JOHN BANKS' CIVIL WAR BLOG

Valuable Civil War relic ... or not

2012-01-27T22:06:00.000-05:00

Is this an ammunition pouch ... or something else?

You are looking at a ... err ... ahh, well, I don't know what the heck you're looking at. This was given to me more than 10 years ago by parents, who picked it up at an antiques store somewhere in the South. It might be Civil War .... and then again it might not. I collect hard images of Civil War soldiers, so this item doesn't fall under my area of expertise. It's made of leather with a thin brass plate and upraised buttons across the outside flap of the pouch. The belt, which includes a small metal buckle, also is made of leather.

Was it used to carry ammunition? Is it government issue? Or is this just something some backwoodsman crafted to use to go hunt squirrels?

Perhaps one of you can tell me.

'Like' John Banks' Civil War blog on Facebook!

2012-01-25T20:53:00.003-05:00

Civil War statue on Moodus Green near East Haddam, Conn.

John Banks' Civil War blog now has an official Facebook like page. Please click here to like it! It quite possibly could be a life-changing event.

Letter to Mrs. Mansfield: 'Depths of Pandemonia'

2012-01-24T22:12:00.001-05:00

"It seemed as if the very depths of Pandemonia, had sent her furies, and such a tornado of deadly
missiles screaming through the air," a surgeon wrote to General Joseph Mansfield's wife about the
circumstances before her husband's death at Antietam. Below, Mansfield's grave in Middletown, Conn.

In a neatly written five-page letter to Louisa Mansfield dated April 28, 1863, a surgeon in the 107th New York described in detail the circumstances before her husband's death and his last hours at a Union field hospital. General Joseph K Mansfield of Middletown, Conn. was mortally wounded by a shot to the chest near the East Woods during the Battle of Antietam.

General Joseph Mansfield lived in this house in
Middletown, Conn., during the Civil War. It now houses
the Middlesex County Historical Society.

"The wound was inflicted by a 'Minnie ball,' Dr. Patrick Flood wrote. "When I came up, some men were trying to carry him in a blanket, but the jolting motion, made him bleed so fast, they were afraid to move. I found the clothing around his chest saturated with blood, and upon opening them, found he was wounded in the right breast, the ball penetrating about two inches from the nipple, and passing out of the back, near the edge of the shoulder blade." (Major hat tip to Randy Buchman's Enfilading Lines blog for first posting the contents of the letter.)

Mansfield died on Sept. 18, 1862, about 24 hours after he was wounded. He was 58 years old.

The original Flood letter to Mrs. Mansfield is now in the collection of the Middlesex County Historical Society at the general's Civil War home in Middletown. Middlesex County Historical Society director Deborah Shapiro kindly photocopied Flood's letter for me recently, and a good friend of the blog enhanced it to make it even more readable than the original. Not quite as exciting as, say, purchasing a bible of a soldier who served in the 8th Connecticut for $3 at a community yard sale, but it's close. Sort of. (CLICK HERE FOR .PDF OF ENTIRE LETTER. IT'S A LARGE FILE.)

General Mansfield was one of more than 100 soldiers from Middletown, about 18 miles south of Hartford, who died during the Civil War. The most impressive exhibit at the Middlesex County Historical Society is a wall of photos of some of those soldiers from the town who gave the last full measure, including Mansfield and Private Robert Hubbard of the 14th Connecticut. I'll write much more about some of these soldiers in the coming weeks.

A wall of Middletown's Civil War dead at the Middlesex County Historical Society
in the former home of General Joseph Mansfield, who was mortally wounded at Antietam.
(The gentleman in the middle was not from Middletown, Conn.)

Faces of the Civil War: Robert Hubbard

2012-01-21T11:43:00.000-05:00

"I feel I never could forgive myself if this government should be overthrown,"
Robert Hubbard, a private in the 14th Connecticut, wrote his brother on Aug. 13, 1862.
Hubbard was killed at Antietam about a month later. (Photo: Middlesex Historical Society)

Sifting through donated documents originally thought to be worthless, curators at the Middletown (Conn.) library more than a century ago discovered a letter from a young Civil War soldier to his brother.

On April 13, 1898, the Middletown (Conn.) Penny Press
reported the discovery of a moving letter
from a Civil War soldier to his brother. The
current whereabouts of the letter are unknown.

The letter, a reporter for the Middletown Penny Press wrote on April 13, 1898, "should fire the hearts of the younger generation of today with patriotic fire."

Convinced that the cause of his nation was just, the soldier in Company B of the 14th Connecticut Infantry explained why he enlisted in the Union army a week earlier.

"My mind was made up to take this step," the private wrote on Aug. 13, 1862, "after hearing the President's order for a draft of 300,000 soldiers. A company was nearly full in Middletown at the time and there were several of my acquaintances in it, and everyone says that it is the best, or one of the best, companies that has been raised."

"I don't know if I feel quite as belligerent as I did when the war first broke out, but the time seems to have arrived when everyone who can must leave the plow in the furrow as old Putnum did and go to the battlefield. The prospect is not a very pleasant one, all things considered. The swamps of the Chickahominy and the guerillas of Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri, not to mention the great Rebel army in the field, are ugly things to look at, and the hardships of a soldier's life I can imagine better than many.

"But necessity is laid upon the young men of the nation, and woe is them if they preserve not the inheritance of their fathers. I am becoming convinced that the secession leaders mean to conquer this nation if the nation does not conquer them, and Oh! Freedom, how can we give that up?"

Close-up of Private Robert Hubbard's marker at
New Farm Hill Cemetery in Middletown, Conn.

The man concluded his letter to his brother Josiah with these words:

"I feel as if I could not forgive myself if this government should be overthrown and I had no weapon in its defense."

A little more than a month later, letter writer Robert Hubbard, an adventurous spirit from Middletown, was killed at Antietam, one of many soldiers from the state who died on the bloodiest day in American history. Hubbard, who sought his fortune in California during the gold rush of the 1850s, died on William Roulette's farm, "shot by the careless handling of a rifle by a member of his own company" during the chaos of battle. (1)

Afterward, Hubbard apparently was buried near the corn crib by Roulette's barn, one of at least 700 soldiers from both sides buried on the farmer's property.

Weeks after his death, Hubbard's family back in Middletown contacted Roulette about arranging for the return of their loved one's body to Connecticut for re-burial. Roulette, whose property was ruined during the battle, suffered his own tragedy in the weeks after Antietam. His 20-month-old daughter Carrie May, who was just learning how to talk, died of typhoid fever, perhaps spread by the many wounded soldiers cared for in the Sharpsburg, Md., area.

Robert Hubbard, a private in the 14th Connecticut who was killed at Antietam, may
have been buried near the corn crib of the barn on William Roulette's farm.

Longtime Civil War relic hunter Richard Clem of Hagerstown, Md. discovered a letter Roulette wrote the Hubbards on New Year's Eve 1862:

Dear Friends
I have received your draft of $70.00 and have forwarded the remains of your brother by express as you expressed by the dispatch. I did not buy the coffin from the undertaker as I wrote to you. I bought it from the cabinet maker at first cost which saved $15.00 for practically the same kind of coffin. The freight by express was $30.00, the dispatch was $1.15 for disinterring the body and delivering it to the depot at Hagerstown the distance of 13-miles making all the expense $55.00 and I enclose your $15.00 makes in all.

Hubbard, killed by friendly fire at Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862, was
re-buried in this cemetery in Middletown, Conn., on Jan. 6, 1863.

Added Roulette:

"Allow me to introduce to you my family, wife and 5 children, 2 girls and 3 boys of which the oldest Ann Elizabeth 13-years-old. Our youngest died since the battle -- a charming little girl 20-months-old Carrie May just beginning to talk. The battle caused considerable destruction of property here. My nearest neighbor [Samuel Mumma] lost his house and barn to fire. I lost valuable horses, some sheep and hogs. Please write as soon as you receive this and inform me whether all is right."

On Jan. 2, 1863, Hubbard's body arrived in Middletown and four days later, a funeral service was held at North Church at 10 a.m. After a scripture was read and "a beautiful piece was sung by the choir, " the Middletown Constitution reported, Reverend Taylor spoke of "war as often a necessity."

"The deceased left the peaceful avocations in which he had been engaged for the life of a soldier," the newspaper noted. "He went because he believed he ought to go, and he met his death as a brave man only can."

At 11:30 a.m., Hubbard's coffin was placed into a hearse and escorted by the Mansfield Guard, a local militia group, the short distance down Main Street to New Farm Hill Cemetery. The son of the late Josiah M. Hubbard was laid to rest in a family plot.

On the 12-foot brownstone marker below Hubbard's name are these still-legible words:

"For whoever will save his life shall lose it and whoever will lose his life for my sake shall save it."

Robert Hubbard was 31 years, 5 months old when he died.

(1) History of the 14th Regiment, Connecticut Vol. Infantry, Charles D. Page, 1906 , Page 44

Robert Hubbard is buried in a family plot that includes his brother, Josiah,
who served in the 11th Kansas Cavalry. Josiah survived the war.

Crossed swords and a shield adorn Robert Hubbard's marker.

Art and letters: Soldiers write home

2012-01-17T20:50:00.000-05:00

Top of a patriotic stationery from a letter Connecticut soldiers sent home.
(Connecticut Historical Society Civil Manuscripts Project)

In reading letters from Civil War soldiers to their families back home in Connecticut at the Connecticut Historical Society recently, I was struck by the beauty of some of the patriotic stationery. I shot this photo of the top of a letter three soldiers in the 8th Connecticut from Canton wrote to a woman back home to thank her for mittens and stockings she had sent. Love the quote at the bottom. All three of the soldiers were dead nine months after the letter was sent on Dec. 16, 1861. One of them, a private named Martin Wadhams, was killed at Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862.

Antietam: A visit to General Mansfield's house

2012-01-16T23:15:00.000-05:00

"He lived about 24 hours after he was shot," Dr. Patrick Flood wrote about
General Joseph Mansfield in this letter to his widow. The letter is in the archives at the
Middlesex County Historical Society in Middletown, Conn.
.

Middlesex County Historical Society director
Deborah Shapiro holds a letter from the physician
who saw Joseph Mansfield die to his widow.

Suffering from a gunshot in the right breast, General Joseph K. Mansfield clearly was in dire condition at a field hospital at a farmhouse about a mile behind Union lines.

"He was very pallad (sic), almost as white as paper as I approached him -- his pulse was small and quick," an attending physician wrote in a five-page letter to Mansfield's widow seven months after her husband was mortally wounded at the Battle of Antietam.

At first, the general was "very talkative," Patrick Flood, a surgeon in the 107th New York wrote, and he was lucid until around midnight. The old soldier from Middletown, Conn., was given a canteen filled with cool water and brandy, but the mixture didn't agree with him.

"On our way to the hospital," Flood wrote to Louisa Mansfield, "he repeated many times 'Oh my God, am I to die thus?' – 'Get me a horse.' 'Oh my poor family.' "

Given command of the XII Corps just two days before Antietam, the 58-year-old general went downhill fast.

Post-war painting of Mansfield at the
Middlesex County Historical Society.

"After I had dressed his wound," Flood continued in the letter to Mrs. Mansfield, "I left him in charge of the medical director, but called to see him often, and saw him one hour before he expired. ... He lived about 24 hours after he was shot. Had the very best of care and attention."

Connecticut suffered terrible losses at Antietam, but perhaps no death was as shocking as Mansfield's. On the day of his funeral in Middletown, about 18 miles south of Hartford, "emblems of sorrow appeared in all directions." (1) Most businesses were shut down, and stores and homes along the route of the funeral procession were draped in black.

Following an elaborate memorial service attended by Governor William Buckingham, U.S. Sen. James Dixon, the wife of General George McClellan and hundreds of others, Mansfield was buried in Middletown on Sept. 23, 1862. As his coffin was lowered into the ground at Mortimer Cemetery, the Mansfield Guard, a local militia group head by Mansfield's friend Elihu Starr, fired three volleys. (Mansfield was reburied at Indian Hills Cemetery in Middletown in 1867.)

The circumstances of Mansfield's wounding at Antietam on the morning of Sept. 17, 1862 are well known to many Civil War buffs, but Flood's letter describing the general's last hours was news to me. Randy Buchman, an Antietam battlefield guide, discovered an old, typewritten copy of the surgeon's letter to Mansfield's widow in the basement of the Antietam National Park Visitor's Center and posted the complete contents on his terrific Enfilading Lines blog. Curious, he wondered if the original belonged to the Middlesex County Historical Society. I aimed to find out.

Order directing Mansfield to hold his command
at Antietam. (Middlesex County Historical Society)

Fifty-two years ago, the house Mansfield lived in during the Civil War was set to be demolished and turned into a parking lot. Thankfully, the Middlesex County Historical Society bought the red-brick home on Main Street in Middletown from Mansfield's descendants and turned it into a museum.

An exhibit focused on Middletown soldiers who served during the Civil War takes up a good chunk of space in the small, well-kept building. The historical society also displays an extensive collection of Mansfield memorabilia, including a daguerreotype of a much younger Mansfield as a soldier, a pre-Civil War letter from Robert E. Lee and a pair of black-and-white striped pants Mansfield wore as a tot.

And in a manilla folder in the small research room, there's a five-page letter, yellowed with age and difficult to read, to a Middletown widow.

"I have endeavored to give you a faithful detail of all that transpired in my relations with your lamented husband," closed Dr. Patrick Flood's letter to Louisa Mansfield on April 28, 1863. "... The Country has suffered an irreparable loss in his death."

(1) Hartford Courant, Sept. 24, 1862

Joseph Mansfield lived in this house on Main Street in Middletown. It now houses
the Middlesex Historical Society, which operates a small museum here.

Canton Cemetery: A girl named Hattie

2012-01-13T21:31:00.001-05:00

The tiny grave of Hattie L. in Canton Cemetery. She was 8 months old when she died.

While I climbed the steep, terraced slope of Canton Cemetery in Collinsville, Conn., last weekend, the gravestone for a young girl named Hattie caught my eye. Only 8 months old, she died on Nov. 11, 1861, seven months after the Civil War started. But I didn't photograph Hattie's grave because of any connection to the war. Rather, I was struck by the carving of a small lamb, so whitened by the elements that it appeared to be snow, atop her tiny, well-worn gravestone. And because, well, little Hattie's marker looked kind of lonely among all the much larger gravestones, many of them broken, tilted or otherwise neglected in a cemetery that could use some tender loving care.

I doubt whether many people have visited Hattie's final resting place lately. The grass in the cemetery looked as if it had not been cut for weeks. And besides, who would venture to the out-of-the-way spot, halfway up the hill of an old cemetery? The graves of Hattie's parents appear to be just to the right of her marker, but I don't know that for sure.

So who was Hattie L.? And why did she die so young?

Someday I'd like to find out.

Antietam: From death springs art

2012-01-10T22:41:00.002-05:00

Part of the ornate, weather-worn iron fence around the grave of Wadsworth Washburn
in Denison Cemetery in Berlin, Conn. Washburn was killed at Antietam.

On a cold, late October day, I traveled 25 minutes from my house to visit the grave of Wadsworth A. Washburn, an orderly sergeant in Company G of the 16th Connecticut who was killed at Antietam. Denison Cemetery isn't off the beaten path, but it's tricky to find nonetheless, tucked away in a residential area in Berlin, Conn. In October 1862, Wadsworth's father traveled to Sharpsburg, Md., to retrieve his son's body, a sad duty for many Connecticut families in the days and weeks after the terrible battle. The ornate iron fence surrounding the soldier's grave in the little cemetery caught my eye, so I shot the close-up above. Although worn by the elements. it remains nice piece of craftsmanship. Wadsworth's 17-year-old sister, Emma, is apparently buried in the same plot. Wadsworth, in his early 20s, served barely a month in the Union army before he was killed in farmer John Otto's field outside Sharpsburg.

The well-worn stone on the fence surrounding Washburn's gravesite (below).

Antietam artifact: Private Oliver Case's bible

2012-01-09T08:00:00.000-05:00

Upper left: Oliver Case's name and regiment are written on a page inside the bible. A private in
the 8th Connecticut from Simsbury, Conn., Case was 22 years old when he was killed at Antietam.

My dream is to go to a yard sale, purchase an old painting and then remove the backing to discover a rare copy of, say, the Declaration of Independence. Sadly, that dream has never come close to realization, so John Rogers' story is going to have to do for now.

John Rogers

A career U.S. Army officer, Rogers purchased a bible 18 years ago at a community yard sale in Maryland. Later, he discovered it belonged to a Civil War soldier named Oliver Cromwell Case, a 22-year-old private from Simsbury, Conn., who was killed at the Battle of Antietam.

Inspired by his thrilling discovery, Rogers, who now lives in Georgia, created a terrific blog on Case that chronicles the life and times of the young soldier in the 8th Connecticut.

"I guess you could say that I feel called to tell Oliver Case’s story," Rogers wrote me in an e-mail.

Inside the front cover of the bible, Case wrote an inscription that includes these words:

"If you die, die like a man."

Here's more on Rogers, Case and how this soldier remembers -- and honors --a soldier who died during the Civil War:

JB: Where and when did you get the bible?

ROGERS: I bought the bible at a yard sale in Germantown, Md., in 1993. It was a community-wide yard sale and I was along for the ride with my wife and saw it on a blanket with other items in someone’s front yard. I picked it up and checked the condition and publication date and decided it was a good bargain at $3 since I collect old bibles. I took it home and put it aside for several weeks before I looked at it in detail and found the inscription. I was able to make out the soldier’s name and unit easily.

8th Connecticut monument at Antietam and view of ground regiment covered on Sept. 17, 1862.
(Photo by Randy Buchman of Enfilading Lines blog)

JB: What was your reaction when you discovered it belonged to a soldier from the 8th Connecticut?

ROGERS: Of course, I was excited. Being a career Army officer, I’ve always been a military history buff, with the Civil War as my particular interest. But as a native Georgian with two g-g-grandfathers serving in the Confederate army, I had a slight moment of disappointment wishing that it had belonged to a Southern soldier. That feeling only lasted a second because I realized how special this artifact was for me.

JB: Does owning this have any special meaning for you?

ROGERS: It does on several levels. First, as a soldier with 24 years of service, including two combat tours, I always feel a connection with another soldier, especially one who has given his “last full measure.” Also, it brings history to life for me and my kids. We have home-schooled our five children since about the time I found the bible. I’ve used Oliver’s story many times as a starting point for our history discussions. It makes it personal for us. It’s not just a dull list of battles and places and dates. Finally, my family is heavily connected with the Civil War and even the battle of Antietam. One of my two g-g-grandfathers was in the 22nd Georgia fighting at the Bloody Lane. Also, my family in Georgia felt Sherman’s “hard hand of war” as his army marched by their farm. It’s not your typical Sherman story. I have a blog on it as well.

John Rogers at Simsbury (Conn.) Cemetery. Oliver Case's marker is at the top of the hill
to the left. (Photo courtesy John Rogers)

JB: Your blog on Oliver Case is one of the most extensive I have seen on one soldier. What served as inspiration for it?

ROGERS: I guess you could say that I feel called to tell Oliver Case’s story. Part of the U.S. Army’s Warrior Ethos is to never leave a fallen comrade behind. The more I learned about Private Oliver Cromwell Case, I felt he was somewhat forgotten in the light of the service of his two older brothers in the 16th CVI. (I also feel the 8th is a bit neglected as well, especially at Antietam!) Alonzo Case went on to become a prominent citizen of Simsbury and was famous for his service and his time as a POW. His sword is in the museum at Simsbury. I feel that by finding his bible, I am now obligated to tell Oliver’s story in the fullest detail possible. My daughter Emily, who is a senior in high school, feels the same obligation and has been a tremendous research partner over the past few years. It’s been a slow process due to time constraints, but we will continue our work. Oliver did his duty as a soldier and died for his country. Telling his story honors every service member who has done the same.

The blog has been more for me to collect my thoughts and research, but I’m happy that more people are beginning to discover it. I’ve met several interesting folks through the blog, including someone who owns Oliver’s canteen. Lots of bloggers like you are a great help sharing information. Emily and I conducted a research visit to Connecticut last year that also helped build the story.

Oliver Case's gravestone at Simsbury (Conn.) Cemetery.

JB: Have you walked the ground Oliver Case and the 8th Connecticut covered at Antietam? If so, what was your reaction when you first did?

ROGERS: Yes, I have. Although I had been to Antietam during my first tour of duty at Fort Detrick, Md., in 1993-94, it wasn’t until a visit back to Maryland in 1997 that I found his grave and walked the ground near the 8th CVI monument. When I was again stationed at Fort Detrick in 2002-2007, I visited many times, including walking the area on the far side of Burnside Bridge that served as the assembly area for the 8th and the final attack trail leading away from Snavely’s Ford. In 2007, my kids and I traced the route of march for the 8th to the extent possible. It was a moving experience as we would stop along the route and contemplate what must have been going through Oliver’s mind as they crossed the rolling hills toward the Harper’s Ferry Road. Did he think that he might die in this battle? Or was he totally focused on the fighting?

From his brother’s description of the wound, we can be confident that Oliver was facing the enemy and doing his duty in those final moments. I’ve also wondered the exact spot of his death. Again, from the descriptions, I would think it was somewhere near the monument. Of course, the final assault toward the high mark at the monument was not open until very recently. I’m looking forward to returning to work at Fort Detrick this spring because I will be able to walk that trail. In fact, we are taking a family vacation in the area in April and we will make the complete journey. There’s something about walking that ground stained from America’s bloodiest day. It one of the special places of our history, and it’s personal to me through the connection with Oliver. The only comparable experience is when I had the opportunity to walk the beaches of Normandy a few years ago.

Another view of the 8th Connecticut monument at Antietam. Did Oliver Case die near here?
(Photo by Randy Buchman of Enfilading Lines blog)

Antietam death: Private Oliver Cromwell Case

2012-01-07T18:43:00.001-05:00

Private Oliver Case's marker at Simsbury (Conn.) Cemetery.

Thanks to fellow Civil War blogger John Rogers, I was able to track down the memorial marker for Private Oliver Cromwell Case of the 8th Connecticut during a early morning visit today to Simsbury (Conn.) Cemetery. Case was killed at Antietam, but as Rogers notes on his terrific blog about the soldier, there's a small chance he also could be buried at Antietam National Cemetery, where he also has a marker.

In an account uncovered by Rogers at the Simsbury Historical Society, Case's brother wrote of discovering Oliver's body after the battle.

Oliver Case's marker is high up on the hill to the left.

"He was no doubt killed instantly the bullet having passed through his head just about the top of his ears," wrote Alonzo Grove Case, a first sergeant in the 16th Connecticut. "We wrapped him in my blanket and carried him to the spot where the 16th dead were to be buried having first got permission from the Colonel of the Eighth and the 16th to do so.

"The 16th men were buried side by side in a trench and they dug a grave about 6 [feet] from them and we deposited the remains of my brother and that having first pinned a paper with his name and age on the inside of the blanket. Then they put up boards to teach with name and Regiment on them. His body lay there until December when father went there and brought the body to Simsbury where it now lies to mingle with the sole of his native town."

Rogers' chase of Case's story started 18 years ago when he purchased the Simsbury soldier's bible for $3 in Germantown, Md. Inside the front cover of the bible Case carried into battle at Antietam are these words:

"If you die, die like a man.”

It's an awesome find.

Since 1993, Rogers has tapped into sources at the Connecticut History Society, Simsbury Historical Society and elsewhere to paint an amazingly detailed picture of the soldier's life. Case enlisted in the Union army on Sept. 16, 1861, and he was dead almost exactly one year later. He was only 22 years old.

I like traipsing through old cemeteries, especially when the morning light makes photographing old gravestones pretty special. The light and blue sky were just right this morning for these Blackberry Bold shots of Case's marker, which is among his family's gravestones high up on the slope at the beautiful, historic cemetery.

Oliver Case, a private in the 8th Connecticut, was 22 years old when he was killed at Antietam.

A gift from Connecticut before they died

2012-01-06T22:38:00.000-05:00

Sophronia Barber received this thank-you note from three young Connecticut soldiers
in late 1861. (Connecticut Historical Society Civil War Manuscripts Project)

Grateful for a package from back home in Connecticut, three young soldiers sent a two-page thank-you note on patriotic stationery to their benefactor, Sophronia Barber.

'We have this day been the recipient of some mittens and stockings which we are informed you helped knit." read the letter, dated Dec. 16, 1861. "We thank you kindly for them, and as we are engaged in helping to maintain the government and wear these to keep our bodies warm, you may be assured that our hearts will warm toward those who have remembered the soldier in his need."

Signatures of privates Henry Sexton, Isaac Tuller and Martin Wadhams on
their thank-you letter home. They served in the 8th Connecticut.

Perhaps huddled in a tent to avoid the cold as they composed the letter in a camp in Annapolis, Md., the soldiers from Canton longed for an end to the war.

"May the richest of Heavens blessing rest upon the ladies who so kindly remember us," the letter continued, "and we hope that this war soon be over and none of the Stars that now are emblazoned on the Flag of our Country be effaced and we be returned to our homes again and see our friends again in a free & united country, under the same old flag the heroes of the revolution fought under."

The letter was signed by Henry D Sexton, Issac H Tuller and Martin L. Wadhams, privates in their early 20s in Company A who had mustered into the 8th Connecticut less than two months earlier.

Nine months later, each soldier was dead, the fate of at least 620,000 men during the Civil War.

Memorial in Canton (Conn.) Cemetery
for soldiers from Canton who died during the
Civil War. The names of Henry Sexton, Isaac Tuller
and Martin Wadhams appear on the reverse.

A teacher before the war, Sexton died, apparently of jaundice, three weeks after he and his Canton pals sent their thank-you note to Ms. Barber.

Oliver Case, a private in the 8th Connecticut, wrote movingly to his sister of his friend's death aboard a ship transporting Burnside's Expedition to North Carolina. (Check out this terrific post on Case's graphic letter at John Rogers' excellent blog on the soldier from Simsbury, Conn.)

"About three he had a spasm and rushed out of his bunk," Case wrote about Sexton. " I had no control of him as he could handle me like a child. ...It was very difficult to get anyone to take hold of him as they seemed to be afraid of him. It took five of us to hold him and keep him from tearing his face with his hands. He would bite at us and froth to the mouth, making a horrid noise all of the time. I stayed over him twenty four hours in succession before his death. I never saw anything so horrible in my life and if it had not been for the sailors I do not know what I should have done."

Tuller, a farmer, died on April 9, 1862 of unknown causes. And Wadhams, a teamster, was killed at Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862 during the Union army's ill-fated attack on the extreme left that Wednesday afternoon. Wadhams' body was identified two days after the battle, following the rebels' retreat into Virginia.

In a letter excerpted on this excellent 8th Connecticut Infantry site, Wolcott P. Marsh described the horrific scene where the Federals suffered hundreds of casualties.

"About 9 o'clock A.M. Friday we were ordered across the bridge and on to the field where the battle of Wednesday was," the captain in the 8th Connecticut wrote nine days after the battle. "The rebels having skedadled the night before and our forces were then following them up capturing many of their rear guard. We stacked arms and details were sent from different to pick up the dead so that could be buried together. I went up where our regit. was engaged and there what a sight. 30 men from our regit. alone lay dead in a little field and near by was 42 Zouaves (9th N. Y.) and many more from other regit.

"The first man I came to of my company was Charles E. Louis my acting orderly. (Blogger's note: probably Charles E. Lewis.) Then Corp. Truck my color corporal and close by them lay Dwight Carry, Herbert Nee, Horace Rouse and Mr. Sweet all of my company then passing on to Co. A. were the body's of Oliver Case, Orton Lord, Martin Wadhams and Lucius Wheeler then to Co. K. saw Jack Simons body the only one whose name remember had all body's brought from hill down by several straw stacks."

Perhaps like men of the 16th Connecticut killed at Antietam, the bodies of men in the 8th Connecticut were buried in well-marked, temporary graves so they could be more easily retrieved by family members. I could not find a record of Wadhams' burial in Connecticut, so maybe he's in an unmarked grave at Antietam National Cemetery.

The soldiers' names on the Canton Civil War memorial, which was dedicated in 1903.

As I read the letter from the three young men this morning at the Connecticut Historical Society, their story was brought full circle for me. Nine months ago, I wrote this short post about the Civil War memorial near the entrance of Canton Cemetery in Collinsville. On a large plaque on one side are the names of 39 soldiers from the area, including Sexton, Tuller and Wadhams, who died during the Civil War. Now I have a tangible connection to the three men from Canton, a short distance from my home.

Like Wadhams, the final resting places of Tuller and Sexton are unknown.

Henry D. Sexton's occupation was listed as teacher in the 1860 U.S. census.

Letters home: 'Your husband to death'

2012-01-03T18:24:00.000-05:00

Many of John Holwell's Civil War letters to his wife are part of the
Civil War Manuscripts Project at the Connecticut Historical Society.

Like thousands of other Civil War soldiers, John C. Holwell wrote letters home.

Lots of them.

Often colorful and sometimes eloquent, the letters to his wife and sons back home in Connecticut mentioned preserving the Union, fishing, life in camps, the pleasure of receiving a family photo and even a pledge to stay away from "Demon Liquor."

"I have not got a drink of rum since I left Hartford or any other kind of spirits," the corporal in Company H of the 11th Connecticut wrote Rebecca Holwell on March 23, 1862, "but I should liked very much to had a good horn the day after battle as we needed it badly."

And, of course, he wrote of fighting the rebels.

Envelope for a letter John Holwell wrote to his wife, Rebecca, back in
Norwich, Conn. (Connecticut Historical Society)

The 11th Connecticut's first major battle of the Civil War didn't come until March 14, 1862, nearly four months after the regiment was organized in Hartford. Attacking at New Bern, N.C., an important link in the Confederate supply chain, the Union army overwhelmed the outnumbered and ill-equipped rebels. The 11th Connecticut suffered six killed, including the well-regarded Edwin. R. Lee, a captain of Company D from Barkhamsted.

Holwell, who also served in the Mexican War, evidently was a better soldier than he was at gathering intelligence on the enemy.

"It was a wander we were not cut to pieces as the rebels had three times our number and stood behind giant breast works," he wrote of the New Bern battle in the March 23 letter. "But thank God I have escaped unhurt."

From the manufacturing town of Norwich, Holwell enlisted in the Union army on Nov. 21, 1861 and was mustered into Company H as a private two days later. John, a ropemaker before the war, and Rebecca had two children, Henry and Edward. Listed as 5 years old in the 1860 U.S. census, Eddie apparently was the apple of his father's eye.

His last name misspelled "Howell," John Holwell was listed as a ropemaker in the
1860 U.S. census. Holwell was married and had two children. (CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)

In his letters home during the Civil War, Howell often mentioned his children.

"Kiss Edward and Henry for me and I hope they will be good boys," he wrote in one letter "...I will bring them a handsome present when I come home."

"Your dagerreotype and the children's look very natural and I was very glad to receive them. ..." he wrote in another. "I hope little Eddy will keep on going to school and be smart. The men down here all like his picture and praise it up highly."

TOP: The 11th Connecticut crossed this ground near Burnside Bridge
in this image taken by Civil War photographer James Gibson after
the Battle of Antietam. (Library of Congress Collection) BOTTOM:
Holwell was among nine men in Company H of the 11th Connecticut
listed as killed in the Hartford Courant on Sept. 26, 1862.

Thankfully, many of Holwell's letters home have survived, tucked away in a file in a box at the Connecticut Historical Society. I don't have a photo of John Holwell to accompany this post, but I think his letters to his family back in Connecticut, including the snippets below, help paint a picture of a hard-nosed patriot and a family man caught up in the swirl of a terrible war.

March 17, 1862 (from New Bern, N.C.) : "Rebecca, you wrote to know how we were living. We live a soldiers life. It is a hard life but what a soldier should expect. The day of the battle we had nothing at all to eat and had nothing till the next day. But I am pretty tough and can stand it pretty well. We have not received any money since January 1st. I hope you will get along and not want anything. Write and let me know if you need anything. We shall probably be paid in a short time.

"Please write soon and let me know all the children get along. Send Edward to school for I expect he will sometime endure all that I have gone through. Sing the "Red, White and Blue" till all the southern states have laid down their arms and our flag waves over every place in the Union. Do not get discouraged but keep up good courage. I want to come home but not till the whole south has laid down her arms. It will not be very long."

March 23, 1862 (from New Bern, N.C.): "I want you to send me a small parcel by express. Send me three yards of braid. Blue about about one inch and three yards half-inch wide blue and three yards half-inch wide red. I want it for stripes as I have been promoted to Corporal. Send me some fish hooks and lines. This is a good place to fish if we get to stop here."

June 30, 1862 (from New Bern, N.C.): "Do not at all be alarmed because we may go in a battle. That is what we came here for. We do not expect to run or shirk any duty."

July 14, 1862 (from Newport News, Va.): "I am now enjoying first-rate health. I hope you and the children are well. All the things you sent me in the box came in first rate and were acceptable on board the boat when we had nothing else to eat. I have no more to write now. Give my best respects to the neighbors. Tell Eddie to keep on going to school and be a good boy. If we succeed in reaching Richmond I shall soon be home to see him."

Nearly six months after he concluded a letter with "your husband to death," the ropemaker from Norwich was killed during the 11th Connecticut's attack at a small, stone-arch bridge over Antietam Creek.

Corporal John C. Holwell was one of 36 11th Connecticut men who died at the Battle of Antietam.

He was 41 years old.

His final resting place is unknown.

John Holwell concluded his March 23, 1862 letter to his wife with these words. Nearly
six months later, he was killed at the Battle of Antietam. (Connecticut Historical Society)

Antietam visit: David Reel Farm

2011-12-29T20:42:00.002-05:00

This barn on the David Reel farm took a direct hit from Federal artillery during the
Battle of Antietam, killing many of the Confederate soldiers who were being treated there.
(Top photo: Library of Congress Collection)

I have long been fascinated by Alexander Gardner's photo of the ruins of the barn on the David Reel Farm at Antietam. Located off Taylors Landing Road midway between Sharpsburg and the West Woods, the farm today is in private hands and is usually inaccessible to battlefield tourists. (Ranger-led walks are sometimes held near the farm in the spring.) I first read about the terrible story of what happened at the farm in William Frassanito's excellent, ground-breaking book "Antietam: The Photographic Legacy of America's Bloodiest Day" about 30 years ago.

Located just behind Confederate lines, the barn -- which was used as a field hospital -- took a direct hit from Federal artillery and caught fire, killing many of the wounded inside. In a search of the barn after the battle, local boys found human bones and lumps of melted lead, perhaps from bullets those soldiers were carrying. (1). Being careful not to trespass, I took the present-day shot of the barn from my car. I hope to learn more about what happened there during a visit to Antietam in the spring.

(1) The Battlefield of Antietam, Oliver T. Reilly, 1906, Page 26.

My top 10 Civil War posts of 2011

2011-12-25T11:56:00.000-05:00

Van Buren Towle, a private in the 1st Massachusetts Heavy Artillery, died shortly after
being paroled from a Confederate POW camp. He was buried at sea.

Because the end of the year isn't complete without a top-10 list, I compiled my own. Here are the 10 most-trafficked posts on John Banks' Civil War blog in 2011:

1. Faces of the Civil War: Van Buren Towle (May 26): It took some digging in the National Archives to tell the story of Towle, a private in the 1st Massachusetts Heavy Artillery who was captured in Virginia in 1864 and sent to the notorious Rebel prisoner-of-war camp in Andersonville, Ga. Amazingly, his brother also was in Andersonville. A document in the Archives confirmed the circumstances of Towle's death after he was paroled from prison. "On board U.S. Transport 'Northern Light," a War Department casualty sheet reads, "and was buried at sea."

Earl Roulette's great-grandfather, William, owned this farmhouse at
Antietam. Many wounded soldiers were treated at the farm.

2. Gettysburg hidden history (May 6): If you know where to look, you'll discover a Gettysburg few ever see. Park volunteer Dick Kolmar helped me find a rock carving in the Spangler Spring meadow made by a North Carolina soldier.

3. Battle of Antietam memories: The Roulettes (May 14): Several years ago, I got to know Earl Roulette, who farmed in Sharpsburg, Md., for decades and whose great-grandfather owned a farm that bordered Bloody Lane at Antietam. Earl, who died in 2008, had a wealth of the knowledge about the battlefield. Many of the relics he and his ancestors collected over the years were donated to the Park Service at Antietam after Earl's death. Hopefully, they will be displayed there someday.

4. Faces of the Civil War: Justus Wellington: (June 5): A private in the 15th Massachusetts, Wellington was killed in the West Woods at Antietam. He's probably buried under a gravestone marked "Unknown" at Antietam National Cemetery in Sharpsburg, Md. The shoemaker from West Brookfield, Mass., was only 24 years old.

5. Faces of the Civil War: George Bronson (June 15): Special thanks to Mary Lou Pavlik of the Torrington (Conn.) Civil War Roundtable who supplied the photo and stories of her great-great grandfather, who was a hospital steward in the 11th Connecticut. His description of the 11th Connecticut's fight across Antietam Creek at Burnside Bridge sticks with me: "I do not know the name of the creek, but I have named it the creek of death," he wrote his wife.

The ornate front of John Griswold's gravestone in
Old Lyme, Conn. The captain in the 11th Connecticut
was mortally wounded at Antietam.

6. Faces of the Civil War; Share your photos, stories (Dec. 10): Care to share a photo of one of your Civil War ancestors? I'd love to tell their story. I enjoyed making the collage of soldier photos.

7. Brothers: Connecticut's Civil War sacrifice (Nov. 30): I have found eight sets of brothers from the state who died during the war, an incredible tragedy. An ancestor of three brothers from Litchfield who were killed during the Civil War e-mailed that their deaths still affect her family today.

8. Faces of the Civil War: John D. Griswold (Nov. 16): A captain in the 11th Connecicut, John Griswold was mortally wounded while attempting to cross Antietam Creek during the Battle of Antietam. Thanks to an ancestor, I got into the small, private cemetery to view Griswold's beautiful grave marker.

9. Faces of the Civil War: The Bingham brothers (Nov. 26): A New England antiques dealer supplied much of the information for the story on these brothers from East Haddam, Conn. John Bingham of the 16th Connecticut was only 18 years old when he was killed at Antietam. He served in the 16th with his brother, Wells, who was physically unharmed but no doubt never got over the carnage he witnessed there. Friends of Wells gave him a special gift in memory of his brother 14 years after the 1862 battle.

10. Faces of the Civil War: The Hincks Family (July 31): An ancestor of the Hincks brothers supplied the stories of Elisha, Edward and William Hincks. William won the Medal of Honor for valor at Gettysburg. Brothers Elisha and Edward were wounded at Antietam.

Lt. Perkins Bartholomew: Bloody, alone, dying

2011-12-22T23:07:00.000-05:00

In a four-page letter to his mother six days before his death, Perkins Bartholomew wrote of the
dangers of war, picking cotton for his Aunt Sarah and his interest in having his photo taken.
Connecticut Historical Society Civil War Manuscript Project. (CLICK TO ENLARGE.)

In probably his last letter home, 23-year-old Perkins Bartholomew wrote his mother in Connecticut from a camp near Petersburg, Va.

"Dear Mother, your letter dated Oct. 17, 64 arrived at hand last night and I was muched pleased to here from you and to here that you was well ..."

As Bartholomew sat in his tent near a roaring campfire, he could hear the booming of cannon and the firing of Union pickets less than a mile away.

The dangers of war always seemed near.

Bartholomew's impressive signature at the bottom of a letter to his mother.
(Connecticut Historical Society) CLICK TO ENLARGE.

"It is nothing unusual for a man to get wounded in his tent," the first lieutenant in the 14th Connecticut wrote on the morning of Oct. 22, "and yesterday morning about 4 o'clock there was a man in the 10th New York that was at the privy and there was a ball [that] struck him in the head and wounded him and he fell in and was there for hours ..."

In the neatly written, four-page letter to his mother, Bartholomew also mentioned plans to have his photo taken in nearby City Point to send back home to "let you see how I look as an officer" and picking cotton for Aunt Sarah and perhaps being home in a month or two.

"I will close," he wrote, "hoping to hear from you soon. Give my love to all."

Five days later, the young soldier lay in the rain in a muddy trench, bloodied and alone in enemy territory, after being shot late in the afternoon during the Battle of Boydton Plank Road. A bullet tore through his haversack and ripped through his side. It was impossible for the nearly surrounded Union troops to carry Bartholomew from the field for more than an hour, according to one account (1), and the wounded soldier was a hopeless case anyway.

A brittle fragment of the 14th Connecticut regimental flag in a file with
letters about Perkins Bartholomew at the Connecticut Historical Society.

The next morning, Perkins Bartholomew, a carpenter before the war, died behind Confederate lines. Because Union troops were greatly outnumbered in rebel-held territory, his body was left behind for the enemy to bury by the plank road. The remains of the young soldier from New London were never returned home, the terrible fate of many soldiers during the war -- including this 20-year-old man from Connecticut whose story is also told on this blog.

On the brink of becoming a captain (2), Bartholomew was hailed in resolutions adopted by officers of the 14th Connecticut as a "generous and noble comrade, a gallant and faithful officer and self-sacrificing patriot who fell at the head of his command, fighting in defense of the flag he loved."

I chanced upon a file on Bartholomew at the Connecticut Historical Society last Saturday afternoon while doing research on John and James Willard, brothers from Avon, Conn., who also died during the Civil War.

Three pieces of history, yellowed and brittle with age, stood out in the file: the letter from Bartholomew to his mother; a letter from a comrade to the dead soldier's sister; and a hauntingly sad letter from an officer in 14th Connecticut to Caroline Bartholomew explaining the circumstances of her son's death and why he was left behind enemy lines. (Amazingly, the file also included an extremely fragile 6 x 4-inch fragment of the 14th Connecticut regimental flag.)

In the 1860 U.S. Census, Bartholomew's occupation was listed as a carpenter. He had two
siblings: Carrie and John. His mother, Caroline, was 40 years old in 1860. (CLICK TO ENLARGE.)

The letters offer a fascinating glimpse into a soldier's final hours and a war that caused so much heartache, especially in Connecticut, which lost more than 5,000 men during the rebellion.

Horace Brown, a private in the 14th Connecticut from New Haven, was well-acquainted with "Perk," as he was known to many in the regiment. Sometime after his friend was wounded, Brown and several volunteers carried Bartholomew to a house about a mile away. Alone for a period of time after he was shot, the dying man asked Brown to stay with him after the other soldiers were forced to flee.

"He was all the time talking about his mother and how he would like to sea her," Brown wrote in a four-page letter to Carrie O'Neal about her brother's final hours a month earlier. "I saw the sergeant and asked what he thought of his wound and he told me he couldn't live but not to tell him for it would make him worce so I tryed cheer him all that I could ..."

In a letter to Bartholomew's sister, Private Horace Brown of the
14th Connecticut wrote of "Perk" wanting to see his mother
after he was wounded. (Connecticut Historical Society)
CLICK TO ENLARGE.

But the letter to Caroline Bartholomew is the most poignant. I imagine it was like one of thousands of such letters sent to relatives of soldiers -- North and South -- who died during a Civil War that claimed the lives of at least 620,000 men.

William B. Hincks, who earned a Medal of Honor for valor at Gettysburg, was the adjutant for the 14th Connecticut. Although he wasn't present at the Battle of Boydton Plank Road, he wrote a detailed account of Bartholomew's death to his mother. The soldier from Bridgeport, Conn., had plenty of experience with the grim duty of informing relatives of the deaths of their loved ones.

"I know that it ... is very hard that he was not brought in and that we had to leave his burial to the enemy," he wrote in a letter dated Nov. 13, 1864, "but remember that we were in the enemy's country miles away from our own lines, the enemy upon almost every side of us in greatly superior numbers."

Trying to soften the blow, Hincks seemed to take pains to explain to Mrs. Bartholomew that her son did not suffer.

In a letter to Perkins Bartholomew's mother,
14th Connecticut adjutant William B. Hincks
wrote that her dying son "suffered no
pain except from the cold and wet."
(Mollus collection)

"He vomited occasionally," he wrote. "He had his senses perfectly and remained conscious of his condition. We had but two or three officers but one of them detailed a number of men to carry him away. The ambulances had all gone back with wounded men before. The lieutenant of the ambulance train agreed to send back an ambulance for him and did so. But it was an uncommonly dark night and rainy and the ambulance got lost in the woods and never found him."

Hincks wrote of how a soldier retrieved Bartholomew's shoulder straps and memo book and noted the lieutenant's last words. ("Tell my mother I die like a man fighting for my country.") The officer explained that her son had "the love and respect of us all," and "we sympathize with you in your grief."

And he also made a vow.

"...I think I can promise you in the name of the few officers who are left in the 14th," Hincks wrote, "that if it ever lies in our power we will have his remains sent home to Connecticut."

Sadly, that never came true.

(1) Letter from 14th Connecticut adjutant William B. Hincks to Mrs. Caroline Bartholomew, Nov, 13, 1864
(2) Memorial of Deceased Officers of the 14th Regiment Connecticut Volunteers, Henry P. Goddard, 1872, Page 25

History up close: In Willard brothers' footsteps

2011-12-20T21:32:00.000-05:00

Civil War soldiers John and James Willard lived in this house in Avon, Conn.

I told the story last week of a woman from Avon, Conn., who honored Civil War soldier John Willard by putting a scoop of Connecticut dirt on his grave at the national cemetery in New Bern, N.C.

The Willard house dates to 1760. Middle: The well-worn
front step may be original to the house. Bottom:
Revolutionary War-era buttons recently discovered
on the property by a local relic hunter.

Thanks to the generous current owners, I spent time this afternoon in the beautiful Avon house where John and his brother, James -- who also died during the Civil War -- lived with their mother. Jim and Maureen Dowse, who have lived in the 251-year-old house the past 10 years, also helped fill in gaps in the lives of both brothers and their family.

Damaris Williard, the matriarch of the family, endured her share of tragedy before and during the Civil War. Her husband Julius, a physician, died in September 1854, seven years before the start of the rebellion. Her youngest son, James, was only 20 when he was killed during the 7th Connecticut's rare nightime attack on Fort Wagner, near Charleston, S.C., on July 11, 1863. James, a private in Company A, was originally reported to have been missing and taken prisoner, but his body was never recovered. (1)

Fifteen months later, Damaris lost her eldest son.

Thirty-two-year-old John Willard was a wagoner in the 11th Connecticut, transporting ammunition, medicine, food and other supplies to help keep the Union army running. In late September and early October 1864, a yellow fever epidemic ripped through the Union army in New Bern, N.C., killing many soldiers -- including John. A farmer before the war, he died on Oct. 3, 1864, and was buried in New Bern. Sadly, his mother probably didn't have the means to return his body to Connecticut.

Maureen Dowse obtained copies of some of the trove of documents on the Willard brothers at the Avon Free Public Library. They reveal a family probably not atypical of most during the Civil War.

1860 census: Widow Damaris Willard lived with her sons, John (top) and James Willard (bottom).
(CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)

Fifty-four-year-old Widow Willard was dependent on John and James, so the enlistment of two sons in the army in 1861 undoubtedly was a hardship for her. But like any good sons, the brothers endeavored to help their mother while they were away at war. In notes to Damaris during the war, James wrote about sending money home and thoughts of not surviving the conflict: (2)

Jan. 14, 1862: "When we were at Hilton Island I sent fifteen dollars thinking you might need it."
June 10. 1862: "If I never get home, I wish you to have what property I have, and use what you need of that I send."
"I wish you to use what you want of the money that I send, and have sent, and if I never get home I wish you to have this, and what I have sent."
April 21, 1863: "I will send sixty dollars. Do what you think best with the money."

In the spring of 1863, John Willard, a wagoner
in the 11th Connecticut, sought a furlough to return home.
(CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)

John, whose 3-year-old son Frank died five months before the war, also longed for home and his wife, Cordelia. In fact, in the spring of 1863 while he was in New Bern, he requested a furlough because "he was anxious to return home." (3) There is no record in the file I examined whether the furlough was granted.

Because James left no widow or children, Damaris Willard applied for a Mother's Pension after his death, and Uncle Sam evidently provided her with an $8-a-month-pension for many years. Widow Willard was 89 years old when she died June 5, 1890. She is buried in West Avon Cemetery near her husband Julius and the memorial markers for her sons, whose remains were never returned to their native soil.

(1) Hartford Courant, Oct. 20, 1864
(2) Mother's Application for Pension document, Jan. 8, 1869.
(3) Furlough document, April 19, 1863

Damaris Willard's husband, Julius, died seven years before the start of the Civil War. Her sons,
John and James, died during the conflict. Widow Willard lived in this house for many years.

Happy holidays from Connecticut

2011-12-20T09:30:00.000-05:00

Using my Blackberry, I photographed this Civil War memorial on Moodus green,
near East Haddam, Conn. Happy holidays!

A 'special bond' with a Connecticut soldier

2011-12-17T22:30:00.000-05:00

Anita Marcotte is not related to Civil War soldier John Willard, but she feels a
special bond with him. She stands by his memorial marker in West Avon (Conn.) Cemetery.

Although the last shots of the Civil War were fired 146 years ago, the most traumatic event in our nation's history still tugs at us.

Anita Marcotte, a 40-year resident of Avon, Conn., knows that feeling.

Close-up of John Willard's memorial in Avon, Conn.
He died of yellow fever in New Bern, N.C. on Oct. 3, 1864.
He is buried in a national cemetery in New Bern.

A little more than three decades ago, Marcotte wandered through West Avon (Conn.) Cemetery after dropping off her young son at daycare at a church nearby. While there, she discovered the well-worn headstones of two brothers from Avon who served -- and died -- during the Civil War: James and John Willard.

Curious, she intently examined these beautifully carved words on John's marker:

Died
In the service of his Country
in Newbern, N.C.
Oct. 3, 1864
Aged 32
He is buried in that City.

"John's struck me as I am from Cherry Point, N.C.," said Marcotte, whose father served in the Marines during World War II, Korea and Vietnam. "... I never had heard of any battles fought there, and I could not figure out how he died there.

"I tried to find his grave on one visit to New Bern, but the town hall had burned down and no records were available to me. They sent me to the town cemetery where Civil War soldiers were buried. A nice sexton showed us to the area where these graves were, but I had no luck. I finally told him that John Willard was a Northerner, to which he replied: 'We don't bury any Yankees here!'

Although she's not related to the Willards, Marcotte decided to do some digging -- and thus plunged into a search that wasn't completed until more than a decade after she first found the brothers' granite markers.

This document shows John Willard was discharged
for physical disability on Feb. 9, 1864. The period
from February to his death merits further research.
(Conn. Historical Society) CLICK TO ENLARGE.

John Willard, a 28-year-old farmer, enlisted in the Union army on Oct. 23, 1861, six months after the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter in Charleston, S.C. The oldest son of Julius and Damaris Willard was mustered into Company D of the 11th Connecticut Infantry a month later in Hartford. John, who stood 5-10 and had blue eyes, brown hair and a dark complexion, was a wagoner in the 11th Connecticut, transporting ammunition, medicine, food and other supplies to help keep the massive Union army running. (1)

With the 11th Connecticut, John saw his share of the horrors of the Civil War during battles at Antietam and Fredericksburg. But nearly a year before the war started, John and his wife, Cordelia, faced a personal tragedy. Their 3-year-old son, Frank, died. (2)

Like his brother, James was probably caught up in the patriotic fervor of the day. He enlisted on Aug. 20, 1861, and nearly a month later was mustered into Company A of the 7th Connecticut Infantry as a private. From October 1861 to July 1863, the 7th Connecticut fought in small engagements against Confederates in fortifications along the South Carolina coast.

On July 11, 1863, the 7th Connecticut was part of a rare night attack against Fort Wagner, near Charleston. (A week later, in an attack made famous in the movie Glory, the black troops of the 54th Massachusetts were defeated after a fierce battle at Fort Wagner.) Greatly outnumbered, the Connecticut regiment suffered 105 killed, including the 20-year-old son of a physician from Avon. James' body, perhaps thrown into a burial trench by the rebels afterward, was never recovered.

"He sleeps where he fell," the memorial marker in West Avon Cemetery notes.

John Willard's occupation was listed as a farmer in the 1860 U.S. census. His
17-year-old brother James' occupation was listed a laborer. John's 3-year-old
son, Frank, died later that year. He is buried to the left of John's marker.

A little more than a year later, the Willards lost another son.

Yellow fever swept through the Union army in New Bern, N.C., in the late summer and early fall of 1864, killing many soldiers. "In the history of this rebellion, no city which has been captured and occupied by our forces, situated as far North as New Berne, North Carolina, has been visited by a sweeping pestilence so completely decimating as the late terrible scourge of yellow fever," wrote a Union doctor in a book on the epidemic published in 1865. (3)

Among the victims was John Willard, who had transferred to North Carolina in late winter 1864. Likely contracting the disease in late September, the farmer from Avon died Oct. 3, 1864. His body was not returned to Connecticut, perhaps because his family didn't have the means.

"After the epidemic had passed, there remained two trunks of gold and silver watches, and a safe containing thirty thousand dollars left by these poor victims, " according to a post-war history of Connecticut's Civil War service, (4)

Markers for the Willard brothers are adjacent to each other in West Avon (Conn.) Cemetery.
Neither brother, however, is buried in Connecticut.

Nearly 130 years later, Anita Marcotte finally discovered John Willard's final resting place in North Carolina. "I felt like he wanted to come home," said Marcotte, who sensed from her research that John was very homesick.

Before her visit to the tidy national cemetery in New Bern, Marcotte went back to West Avon Cemetery, grabbed a handful of dirt from near John Willard's marker and stored it away for a visit South.

After arriving at the national cemetery, Marcotte asked a caretaker for permission to honor the young man who died nearly 700 miles from home.

"The man at the cemetery said it was OK to put it on his grave," Marcotte said, "so I dug a little hole and placed the dirt there.

"I feel a special bond with him."

(1) John Willard's pay voucher certificate, Feb. 9, 1864, Connecticut Historical Society Civil War Manuscripts Collection.
(2) Letter from Virginia Willard, a descendant of the brothers, to Anita Marcotte.
(3) The Great Epidemic in New Berne and Vicinity, W.S. Benjamin, 1865, Page 3
(4) The Military and Civil History of Connecticut During the War of 1861-65, William Augustus Croffut, John Moses Morrism, 1869, Page 711

Several members of the Congregational Church of Avon who served in the Union army died
during the Civil War, including John Willard of the 11th Connecticut and James Willard
of the 7th Connecticut. West Avon Cemetery is out of the photo to the right.

Best of my 2011 Civil War photos

2011-12-15T23:04:00.000-05:00

Factory complex in Collinsville, Conn. Collinsville Co. supplied axes and more to the Union army.
CLICK TO ENLARGE ALL PHOTOS.

Another view of the old Collinsville Company.

Spring sunrise at Antietam National Battlefield.

Springhouse at Roulette Farm at Antietam is bathed in warm morning light in this shot
taken in October. This photo is not quite tack sharp, but I just have a Blackberry to shoot with!

This broken gravestone of "Darling Allie," in Center Cemetery in Rocky Hill, Conn., is
next to the grave of Jarvis Blinn, who was killed at Antietam.

Using special effects on picnik.com, the photo of West Avon (Conn.) Congregational Church is
turned into a "painting." Civil War soldiers are buried in the cemetery next to the
church, including many from the congregation.

The 16th Connecticut monument at Antietam.

Ornate gravestone of John McCall of the 8th Connecticut in Yantic Cemetery in
Norwich, Conn. McCall, wounded at Antietam, was killed at Drewry's Bluff.

A ghostly salute, Blackberry in my hand, at the graves of Sergeant Charles Lewis and his
fiancee, Sarah Hyde, at Carey Cemetery in Canterbury, Conn. Lewis was killed at Antietam.

Faces of the Civil War: Private Charles H. Walker

2011-12-13T23:59:00.000-05:00

Charles Walker of the 8th Connecticut Infantry posed for this image in a
photographic studio on Main Street in Norwich, Conn., his hometown. Walker
survived Antietam physically unharmed. (Photo: Matthew R. Isenburg collection)

As the 8th Connecticut Infantry came under intense artillery and musket fire from its front and both flanks during the latter stages of the Battle of Antietam, one of its color-bearers was shot.

Another man picked up the flag and he, too, was wounded.

And then another man grabbed the flag with the same result.

And then another.

And another.

Charles Walker's signature appears on the reverse of his CDV image.
(Matthew R. Isenburg collection)

Finally, Charles H. Walker, a 20-year-old private from Norwich, courageously grabbed the fallen national colors and "seized them in a storm of death." In a singular act of defiance, he planted the flag and shook it out before the rebels as the enemy advanced. (1) Flag-bearers were prime targets for soldiers on both sides of the war.

"Twenty men are falling every minute," a history of Connecticut's service in the war published in 1869 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." (2)

Ordered to fall back, Walker, clutching the flag, and the hundred or so remaining members of the 8th Connecticut retreated from the field. Although whipped by the rebels, no regiment of the Ninth Corps advanced farther on the left flank, a fact trumpeted in post-war accounts. "By their stubborn fight they have saved many others from death or capture," the post-war history noted, "and by their orderly retreat they save themselves."

A C.H. Walker from Norwich, aged 18, is recorded in the 1860 census. (CLICK TO ENLARGE.)

Incredibly, Walker survived physically unharmed but no doubt shocked by the carnage. The 8th Connecticut suffered 34 killed, 139 wounded and 21 missing that Wednesday afternoon just outside Sharpsburg, Md.

For his courage on Sept. 17, 1862, Walker earned a prominent mention in an after-action report written by Major John Ward two days later. "I will notice particularly the conduct of Private Charles Walker, of Company D," Ward wrote, "who brought the national colors off the field after the sergeant and every corporal of the color-guard were either killed or wounded." Walker's action probably was the reason for his promotion to ordnance sergeant of Company C one month after the great battle.

As an anonymous reader of this blog
pointed out, the star denotes Charles Walker
was promoted to an ordnance sergeant.

On a trip back to Connecticut after his promotion, Walker plunked down a couple bucks at a Norwich photographic studio at 103 Main Street, where he proudly posed wearing his uniform with sergeant's stripes for a carte-de-visite image. On a break from the war, Charles may have been in Norwich visiting his parents, Francis and Mary, who had three other younger children: Worthington, Abby and Henrietta. The Walkers lived on Cliff Street, and Francis was employed as a cabinetmaker; Mary was a housekeeper. (3)

Walker, who had originally enlisted in the Union army in September 1861, re-enlisted on Christmas Eve 1863. He apparently fell out of favor with superiors early the next year, as he was demoted to private on Feb. 22, 1864. Walker was mustered out of the Union army on Dec. 12, 1865, eight months after Lee surrendered to Grant in Appomatox, Va.

(1) The Military and Civil History of Connecticut During the War of 1861-65, William Augustus Croffut, John Moses Morris 1869, Page 272-73
(2) Ibid
(3) 1860 U.S. Census

Faces of the Civil War: Share your story, photos

2011-12-10T19:44:00.001-05:00

Holding a kick-butt Bowie knife, Wiley S. Boon is the only Confederate soldier in this collage.
A private in the 35th North Carolina, he was killed at Malvern Hill on July 1, 1862.
I told his story here. Stories of the other soldiers featured are on my Faces of the Civil War thread.

From Captain John McCall of the 8th Connecticut (killed at Drewry's Bluff) to Private Justus Wellington of the 15th Massachusetts (killed at Antietam) to Private Van Buren Towle of the 1st Massachusetts Heavy Artillery (POW, died after he was paroled), the stories of nearly 30 Civil War soldiers are told on the Faces of the Civil War thread on my blog. Some of the photos that accompany the stories are from my collection of hard images; others are supplied by readers. If you have a photo and story of a Civil War soldier you would like to share, please e-mail me here. I'll feature reader contributions in the coming weeks.

Faces of the Civil War: Lieutenant Marvin Wait

2011-12-09T23:00:00.000-05:00

Left, Marvin Wait as a private after he enlisted in Union army on Oct. 3, 1861. Right, Wait
shown as a lieutenant in Company A of the 8th Connecticut. He was promoted on Dec. 24, 1861.
Wait, 19, was killed at Antietam. (Photos: Matthew R. Isenburg collection)

As bodies poured back into Connecticut in the terrible aftermath of Antietam in late September and early October 1862, funerals for soldiers were held in towns all over the state.

Marvin Wait's gravestone in Yantic Cemetery in
Norwich, Conn., about 50 miles south of Hartford.

"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.

In Norwich, about 40 miles southeast of Hartford, one of the more impressive services was held for a teen-age lieutenant in the 8th Connecticut Infantry named Marvin Wait. Even the governor of Connecticut attended the funeral.

Described as a "brave, noble-hearted man and highly esteemed by all who knew him," Wait was killed late in the afternoon of Sept. 17, 1862 as the Ninth Corps made an ill-fated push toward the small Maryland farming community of Sharpsburg. (1)

As he urged on his men of Company A, Wait, sword in hand, was struck by a bullet in the right arm and later in the left arm, leg and abdomen. Helped to the rear by a private and the chaplain of the 8th Connecticut, Wait was wounded yet again by a shot that went through his side and pierced his lungs as he lay near a low stone wall. (2)

Wait's refusal to leave the battlefield after initially being wounded may have cost him his life.

"If Lieutenant Wait had left the battle of his own accord when first hit in the arm, all would have been well," Captain Charles Coit, also of Norwich, wrote after the battle, "but he bravely stood to encourage his men still further by his own example, and at last nobly fell pierced by bullet after bullet." Wait's last words to a private who helped carry him to the rear were: "Are we whipping them?" (3)

Just 19 years old, the son of a prominent Norwich lawyer and state politician was one of 194 men in the 8th Connecticut killed and wounded that Wednesday during the Battle of Antietam. Wait's body, "plundered by the rebels," was buried on the battlefield, the spot marked so it could be found. (4) Because he was an officer and from an influential family, the army likely sent Wait's body back to Connecticut, where his father, John, and mother, Elizabeth, grieved with his younger sisters Ann, 16, and Mary, 9.

A wartime image of William Buckingham.
The Connecticut governor gave a speech at
Marvin Wait's graveside service.
(Photo: Matthew R. Isenburg collection)

When word of Wait's death reached Norwich, the town passed resolutions of regret and the Norwich Daily Bulletin printed a long, glowing article. "His death brings a peculiar and poignant sorrow," the newspaper wrote of the first commissioned officer from the town who was killed during the Civil War.

On Wednesday, Oct. 1, 1862, the young man who planned to become a lawyer, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, was finally laid to rest. A private service was held late that morning in the house of Wait's parents in Norwich, and mourners later gathered at 2:30 p.m. at the white-washed First Congregational Church, just off the town green. Wait's sword and cap, as well as flowers, were placed atop his flag-draped coffin in the small church vestibule. After a reading of scripture by two local reverends and the singing of a hymn by the church choir, prominent local attorney George Pratt, who once worked in John Wait's law office, eulogized the young soldier.

"What words can add beauty to such life, or what praise enoble such a death?" Pratt said of Wait. "When we think of those who fell on on that field, we count them all heroes -- we name them all among the brave." (5)

Following the church service, a long procession of carriages, escorted by the Norwich Light Infantry, accompanied the teenager's coffin to Yantic Cemetery, about a mile and a half away. In a graveside speech before a large crowd that included the mayor, Norwich city council and line officers of the 26th Connecticut, Governor William Buckingham spoke of the "glory of dying for such a cause."

On Oct. 1, 1862, a service for Wait was held at First Congregational Church in Norwich, Conn.
Above right, the church in the 1860s. Wait's coffin was placed in the church vestibule (middle right).
The sanctuary is shown at bottom right. (Old church photo: Matthew R. Isenburg collection)

As Wait's coffin was lowered into the grave, the Norwich Light Infantry fired three volleys.

Nearly eight months after Wait was buried, a "beautiful monument" was crafted by Norwich's C.D. Corbett in his workroom on Water Street. (6) Made of Italian marble and seated on a three-foot block of granite, it is adorned with the carving of a shield and crossed swords and muskets on one side; two flags and an outstretched arm holding a signal officer's glass are carved on the opposite side. The names of four battles in which Wait participated appear in raised letters near the bottom of each side of the monument.

Although the impressive, 7-foot white marker for Marvin Wait is worn by the elements over the past 149 years, these words can still be read near the bottom:

ANTIETAM.

"He died with his young fame about him for a shroud."

(1) Memorial of Marvin Wait, Jacob Eaton, 1863
(2) Ibid
(3) Ibid
(4) Norwich Morning Bulletin, Sept. 29, 1862, Page 2
(5) Ibid
(6) Norwich Morning Bulletin, May 14, 1863, Page 2

A close-up of Wait's gravestone in Yantic Cemetery in Norwich, Conn.

Close-ups of Marvin Wait's gravestone reveal the craftsmanship of a stonemason long ago.

Book review: 'Strange And Obscure Stories'

2011-12-06T21:53:00.000-05:00

Suggested list price $14.95, but cheaper here.

Full disclosure: I attended college with the author of "Strange And Obscure Stories of the Civil War" (Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.) In fact, if memory serves me correctly, Tim Rowland and I snoozed through at least a couple Journalism 101 classes at West Virginia University back in the days immediately after the Civil War ended. The good news: One of us turned out OK.

Rowland, a humorist and a columnist for several newspapers, has turned out a gem of a book on the Civil War. It's not focused on blood and guts (although there's some of that), Lee's tactics at Gettysburg, why the Emancipation Proclamation was a really good thing or who turned whose right flank when. Instead, Rowland has mined the dusty archives of the Internet (and a library or two) for tales that have been overlooked by the Shelby Footes, Bruce Cattons and James McPhersons.

Weird, bizarre, obscure -- it's all packed into this 203-page stocking stuffer for the Civil War buff. But this book, as Rowland notes, isn't just a bunch of "fun facts." With a good dose of humor and wittiness, Rowland weaves together tales that we can relate to today.

Tim Rowland

"My first fear was that there wouldn't be enough material for a book on irony and wit," the author writes. "A couple months into the project, my fear was that that there was no room for it all. So many aspects of this war were so damn strange."

Rowland uncovered a whole bunch of strangeness. And so here's my chance to write two words that I've never used before ...

To wit:

The story of Sarah Emma Edmonds, one of perhaps 1,000 women who disguised herself as a man and served during the war. 'Dropping one's pants," Rowland writes, "was not a part of army entrance exams in a war that needed every warm body it could get." Edmonds -- a "complicated girl, according to the author -- made a major contribution to the Union effort. (And, yes, there's a photo of Edmonds in the book.)
It was not a good war to be a horse, the backbone of the armies. The average Civil War horse lived from four to eight months, Rowland writes, and more of these animals died (1 million) than men (618,000) during the rebellion. Horses were often popular targets during battle, and the sight of these dead and dying animals, their entrails hanging out, had a profound effect on some soldiers.

It was not a good war to be a horse.
(Library of Congress collection)

Joe Blow Civil War buff knows all about how Dan Sickles screwed up royally at Gettysburg, where the colorful and incompetent Union general had part of his leg blown off. (By the way, you can visit it here.) But I had no clue Sickles once introduced a hooker to English royalty. He was one wacky man. Yes, you'll enjoy Chapter 9.
Only recently did I come across accounts of Confederate artillery men stuffing railroad iron into cannons and firing away at Antietam. (Imagine being the target of one of those flying chunks of metal.) Rowland included that nugget in an 11-page chapter on weapons technology. An aficionado of all things that go bang, I could have read 10 more pages. But that's just a quibble.

For 15 bucks (or cheaper here and here), you'll get a book you can digest in one sitting or skim and not feel guilty. Unlike that long-ago J-school class, this book is no snoozer.

Antietam death: Private John Bingham's grave

2011-12-03T15:56:00.001-05:00

The Bingham brothers: Wells and John
served in Company H in the 16th Connecticut.
John, only 18 when he was killed at Antietam,
is probably the one on the right. (Photos courtesy
of Military and Historical Image Bank)

A farmer from East Haddam, Conn., Elisha Bingham undoubtedly had high hopes for his nine sons. Perhaps he planned to turn over running the family farm to one of them after he and his second wife, Martha, were incapable of handling those arduous duties.

Like most parents, the Binghams surely didn't want to outlive their children, who ranged in age from 1 to 22 when the Civil War erupted on April 12, 1861. (1) But the plans of many Connecticut families were altered by the war. Six of the Bingham's sons -- Alonzo, Charles, William, Eliphalet, John and Wells -- eventually joined the Union army. Tragically, two of them died during the conflict: 18-year-old John at Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862 and 21-year-old Eliphalet in Virginia on May 1, 1864.

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

Close-up of a flag on John Bingham's
well-worn gravestone.

Last Saturday, I told the story of John and his brother, Wells, who was barely 16 years old when he enlisted. The brothers were mustered into Company H of the 16th Connecticut on Aug. 24 1862. Less than a month later, they found themselves in farmer John Otto's 40-acre cornfield at Antietam, undoubtedly scared out of their minds. Company H was employed as videttes to look out for the enemy. (2) But John, Wells and the rest of their rookie regiment were overwhelmed by A.P. Hill's veteran soldiers, who smacked into their left flank unobserved that afternoon after marching 17 miles from Harper's Ferry. John was killed sometime during the fight.

Two days after the battle, soldiers of the 16th Connecticut were assigned to gather and bury the dead. John Bingham's broken body might have been among them. "This was a very unpleasant duty, making many of the men sick," according to a post-war history of the 16th Connecticut. (3) "Forty of the men were buried that afternoon side by side, under a large tree, near the stonewall, where the hardest of the battle was fought."

Because John was only a private, the Binghams probably had to arrange for the return of their son's remains to East Haddam, a small town about 30 miles south of Hartford. Twenty-one months later, the Binghams probably went through that awful duty again after Eliphalet died in Virginia from a cause I have not been able to establish.

Outliving John and Eliphalet by nearly 20 years, Elisha Bingham died on June 19, 1882 at age 67. He's buried to the left of his sons in Little Church Cemetery.

(1) Some Account Of The Cone Family in America: Principally Of The Descendants, William Whitney Cone, 1903, Page 111
(2) History of the Sixteenth Connecticut Volunteers, B.F. Blakeslee, 1875
(3) Ibid.

The grave of Private John Bingham of the 16th Connecticut (center) in Little Church
Cemetery in East Haddam, Conn. John's brother, Eliphalet, is buried at right. The
grave of his mother, Martha, is at left. Eliphalet served in the 1st Connecticut Heavy Artillery.

Another view of John Bingham's gravestone. The beautiful First Church of Christ, perhaps
the site of the funeral services for John and brother Eliphalet, is in the background.

The names of John and Eliphalet Bingham appear on this Civil War memorial on the Moodus Green
in East Haddam, about three miles from the graves of the brothers. (CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO.)

Brothers: Connecticut's Civil War sacrifice

2011-11-30T19:31:00.001-05:00

Each number on this map represents a Connecticut town in which a family lost at least two
sons during the Civil War. Numbers denote a story below. (CLICK TO ENLARGE.)

Five years of conflict.

Eight sets of brothers.

Seventeen separate Civil War tragedies.

The siblings from Connecticut whose stories are told below died far from their hometowns in such places as New Bern, N.C., Sharpsburg, Md., and Florence, S.C.

They died from gunshot wounds, disease ... or worse. Two of them lingered for weeks after being wounded, dying in their hometown. Two were only teenagers. One man's fiancee died almost exactly a month after he was killed in battle. Most left behind a wife and children. At least five were not even returned to their home state for burial. One soldier's brother and father died in service for their country during the war.

Who knows what all the ripple effects were of the deaths of these soldiers during the most tragic five years in American history?

In an e-mail to me more than two years ago, an ancestor of a set of these brothers wrote that their loss is felt in her family even today. I'm not surprised.

Luman, Edward and Henry Wadhams: The brothers died in Virginia in 1864.

1. LITCHFIELD: The Wadhams brothers

In late spring 1864, Deacon Adams made several trips to the farmhouse of Edwin and Mary Wadhams, not far from the center of Litchfield, to deliver terrible news.

One of the Wadhams' sons had died.

Then another.

The Wadhams brothers' marker at West Cemetery
in Litchfield, about 35 miles west of Hartford.

And another.

Within an 18-day span, three Wadhams sons were killed in battles near Richmond.

The first to die was Edward, a 27-year-old sergeant in the 8th Connecticut who was killed at Fort Darling on May 16. Ten days later, Henry, a 33-year-old lieutenant in the 14th Connecticut, was killed at North Anna River. Finally, Luman, the well-regarded captain in the 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery, was mortally wounded at Cold Harbor on June 1. Carried off the field by fellow soldiers using muskets as a makeshift stretcher, Luman died in an ambulance two days later en route to White House Landing, Va. He was 29 years old.

Luman's funeral service, held at the Congregational Church opposite the Litchfield village green, was "crowded to its utmost capacity by sympathizing friends, and large numbers of strangers from out of town came to pay their respects to the lamented deceased." (1)

Luman is buried beneath an impressive, white marker in Litchfield's West Cemetery. Perhaps his brothers are buried there too, although that merits more research. On a side of the marker are these words:

"The battle is fought, the victory won. Rest, soldiers, rest."

Edwin Lee (left) is buried in Barkhamsted, Conn. His brother, Henry, is buried under in an
unknown grave in Virginia. (Photos John Lee of Hartford Co. and His Descendants)

2. BARKHAMSTED: The Lee brothers

A captain in the 11th Connecticut Infantry, Edwin Lee was just 28 years old when he was struck and killed by an artillery shell on March 14, 1862 at the Battle of New Bern (N.C.). Before he died, Edwin reportedly said: "Tell my brother I died at the post of duty. Good-by. Go on for your country!" (2) He was buried near the battlefield and later disinterred and brought back north for re-burial at Riverside Cemetery in Barkhamsted, about 20 miles northwest of Hartford. Edwin's brother, Henry, was killed on Aug. 16, 1864 at the Battle of Deep Run (Va.). His final resting place is Fort Harrison National Cemetery, near Richmond, where his body lies with many other Union soldiers whose tombstones are marked "Unknown." The 35-year-old lieutenant in the 7th Connecticut, described as a "brave, faithful, uncomplaining soldier," left behind a wife and four young children. (3)

Brothers John and James Willard have memorial markers in West Avon Cemetery, next to
West Avon Congregational Church. Each man, however, is buried elsewhere.

3. AVON: The Willard brothers

Two weather-worn markers stand in West Avon Cemetery in memory of John and James Willard. Sadly, neither brother's final resting place is back home in Connecticut. James, a 20-year-old private, was killed in the 7th Connecticut's attack on Fort Wagner, near Charleston, S.C., on July 10, 1863. He was buried on the battlefield, perhaps thrown into a trench by the enemy. The son of Julius and Damaris Willard "sleeps where he fell," according to his cemetery marker. John, a 32-year-old wagoner in the 11th Connecticut, died of yellow fever in New Bern, N.C., on Oct 3, 1864, and according to his marker, he is "buried in that city."

4. BERLIN: The Bacon brothers

Medal of Honor marker next to Elijah Bacon's grave
in Maple Cemetery in Berlin, Conn.

On July 3, 1863, Private Elijah William Bacon of the 14th Connecticut was a hero at Gettysburg, snatching the colors of the 16th North Carolina during Pickett's Charge. Less than a year later, on May 6, 1864, he was killed in action at the Wilderness. Posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for valor at Gettysburg, Elijah left behind a wife, Eliza, and two daughters. Elijah's brother, Andrew, was captured in early May at Ely's Ford, Va., and sent to Andersonville, the notorious Rebel prisoner-of-war camp in Georgia. After being transferred from Andersonville, Andrew died on Jan. 25, 1865 at a POW camp in Florence, S.C. He and his wife, Marissa, had no children. The brothers are buried in Maple Cemetery in Berlin, about 15 miles south of Hartford.

5: EAST HARTFORD: The Flint brothers

Alvin Flint Jr.

Death was no stranger to the Flint family during the Civil War. In the winter of 1861-62, Alvin Flint Jr.'s mother and sister died of consumption in East Hartford. Just 18 years old, Alvin joined the 11th Connecticut as a private on Oct. 1, 1861. Less than a year later, he too was dead, killed in the 11th Connecticut's fruitless attack at Burnside Bridge at Antietam. The loss was no doubt excruciating for 53-year-old Alvin Flint Sr., who had enlisted in the 21st Connecticut along with his 13-year-old son, George, in August 1862. "Hardly had the sadness of the death of a dear daughter, that I had lost last January, worn off when this sad, sad calamity should come upon me," he lamented in a letter published in the Hartford Courant on Oct. 29, 1862. In another unbelievably tragic turn of events, Alvin Sr. and young George died of disease within several days of each other in mid-January 1863. In a 13-month timeframe, five family members -- including two brothers -- were dead. They are all buried in Center Cemetery in East Hartford.

6. COVENTRY: The Talcott brothers

A private in Company D of the 14th Connecticut, 26-year-old Henry Talcott was wounded when an artillery shell burst near a wall in the lane leading up to William Roulette's farmhouse, wounding three other men and killing three in his company. (4) Samuel, Henry's 20-year-old brother, also was severely wounded at Antietam; he lingered for several weeks before he died on Oct. 14, 1862. Samuel was buried in Center Cemetery in his hometown of Coventry, about 25 miles west of Hartford. "After the services the congregation viewed the remains," the Hartford Courant reported on Oct. 27, 1862, "and the sad procession slowly wended its way to the cemetery. The flag draped in black was borne by the members of the Sunday School Class of Talcott, to whom he was strongly attached." Like his brother, Henry also lingered for several weeks before he died on Nov. 10. He is buried to the right of his brother in the family plot.

Close-up of Samuel Talcott's gravestone. The 20-year-old private was mortally
wounded on Sept. 17, 1862. He died four weeks later.

7. EAST HADDAM: The Bingham brothers

John Bingham was killed at Antietam. Wells Bingham survived.
Another brother, Eliphalet, died during the Civil War.
It's unclear which brother is which in these photos.
(Photo courtesy of Military and Historical Image Bank)

A little more than a month after he enlisted in the Union army on Aug. 7, 1862, 17-year-old John Bingham, a private in the 16th Connecticut, was killed at Antietam. Younger brother Wells, also a private in Company H of the 16th Connecticut, apparently survived Antietam physically unscathed, but the memory of that terrible day was probably seared into the 16-year-old boy soldier's brain the rest of his life. Three other Bingham brothers served during the Civil War, including Eliphalet, who died May 1, 1864 at Arlington Heights, Va. It's unclear whether he died of a battle wound, disease or another cause. John and Eliphalet are buried at First Church Cemetery in East Haddam, about 50 miles southwest of Hartford. Apparently upset over a failing business, Wells committed suicide in 1904.

8. CANTERBURY: The Lewis brothers

A sergeant in Company F of the 8th Connecticut, Charles Lewis -- described as a man who "had always fought in the front ranks" -- was killed at Antietam. (5) His fiancee, 21-year-old Sarah Hyde, died nearly a month later, on Oct. 16, 1862, and is buried next to Charles at Carey Cemetery in Canterbury. "They had been brought up together in life, in death they were not divided," the Hartford Courant reported on Oct. 24, 1862, "and together they sleep the last sleep." Charles' brother, Albert, was a 28-year-old corporal in the 5th Connecticut. Captured at Winchester, Va., on May 24, 1862, he was a prisoner of war for four months before he was paroled. Like other Union POWs who were paroled or released -- see my blog post on Wallace Woodford of Avon -- Albert no doubt was in poor health when he finally returned home to Canterbury. Discharged because of a disability on Dec. 15, 1862, he died on March 23, 1863.

Charles Lewis, a sergeant in the 8th Connecticut killed at Antietam, is buried next to his
fiancee, Sarah Hyde, at Carey Cemetery in Canterbury, Conn.

(1) The Litchfield Times, June 1864
(2) The Military and Civil History of Connecticut During the War of 1861-65, William Augustus Croffut, John Moses Morrism 1869, Page 175
(3) Barkhamsted And Its Centennial, William Wallace Lee and Henry Roger Jones, 1881, Page 175
(4) History of the Fourteenth Regiment, Conneticut Volunteer Infantry, Charles Davis Page, Page 43, 1906
(5) The Military and Civil History of Connecticut During the War of 1861-65, William Augustus Croffut, John Moses Morris 1869, Page 272, Page 277

Connecticut Day at Antietam on April 21, 2012

2011-11-30T06:00:00.000-05:00

The 14th Connecticut monument at Antietam.

On April 21, 2012, Antietam National Battlefield is the place to be if you're interested in Connecticut's service during the Civil War. To honor the men of the 8th, 11th, 14th and 16th Connecticut regiments who fought in the farm fields and woodlots outside Sharpsburg, Md., "Connecticut Day at Antietam" will be held that Saturday. Among the activities will be appearances by Connecticut reenactors, readings by descendants of letters of soldiers who fought at Antietam, a wreath-laying ceremony at Antietam National Cemetery and much more. For more information, click here, call 860-489-1618 or e-mail bpavlik@mac.com.

Faces of the Civil War: The Bingham brothers

2011-11-26T20:50:00.000-05:00

The Bingham brothers of East Haddam, Conn. Teen-age privates in Company H of the
16th Connecticut, John was killed at Antietam and Wells survived the war. It's unknown
which brother is which in these images. (Photos courtesy Military and Historical Image Bank)

Just teenagers when they joined the Union army, the Bingham brothers fought at Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862. One brother was killed. The other survived, and 14 years later, he received a unique gift in memory of his dead brother: a piece of folk art that may hold a rare Civil War relic from the bloodiest day in American history.

The story of this secretary, recently purchased by a New England antiques dealer, starts with the Bingham boys, John and Wells. From East Haddam, Conn., about 30 miles southeast of Hartford, they enlisted as privates on Aug. 7, 1862. Seventeen days later, John, 17, and Wells, barely 16, were mustered into Company H of the 16th Connecticut Infantry. (1)

The secretary was given to Wells Bingham by friends in 1876 to honor the
memory of his brother, John, who was killed at Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862.

The physical and mental burden of having two teenage sons in the army undoubtedly took a toll on Elisha and Martha Bingham, who had seven other children ranging in age from 3 to 24 by August 1862. Elisha, who married Martha in 1857 after his first wife died, supported his large family as a farmer, and his sons were likely an integral part of the farm. By August 1864, four other Bingham sons were in the Union army: Eliphalet, 21; Charles, 22; William. 24; and Alonzo, 26. (2)

Like most Civil War soldiers, the Bingham boys probably knew little of the rigors of army life before the war. In fact, before the 16th Connecticut shipped off for New York on Aug. 29, 1862 en route to its final destination in Washington, they probably never had traveled far from East Haddam. Barely trained and unfamiliar with how to use weapons, the Bingham brothers' rookie regiment found out soon enough about the horrors of the Civil War.

In early September 1862, John and Wells marched with the 16th Connecticut from their camp at Fort Ward outside the capital to join the Army of the Potomac in Maryland. The regiment was under sporadic artillery fire at Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862 until it was ordered to attack the Confederates left flank late that Wednesday afternoon.

The result was disastrous.

After marching 17 miles from Harper's Ferry, A.P. Hill's veterans struck the raw 16th Connecticut in the left flank in the 40-acre cornfield of a farmer named John Otto. In the massive confusion of their first battle, many Connecticut soldiers broke and ran, a stigma the regiment never erased. Out of 779 men and boys, the 16th Connecticut suffered 43 killed, 161 wounded and 204 captured or missing.

The clock on top of the secretary includes
the words "The Union Preserved."

Among the dead was a farmer's son, 17-year-old Private John F. Bingham.

Although the memory of the death of his brother and many other comrades probably was seared into his brain the remainder of his life, Wells Bingham apparently escaped physically uninjured.

Fast forward to April 20, 1864.

Part of a hugely outnumbered Union garrison at Plymouth, N.C., most of the 16th Connecticut men surrendered and were sent to the notorious Confederate prisoner-of-war camp in Andersonville, Ga. But just before they waved the white flag that Wednesday, Professor Lesley Gordon wrote in a terrific account, "Lt. Col. (John) Burnham ordered the regimental flags destroyed, and the poles buried. It was one thing to have an entire regiment captured; but to have one’s colors seized was especially dishonorable. Burnham dispatched Color Cpl. Ira Forbes and Color Sgt. Frank Latimer to tear the flags into shreds and distribute them to the men."

The Connecticut men who survived kept the pieces of flag throughout their imprisonment in Andersonville.

Fast forward again to the end of the war.

In a huge stroke of luck, Wells Bingham escaped the hell of imprisonment in the South because he had returned to Connecticut to recruit soldiers and was not in Plymouth when the 16th was captured. "Could not have been happier ... if I had been chosen to be a Major General," he wrote in a post-war assessment of that period. Wells was discharged from the army on July 8, 1865. His older brother, Eliphalet, wasn't as lucky. According to one account, he died in Arlington Heights, Va., on May 1, 1864. (Another account indicates he died in Fredericksburg.)

In a post-war assessment of his Civil War service, Wells Bingham expressed his happiness
at avoiding capture at Plymouth, N.C. (CLICK TO ENLARGE.)

On July 4, 1876, a little more than 11 years after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, friends of Wells Bingham presented the Civil War veteran with a one-of-a-kind gift in memory of his dead brother, John. Evidently sparing no expense, the handcrafted 8-foot secretary is made predominantly of walnut and oak. Spelled out in cattle bone on the ornate front are the words "Antietam" and "Sept. 17, 1862," as well as John F. Bingham's name. A Ninth Corps badge is mounted between the "18" and "76." The knobs are bird's-eye maple with bone inset circles. A clock, crowned with an eagle and including the words "The Union Preserved" near the base, is mounted on top. When the inside right front door is opened, "Yankee Doodle Dandy" plays on a music box.

And on the plaque just below the bookshelf are these words:

Is this a piece of the 16th Connecticut regimental
flag that was carried at Antietam? This star on a
cloth is encased in a tin on the front of the secretary.

"Presented to Wells A. Bingham by his friends. The secretary a rememberance of his brother John F. Bingham who offered up his life at Antietam, Maryland Sept. 17, 1862. The encased star a remnant of the colors carried that day by the 16th Infantry. The memory plaque made from a shard of his knife."

After the war, the remaining pieces of the 16th Connecticut's regimental flag were reassembled by Andersonville survivors. That flag, now on display in the Hall of Flags at the State Capitol building in Hartford, is missing stars. Could the star from the secretary be one of the stars missing from the cherished flag that was carried through the smoke of battle at Antietam? Or does it belong to another flag?

It merits further research ... or it could remain one of history's small mysteries.

A footnote: Wells A. Bingham died on Aug. 16, 1904. He was 58.

His death was ruled a suicide. (3)

(1) American Civil War Research Database
(2) Some Account Of The Cone Family in America: Principally Of The Descendants, William Whitney Cone, 1903, Page 111
(3) New York Times, Aug. 17, 1904

A plaque on the front of the secretary notes that John F. Bingham "offered up his life at Antietam."

Detail of the front of the secretary, including images of Lincoln and Washington.

John F. Bingham's name is prominent on the front of the secretary.

Faces of the Civil War: Captain David Acheson

2011-11-25T16:26:00.001-05:00

David Acheson (right), pictured with his friend, George Laughlin (left), and Alexander Sweeney,
another member of the 140th Pennsylvania. Acheson was killed at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863.

Killed at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863, David Acheson was buried on the battlefield in a temporary grave next to a rock on which a comrade carved the 22-year-old captain's initials. After venturing through a soggy field, I found that off-the-beaten path site in early May. On a foggy Thanksgiving morning, I located Acheson's final resting place in a cemetery in Washington, Pa.

One of nine children of Alexander and Jane Acheson, Acheson served in 12th Pennsylvania Infantry, a three-month regiment, until he was mustered out on Aug. 5, 1861. (1) Nearly a year later, Acheson, a popular student at Washington College (now Washington & Jefferson College), re-enlisted and helped raise a company of men for the 140th Pennsylvania Infantry.

Acheson is buried in Washington Cemetery in Washington, Pa., near Pittsburgh.
He attended Washington College before the war. (Photo at right courtesy donnan.com)

One of the most promising young men in his college class, Acheson recruited "the names of many of the best and brightest young men of the town and its environs, a large number of whom were college students or men of more than ordinary education and intelligence." (2) He was elected captain of Company C and two friends who had served with him in the 12th Pennsylvania -- Isaac Vance and Charles Litton -- were named first and second lieutenants.

During the intense and confusing fight in the Wheatfield at Gettysburg on July 2, Acheson was shot twice and killed. "A man of fine physique and of rare nobility of character, he was greatly beloved by all who knew him," a post-war history of the 140th Pennsylvania noted. "His First Lieutenant, Isaac Vance, lost his left hand in the same engagement." (3)

In the 1860 U.S. census, David was listed as one of nine children of Alexander and
Jane Acheson. Three of David's brothers also served during the Civil War.
Alexander Acheson was a judge and prominent attorney in Washington, Pa.
(CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)

After the Wheatfield fighting was over, Acheson was left behind Confederate lines, but his comrades recovered his body after the battle and buried him in shallow grave about a quarter-mile away on the John Weikert Farm. To mark the spot so his body could be recovered later, a soldier carved the initials "D.A." on a large rock next to Acheson's temporary grave.

To mark David Acheson's temporary gravesite, a soldier
carved the 22-year-old captain's initials on
this rock on the John Weikert Farm at Gettysburg.

Thanks to that man whose name is lost to history, Acheson's family was able to locate the gravesite 10 days after the battle and take his body back to his hometown in Washington, Pa., about 25 miles south of Pittsburgh. One of four Acheson brothers to serve during the Civil War, David was later re-buried on a hillside in Washington Cemetery, about a mile from the center of town and Washington & Jefferson College.

On the front of Acheson's grave is a verse from the 23rd Psalm:

"Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me."

Several years after the war, a veteran from Company C deepened the initials in the rock at Gettysburg and carved 140 PV, a reference to their regiment. Among hardcore Civil War buffs, the Acheson Rock is well known, as is the story of his death. He's even the subject of this book. David Acheson's tragic story is a neat slice of history and one of the reasons the Civil War is so fascinating.

(As I shot the video above, I was watched intently by several nosy cemetery guests: three deer and several wild turkeys.)

(1) American Civil War Research Database
(2) History of the One Hundred and Fortieth Reigment Pennsylvania Volunteers , Robert Laird Stewart,Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: The Regimental Association, 1912.
(3) Ibid

This doe was interested in my work at Washington Cemetery.

Antietam visit: JFK at Burnside Bridge

2011-11-22T20:40:00.013-05:00

President Kennedy flew to Sharpsburg, Md. by helicopter from nearby Camp David to visit the
battlefield. This 1963 photo, now part of a wayside exhibit at Antietam, was shot at Burnside Bridge.

This photo of President Kennedy with Antietam National Battlefield acting superintendent Robert Lagemann is part of the wayside exhibit in the parking lot above Burnside Bridge. Kennedy, assassinated 48 years ago today in Dallas, visited the battlefield on April 7, 1963, spending about 90 minutes there with a small party that included his brother, Sen. Ted Kennedy, and the senator's wife.

In this seven-minute, silent film of Kennedy's visit that is available on the JFK Presidential Library site, it's amazing to see the president, in an open car, tour the battlefield without drawing a huge crowd. It was a much, much different era. (Check out the car crossing Burnside Bridge at about the five-minute mark. The bridge was closed to vehicular traffic in 1966.) The president, a history buff, visited Gettysburg the previous Sunday with his wife, Jackie. There's a terrific account of JFK's Gettysburg stop on the outstanding Gettysburg Daily blog.

Faces of the Civil War: Captain John McCall

2011-11-19T22:23:00.012-05:00

John McCall, a captain in Company K in the 8th Connecticut, was killed
at Drewry's Bluff, near Richmond, on May 16, 1864. He is buried in
Yantic Cemetery in Norwich, Conn.

McCall was wounded and captured at
Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862.
(Photos Mollus collection)

In researching backgrounds of Civil War soldiers, I often find accounts of the last words of dying men.

After he suffered a mortal wound at South Mountain, Union General Jesse Reno told his friend, General Sam Sturgis: "Hallo Sam, I am dead.!" Sturgis thought Reno was joking and replied: "Oh, no, General, not so bad as that I hope" Reno reponded: "Yes, yes, I'm dead. Goodbye!"

Captain Edwin Lee of the 11th Connecticut, after being struck by an artillery shell at New Bern (N.C.), said: "Tell my brother I died at the post of duty. Good-by. Go on for your country!"

Mortally wounded at Antietam, Captain John Griswold of the 8th Connecticut told General Ambrose Burnside: "I am happy, general. I die as I have ever wished to die, for my country."

And Captain John McCall blurted out after he was shot through the heart at Drewry's Bluff in Virginia: "I shall be dead in a minute!" McCall then fell backward and died. (1)

Are these stories romanticized, spot on or a mix of truth and fiction? History can often be untidy, but it's another reason I find the Civil War so riveting.

The Civil War story of John McCall, whose grave I visited this afternoon, is compelling too.

Born in Bozrah, Conn., on June 3, 1835, McCall was the second of four children of Stephen and Judith Ann McCall. The McCalls resided in Norwich, a major manufacturing town about 60 miles southeast of Hartford. A burgeoning textile and armaments industry, as well expansion of New England railroads, fueled the town's economy during the Civil War.

A year before the first shots of the war were fired at Fort Sumter in South Carolina, the McCalls apparently were gainfully employed. Stephen supported his family as a carpenter, perhaps working in one of Norwich's many mills, and John was an engineer. His younger brother, Asa, was a machinist while oldest sister Amoret was a teacher. John's youngest sister, Sarah, was an 18-year-old student. (2)

In the 1860 U.S. census, John McCall's occupation was listed as engineer. He was the second
of four children of Stephen and Judith Ann McCall. (CLICK TO ENLARGE.)

Like thousands of other Connecticut men, John McCall heeded the call of his country and on Aug. 28, 1861 enlisted in the Union army. Well-regarded by his peers, McCall was elected sergeant and mustered into Company D of the 8th Connecticut Infantry on Sept. 21, 1861. After the 8th Connecticut fought in two battles in North Carolina in the spring 1862, it was assigned to the Army of Potomac on July 2, 1862.

On Sept. 17, 1862 at Antietam, McCall, promoted to lieutenant a month earlier, and the 8th Connecticut advanced farther than any other Union regiment on the left flank. But the Connecticut men were unsupported and soon crushed by a Rebel counter-attack.

"No reinforcements come. Twenty men are falling every minute. Col. Applemen falls bleeding. John McCall falls bleeding," a book published in 1869 on Connecticut's role in the war noted. "...Men grow frantic. The wounded prop themselves behind the rude stone fence, and hurl lead vengeance at the foe. Even the chaplain snatches the rifle and cartridge-box of a dead man, and fights for life." (2) Wounded in the leg, McCall became a prisoner of war but was later paroled and exchanged, although I have been unable to uncover more details.==

In the video, I should have noted McCall was indeed a captain by the end of the war. Also, McCall was 28 when he died, not 27.

the final months of his life, McCall -- described as an officer who "possessed all the prominent characteristics of a good soldier" -- continued to distinguish himself. (3) He was promoted to captain of Company K on Feb. 7, 1863. During the siege of Suffolk, Va., he led an attack on Fort Huger on April 19, 1863, crossing the Nasemond River in a daring daylight attack.

After he was killed May 16, 1864 at Drewry's Bluff -- "a battle fought in the midst of an Egyptian fog" -- McCall's body was returned to Norwich, where he was buried with military and Masonic honors in Yantic Cemetery. Hartford, Fishkill and Providence Railroad employees who worked with McCall before the war helped cover expenses for his beautifully carved tombstone, now well-worn by the elements. (4)

On the back it includes these words:

"He sacrificed his life upon the altar of his country."

(1) The Descendants of Veach Williams, of Lebanon, Conn, Alexander Hamilton Wright, Page 86
(2) 1860 U.S. Census.
(3) The History of Norwich, Connecticut: From its Possession by the Indians, to the Year 1866, Frances Manwaring Caulkins, 1866, Page 665
(4) The Descendants of Veach Williams, of Lebanon, Conn, Alexander Hamilton Wright, Page 86

Close-up of the intricate carving on the reverse side of McCall's grave.

On the back of McCall's tombstone: "He sacrificed his life upon the altar of his country."

McCall's grave is among many Civil War graves at Yantic Cemetery in Norwich Conn.,
about an hour southeast of Hartford.

Faces of the Civil War: Captain John D. Griswold

2011-11-16T19:03:00.024-05:00

John Griswold's final resting place in Griswold Cemetery in Old Lyme, Conn. His
monument was described as "strikingly beautiful" in the Hartford Courant on Aug. 5, 1863.

Up to his armpits in swift-moving Antietam Creek and under fire from Georgians in woods and on the bluff above, John Griswold must have known he was living on borrowed time.

Captain John Griswold of Lyme, Conn., was
mortally wounded at Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862.

The 11th Connecticut Infantry had been ordered to storm Rohrbach Bridge and the Confederate position beyond during the Battle of Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862, but their progress was frustratingly slow. Impatient, Griswold, a 25-year-old captain from Lyme, boldly led a group of skirmishers across the 4-foot deep creek.

It was a deadly move.

"In the middle of the creek a ball penetrated his body," Griswold's friend, Dr. Nathan Mayer of the 11th Connecticut, wrote in a letter from Sharpsburg to his brother on Sept. 29, 1862. "He reached the opposite side and lay down to die." (1)

Mayer quickly summoned four privates, and together they forded the creek and climbed a fence while under fire to reach Griswold. The men carried the soaked and bloody captain to a nearby small shed, where the surgeon from Hartford gave his "ashly pale" friend morphine to ease his pain. But they both knew the wound near his stomach was mortal.

"He thanked me for my services in elegant phrase," Mayer wrote, "and attracted my attention to the number of wounded that now filled the shed, intimating that he feared that he had monopolized too much of the time of so good a surgeon on the day of battle." (2)

General Ambrose Burnside, commander of the Union left wing at Antietam and an acquaintance of Griswold, later visited. "I am happy, general," the captain said. "I die as I have ever wished to die, for my country."

Famed Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner shot this image after the battle. Soldiers
from the 11th Connecticut crossed this ground from right to left. Shot in the middle of
Antietam Creek, Griswold struggled to the opposite bank. (Library of Congress collection)

On Sept. 18, Griswold finally succumbed from his wounds, perhaps a quarter-mile away at the Henry Rohrbach farm that was used as a Federal field hospital. Griswold's death apparently had a strong effect on Burnside, who spoke about it years afterward, according to one account.

An uncommon soldier, John D. Griswold was a Renaissance man. From a prominent Connecticut family, he graduated from Yale in 1857. (He was one of many Yale men, from both sides, to die during the Civil War.) Fluent in Spanish and French, he had studied chemistry and mineralogy, enjoyed reading classical literature and was described as a skilled athlete, swordsman and draughtsman. After graduating from college, he went to Kansas to work as a surveyor and later traveled to Hawaii, where he had business, and other Pacific islands.

On July 31, 1863, the Hartford Courant included Griswold
in a list of Yale graduates who died during the Civil War.
Yale men served the North and South.

When the Civil War broke out, Griswold hurriedly returned to the mainland in September 1861. He intended to join the Union army as a private, but friends insisted he see Gov. William Buckingham, who promised him a commission and encouraged him to return to Lyme to raise a company. (3) Griswold enlisted in the Union army on Dec. 16, 1861, eight months after the Rebels fired on Fort Sumter, and was commissioned in Company I of the 11th Connecticut Infantry 15 days later.

Like many men of the era, Griswold was described as fiercely patriotic. A major recalled walking with him to place flowers on the battlefield grave of Edwin Lee, a captain in the 11th Connecticut who was killed at New Bern, N.C. on March 14, 1862. (I posted last month about Lee's death and funeral.) "Poor Lee," the major said. "Not so," Griswold said. "I say happy Lee, fortunate Lee. What life could he or any of us lead better than to die for our country! Fortunate Lee!" (4)

As he admired the beautiful countryside on the march to Antietam in September 1862, Griswold discussed with Mayer philosophy and classic literature, from De Civatate De to Les Miserables. "Whoever approached him," Mayer wrote, "felt that he had entered a circle of refinement." Despite his affluent upbringing, Griswold "was particular in extending the same courtesies to the soldiers under his command," the surgeon wrote. (5)

Perhaps it's no surprise then that a refined gentleman such as Griswold has a tombstone that is a work of art.

Griswold Cemetery is small cemetery nestled in a strip of woods in Old Lyme, an historic town about an hour southeast of Hartford on Connecticut's coast. Generations of Griswolds are buried there, including John's grandfather, an early 19th-century Connecticut governor. A flood of bodies returned to Connecticut in late September and early October after Antietam, and sometime during that timeframe, Griswold was buried in his family cemetery. Months afterward, a permanent memorial created by M. Adams in Hartford was placed atop his grave.

The Hartford Courant raved about the work, advising "lovers of art to examine it" at Adams' Hartford establishment on the corner of Market and Temple streets before it was placed on Griswold's grave.

"We have never seen a monument more strikingly beautiful; more earnestly expressive in the design contemplated," the newpaper gushed on Aug. 5, 1863. "It is truly a finished production, giving evidence of the wonderful skill of the artist."

Thanks to a Griswold ancestor who still lives in the Lyme area, I gained access to the private cemetery this morning. The Courant nailed it nearly 150 years ago. Griswold's 8-foot gray marker is indeed special, one of the more ornate and beautiful Civil War memorials I have seen in Connecticut.

Especially poignant are the words carved near the bottom.

"Tell my mother," it reads, "I died at the head of my company."

John Griswold reportedly utttered these words, which are carved into the bottom of his
memorial, after he was mortally wounded at Antietam.

(1) Hartford Courant, Oct. 6, 1862, Page 2
(2) The Military and Civil History of Connecticut During the War of 1861-65, William Augustus Croffut, John Moses Morris 1869, Pages 280-81
(3) Edward Elbridge Salisbury, Family histories and genealogies. A series of genealogical and biographical monographs on the families of MacCurdy, Mitchell, Lord, Lynde, Digby, Newdigate, Hoo, Willoughby, Griswold, Wolcott, Pitkin, Page 12.
(4) Ibid
(5) The Military and Civil History of Connecticut During the War of 1861-65, William Augustus Croffut, John Moses Morris 1869, Pages 280-81

Close-up of the top portion of John Griswold's memorial. After he was mortally wounded,
he told General Ambrose Burnside: "I die as I have ever wished to die, for my country."
Those words are carved on his memorial.

Close-up of the bottom of Griswold's memorial. The 25-year-old captain was mortally
wounded while crossing Antietam Creek on Sept. 17, 1862.

A close-up of the back of Griswold's memorial. He hurried back from Hawaii
to join the Union army in late 1861.

Antietam visit: 'Old Simon' at National Cemetery

2011-11-14T22:41:00.003-05:00

The Civil War memorial at Antietam National Cemetery, one of my favorite spots at the battlefield.

On a crisp fall day in October, I took this picture of the beautiful 44-foot Civil War monument at Antietam National Cemetery in Sharpsburg, Md. The monument was designed by a Hartford man, James Baterson, and formally dedicated on Sept. 17, 1880. The 21-foot soldier on the memorial was nicknamed "Old Simon" by local residents. His journey to Sharpsburg from the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876 was delayed a few months when he fell into the Potomac River.

The remains of 4,776 Union soldiers -- about 1,800 whose names are unknown -- are buried at the cemetery, one of my favorite places at Antietam. Perhaps Justus Collins Wellington, whose body was not returned to his hometown in West Brookfield, Mass, is buried here under a gravestone marked "Unknown." A private in Company F of the 15th Massachusetts, Wellington was killed in the fight in the West Woods.

Antietam visit: A time to reflect

2011-11-12T07:27:00.007-05:00

I took this photo at the off-the-beaten path 11th Connecticut monument at Antietam.

In this photo taken in October, the reflection of my outstretched hand holding my Blackberry pointed to Alvin Flint's name on the 11th Connecticut monument at Antietam. Throw in the sun rays, and that's a pretty neat shot. Flint, an 18-year-old private, was killed at Antietam. I will drive to Old Lyme, Conn., later this morning to find the grave of one of Flint's comrades, Captain John Griswold, who was mortally wounded near Burnside Bridge at Antietam.

A Connecticut soldier's gruesome Antietam death

2011-11-09T21:33:00.018-05:00

In the Chicopee Soldiers Record, handwritten accounts of the Civil War service of 600 men
from Chicopee, Mass., the gruesome cause of Private William P. Ramsdell death
at Antietam is noted. (Click on image to enlarge.)

As the 14th Connecticut was under fire during the Battle of Antietam, William Ramsdell quietly talked about how he preferred a quick death if he were shot. A short time later, he was killed, struck in the back of the head by a fragment of artillery shell.

In reporting a blog post that included an account of Henry and Samuel Talcott, brothers from Coventry, Conn., who died of wounds suffered at Antietam, I discovered the story of the gruesome -- and unusual -- death of one of their Company D comrades.

Benjamin Hirst (above): "The first man I
recognized was W. P. Ramsdell with the
top of his head blown off." (Company G
14th Regiment Conn. Volunteer Infantry, Inc.)

A 28-year-old private, Ramsdell was born in Belchertown, Mass., and apparently lived most of his life in that state. The son of Porter Ramsdell, William, a machinist, enlisted for three years in the 14th Connecticut on July 28, 1862. (1) His residence during the war was Vernon, Conn., about 15 miles northeast of Hartford.

On Sept. 17, 1862 -- a little more than a month after breaking camp in Hartford -- Ramsdell and the 14th Connecticut fought in the farm fields of Samuel Mumma and William Roulette on the outskirts of Sharpsburg, Md. Antietam was the first battle of the Civil War for the 14th Connecticut, which had marched from its camp near Washington only 10 days earlier.

As Company D hugged the ground by a stone wall near a lane on Roulette's farm, a sergeant overheard Ramsdell softly remark "that if he was going to be hit, he would prefer to have the top of his head blown off." (2)

"When midway between the wall and the position assigned to us, I was about the center of Fourteenth Regiment, C. V. Infantry company, urging the boys to close up, when a rebel shell came whizzing by and struck about two files in my rear," Company D Sergeant Benjamin Hirst of Vernon recounted. "As soon as I could turn I saw about a dozen men lying in a heap and the first man I recognized was W. P. Ramsdell with the top of his head blown off."

In this engraving in the Oct. 18, 1862 edition of Frank Leslie's Illustrated,
a popular newspaper during the Civil War, civilians watch as Antietam
dead are buried near Bloody Lane.

Besides Ramsdell, Company D soldiers Henry Tilley and Russell Griswold were killed by the shell and four others were wounded -- including Henry Talcott of Coventry, who died of his injuries on Nov. 10, 1862.

"Although the bursting of the shell was a great shock to regiment," the regimental history noted, "it closed up and moved on." (3)

I found a corroborating account of the circumstances of Ramsdell's ugly demise in the Chicopee Soldiers Record, a late-19th century compilation of the Civil War experiences of 600 men from Chicopee, Mass. The Chicopee Public Library recently digitized the entire handwitten ledger, a terrific resource for Civil War researchers. Although unclear, Ramsdell, who was single, apparently had ties to Chicopee.

According to the Soldiers Record, a fragment of artillery shell struck the back of Ramsdell's head and "literally tore his head in pieces." Along with his two other dead comrades, Ramsdell was buried on the battlefield -- one of at least 700 soldiers buried on farmer William Roulette's property after Antietam. Soon after the battle, Ramsdell's remains were disinterred and re-buried in Maple Grove Cemetery in Chicopee, Mass. Unfortunately, I could not find his final resting place among the many well-worn and tipped-over markers in the cemetery that dates to 1836.

In an interesting twist, a veteran from the 14th returned to the Roulette farm a few years after the battle and spotted in the ground a piece of artillery shell he believed killed his comrades. "It does not require much imagination," the 14th Connecticut regimental history noted, "to conclude that this was the same deadly missile." (4)

William Ramsdell is buried in Maple Grove Cemetery in Chicopee, Mass.

(1) Chicopee Soldiers Record, Town of Chicopee, Page 220
(2) History of the Fourteenth Regiment, Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, Charles Davis Page, Pages 43-44, 1906
(3) Ibid, Page 44
(4) Ibid, Page 44

Faces of the Civil War: Jarvis E. Blinn

2011-11-05T17:37:00.009-04:00

Jarvis E. Blinn, a captain in the 14th Connecticut, was killed at Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862.
This is a copy of an albumen. (Courtesy Rocky Hill Historical Society)

Pierced through the heart by a bullet, Jarvis E. Blinn knew it was time to meet his maker.

"I am a dead man!" the 26-year-old captain in the 14th Connecticut Infantry said moments after he was shot during fighting on the Samuel Mumma or William Roulette farms at Antietam on the morning of Sept. 17, 1862. (1)

Jarvis Blinn is buried in Center Cemetery in Rocky Hill,
Conn., about nine miles from Hartford. Blinn was born in
Rocky Hill on July 28, 1836. He later moved to New Britain.

Barely a month after he enlisted in the Union army, Blinn -- a man who had an "expression of quiet but earnest resolve tinged with a dash of sadness in his air" (2) -- was one of 38 men killed and mortally wounded in the 14th Connecticut on the bloodiest day in American history. A mechanic from New Britain before the war, Blinn left behind a wife, Alice, and a young daughter, also named Alice. (3)

Well-liked by his peers, Blinn was unanimously selected captain of Company F on Aug. 15, 1862, one week after he enlisted. After his death, his fellow officers in the 14th Connecticut described him and captain Samuel F. Willard of Madison -- also killed at Antietam --as "two brave and devoted citizen soldiers." In fact, on Sept. 27, 1862, the Hartford Courant printed a resolution submitted by 37 officers in the 14th Connecticut that eloquently praised Blinn and Willard.

"Resolved," the statement written on Sept. 20 from a camp near Sharpsburg, Md., began. "That we, their fellow officers and comrades in battle, are doing but bare justice to the memory of these brave and devoted officers, in testifying, in this public manner, to their efficiency in every public and private duty; to their earnestness and zeal in the patriotic cause for which they drew their swords; to their watchful kindness and care over the soldiers of their respective companies; and to their fraternal courtesy ever manifested in their intercourse with ourselves."

Jarvis Blinn's cracked, well-worn gravestone includes his date and place of death.

A Hartford undertaker named W.W. Roberts brought Blinn and the bodies of seven other soldiers killed at Antietam back to Connecticut in the second week of October. (4) His funeral was held at Center Church in New Britain on Oct. 14, 1862. Afterward, his body was escorted to Rocky Hill, about 10 miles away, in "one of the largest processions ever seen" in New Britain. (5) After a short service at the Congregational Church in Rocky Hill, where he was born, Jarvis E. Blinn was buried in Center Cemetery, about a quarter-mile from the church.

Today, he lies there under a cracked, well-worn tombstone, the date and place of his death still easily seen on the marker.

After a funeral service in New Britain, where Blinn resided, another service was held for him at the
Congregational Church in Rocky Hill, where he was born. Afterward, he was buried in
Center Cemetery, about a quarter-mile away. The church was built in 1808.

(1) Memorial of Deceased Officers in the Fourteenth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers, Henry P. Goddard, 1872, Page 7
(2) History of the Fourteenth Regiment, Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, Charles Davis Page, Page 51, 1906
(3) U.S. census
(4) Hartford Courant, Oct. 11, 1862, Page 2
(5) Memorial of Deceased Officers in the Fourteenth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers, Henry P. Goddard, 1872, Page 7

After Antietam: 'In death they were not divided'

2011-10-31T20:20:00.030-04:00

My shadow eerily hovers by the tilted gravestones of Charles Lewis and his fiancee,
Sarah Hyde, in Carey Cemetery in Canterbury, Conn. Lewis, a sergeant in the
8th Connecticut Infantry, was killed at Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862.

Like many women in Connecticut in September 1862, Sarah Hyde anxiously awaited news from a terrible battle in Sharpsburg, Md., more than 400 miles away.

Large, bold headlines about an awful battle
in Sharpsburg, Md. three days earlier
jumped off the front page of the
Hartford Courant on Sept. 20, 1862.

The second youngest of six children of Reverend Nehemiah and Rebecca Hyde of Canterbury, a small town about 50 miles east of Hartford, 21-year-old Sarah was engaged to a soldier from nearby Griswold. Charles E. Lewis, the 25-year-old son of Jedediah and Clarissa Lewis, was an apprentice carriage maker in 1860 and perhaps had many dealings with the reverend, a wagon maker by trade. (1)

Before marrying, Charles, like many of his peers, heeded the call of his nation and enlisted in the Union army on Sept. 9, 1861. Lewis served with the 8th Connecticut Infantry during the Burnside Expedition in North Carolina, fighting in a battle near New Bern, N.C., on March 14, before the regiment was assigned to the Army of the Potomac in early July.

On Sept. 17, 1862, Sergeant Lewis and the 8th Connecticut found themselves under intense fire near the banks of Antietam Creek, outside the small farming community of Sharpsburg, Md. Antietam dwarfed any previous battle for the men of the 8th Connecticut, who as part of the Union left flank fought their way across Rohrbach Bridge and then through farmer John Otto's fields before being overwhelmed and pushed back.

Lewis was listed as a carriage maker apprentice from Griswold, Conn., in the 1860 U.S. census.

"The wounded prop themselves behind the rude stone fence," a post-war account of the 8th Connecticut's fight at Antietam noted, "and hurl leaden vengeance at the foe. Even the chaplain snatches the rifle and cartridge box from a dead man, and fights for his life." Among those killed in the confusing fight was Sergeant Charles E. Lewis of Company F, who "had always fought in the front ranks of the Eighth." (2)

Sergeant Charles Lewis' Civil War memorial
stone in Carey Cemetery in Canterbury, Conn.
I believe he is buried beneath a gravestone
behind this marker.

On Sept. 23, 1862, the Hartford Courant printed a long list of Antietam casualties from the 8th, 11th, 14th and 16th Connecticut regiments. How Sarah received the news about her fiance is not known, but she was "sickened upon hearing his death" and soon fell into a depression. On Oct. 16, 1862 -- almost a month to the day after Charles was killed -- she also died, perhaps of a broken heart. (3)

Three days later, two funerals were held at Canterbury's Carey Cemetery, not far from the center of town. Charles Lewis, his body likely recovered from the battlefield by his family, was laid to rest in a family plot. Immediately to the right of his final resting place is the grave of his fiancee, Sarah Hyde, described by the Courant as "a bright girl of twenty-one."

"They had been brought up together in life, in death they were not divided," the newspaper reported, "and together they sleep the last sleep."

Sadly, similar scenes played out thoroughout Connecticut as bodies flowed into the state in late September and October 1862 in the awful aftermath of Antietam. Funerals in towns from Lebanon to New Britain to Middletown and Rockvillle and elsewhere were commonplace.

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

Closeups of the well-worn gravestones of Charles Lewis (left) and Sarah Hyde. Although
difficult to read, Lewis' date and place of death can still be read near the bottom of his
tombstone. Sarah died Oct. 16, 1862, almost a month after Lewis was killed at Antietam.

Some of the accounts in the Hartford Courant and Hartford Daily Courant were written matter-of-factly, others eloquently. Like the story of Charles E. Lewis, each account is incredibly sad. Here are snapshots of newspaper coverage from fall 1862:

Sept. 24: Yesterday was a day of sorrow, not only for Middletown (where the funeral took place), but for the whole State. One of Connecticut's bravest heroe's was consigned to the grave. Brig. General Joseph F. K. Mansfield, killed at the battle of Sharpsburg, and his body having been brought to Middletown, his native place, the funeral was announced for yesterday at 2 1/2 o'clock. Business in the town was generally suspended, and the stores and dwellings along the route of the procession were beautifully draped in mourning. On every side the National colors, draped in crape, met the eye. Across the main street hung in several places the American flag, also shrouded in black. Emblems of sorrow were seen in all directions."

Wadsworth A. Washburn's grave in tiny Denison Cemetery
in Berlin, Conn. Washburn, an orderly sergeant in the
16th Connecticut, was killed at Antietam. His father
retrieved his body from the battlefield.

Oct. 4: "Serg't E. A. Parmele -- The body of this much lamented young man, killed at the battle of Antietam, arrived in this city on Wednesday, and was temporarily placed in the receiving tomb of Spring Grove Cemetery. When found, the body was wrapt in the shelter tent in which he last slept. The funeral will take place at 11 o'clock to-day from his father's residence, No. 6 Chestnut street, after which the remains will be taken to Meriden for interment."

Oct. 13: "Three bodies of soldiers killed in battle, belonging to Rockville, arrived yesterday morning on the boat. We were unable to obtain their names. ... Their friends have the satisfaction of knowing that they have the sympathies of the city with them, and that their loved ones died in a glorious cause."

Oct. 13: "Rev. Mr. Washburn, of Berlin, having returned from the battle-field of Antietam with the remains of his son, Orderly Sergeant Wadsworth A. Washburn, of Co. G 16th regiment, C.V. Funeral services will be attended in the Congregational Church in Berlin, on Monday, (to-day) at 2 o'clock, P.M."

Oct. 27: "Never before have the citizens of Coventry been called upon to perform a more painful duty than they were last Thursday in cosigning the remains of Geo. W Corbit and Samuel L. Talcott, to their last resting-place. There two victims of this accursed rebellion were members of Co. D, 14th Reg't, and were wounded at the battle of Antietam, and after lingering some four weeks amid great pain and suffering have since died ... After the services the congregation viewed the remains, and the sad procession slowly wended its way to the cemetery. The flag draped in black was borne by the members of the Sunday School Class of Talcott, to whom he was strongly attached. Both of these young men were universally esteemed, and when the last call for troops was made, they manfully enlisted for the conflict."

Nov. 18: It is hardly two weeks since the citizens of Coventry performed the last sad duty of laying "neath the turf" the remains of George N. Corbit and Samuel L. Talcott, yet hardly had the sun of a fortnight set behind the western horizon, or the dread echoes of the rumbling hearse died away in the distance, than they were again called upon to perform a similar duty, and bear to his last resting place the remains of Henry Talcott, a brother and comrade of the above, and with them a victim of that blood-red field, Antietam. Finding his wound to be of too serious a nature to admit further service in the rank and file of our army, should he recover, when the remains of his fallen brother were started homeward, he obtained his discharge and came thither to seek his kindred and friends, and among the hills of his native town to recruit his fast wasting frame. But alas! his anticipations were not realized; he reached home only to breath his last, while near and dear friends tenderly watched beside him, and last Wednesday he was laid by the companions of his early days, beside his brother in the "city of the dead."

George Corbit, 25, and brothers Samuel, 20, and Henry Talcott, 26, were privates in Company D of the 14th Connecticut from Coventry. Henry was wounded when an artillery shell burst near a wall in the lane leading up to William Roulette's farmhouse, wounding three other men and killing three in his company. (4)

The death of second son was a huge blow for the Talcott brothers' parents, Erastus and Aurelia.

"Yet let us not dispair," the Courant noted in the Nov. 18, 1862 article, "the sun of Liberty will yet dawn, and its golden beams will yet shine with dazzling splendor o'er new made graves, and future generations will remember with pride those who have fallen in their country's behalf."

The brothers are buried next to each other in Center Cemetery in Coventry. Corbit also is buried there, 20 yards from the Talcotts.

The graves of the Talcott brothers, Samuel and Henry, and George Corbit are in
Center Cemetery in Coventry, Conn. Privates in Company D of the 14th Connecticut,
they died of wounds received at Antietam.

Center Cemetery in Coventry, Conn.

(1) 1860 U.S. census
(2) The Military and Civil History of Connecticut During the War of 1861-65, William Augustus Croffut, John Moses Morris 1869, Page 272, Page 277
(3) Hartford Courant, Oct. 24, 1862
(4) History of the Fourteenth Regiment, Conneticut Volunteer Infantry, Charles Davis Page, Page 43, 1906

Antietam visit: Connecticut church windows

2011-10-26T08:25:00.017-04:00

Detail of stained-glass windows donated by veterans of the 16th Connecticut to the
Christ Reformed Church in Sharpsburg, Md. The window on the right features the white flag
of the 16th Connecticut. The church was used as a hospital after the Battle of Antietam.

Stained-glass windows
from outside church.

From the outside, it looks like many small churches in the United States.

Brick facade. White double doors. Neatly landscaped property. Pointed roof and a bell tower.

But nearly 150 years ago, the Christ Reformed Church on West Main Street in Sharpsburg, Md., was anything but ordinary.

Amputated limbs littered the floor and cries of wounded soldiers filled the air as blood-spattered surgeons tirelessly worked after the Battle of Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862.

Like most churches in the Sharpsburg area after the battle, the Christ Reformed Church, built in 1832, was used as a hospital for Union soldiers. The wounded were carried into the church on planks, which were laid across the pews, and parishioners helped care for them there.

Among the men tended to were soldiers from the 16th Connecticut, an untested regiment that suffered 43 killed and 161 wounded at Antietam, its first battle of the Civil War. The 16th included men from Hartford and the small towns surrounding the state capital -- including Avon, where I live now. Most of the losses suffered by the 16th occurred in farmer John Otto's 40-acre cornfield about a mile and a half from the church. (After Gettysburg in July 1863, the church was used as a hospital by retreating Confederates heading back to Virginia.)

Christ Reformed Church in early 20th century and today.

Three decades after Antietam, the Christ Reformed Church was badly in need of remodeling. In 1890, Lizzie Miller, treasurer of the Ladies Aid Society of Sharpsburg, Md., sent a letter to Connecticut Civil War veterans soliciting their help. In part, it read:

"The members of the congregation gave all the assistance in their power in aid of the wounded after the battle. Some of you may have been the sick or wounded comrade cared for in this church. Some of the ladies of the Aid Society may have ministered to you as you languished in your bed of pain within the walls of this sanctuary.

The church was greatly injured during those trying times, and the congregation has never been able to put the building in thorough repair since the war. When vacated little remained but the walls. To repair, so as to afford a place of worship, was no little tax on the people over whose farms and homes had swept the raking destructive shot and shell from friend and foe, and what was still worse, the presence of two armies had depleted garner and cupboard. Indeed, the community has never fully recovered from the effects of the war."

We propose to give an opportunity for the Grand Army Posts whose comrades fell at this battle to put one or more memorial windows in the church to commemorate their names, and thus render this church historic. Year by year thousands of comrades visit the battlefield and we desire to make this a place of attraction, where each comrade may feel he has a personal interest."

The window donated by the mysterious
"Comrade T," perhaps a veteran of
Company H of the 11th Connecticut.

The veterans of the 16th were eager to memorialize their comrades and honor the good people of Sharpsburg who came to their aid, so they graciously donated two large stained-glass windows (cost: $400) and $100 to the church, which was re-dedicated on June 14, 1891. The windows, inset in the wall opposite the altar, measure about 25 feet by 5 feet and include the words "Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men" in the circular portion at the top. Another smaller stained-glass window, to honor the dead of the 11th Connecticut, was placed inside the entry way. It was donated by a mysterious "Comrade T," perhaps a veteran of the 11th Connecticut that fought its way across Antietam Creek. Apparently there's no record of his real name.

Delancy Catlett, pastor of the church since 2005, was kind enough to allow me to tour the church by myself on a recent Saturday morning. (See video above. I hope the Lord doesn't hold the baseball cap against me.) The church isn't on any standard tour of Antietam, although the National Park Service ocassionally takes more hardcore battlefield tourists there. Upon entering the sanctuary for the first time, I was impressed with the beautiful Connecticut stained-glass windows, especially when the sunlight streamed through them.

Closeup of the bottom left of the main window.

Extensively remodeled in 1890, the church still includes the original walls. The blood-stained floorboards dating to the battle were ripped out in the 1940s, although Catlett believes some of the original flooring remains.

On Sundays, Catlett preaches to from 15 to 40 members of his small congregation. When he thinks about the pain inflicted within the walls of his tiny church nearly 150 years ago, it boggles the pastor's mind.

"I can't fathom it," Catlett told me. "It's beyond my comprehension."

Avon's Wallace Woodford 'came home to die'

2011-10-22T14:45:00.015-04:00

Wallace Woodford, a 22-year-old private in the 16th Connecticut, is buried in West Avon
(Conn.) Cemetery. He died shortly after being released from a POW camp in 1865.

Wracked with pain, Wallace Woodford thrashed about as he tried to sleep, tormented by thoughts of his treatment by the rebels.

Woodford's parents desperately tried to nurse him back to health following his return home to Avon, Conn. on Jan 3, 1865, after eight months in Confederate prisoner-of-war camps. But the 22-year-old private in the 16th Connecticut Infantry was clearly a broken man.

Wallace Woodford is buried beneath this brownstone
marker in Avon, Conn. His parents, Corydon and
Sylvia, are buried in the same plot.

"He had been so long without proper nourishment that he was unable to eat even the most delicate morsels which his parents provided for him on his return," the Hartford Courant reported. "Continued hunger had destroyed his vitals. When asleep he would throw his arms about, thinking he was in Andersonville ... endeavoring to obtain food."

Exhausted mentally and physically, Woodford found it difficult to talk about his imprisonment in Andersonville, the most notorious Civil War prisoner-of-war camp, and later at a stockade in Florence, S.C. "Words could not describe the horrors," he reportedly told his friends. (1)

Unable to gain strength, Wallace Woodford, paroled by the rebels on Dec. 10, 1864, died exactly a month later in his hometown, his parents Corydon and Sylvia likely by his side.

For Woodford and other members of the 16th Connecticut, Andersonville was hell on earth. By August 1864, the camp in southwestern Georgia was home for 32,000 Union prisoners of war jammed on about 26 1/2 acres. POWs, who often drank from the polluted stream that ran through the camp, suffered from overexposure, malnutrition and disease.

In his excellent book on his imprisonment published in 1865, Robert H. Kellogg, a private in Company A in the 16th, recounted the terrible, crowded conditions there.

"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)

By August 1864, 32,000 Union soldiers were jammed into the 26 /1/2 acres of Andersonville
prison. Wallace Woodford arrived at the camp in southwestern Georgia sometime in
the spring of 1864. (Library of Congress photo)

Nearly 13,000 Unions soldiers died at Andersonville during the camp's 15-month existence from February 1864 to April 1865. Near the end of the war, when Union General William Tecumseh Sherman marched through the state, many Andersonville prisoners were transferred to other camps in Georgia and South Carolina. (Private Van Buren Towle of the 1st Massachusetts Heavy Artillery, whose story I told in this post in May, also was imprisoned at Andersonville and Florence, S.C.)

One of the hard-luck regiments of the Civil War, the 16th was sent into captivity April 20, 1864, when the hugely outnumbered Union garrison in Plymouth, N.C. surrendered. University of Akron professor Lesley Gordon has an excellent account of the regiment's surrender and capture here.

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.)

Wallace Woodford enlisted in the Union army as a private on July 28, 1862, about a year after Bull Run, the first major battle of the war. Nearly a month later, he was mustered into Company I of the 16th Connecticut, one of about 1,000 soldiers from prosperous towns in Hartford County.

Like most Civil War soldiers, young Wallace probably knew little of the rigors of army life before the war. In fact, before the 16th Connecticut shipped off for New York on Aug. 29, 1862, he probably had never traveled far from Avon, a small farming town of a little more than 1,000 people about 15 miles northwest of Hartford. (3)

By the summer of 1862, the Union army had suffered a series of defeats around Richmond during McClellan's Peninsula campaign. It was obvious the war would not be over soon, but Woodford, like many men his age, probably was excited about his new adventure.

Less than a month after it was mustered into the Union army, the barely trained 16th Connecticut was under fire, struggling to ford Antietam Creek about a mile upstream from the Rohrbach Bridge, during the Battle of Antietam. Later that afternoon on Sept. 17, 1862 -- the bloodiest day in American history -- it was positioned on the extreme left flank of the Union army, in the field of a farmer named John Otto.

John Otto's 40-acre cornfield at Antietam, viewed from the Confederates' vantage point.
"We could not see the rebels, but could hear them and their bullets," a 16th Connecticut
soldier wrote. The 16th Connecticut monument, dedicated in 1894, is in the distance.

Charles Clark, a sergeant in Company A of the 16th, described the fighting outside Sharpsburg, Md.

"A piece of shell struck very near me," he wrote in an account published in the Hartford Courant on Sept. 25, 1862. "Our Chaplain had his clothes torn, our Surgeon's horse was wounded, and a private in Company I was hit in the left arm. About noon we advanced again, and were informed that our right was whipping out the rebels. In the middle of the afternoon, we went into the fight, and a terrible one it was, piles of our men were wounded. Our regiment was in a corn-field, where we could not see the rebels, but could hear them and their bullets."

On Sept. 25, 1862, the Hartford Courant printed a list of
16th Connecticut soldiers killed at Antietam. Seven men
from Woodford's Co. I were listed , including Henry Evans
of Avon, Conn. Woodford was among the wounded.

The 16th was thrashed that September afternoon, struck in the left flank by veterans of A.P. Hill's division who had just arrived on the field after a 17-mile march from Harpers Ferry, Va. Many of the Connecticut men broke and ran during the battle, a stigma the regiment never erased. Out of 779 men, the 16th Connecticut suffered 43 killed, 161 wounded -- losses of about 26 percent.

At some point during the fighting at Antietam, Woodford was wounded and perhaps later treated at a field hospital at the Henry Rohrbach farm nearby. Seven members of Company I, including Corporal Henry D. Evans of Avon, were killed.

Many men in the 16th Connecticut never got over Antietam or imprisonment in Andersonville.

Wrote Lesley Gordon:

An estimated three hundred members of the 16th Connecticut were imprisoned at Andersonville and nearly one third of them perished there. Even for those who survived and returned home, many found their health destroyed by their long captivity, and struggled to adapt to civilian life. It is unclear how many soldiers from the 16th Connecticut battled mental depression, but several spent their final years in the state’s Insane Asylum. (4)

Sixteeen months after Antietam, Private Wallace C. Woodfoord's short life ended. Sometime during the middle of a New England winter, he was mourned and eulogized at West Avon Congregational Church. His body lies today in West Avon Cemetery beneath an 8-foot brownstone monument inscribed with these words:

"8 months a sufferer in Rebel prisons. He came home to die."

A closeup of Wallace Woodford's well-worn grave marker.

(1) Hartford Courant, Jan. 12, 1865
(2) "Life And Death In Rebel Prisons," Robert H. Kellogg, 1865, Page 166
(3) U.S. census
(4) “The ‘Rebs Took Us All”: The 16th Connecticut in War and Captivity, Lesley J. Gordon, 2009,
University of Akron

Antietam visit: Roulette Farm video/photo journal

2011-10-19T23:01:00.008-04:00

One of my favorite spots at Antietam is the William Roulette Farm, scene of terrible fighting during the late morning and afternoon of Sept. 17, 1862. The farm is not only rich in battlefield history, it's a photographer's dream -- especially in the early morning light on a fall day. And even when all you have is a Blackberry Bold to take photos (and video).

Until a couple walking their large dog arrived, I had the farm to myself last Saturday morning. I was especially keen on visiting the springhouse behind the Roulette farmhouse. That's where soldiers from Company B of the 14th Connecticut Infantry captured Rebel skirmishers by using good old-fashioned Yankee ingenuity. (Check out my video above for further explanation.)

Roulette Farm springhouse, where 14th Connecticut soldiers captured Rebel skirmishers.

William Roulette, known as "Billy" locally, was pro-Union. He encouraged Union soldiers to drive
the Rebels from his property during the battle. The house is on National Park Service property.

After the battle, William Roulette's prosperous farm was ruined. Like many houses in the Sharpsburg area, his was used as a field hospital. I have read accounts that the carpets in his parlor were so drenched with blood that they had to be soaked for hours in nearby Antietam Creek. Roulette's barn, a stone's throw from his farmhouse, also was used as a Union field hospital.

I had the good fortune to know lifelong Sharpsburg resident Earl Roulette, William's great-grandson. Earl, who died at 88 in 2008, enjoyed telling stories about his great-grandfather during my visits at his house on Main Street. Earl had quite a collection of Antietam battlefield relics and other interesting items handed down by his ancestors, including this ammunition chest and this wedding ring pulled from the finger of a dead soldier. Expect part of Earl's collection that was acquired by the National Park Service to eventually be displayed at the Antietam Visitors Center.

Entrance to springhouse (left), which dates to the late 18th century, and the spring.

William Roulette's barn was used as a field hospital during the battle. The Roulette
farmhouse is up the hill in the left background.

14th Connecticut monument on the Roulette Farm, near the infamous Bloody Lane. The
regiment lost 38 killed and mortally wounded and 88 wounded.

Antietam visit: 16th Connecticut's demise

2011-10-15T06:45:00.045-04:00

16th Connecticut soldiers Henry Evans of Avon and Henry Aldrich of Bristol were killed at Antietam.

Antietam National Cemetery, on a hill near the edge of Sharpsburg, Md., remains one of the most beautiful, peaceful and sad places I have ever visited. On a crisp, fall afternoon, leaves dancing in the air, it sometimes is a magical place, too. The cemetery is the final resting place for thousands of soldiers, mostly those killed at Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862.

The 16th Connecticut monument at Antietam.

On Friday afternoon, I visited the graves of two 16th Connecticut soldiers killed at Antietam: Corporal Henry D. Evans of Avon (where I reside) and Private Henry Aldrich of Bristol. (My thanks to my friend Jim Buchanan of the Walking the West Woods blog for adding the small American flags for the photo above.)

The 16th Connecticut paid a terrible price at Antietam, its first battle of the war. After the 16th was organized in Hartford in August 1862, these Connecticut men spent most of their time getting on and off steamships and learning the basics of military life. Part of General Ambrose Burnside's extreme left flank at Antietam, the rookie regiment was unfathomably sent into John Otto's 40-acre cornfield in the later stages of the battle and was hit smack in the left flank by veterans of A.P. Hill's division. Out of 779 men, the 16th Connecticut lost 43 killed, 161 wounded and 204 captured or missing. Some of those killed never even fired a shot, and many of the survivors never got over the carnage at Antietam.

After the war, a soldier from the 16th described the terrible night after the battle as "the saddest we ever experienced."

"All was quiet and silent as the grave," Lieutenant Bernard Blakeslee of Hartford wrote. "The stacks of straw which the rebels had fired burned slow and dimly. The cries and groans of the wounded that lay on the battlefield could be heard distinctly, and the occasional report of artillery sounded solemn and death-like." (1)

View of the back of John Otto's farmhouse. Connecticut
troops moved across his property on the afternoon
of Sept. 17, 1862 after crossing Antietam Creek.

Blakeslee also described the treatment of the wounded:

All houses and barns were converted into hospitals, and yards and fields were strewn with straw and the wounded laid there without shelter. Surgeons worked hard day and night, taking rest only when unable to stand up from weariness. At one of these hospitals about 25 of the Sixteenth were placed. Nothing was to be heard but cries, groans, and entreaties. … In a room about 12×20 a bloody table stood and around it were five surgeons. A wounded man was laid on the table and it took but a few seconds for them to decide what to do, and but a few minutes to do it. The amputated limbs were thrown out of a window. In forty-eight hours there were as many as two cart loads of amputated legs, feet, arms, and hands in the pile. (2)

On Friday afternoon, I also walked the ground that the 16th Connecticut covered on the Otto farm with Buchanan and fellow blogger Jim Rosebrock of South From The North Woods blog. It's a wonder those Connecticut men, unused to forming for battle, even made it to Otto's 40-acre field. The undulating ground was probably tough for even veteran units to navigate. (See my video clip below.)

A small stone marker at Antietam
National Cemetery denotes the final
resting place for three unknown soldiers.

Henry Evans' fellow townsmen -- privates Newton Evans, Wallace Woodford and Robert Hawley -- were wounded at Antietam. Hawley died eight days later. (Woodford and Newton Evans later became prisoners of war; Evans died in Andersonvile on Sept. 9, 1864, and Woodford died at home on Jan 10, 1865.) There is a marker for Henry Evans in West Avon Cemetery in Avon, perhaps put there so his family could mourn him more easily. The wife and mother of Aldrich, who served in Company K, applied for his pension after he was killed. It's unclear if the government paid up, but that merits further research.

Evans and Aldrich were among the lucky ones, I guess. At least their tombstones have names, perhaps a result of the diligence and compassion of a soldier such as 16th Connecticut First Lieutenant John Burnham. Burnham, from Hartford, helped identify and mark the gravesites of the dead of the 16th Connecticut in the days after the battle in the hope that their loved ones could retrieve their bodies. Many of the dead at Antietam National Cemetery are unknown, their final resting place marked by small square white markers with numbers denoting the number of bodies in a plot. It's a sad result of an awful Wednesday nearly 150 years ago.

(1) The History of the Sixteenth Connecticut, B.F. Blakeslee, 1875
(2) Ibid.

Faces of the Civil War: Edwin Ruthven Lee

2011-10-12T23:34:00.027-04:00

Edwin Lee, a captain in the 11th Connecticut, was killed at
New Bern, N.C. on March 14, 1862.

Nearly a month after a Confederate shell ripped open his abdomen and killed Edwin Lee on a North Carolina battlefield, his body lay in state at the City Guard Armory in Hartford.

Edwin Lee's final resting place is in Riverside Cemetery,
next to Pleasant Valley United Methodist Church
in Barkhamsted, Conn.

A U.S. flag, "mingled with black and white," draped the walls inside the armory, the Hartford Courant reported, and "hundreds of sorrowing citizens" paid their respects to a young man who only a couple years earlier had worked at the nearby Colt Armory and Sharps Rifle Co. Members of the City Guard, a Connecticut militia group of which Lee was once an important member, stood watch all day that Thursday in mid-April 1862.

The 28-year-old captain's cap, sash, blood-stained sword, torn belt and his broken pistol, which was struck by the shell that killed him, were placed upon the coffin, likely closed because of Lee's terrible wounds. A canopy of stars and stripes over the bier was topped by a placard that included the final words Lee supposedly uttered:

"Go on For Your Country." (1)

Edwin Ruthven Lee, the well-respected captain of Company D in the 11th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, was home for good.

Ever since I first discovered Lee's impressive brownstone grave marker in a rural Connecticut cemetery on a gray winter day four years ago, I was eager to find out more about him.

Who was this man buried in Riverside Cemetery next to the small, white Methodist church near the Farmington River?

An account of Lee's funeral appeared in the
Hartford Courant on April 19, 1862.
The funeral was actually on April 18,
not April 19 as appears in the story.

Did his loved ones travel south to arrange for the return of his body back home, as many families of soldiers killed during the Civil War did?

Who mourned for Edwin Lee?

Thanks to assistance from Paul Hart of the Barkhamsted Historical Society, Gordon Harmon of the Canton Historical Museum and some Internet detective work, I now have a more complete picture of Lee's life and death.

Before the Civil War, Lee was a major supporter of Abraham Lincoln, often giving speeches for the Republican candidate during the 1860 presidential campaign. Described as a "young man of a clear head and earnest convictions," Lee was employed as a riflemaker at Hartford's Colt Armory and later Sharps Rifle Co., both of which supplied a large number of small arms to the Union army during the Civil War.

On Sept. 27, 1861, a little more than five months after the first shots of the Civil War were fired at Fort Sumter in South Carolina, Lee enlisted in the Union army in Hartford. He had raised a company of 19 men from Hartford, 19 from Canterbury and Winsted and the remainder from small towns west of the state capital. (2). The Lees, who came from Revolutionary stock, were a patriotic family -- two of Edwin's brothers also enlisted and another attempted to enlist but was rejected because of a disability. (Another brother was a sutler during the war.)

On the morning of April 18, 1862, a crowd gathered at the Collinsville train depot to await
the arrival of the coffin containing Edwin Lee's remains. The depot, shown in a post-Civil War
photo, no longer exists. At right, the site today. (Left photo courtesy Canton Historical Musuem.)

After drilling in Hartford, Lee and his comrades headed for New York, where the 11th Connecticut left by steamer on Dec. 17, 1861, bound for Annapolis, Md. The 11th Connecticut broke camp in early January and eventually made its way to North Carolina as part of Gen. Ambrose Burnside's Expedition. In early March, Lee and his comrades moved from Roanoke Island to fight in their second battle of the war, an attack near New Bern, N.C., an important link in the Confederate supply chain and thus a key military target.

As Rebel artillery fire shrieked through the air around 9 a.m. on March 14, 1862, Lee wheeled his men into line to attack an enemy behind entrenchments several hundred yards away. Suddenly, an artillery shell crashed into the captain, killing Lee and five other Union soldiers, according to one account.

Lee's funeral cortege went through New Hartford, Conn., a short distance
from where he was buried. Flags were at half-mast along the route that day.

Although it seems unlikely after being struck in the abdomen by an artillery shell, Lee reportedly utterered these final words: "Tell my brother I died at the post of duty. Good-by. Go on for your country!" (3) The last sentence was later carved on Lee's tombstone.

A day after the battle, Lee was buried on the bank of the Neuse River, a short distance from where he was killed. His body was later disinterred and then shipped back north by the army on April 11 aboard the transport ship U.S. Jersey Blue, under the care of Reverend George Soule, the chaplain for the 11th Connecticut. Rank has its privileges, even in death. Four days later, the Jersey Blue arrived in New York, where Lee's family or his friends in the City Guard likely arranged for the final leg of the sad journey to Hartford. (4)

On Friday morning, April 18, 1862 -- a day the Hartford Courant reporter described as "one of the finest of the spring" -- Lee's remains began the meandering journey by train from Hartford to his funeral in Barkhamsted, about 30 miles away. Nearly 50 of Lee's former co-workers at the Sharps Rifle Co. and 44 City Guards were aboard as the train slowly wound its way through New Britain, Plainville and Unionville before finally arriving in the small Farmington River manufacturing town of Collinsville. (The Collins Co. in Collinsville supplied pikes to John Brown that the abolitionst intended to use to help incite a slave rebellion in Harper's Ferry, Va., in 1859.)

By 10 a.m., a large crowd had gathered at the Collinsville train depot, including many of Lee's friends, and the soldier's coffin was loaded into a coach for the 10-mile journey to Barkhamsted. As the cortege traveled up the steep hills before descending into the valley, "the sun and dust conspired to make the trip rather uncomfortable," the Courant reporter wrote, and the journey became tedious. But all along the route, through the small towns of Pine Meadow and New Hartford, the U.S. flag was displayed at half-mast in respect for Lee.

Edwin Lee's coffin was placed on a bier in front of this Methodist church in
Barkhamsted, Conn. At top, an early 20th century photo of the church before it was
expanded in the 1990s. Lee's grave marker is just to the right of the big, leafy tree.
Bottom, the church today. (Top photo courtesy Barkhamsted Historical Society)

The funeral cortege finally arrived at Pleasant Valley Methodist Church at 1 p.m.. Edwin Lee's coffin was removed from the coach and placed on a bier on the grass in front of the church A large crowd had gathered, including Lee's grief-stricken family, parents Henry and Mary, and his brothers and sister.

A choir sang "When Blooming Youth Is Snatched Away," and an address and a prayer were offered by two local reverends. Lee's coffin was then carried to his gravesite about 25 yards away. The diligent Courant reporter described the scene:

The City Guard fired a volley over the grave, and again formed in marching order. The Armory Band, which played a durge during the march to the grave, played a lively quickstep as the company went away. "The King is dead; long live the King."

(1) Hartford Courant, April 20, 1862, Page 2
(2) The Military and Civil History of Connecticut During the War of 1861-65, William Augustus Croffut, John Moses Morrism 1869, Page 129
(3) Ibid, Page 175
(4) New York Times, April 16, 1862

'Sad work': Connecticut dead at Antietam

2011-10-07T21:21:00.016-04:00

Alvin Flint, 18, a private from East Hartford in the 11th Connecticut, was among those listed in the
Hartford Courant as killed in action at Antietam.

On Sept. 27, 1862, the Hartford Courant printed on its front page the "official" list of dead, wounded and missing from the 8th, 11th and 16th Connecticut regiments at the battle of Antietam 10 days earlier.

Cemetery markers for Connecticut men killed
at Antietam: Alvin Flint (Center Cemetery,
East Hartford), Joseph Mansfield (Indian
Hills Cemetery, Middletown), Henry
Evans (West Avon Cemetery, Avon).

The list took up 25 inches of newsprint.

25 inches.

It included Alvin Flint, an 18-year-old private from East Hartford who died in the 11th Connecticut's attack at Burnside Bridge. (Less than four months later, his father and 13-year-old brother both died of disease while serving in the Union army.)

It also listed Corporal Solomon Allen of East Windsor. Killed.

Sergeant Cyprian Rust of New Hartford. Killed.

Lieutenant-colonel Hiram Appleman of Groton. Badly wounded in the leg.

Private Austin Fuller of Farmington. Missing. (He later became a prisoner of war.)

Corporal Leonidas Barber of Stonington. "Dangerously" wounded in the head.

Private George S. Wilcox of Wallingford. Three fingers amputated.

Private Hiram Blakeslee of Southington. Wounded in both feet.

For families of soldiers back in Connecticut, the fate of their loved ones may have been known less than 10 days after the battle 360 miles away in Sharpsburg, Md. Still, the publication of this list must have been an incredibly painful jolt for many readers of the Hartford Courant.

For families of the dead, a trip to bring home the bodies of their sons, husbands or brothers must have been even more agonizing. Fortunately, some members of the Union army tried to ease their burden.

In a letter to the Hartford Courant published Sept. 30, 1862, First Lieutenant John Burnham of the 16th Connecticut provided a detailed description of where those killed in his regiment were buried so "friends at home shall have authentic information as soon as possible."

Burnham described how the bodies were arranged for burial, key landmarks near the gravesites and the placing of small headboards marked with the names and companies of the dead men.

Top, crude headboards mark graves of Union soldiers killed near Burnside Bridge, which appears
in the background. Bottom., that's me at approximately the same spot as the Civil War soldier. The
tree in the background at extreme left was there during the battle. (Top photo: Library of Congress)

John Burnham
(Mollus Collection)

"I have been particular to mention the precise locality of each," Burnham wrote in the letter dated two days after the battle, "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."

For Burnham, a Hartford resident, the memory of this onerous work must have remained with him the rest of his life.

"If any mortal was ever rejoiced at the completion of any task," he wrote in the letter to the newspaper, "it was myself when this sad work was over."

A list of Connecticut casualties at Antietam published on the front page of the
Hartford Courant on Sept. 27, 1862. The list continued elsewhere on the front page
and did not include casualties from the 14th Connecticut.

Civil War under my nose: Deaths of Lee brothers

2011-10-01T22:04:00.060-04:00

Edwin R. Lee, killed at New Bern, N.C. on March 14, 1862, is buried in
Riverside Cemetery, near the Farmington River, in Barkhamsted, Conn.

Worn by the elements, the words carved on Edwin Ruthven Lee's brownstone memorial still resonate nearly 150 years after he was laid to rest with military honors in Riverside Cemetery in tiny Barkhamsted, Conn.

"His last words were Go on for your Country.

"He died that his country might live."

Brothers Edwin and Henry Lee were killed during the Civil War.
Edwin was never married. Henry left behind a wife and four children.
(Photos from John Lee of Hartford Co. and His Descendants)

A captain in the 11th Connecticut Infantry, Lee was just 28 years old when he was killed in battle at New Bern, N.C. on March, 14, 1862. His body was buried near the battlefield and eventually brought back north for burial.

A little more than two years later, Edwin's oldest brother, Henry Bryan Lee, suffered the same fate. A 37-year-old lieutenant in the 7th Connecticut Infantry, Henry was mortally wounded at the Battle of Deep Run (also called Deep Bottom), near Richmond, on Aug. 16, 1864. Although his name and place and date of death are carved on the side of his brother's grave marker, Henry isn't buried next to Edwin. His final resting place is in Virginia in a grave marked "Unknown," the sad fate of many Civil War soldiers.

The deaths of the Lee brothers is another reminder of the immense toll the war took on some Connecticut families. During the past two years, I have found four western Connecticut families who lost multiple members during the Civil War. Three Wadhams brothers died in battle in Virginia in the summer 1864. Elijah Bacon, awarded the Medal of Honor for capturing a flag at Gettysburg, was killed in battle at the Wilderness, and his brother, Andrew, died in a prisoner-of-war camp in South Carolina. Brothers Alvin and George Flint, as well as their father, Alvin Sr., also died in service to their country.

I often pass by the Lee brothers' 10-foot marker, a stone's throw from the Farmington River, during bike rides along scenic River Road near People's State Forest. Until today, I knew little about them. Here's some of what I have uncovered:

Edwin Lee, described as a "young man of a clear head and earnest convictions," was a supporter of Abraham Lincoln, often making speeches for the Republican candidate during the 1860 presidential campaign. (1) Inspired by the Union cause, Edwin raised a company of men, enlisted from Hartford as a captain in the 11th Connecticut on Sept. 27, 1861, and was commissioned into Company D two months later. One of three brothers who served in the Union army (another brother was rejected as unfit to serve because of a disability), Edwin was a rifle maker before the war. (2) He was employed at the Colt Armory and Sharps Rifle Company in Hartford, both of which supplied a large number of small arms to the Union army during the war. (3)

After drilling in Hartford, Lee and his comrades headed for New York, where the 11th Connecticut left by steamer on Dec. 17, 1861, bound for Annapolis, Md. In early January, the 11th broke camp and eventually made its way to North Carolina as part of Gen. Ambrose Burnside's Expedition.

Edwin Lee's occupation was listed a rifle maker on the 1860 U.S. census.

In early March, the 11th Connecticut moved from Roanoke Island to take part in an attack near New Bern, an important link in the Confederate supply chain and thus a key military target. In helping overwhelm the poorly trained and hugely outnumbered rebels, the 11th Connecticut suffered 14 wounded and six men killed.

"It was a sickening sight that met us, dead horses, mangled men, broken cannons, knapsacks and guns were slung in every direction," an officer in the 11th Connecticut wrote of the battle's aftermath.

Among the dead was Captain Edwin R. Lee, struck in the abdomen by a shell that also killed five other men. Lee, just 44 days short of his 29th birthday, died shortly after being wounded as he was leading a company into line. "Tell my brother I died at the post of duty," he said shortly after suffering the mortal wound. "Good-by. Go on for your country!" (4)

Edwin Lee (upper right) was listed as killed in action at New Bern in the Hartford Courant on March 20, 1862.

A day after the battle, Lee was buried on the bank of the Neuse River. Because he was an officer, Lee's body probably was handled with care and eventually shipped back north, perhaps at the army's expense, for burial. "I was conversing with him the morning of the battle," Henry Roger Jones of New Hartford, a sergeant in the 8th Connecticut, wrote after the war. "He was killed about 9 o'clock a.m. ... He was a young man of talent, and a gallant soldier." (5)

Like his brother Edwin, Henry apparently also was well regarded by his comrades. A machinist who resided in Derby, Conn, about 45 miles southeast of Hartford, Henry was described as a "brave, faithful, uncomplaining soldier" and an "honest, conscientious, devoted patriot." (5) Henry, who enlisted as a sergeant on Sept. 9, 1861, was married to a woman from Massachusetts. He and wife Arre Ann had four young children under 10 years old at the start of the war in April 1861: Ellen, 7; Emma, 4; Charles, 2; and Maria, 2 months. (Another child, Henry, died shortly after he was born in March 1853.) (6)

Against his brother's wishes, Henry Lee re-enlisted in the army in 1864

When Henry's enlistment was up in 1864, William Wallace Lee, the brother who was rejected for service in the 2nd Connecticut Artillery because of a disability, urged him to stay at home with his young family. But Henry re-enlisted anyway and was promoted to Second Lieutenant on March 1, 1864.

"I will fight the enemies of my country while I live," Henry replied to William. "I'll see the end of this, or it shall see the end of me." (7)

Henry B. Lee, a lieutenant in the 7th Connecticut,
died at Deep Run, Va., on Aug. 16, 1864.
He was described as a "brave, faithful,
uncomplaining soldier."

The 7th Connecticut served in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida from April 1862 to late February 1864 before being moved to Virginia in May 1864. Believing he could end the siege of Petersburg and Richmond, General Ulysses Grant concentrated his forces, including the 7th Connecticut, on Rebel entrenchments near the James River beginning Aug. 13, 1864.

Three days later, Henry B. Lee, the father of four young children, was mortally wounded in another assault on Confederate entrenchments in the Battle of Deep Run. The eldest Lee brother died in enemy hands as the Union army hastily retreated, and was buried on the battlefield. (8). Henry was later reburied in Fort Harrison National Cemetery, near Richmond, where his body lies with many other Union soldiers whose tombstones are marked "Unknown." (9)

(1) The Military and Civil History of Connecticut During the War of 1861-65, William Augustus Croffut, John Moses Morrism 1869, Page 175
(2) 1860 U.S. Census
(3) Ellery Bicknell Crane. Genealogy of the Crane family (Volume 1)
(4) The Military and Civil History of Connecticut During the War of 1861-65, Page 175
(5) Barkhamsted And Its Centennial, William Wallace Lee and Henry Roger Jones, 1881, Page 175
(6) John Lee, of Farmington, Hartford County, Conn., and His Descendants, Sarah Marsh Lee, 1878, Page 144
(7) The Military and Civil History of Connecticut During the War of 1861-65, Page 655
(8) Ibid
(9) John Lee, of Farmington, Hartford County, Conn., and His Descendants, Sarah Marsh Lee

Two Grand Army of the Republic markers and two American flags adorn the gravesite of
Edwin R. Lee, a captain in the 11th Connecticut. The fate of Lee's brother, Henry, is also
carved into this brownstone memorial in Barkhamsted, Conn., but he is buried elsewhere.

Faces of the Civil War: Unknown V

2011-09-30T21:48:00.003-04:00

A full-plate tintype, possibly of a soldier from Maine.

I bought this full-plate tintype at Dallas gun show in the mid-1990s. Based on writing in the paper case that holds this photo, I believe this soldier is from Maine. The full-plate size is uncommon, so I parted with $75 to add this faded image to my collection of Civil War photography. ("Sucker!") This photo was obviously in a picture frame at some point. The buttons are tinted gold on the uniform of this bearded soldier. He merits further research, but this guy's name is probably lost to history.

Civil War under my nose: Flint family tragedy

2011-09-22T22:21:00.028-04:00

I have come across several especially tragic stories involving Connecticut families during the Civil War in the past two years. The Wadhams family of Litchfield lost three sons in battles in Virginia within an 18-day span in the summer of 1864, and the Bacon family of Berlin lost two sons -- one in battle at the Wilderness and another at a Confederate prisoner-of-war camp in Florence, S.C.

In a letter published in the Hartford Courant on Oct. 29,
1862, Alvin Flint Sr. lamented the death of his 18-year-old
son at Antietam. "My boy was brutally murdered by
a band of midnight assassins," he wrote.

But the story of the Flint family of East Hartford, Conn., may be even more heartbreaking.

I first read about the Flints nearly 30 years ago in William Frassanito's excellent book, "Antietam: The Photographic History of America's Bloodiest Day." Tapping into the 1860 census and other sources, Frassanito did a masterful job detailing Alvin Flint Jr.'s service in the Union army and the history of the family.

One of two sons of Alvin and Lucy Flint, Alvin Jr. enlisted as a private in Company D in the 11th Connecticut Infantry on Oct. 1, 1861. He was just 17 years old. Perhaps the young soldier from East Hartford was acquainted with George Bronson, a hospital steward in the 11th Connecticut from nearby Berlin whose story I told in this post.

On Dec. 6, 10 days before young Alvin Jr. departed Hartford for the war, his mother died of consumption. She was nearly 50 years old. While serving at the front in North Carolina in mid-January, Alvin received word of another family tragedy: his 15-year-old sister, Evaline, had also died of consumption back in East Hartford. (1)

By September 1862, Alvin Jr. undoubtedly was well aware that a Confederate army under Robert E. Lee moving north. The Union army would move from its encampments around Washington for Maryland, where it fought Lee's army at the Battle of South Mountain, near Boonsboro, Md. At Fox's Gap on Sept. 14, 1862, the 11th Connecticut was not heavily engaged.

Three days later, on the bloodiest day in American history, the 11th Connecticut was ordered to cross a stone bridge and attack Confederate forces atop the heights overlooking Antietam Creek. Sometime during the charge across the creek, 18-year-old Alvin Flint Jr. was killed, one of 36 soldiers in the 11th Connecticut to die during the Battle of Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862. That stone bridge would become one of the most famous sites of the war: Burnside Bridge.

The Flints in the 1860 U.S. census, compiled on July 23, 1860. Nearly 2 1/2 years later,
they all were dead. Alvin Jr. was killed near Burnside Bridge at Antietam.

"I do not know the name of the creek," George Bronson wrote his wife, Mary Anne, after the battle, "but I have named it the creek of death. Such slaughter I hope never to witness again. The ﬁght was very severe."

For Alvin Flint Sr., the death of a third member of his family within a year must have been excruciating. In August 1862, Flint Sr. and his youngest son, 13-year-old George, had also enlisted, in the 21st Connecticut Infantry. Flint Sr., a papermaker before the war, happened to be serving near Sharpsburg after the battle and went to search for the grave of his son. According to Frassanito's account, he never found the grave, but Flint Jr.'s body was eventually sent back to East Hartford by someone for burial. (2)

In a letter to the Hartford Courant a little more than a month after the battle, Flint Sr. lamented the loss of his oldest son.

The Flints are buried in Center Cemetery in East Hartford. The cemetery dates to 1709.

"You doubtless are aware that I have come to the land of Dixie, to engage in this killing business," he wrote. "Three weeks ago last Sunday night, at 12 o'clock, we were called up by the beat of the drum, to receive orders. We were sent to Frederick City, where we remained two days and thence marched to Sharpsburg.. We arrived Saturday night, near what I call "Antie-Dam," where my boy was brutally murdered by a band of midnight assassins. Oh that I could revenge on them, as Sampson did upon the Philistines! I was leaning upon that dear boy, as a prop in my declining years; but if my life is spared, I shall knock out some of the props that hold up this uncalled for, and worse than hellish, wicked rebellion. Hardly had the sadness of the death of my dear daughter in January worn off, when this sad, sad calamity should come upon me."

Civil War monument in Center Cemetery.
Alvin Flint Jr, Alvin Flint Sr. and George
Flint are listed on the monument.

Incredibly, tragedy hit the Flint family again. Alvin Flint Sr., 53, died of typhoid fever on Jan. 10, 1863, while the Union army was encamped near Fredericksburg, Va. Five days later, young George also died of the same illness. (3)

Earlier this afternoon, I made a 25-minute drive to East Hartford to find the final resting place of Alvin Flint Jr. Center Cemetery, just off Main Street in East Hartford, is one of older cemeteries in the state, dating to 1709. It looks it. The grounds are not well-maintained and many of the gravestones, including several for Revolutionary War veterans, are cracked or broken.

On a knoll 25 yards from the entrance to the cemetery stands a large brownstone monument dedicated to the citizens of East Hartford who died during the Civil War. The names of Alvin Jr., Alvin Sr. and George are listed on one side of the monument.

I didn't know the exact location of the grave of Alvin Jr., and in a cemetery of several thousand headstones, one would expect the search for Flint's to take at least an hour. But I seem to have a sixth sense for finding Civil War graves in Connecticut. Sure enough, I quickly found Alvin Jr., just 20 yards or so down a path near the East Hartford Civil War memorial. He is buried near his brother George, father Alvin Sr., sister Evaline and mother Lucy.

It was nice to finally meet him.

Private Alvin Flint Jr. (upper right) is buried near his brother, George, and father,
Alvin Sr., at Center Cemtery in East Hartford, Conn. His mother and sister,
both of whom died of consumption in the winter of 1861, are also buried nearby.

(1) Antietam: The Photographic Legacy of America's Bloodiest Day, William Frassanito, Page 233
(2) Ibid, Page 234
(3) Ibid, Page 235

Civil War under my nose: Hartford, Conn.

2011-09-17T20:35:00.023-04:00

Some guy named Lincoln and Connecticut Civil War governor William Buckingham speak
Saturday at a commemoration ceremony for the Solders and Sailors Memorial Arch in Hartford.

It's not every day that you see a governor, a senator, a U.S. president and a dictator.

Today was one of those days.

Detail of the Soldiers and Sailors
Memorial Arch in Bushnell Park.

On a crisp fall-like morning, the 125th anniversary of the dedication of the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch in Hartford's Bushnell Park was marked by speeches by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, as well as by impersonators of William Buckingham, Connecticut's Civil War governor, and ol' Honest Abe himself.

I've chugged under the arch several times during Max's O'Hartford 5K runs but never really knew much about its history until today. (Cue the tour guide voice.) The arch commemorates the 4,000 Hartford men who served in the Union army and navy during the Civil War. About 400 of them died, losing their lives in battle in such places as Sharpsburg. Md., Cedar Mountain, Va., and Irish Bend., La., or in POW camps such as Andersonville in Georgia. The memorial was formally dedicated in 1886, 25 years after Antietam -- the bloodiest day in American history and in Connecticut's history as well. The 8th, 11th, 14th and especially the 16th Connecticut Infantry suffered casualties at Antietam.

When the morning sun hits the brownstone just right, the arch is a photographer's dream. Rich hues. Blue sky. Ornate monument details. Ahh, that's nice stuff.

Of course, no Civil War-themed day is complete without checking out a cannon and a whole bunch of old lead. Several Civil War memorials are located near the gold-domed State Capitol building, a short walk from Bushnell Park. The most intiguing is the First Connecticut Heavy Artillery monument that is topped with a squatty cannon on steroids. Actually a 13-inch seacoast mortar and nicknamed the "Dictator," it was capable of lobbing 200-pound shell several miles. The First Connecticut may have used this one during the sieges of Yorktown and Petersburg, although that's in some dispute.

A rare Civil War relic monument pyramid.

At the Museum of Connecticut History across the street from the capitol building (free admission today!), museum administrator Dean Nelson was kind enough to show me exhibits of guns made in the state during the Civil War. (The Connecticut River Valley supplied a huge number of arms to the Union army.) As a bonus, Nelson took me to a small back room where the museum keeps items currently not on public display --- including Samuel Colt's Civil War uniform (cost to state: $150K) and a rare Antietam relic monument pyramid.

In the years immediately after the war, relic collectors and war veterans made displays of bullets, shrapnel, belt buckles, bayonets and the like to commemorate a battle. Until today, I've only seen one of these highly collectible and rare relics in books or on the Internet. The Horse Soldier, a Gettysburg antiques store, offers a similar Antietam relic monument pyramid for $22,500; Nelson said the one in the museum is probably worth $12,000 to $13,000. I don't think I'll be adding one to my collection anytime soon.

I really needed a Civil War fix today, the 149th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam, so a trip to the Hall of Flags at the State Capitol building was a must. Thanks to terrific -- and costly -- conservation work, Civil War battle flags carried by Connecticut regiments at places such as Gettysburg and Cold Harbor are displayed so the fragile cloth relics won't be damaged further. Most Civil War battle flags in other states are too deteriorated to display. Kudos to Connecticut for making these unique pieces of history available to the public.

Say hello to my little friend! A 13-inch mortar on the First Connecticut Heavy Artillery
monument on Capitol Street in Hartford. The state capitol building is in the background.

The beautiful Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch in Hartford's Bushnell Park.

The arch was dedicated on Sept. 17, 1886 -- 25 years after the Battle of Antietam.

Regimental flags in the Hall of Flags in the State Capitol building in Hartford.

Remembering another tragic September day

2011-09-14T21:52:00.013-04:00

Dead of Antietam (clockwise from upper left): Corporal George Booth marker in Litchfield, Conn;
Private Justus Wellington's grave site is unknown. Henry Evans' marker is at an Avon, Conn.
cemetery. General Joseph Mansfield of Middletown, Conn. was mortally wounded during the battle.

On the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks last weekend, Americans honored the memory of 2,977 people killed in New York, Washington and Shanksville, Pa. The anniversary of another tragic September day likely will pass Saturday with little notice.

On Sept. 17, 1862, nearly 3,700 soldiers -- Yankees and Rebels -- were killed in the farm fields and woodlots surrounding Sharpsburg, Md. Many more wounded in the awful battle of Antietam died in Sharpsburg-area houses, barns or fields in the days and weeks following the battle. Antietam remains the bloodiest day in American history, a dubious record if there ever was one.

George Bronson, a hospital steward
in the 11th Connecticut, witnessed
the carnage at Antietam.

New England -- and Connecticut, in particular -- suffered greatly at Antietam. Funerals for Civil War soldiers were commonplace in the small towns of the Connecticut River Valley in late September and early October 1862. Over the past several months, I have posted stories of soldiers who served and died at Antietam.

Justus Wellington, a private in the 15th Massaschusetts from West Brookfield, Mass., was killed in the West Woods. A shoemaker before the war, Justus sent his army money back home to help support his family, which was not well off. Wellington's grave site is unknown. He was just 24 years old.

Joseph Mansfield, a 58-year-old Union general from Middletown, Conn, was mortally wounded in the East Woods, three days after he was given command of the XII Corps. It was his first field command of the war.

Corporal Henry Evans, one of 15 men from Avon, Conn. to serve in the 16th Connecticut, probably was killed in John Otto's 40-acre cornfield. Antietam was the first battle of the war for the young men of the 16th Connecticut. There's a marker for Evans in the West Avon Cemetery, about two miles from my house, but he's actually buried in the beautiful national cemetery, gravesite No. 1,084, on a hill at the edge of Sharpsburg.

George Bronson, a 34-year-old newlywed from Berlin, Conn., survived the battle but undoubtedly never forgot what he saw there for the rest of his life. A hospital steward in the 11th Connecticut, Bronson treated the wounded after the battle at a farmhouse near the Burnside Bridge.

"337 wounded dressed in this hospital," Bronson wrote his wife, Mary Anne, on Sept. 19, 1862. "3 of the men from our Reg. had their legs amputated. The last I do not think can long survive."

And late this afternoon I visited the grave of George Booth in West Cemetery in Litchfield, Conn., about a 25-minute drive from my house. Booth, a Litchfield resident, enlisted as a corporal in the Union army on Sept. 6, 1861 in Hartford, and was mustered into Company E of the 8th Connecticut 19 days later. Less than a year later, he was dead, probably killed in action after the 8th Connecticut crossed Antietam Creek near Burnside Bridge.

The casualty toll at Antietam -- there were also about 17,000 wounded -- shocked people in the North and South. Take a moment Saturday to remember the sacrifices that George, Justus, Henry, Joseph and thousands of others made 149 years ago.

Confederate dead at Antietam in a photograph taken by famed Civil War
photographer Alexander Gardner. (Library of Congress collection)