancellorsville Campaign, Weld was shot in the leg on May 1, 1863, resulting in amputation above the knee. An initial report about his condition from Lewis Weld, who was by his brother's side while he was treated, was optimistic, but the 32-year-old lieutenant colonel died at Potomac Creek Hospital , near Brooks Station, Va., on May 14, 1863. His last words were: "Peace, peace, all at peace." (2)

"He had many friends in this city who will feel his death deeply," the Hartford Courant reported shortly after his death. "To his relatives the blow is a crushing one. They were not prepared for such a result." Grief-stricken, Lewis accompanied his brother's body back home to Connecticut. (3)

Flags flew at half-mast in Hartford the day of  Charles' funeral on May 19, 1863. An 85-man detachment of the 5th Connecticut Infantry that arrived for his wake on the noon train from New York was received by the city council and Hartford's mayor. After a visitation at the home of Charles' mother at 42 High Street at 3 p.m., Weld's coffin, covered with flowers and draped with the national flag, was borne to Center Church for a service and then taken to the cemetery for burial with full military honors in the family plot. (4)

For Lewis Weld, the death of his older brother was only the second-greatest tragedy he faced during the Civil War.

In this letter to Lewis Weld, Nellie Browne's father broke
 the news  that his daughter was dead. Nellie and Weld 
were engaged  to be married.  Thanks to the excellent 
research library at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced 
Study at  Harvard, the correspondence between Weld and
 the Browne family is online.
(CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)

While he was stationed in Florida, Lewis met a young woman from Massachusetts named Nellie Browne, the daughter of an agent for the U.S. Treasury. The pair quickly fell in love and were engaged to be married. Before her return to the North, however, she contracted typhoid fever in Beaufort, S.C., perhaps while tending to sick soldiers, and died on June 2, 1864. Nellie's father broke the terrible news to Lewis.

"Our Nellie, your Nellie is with the angels in heaven," Albert Browne wrote from Beaufort on the day of his daughter's death. "She left us this morning at 7 o'clock and joined the immortals. God help you, God help us all to bear this mysterious dispensation. My dear wife and Mother, the loving devoted sister, dear little Eddie are overwhelmed with sorrow. I cannot shed a tear and am as stoical and calm as death.

"The dear child did not suffer much. She was wandering after a day or two and often repeated your name." (5)

Three days later, a shattered Lewis Weld wrote an eloquent, heart-rending letter to Albert Browne from Jacksonville, Fla..

"Oh my friend, my father. My heart is broken," Weld wrote. "I cannot realize it or believe it. And yet it weighs upon my heart burning its cruel way prostrating and stunning me. God give me strength to bear it. It is a mysterious terrible Providence.

"Oh my love, my darling, my wife!" he added. "Gone from me without a word. Gone without a message, without a touch of the lips or a farewell. Dead. ... But I thank Him for the one month of pure love He gave me a happiness I had never dreamed of. She lives though I can see her not." (6)

"My heart is broken," Lewis Weld wrote to his fiancee's father upon receiving news 
of her death. Thanks to the excellent research library at the Radcliffe Institute
 for Advanced Study at  Harvard,  the correspondence between Weld 
and the Browne family is online. 
(CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)

A brilliant man, Lewis Weld graduated from Yale in 1854. After briefly serving as a tutor, he studied law in New York and then in Ohio before being admitted to the bar in 1858. He moved to Leavenworth, Kan., where he opened up a law office with two other partners. A staunch abolitionist, Weld was "an uncompromising advocate of freedom," and President Lincoln thought so highly of him that he appointed the young man secretary of Colorado Territory. When Weld resigned in April 1862, he was acting governor of the territory. (6)

Lewis Ledyard Weld
 (Photo courtesy Mary Falvey)

Returning East to fight for the Union, Weld enlisted on Oct. 16, 1863, and mustered in as captain in the 7th U.S. Colored Troops, "having from principle chosen the hardest and most dangerous branch of the service, and that in the least repute." (7) On Oct. 1, 1864, Weld was promoted to major of the 41st U.S. Colored Troops and two months later became lieutenant colonel of the regiment. "Promotion," of course, was in the eye of the beholder. Often poorly equipped, black troops also faced prejudice from white Union soldiers, and they were viewed with particular disdain by Confederates.

In late winter 1864-65, while the Army of the James was entrenched near Richmond, Lewis Weld caught a severe cold. On Jan. 6, 1865, he was taken to a Federal army hospital at Point of Rocks, on a bluff above the Appomattox River, near Petersburg, Va. Despite the care of surgeons, he died four days later, his lone surviving brother, Mason, an officer in the 25th Connecticut, by his side.

"Lewis retained to the last his sprightly humor and wit," a Yale biographical sketch noted. "Yet his whole character was more serious, and his religious feelings more decided during the last few months of his career." (8)

After his body was embalmed, Weld -- "enthusiastic, impulsive, eloquent, and admired and loved by all who knew him" -- was returned to Connecticut and laid to rest next to his brother in Old North Cemetery. (9)

(1) Hartford Courant, May 20, 1863
(2) Hartford Courant, May 18, 1863
(3) Hartford Courant, May 16, 1863
(4) Hartford Courant, May 20, 1863
(5) Brown Family Papers, 1802-1963; Lewis Ledyard Weld with Browne family, June-December 1864, 23 ALS; telegram. MC 298, folder 64. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
(6)  Ibid
(7) Hartford Courant, July 15, 1865
(8) "Record of the Class of 1854 --Yale," J. Munsell, 1867
(9) Hartford Courant, July 15, 1865

Lewis Weld was treated at a Federal hospital at Point of Rocks, on the bluffs of the
 Appomattox River,  near Petersburg, Va. Suffering from a severe cold, he died at the hospital
 on Jan. 10, 1865. The hospital can be seen in the left background. (Library of Congress collection)
CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

Two days after his brother's death, Mason Weld sent this note to the military governor 
of Alexandria (Va.)  Mason accompanied Lewis Weld's embalmed remains to Hartford.
(CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)