Podcast: Linda Zimmerman on Antietam soldier Albion Brooks

In Episiode 39 of "The Antietam And Beyond Podcast," author Linda Zimmerman talks with John Banks about her book, A Civil War Soldier and Me, the story of 8th Connecticut Sergeant Albion Brooks. Zimmerman devoted 30 years of research and traveled thousands of miles to learn about Brooks, who survived the bloodbath at Antietam as a teen but died at Cold Harbor on June 3, 1864.

8th Connecticut Private William Pratt's 'chamber of horrors'

8th Connecticut Private William Pratt barely survived the Battle of Antietam.
(Connecticut State Library)

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Adapted from my book, Connecticut Yankees at Antietam. E-mail me for information on how to purchase an autographed copy. Click here for the Faces of the Civil War thread on my blog.

Shortly after the sun poked above the horizon on Sept. 17, 1862, “some curious fools” in the 8th Connecticut climbed atop a knoll on Henry Rohrbach’s farm to sneak a peek at their enemy, alerting rebels on the far side of Antietam Creek.  Suddenly, a 12-pound solid shot burst from a cannon and crashed into the regiment’s ranks, killing Sergeant George Marsh of Hartford and two other soldiers, wounding four and splattering 19-year-old Lt. Marvin Wait with blood and dirt.   The large mass of iron had plowed into the ground in front of the prone Marsh, missing him, but the massive concussion caused his death.

As 24-year-old William Pratt hurriedly moved to a safer position with the rest of the 8th Connecticut, an officer noticed blood on the private’s right hand, which was missing a small piece of flesh near the knuckle. “How it was done I never knew,” recalled the soldier from Meriden, Conn. “A stray bullet, a piece of shell or other missile that for a time were numerous about our ears may have been the cause.”

Pratt moved to a safer position with the rest of his
 regiment after Rebel artillery shelled the 8th Connecticut
at Antietam on the morning of Sept. 17, 1862,
killing Sergeant George Marsh (above)
and two other soldiers. (Author's collection)

For Pratt, that morning was just the start of a nightmarish three days in which he was wounded, taken prisoner and clumsily operated on in a fetid, overcrowded barn filled with injured and dying men.

Born Dec. 12, 1837, William was the youngest of the three children of Lydia and Julius Pratt, an astute businessman who was a pioneer in the making of cutlery and ivory combs. Julius Pratt & Co. even supplied John Quincy Adams with a solid ivory cane with heavy gold mountings after the then-congressman and former president argued in the House of Representatives for the right of free speech in 1838.   An ardent abolitionist, Julius had no qualms about standing up to Southerners. When told on the eve of the rebellion that war would end his comb-making business in the South, he reportedly said: “If the South don’t want my combs, on their heads be the consequences.”

One of the wealthier families in Meriden, the Pratts could afford the finer things in life for William, who was 16 years younger than his next-oldest sibling, Julius Jr. After he graduated with a degree in civil engineering from prestigious Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. in 1857, William was sent by his father to South America to investigate prospects for the family’s ivory business. Shortly after war broke out, William cut short his foreign excursion, returning home in May 1861 with “war fever,” but his mother was adamant that he stay put. Fearing that his son would end up with a bullet in his head, William’s father was equally adamant. But a little more than three weeks after Lydia died on April 22, 1862, William enlisted as a private in the 8th Connecticut, so upsetting Julius Sr. that he threatened his son with disinheritance and estrangement.

A spirited young man, Pratt may have had a sense of adventure and a fascination with the military embedded in his DNA. His ancestors were among the founders of Connecticut, and his grandfather, Phineas, had a major hand in designing the world’s first combat submarine. Dubbed years later with the unflattering name “The American Turtle,” the contraption, armed with a crude explosive device, attacked a British warship moored in New York Harbor in September 1776. (The mission failed because the bomb exploded far from the ship in the harbor.)

William Pratt's 8th Connecticut crossed Antietam Creek at Snavely Ford during the Battle of Antietam.

           SNAVELY FORD PANORAMA: Click at upper right for full-screen experience.

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As the Yankees struggled to dislodge the rebels from the bluffs above Antietam Creek and Burnside Bridge, two 8th Connecticut companies were sent upstream about a mile from the bridge to find a ford about 1 p.m. At last across the waist-deep creek at Snavely’s Ford, Pratt and the 8th Connecticut sought shelter under the crest of a hill, where they watched “the peculiar end over end movement of shells nearly spent” go over their heads during an artillery duel.  Famished, the private’s thoughts turned to food -- or lack thereof.  “I think 4 crackers was all Uncle Sam furnished me that trying day,” recalled Pratt, who also remembered an officer in the regiment grinning at him with an ear of raw corn in his mouth, “a substitute for scanty rations or no rations at all.”

 With the Confederates’ thin line buckling above Burnside Bridge, rebels scurried back toward Sharpsburg early that afternoon. A victory appeared within grasp of the Union army if it could cut off the Southerners’ retreat route at the road to Shepherdstown, Va., about two miles away. At about 3 p.m., Col. Edward Harland’s Brigade of the IX Corps was positioned to make a final push, the 4th Rhode Island and the untested 16th Connecticut lined up on the extreme left and the 8th Connecticut on their right. About an hour later, the veteran 8th Connecticut moved forward, quickly advancing far ahead and to the right of their fellow New Englanders, who apparently did not hear the order to advance and later were crushed and scattered by A.P. Hill’s veterans in John Otto’s 40-acre cornfield.

“The formation seemed to be lost,” Pratt recalled.

 The next several hours were a blur for William Pratt and the 8th Connecticut.

             PANORAMA: 8th Connecticut dead, wounded lay in this field at Antietam.
                                    (Click at upper right for full-screen experience.)

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As he bounded up a ridge, the spires of Sharpsburg’s three churches likely within view, Pratt remembered dodging dead men and horses, seeing wounded returning through the ranks and “skulkers seeking shelter behind their regiments.”  Pratt’s Company K, on the far left of the regiment, was ordered to silence a rebel battery; the cry “Now for Meriden, boys!” was barely heard over the din of battle. Nearly cut off from the rest of the 8th Connecticut, Pratt’s company was fired on from its left flank and rear as well as its front.

After climbing a rail fence, Pratt felt something smash into his leg – the bullet “felt like the sharp blow of a stick on the crazy bone,” he recalled – and tumbled to the ground. “Boys, who will help save Pratt?” a soldier in the regiment cried out shortly before he was killed. In no-man’s land between the lines, William and a comrade lay down, giving the bullets “the right of way over our heads” as the sides blasted away at each other. Perhaps 10 minutes passed, Pratt thought, before a thin line of enemy skirmishers followed by a solid body of rebels swept over them like angry locusts toward Antietam Creek. Trapped behind enemy lines, Pratt and Sgt. Albert Booth, also of Meriden, quickly became prisoners of war.

"With one arm around Booth’s neck, the other on Johnny Reb (and) dragging the wounded leg behind me, I hobbled toward the village of Sharpsburg,” Pratt recalled. “The air was full of missiles (so) the bank of a sunken road offered inviting shelter and we took it.”  Feeling faint from the loss of blood, he gave Booth a few words to tell his friends back home, just in case he was about to meet his maker. By dark, Pratt and his friend had passed through Sharpsburg, arriving at a large barn with a stone basement near the Potomac River. The next day, as rebel surgeons tended to their wounded, Pratt pleaded for someone to remove the bullet from his thigh. He was about to do the gruesome job himself with his pocket knife when a Confederate hospital steward offered to do it for him. For Pratt, it was a decision that nearly had deadly consequences.

8th Connecticut monument at Antietam.  (Photo: Tad Sattler)

The well-meaning Southerner carved up Pratt’s thigh, making an 11-inch cut and removing a long, jagged bullet that was as flat as the blade of a knife on one side. The hospital steward “probably kept it as a souvenir of his first operation,” fumed Pratt, who thought the “bungling work” caused his wound to heal much too slowly. (“My boy, what butcher took out that bullet?” a Federal surgeon later asked the soldier. “He cut within a quarter-inch of the femoral artery.”  If the artery were cut, Pratt would have bled to death in two to three minutes. ) Later that night, the rebels retreated across the Potomac, taking with them their able-bodied Yankee prisoners, including Booth. The barn was a “chamber of horrors,” Pratt wrote, wounded men from both armies, some in death throes, lying on the floor.

Finally rescued by Federal cavalry, Pratt was treated at two other field hospitals. Evidence of the horror of war was everywhere. “Some of the wounded were fractions of men when surgeons got through with them,” Pratt wrote. “One poor rebel had no arms and legs.”

“Some of the wounded were fractions of men when surgeons got through with them. One poor rebel had no arms and legs."

-- 8th Connecticut Private William Pratt on his experience in a hospital at Antietam
After he recovered from his Antietam wound, Pratt quickly rose through the ranks, receiving a promotion to 2nd lieutenant in December and to adjutant in 1863. Pratt was so well regarded that in February 1865, he was promoted to major. He was mustered out of the service that May, shortly after the war ended, as a lieutenant colonel.

After the war, Pratt worked with his father, with whom he had long since reconciled with, in the ivory business and married a New York woman named Sophie Rand, who during a visit to Meriden admired the way he looked while riding his horse in a parade. But Pratt’s war wound had adversely affected his health, and his physician advised him to seek the dry climate of the West.  “He had all the adventurousness of his pioneer ancestors," his daughter, Alice, wrote decades later about the family’s move to Mankato, Minn., in 1870.   In Mankato, Pratt built a house on a bluff east of the Minnesota River and set up a lumber and furniture business to supply the growing farming
community.

But in the late 1870s, a three-year grasshopper plague wiped out the farms and all the dependent businesses, and Pratt lost everything -- his entire inheritance as well as money invested for others.  He then moved alone in the late 1870s to the Black Hills of Dakota Territory, where the gold rush offered new opportunities for lumber and furniture businesses. In 1886, Sophie and Alice moved there permanently, and two more children were born.

Pratt lived out his days back East, in North Carolina and New York. The old soldier died at age 90 on Feb. 17, 1928 in Williamsville, N.Y., almost 66 years after he came within less than an inch of dying at Antietam.

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-- Have something to add (or correct) in this post? E-mail me here.

SOURCES:

-- The account of William Pratt’s experience at Antietam comes from his unpublished manuscript called "My Story of the War," written in 1912. Courtesy of Nicholas Pratt.

-- Croffut, William Augustus and Morris, John Moses. The Military and Civil History of Connecticut During the War of 1861-65, (New York: Ledyward Bill, 1868), Page 265.

-- Hartford Courant, Oct. 1 1862 and Aug. 31, 1869.

-- Centennial of Meriden, June 6-10, 1906. (The Journal Publishing Co., 1906), Page 328.

-- Pratt, Alice Day. Three Frontiers, (New York: Vantage Press, 1955)

Oct. 17, 1862: A deadly day for Connecticut's Antietam soldiers

Rare circa-1920s image of a farm in Keedysville, Md., that was used as hospital after Antietam.

Right half of image above shows outbuilding (far right) that may have been used as a morgue
 after Antietam. (Go here to see what the farm looks like today.)

          Click on image for full-screen interactive panorama. (Courtesy Harry Kendrick)

On Oct. 17, 1862, one month after Antietam, seven Connecticut soldiers died from effects of wounds suffered in that battle. It was the deadliest post-battle day for soldiers from the state who fought in Sharpsburg, Md. In all, more than 200 soldiers from Connecticut were killed or mortally wounded at Antietam, the bloodiest single day of the war.

Thomas J. Mills, a sergeant in the 14th Connecticut, died
 from effects of his Antietam wound on Oct. 17, 1862.
(Image courtesy Tad Sattler)

Among the unfortunate seven was John Bentley, a 42-year-old private in the 8th Connecticut, who died at a makeshift hospital in Keedysville, Md., from effects of an ankle wound. Before the battle, Bentley had vowed to avenge the death of his son, a corporal/musician in the 2nd Rhode Island, who had been mortally wounded in Virginia on June 25, 1862. Bentley was from the small eastern Connecticut town of Sterling, near the Rhode Island border.

"Since the death of his son a settled gloom has ever rested upon his once pleasant countenance," an 8th Connecticut comrade wrote to the Hartford Daily Courant after Bentley's death, "and the great object of his life seemed to be to revenge his death, fearing that he might die of disease or be killed early battle, before he should know that with his own arm he had caused at least the death of one of the murderers of his noble boy."

14th Connecticut Private George Corbit died in a Washington 
hospital. He's buried in Center Cemetery in Coventry, Conn. 
The date of death is incorrect on his tombstone.

Three other 8th Connecticut soldiers died from their Antietam wounds on Oct. 17: Morton Castle, a 17-year-old private from Litchfield; Private Jerome Nichols, also from Litchfield; and Sergeant Henry Strickland, who died at Crystal Springs Hospital in Keedysville, where Bentley perished. From New Hartford, he was among 10 color-bearers in the regiment who were killed or mortally wounded during its attack near Harpers Ferry Road. (Another color-bearer in the 8th Connecticut, George Marsh of Hartford, was killed near the Henry Rohrbach farm by the concussion of a solid shot about dawn at Antietam.)

Thomas J. Mills, a sergeant and color-bearer in the 14th Connecticut, also died on Oct. 17, at Smoketown Hospital near the battlefield. From New London, Conn., he had been mortally wounded near Bloody Lane. (Here’s more on Mills, whose image appears in a tiny gem tintype album recently purchased by a Connecticut collector.)

Private George W. Corbit, also in the 14th Connecticut, died at Emory General Hospital in Washington from effects of a wound to his shoulder. He was one of three soldiers from tiny Coventry, Conn., to die from wounds suffered at Antietam.

A private in the 16th Connecticut, Emerson Wardwell of Suffield, Conn., had been wounded in the regiment’s attack in the 40-acre cornfield on John Otto’s farm. He died in a hospital in Frederick, Md., the seventh Antietam-related Connecticut death 153 years ago today.

8th Connecticut monument at Antietam. Four soldiers in the regiment who were wounded near 
here during the battle died on Oct. 17, 1862.

Antietam: 8th Connecticut monument at sunrise

8th Connecticut monument at Antietam.  (Photo: Tad Sattler)
CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

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This terrific image of the 8th Connecticut monument at Antietam appears on the back cover of my book, Hidden History of Connecticut Union Soldiers. It was taken by Tad Sattler, whose image of the 14th Connecticut monument appears on the cover of my other book, Connecticut Yankees at Antietam. (You can order a copy of Hidden History on amazon.com or shoot me an e-mail at jbankstx@comcast.net for info on how to get an autographed copy.) Much thanks to Tad, who explains how he shot the photo:

Hidden History of Connecticut Union Soldiers was
released Oct. 26, 2015.

"I arrived at Antietam on Tuesday afternoon, April 14. I went to the 8th's monument that afternoon because you had requested a photo at sunset. Unfortunately the sun was setting and shining on the front of the monument, which would not allow me to capture the sunset. On Wednesday morning, I arrived with my teenage son David just after sunrise, but the sun was already in the sky and the colors were okay but nothing spectacular. The two of us worked on different angles to capture the monument and the sunrise without showing any of the modern home and garage in the right background. The pictures were okay, but I wasn't satisfied with them. I tried on Thursday morning with both my kids and my wife, but that was a total failure because they took too long eating breakfast, so we completely missed the sunrise. Our last day was Friday, so I decided to go by myself and arrived before dawn. I noticed that the fog was around the fence in the background but wasn't visible taking the photo from eye level. I decided to mount my camera on my tripod and with the legs fully extended and with the shutter set on a timer, I was able to hold the camera six feet above my head and capture this unique angle. I saved the best for last!"

8th Connecticut Corporal John Bentley: A father's revenge

Corporal John Bentley's grave in Antietam National Cemetery.
No photo is known to exist of the soldier from Sterling, Conn.

After a Rebel artillery shell had shattered his legs and mangled his chest and wrist at the Battle of Oak Grove, near Richmond, on June 25, 1862, William Bentley was placed with other Union wounded under a massive, tall tree that also was used as an observatory during the fighting. Initially refusing painkillers, the mortally wounded corporal/musician in the 2nd Rhode Island asked his comrades to pray for him and dictated a note to his mother.

"What heart-rending scenes did I witness in that place,” a Massachusetts chaplain recalled, “so full of saddened memories to me and to others.”

8th Connecticut monument at Antietam.

One of six Bentley children, 21-year-old William met his “his death as cheerfully and bravely as he had lived,” it was later noted, “leaving a large circle of friends to mourn his fall and cherish his memory.” His demise was well-chronicled in Rhode Island newspapers.

Nearly three months later, at the Battle of Antietam, his father desperately wanted to get even with the army responsible for his eldest son’s death. A 42-year-old private in the 8th Connecticut from Sterling, near the Rhode Island border, John Bentley had enlisted in October 1861, four months after William joined the Union army.

"Since the death of his son a settled gloom has ever rested upon his once pleasant countenance," an 8th Connecticut comrade using the intitials “W.P.M.” wrote to the Hartford Daily Courant, "and the great object of his life seemed to be to revenge his death, fearing that he might die of disease or be killed early battle, before he should know that with his own arm he had caused at least the death of one of the murderers of his noble boy."

Described as an excellent marksman, Bentley was so eager to get a shot at the enemy that he vowed to fight in the front ranks and perhaps, he reasoned, spare the life of a younger man in the regiment. "If I can only live to kill one rebel," Bentley's comrade recalled him saying, "I shall be revenged on those who have brought our country to ruin, and made life a burden to me by causing the death of my ... son, and am then ready to die, for at the longest an old man can live but a few years."

Late in the afternoon on Sept. 17, 1862, the 8th Connecticut pushed up a ridge near the village of Sharpsburg, Md., far ahead of the faltering 4th Rhode Island and overmatched 16th Connecticut, a regiment in its first battle of the war. Nearly cut off from the rest of the IX Corps, the regiment soon was forced to retreat back toward Antietam Creek.

Carefully aiming and firing during the onslaught, Bentley "displayed bravery second to none,” his comrade recalled, and "... after each discharge of his piece, he would watch eagerly the effect of his charge, and several times was heard to exclaim, 'I hit him! I hit him!' "

Among the last of the regiment to leave the field, Bentley fired one, final shot, shouting “I fetched him!” as the bullet hit its mark. But moments later, a bullet tore through his ankle bone, staggering him and adding his name to the 8th Connecticut’s lengthy list of casualties. (Eight soldiers from Bentley’s Company F, comprised of soldiers from eastern Connecticut towns, were killed or mortally wounded at Antietam.) Carried by comrades to a field hospital, probably on the nearby farm of Henry Rohrbach or John Otto, Bentley was not considered dangerously wounded.

Document in Bentley's widow's pension file notes that he died at Big Spring General Hospital,
 one of several names for the hospital near the Antietam battlefield. In 1868, 
Bentley's wife married a man named David Hicox.
(CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)

"I visited him three weeks after he received his wound," his comrade wrote, and "he appeared very cheerful." Although Bentley's leg wound was painful and his mouth was so sore that he couldn't even eat hard crackers, he was optimistic and was told by a doctor that his foot could be saved.

But Bentley's optimism proved unfounded. The wound became infected, and on October 17, 1862, a little more than one month after he was shot, he died at Crystal Springs Hospital in Keedysville, Md., two miles from the battlefield. A farmer, Bentley left behind a wife named Zilpha and five children ranging in age from 2 to 14.

"But, poor man, he is gone, and we hope is now at rest with his son, where there are no wars," the soldier in his regiment wrote to the Hartford newspaper. "Long will he be held dear in the hearts of every member of his company, as a faithful friend and brave soldier.

"He should not be forgotten by his country."

No image of John Bentley -- "another victim of this wicked rebellion," according to his 8th Connecticut comrade -- is known to exist. He lies buried in Antietam National Cemetery under grave No. 1117.

SOURCES

Hackett, Horatio B., Christian Memorial of the War: Or, Scenes and Incidents Illustrative of Religious Faith and Principle, Patriotism and Bravery in Our Army, Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 1864), Page 111

Woodbury, Augustus, The Second Rhode Island Regiment, Providence: Valpey, Angell and Company, 1875, Page 386

Hartford Daily Courant, Oct. 31, 1862.

1860 U.S. census

John Bentley's "widow's" pension file, National Archives and Records Service, Washington, D.C.

Corporal John Bentley, wounded at the Battle of Antietam, died at Crystal Springs Hospital near
 the battlefield. This is the back of the farmhouse that in 1862-63 was part of the hospital 
in Keedysville, Md. It is privately owned today. (Read my Q&A with the current owners here.)

Antietam: A staggering toll for the 8th Connecticut

October 1862 monthly returns for the 8th Connecticut. (Connecticut State Library archives)

A trip to the Connecticut State Library archives usually proves rewarding. Last week, I found a newspaper account from 1922 that shed light on the life of 20th Connecticut Private George Warner, who lost both his arms to friendly fire at Gettysburg. On Saturday morning, I discovered Warner's enlistment paper -- he was 5-11, with blue eyes, brown hair and a dark complexion -- and another gem: the monthly returns for October 1862 for the 8th Connecticut. The massive account of the regiment includes the staggering toll it suffered at the Battle of Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862. Forty-one soldiers were listed as killed or mortally wounded on the fragile document.

Many of those men and boys have been written about on my blog. Private Oliver Case of Simsbury, killed. Color-bearer George Booth, a corporal from Litchfield, mortally wounded. George Marsh, a sergeant from Hartford and also a member of the regiment's color guard, KIA. Corporal Robert Ferriss of New Milford, killed. The death tally for the regiment at Antietam, according to my downloadable Excel spreadsheet, was at least 55 of the approximately 400 who participated in the fighting.

Cool Civil War stuff at museum in Harwinton, Connecticut

On a cold, snowy morning in Connecticut, I made the short trek to tiny Harwinton to visit my friend Dane Deleppo, who helps run the T.A. Hungerford Memorial Library And Museum. The small, off-the-beaten path museum is stuffed from the basement to the second floor with historic memorabilia and artifacts, from a World War I gas mask and German army helmet (a "pickelhaube") to a rare War of 1812 uniform.

My aim was to check out the Civil War collection, especially anything from the 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery, a regiment of mostly Litchfield County residents that suffered more than 300 casualties at the Battle of Cold Harbor on June 1, 1864. Through the years, Litchfield County families and others have donated artifacts to the museum, which if you blink, you may just miss if you drive too fast down two-lane Spielman Highway (State Rt. 4). Dane arrived early and thankfully turned on the heat before my 10 a.m. arrival. Armed with an iPhone 5 and curiosity, I had a blast sifting through the collections. Here's some of what I discovered:

CLICK ON IMAGES FOR A LARGER VIEW.

AMBROTYPE: 19TH CONNECTICUT SOLDIER

This image is either Henry, Jerome, Morris or Lewis Munger, all of whom served in the 19th Connecticut, which mustered in in Litchfield in late July 1862 and later became the 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery. Wearing civilian clothing and holding his kepi with his regimental designation affixed, Munger probably had this image taken shortly after he was mustered in.

REBEL FLAG FROM COLD HARBOR?

The tag on the case indicates this small Rebel battle flag is from Cold Harbor. Was it picked up from the battlefield by a soldier? Or was it made post-war and purchased at, say, a Virginia "relic" shop? I'm not a flag expert, so I will leave this to others to decide. Shoot me your thoughts in an e-mail here.

8TH CONNECTICUT SOLDIERS MEMORIAL LIST

Dane Deleppo holds an ornate descriptive list of soldiers in Company E of the 8th Connecticut. The regiment suffered 70 killed or mortally wounded -- including eight in Company E -- at the Battle of Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862.(Download my Excel spreadsheet of Connecticut Antietam deaths here.) A close-up reveals the beautiful, ornate design on the poster, which lists each soldier in the company.

MUSTER ROLL FOR 13TH COLORED ARTILLERY

Lyman Catlin, who served as a private in the 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery, was promoted to 1st lieutenant in the 13th Colored Heavy Artillery on Aug. 29, 1864. He also served as that regiment's adjutant. From Harwington, he brought the 13th Heavies' muster and descriptive roll home with him after the war. In a sad commentary of the times, next to the name of each soldier appears the name of  his owner and next to the name of the soldier's wife appears the name of her owner. Often, that was not the same person. According to Deleppo, one of Catlin's soldiers followed him back to Connecticut after the war.

2ND CONNECTICUT  HEAVY ARTILLERY RIBBONS

When veterans attended reunions of their comrades after the war, they often collected ribbons such as these, which sometimes were adorned with images of other veterans or war-time iamges of soldiers who didn't survive. I purchased this 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery ribbon on eBay during the summer.

BELDEN BROWN POST-WAR MEMORABILIA

A drummer in the 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery, Belden S. Brown of  Harwinton obtained these knicknacks at Grand Aarmy of the Republic events. The item at top was given out at the dedication of the Soldiers' And Sailors' Memorial in New Haven, Conn., in 1887

Robert Ferriss' death at Antietam: 'We feel his loss deeply'

Corporal Robert Ferriss of the 8th Connecticut. (Image courtesy Ferriss descendant)

                                    8TH CONNECTICUT MONUMENT AT ANTIETAM:
                         The regiment's dead and wounded lay in this field after the battle.
                                  (Click on image for full-screen interactive panorama.)


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Perhaps no Union regiment's color guard at the Battle of Antietam suffered more than the 8th Connecticut's. Sergeant George Marsh of Company A was killed by the concussion of a solid shot about dawn and 10 other color bearers were killed or mortally wounded in the thick of a fierce fight near Harpers Ferry Road late on the afternoon of Sept. 17, 1862. Among them was Robert Bruce Ferriss, a 27-year-old corporal in Company I from New Milford, about 50 miles west of Hartford.

Antietam was an especially bloody battle for the 375-man 8th Connecticut, which suffered 56 killed or mortally wounded, including 16-year-old Private Dwight Carey of Canterbury, who was the youngest soldier from the state to die there, and 54-year-old  Private Peter Mann of Enfield, who was the oldest. "The whistle of iron was terrible," an officer in the regiment later wrote. (Download my Excel spreadsheet of Connecticut Antietam deaths here.)

In late September 1862, it fell to Company I Captain William J. Roberts to inform the Ferriss family of the death of their son. In a two-page letter to Ferris' mother, Roberts described in detail the moment Robert was shot, the recovery of his body and where he was buried in a trench on John Otto's farm on the battlefield, a short distance from where Ferriss took a Rebel bullet in the chest. The note is similar to condolence letters other commanding officers sent to the families of 16th Connecticut Private Henry Aldrich and 11th Connecticut privates Daniel Tarbox and Fennimore Weeks, also casualties in the battle.  Antietam was an agonizing experience for Roberts, who despite being violently ill and vomiting throughout the battle remained with his regiment.

For years, the condolence letter to Louisa Ferriss and many letters that Robert wrote home after he enlisted on Sept. 21, 1861, were stuffed in shoe boxes. Handed down to one of Ferriss' descendants, they are now kept in two large, protective binders, safe for future generations of the family. Thanks to that descendant's generosity, the letter breaking the news of Robert's death 152 years ago is shared here.

PAGE 1.

"It was near the close of the battle that he reeled and fell down near me." 

Mrs. Ferriss:

It is with great sorrow that I write to you concerning the death of your son Robert who was almost instantly killed by a musket shot through the breast at the battle of Antietam on the 17th of this month. He fell at his post on the right of his company when he was cheering his comrades and fighting with all his strength. It was near the close of the battle that he reeled and fell down near me, giving me a very forlorn look which he also directed towards Col. [Hiram] Applemen [Appelman], who was also very near him. I asked him if he wished for anything but the blood rushing from his mouth prevented him from speaking & his head sinking upon the ground satisfied me that he was dying. My attention being called to another part of the line I saw no more of him as we were soon ordered away. 

In my first letter home, I could not report him dead as there might have been a possibility of his having only fainted & of his revival. That night & following day the enemy held that field but the day after we drove them back & I hurried to see the fate of our missing comrades & found Corp. Robert Ferris where we left him lying peacefully on his back with a very pleasant smile upon his countenance, as if he had lain down to his long rest with the sweet consciousness that his work was done, and well done. We [illegible] his limbs and composed his body for the grave wrapping a blanket about him. On account of the great numbers of the slain on this portion of the field and the scarcity of implements for burying it was impossible to make separate graves and our comrades were laid side by side decently in a trench with the others killed of our Regt. where their [illegible] will mingle in death as their strength united in life to defend their country and its land. Of Robert at home I knew but little but I know well that he was the same steady, honest man on the day of his death that he was the day he left New Milford for the purpose of fighting the battle of his country.

PAGE 2

"We sympathize truly with you in your great affliction..." 

As a company we feel his loss deeply, one of our best and most efficient officers had fallen. He was looked upon among the 1st to take command of important & dangerous posts. Brave, yet prudent, firm and unyielding. Our country has lost a gallant soldier, our state an excellent citizen, his comrades a trusted friend and his parents a noble son.

Ferriss' weathered state-issued marker in
 Center Cemetery in New Milford, Conn. His body
 was returned to Connecticut for burial.
 (Richard M. Clarke/Find A Grave)

We sympathize truly with you in your great affliction and would offer words of consolation were it necessary to offer such to those who have given their sons to their country.

The money and valuables which Robert had about his person were taken from his body by the enemy. His knapsack is at Washington and I will have [it] sent home as soon as we receive them.

With respect I remain yours truly

Wm. J. Roberts

P.S. The grave of Robert is marked by a stake on which is nailed a piece of board with his name and rank cut upon it. His body could be taken up if his brother or some one should come after it. The trench in which he is laid is on the South side of a pen containing four large grain stacks upon the battlefield. It is situated on the left side of the road after crossing Antietam Bridge and directly in the rear of and opposite side of the 1st house on the road. This house is now used as a hospital for the wounded.

Corporal Robert Ferriss was originally buried in a field on John Otto's farm near the large tree 
in the right background of this early-20th century photograph.

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Antietam: Little-known hospital cemetery in Keedysville, Md.

                      Ephraim Geeting's house and farm were used as a Union hospital after 
                                the Battle of Antietam. The farm is privately owned today.
                    (CLICK ON IMAGE FOR FULL-SCREEN INTERACTIVE PANORAMA.)

In the weeks after the Battle of Antietam, the piazza and rooms of Ephraim Geeting’s farmhouse as well as his outbuildings were filled with wounded soldiers, many of them from Connecticut. Heart-rending scenes played out on the farm-turned-Union army hospital in Keedysville, Md., known as Crystal Springs and Locust Spring, among other names.

A teen-aged soldier from Massachusetts, who suffered from a bullet wound through the pelvis, was nursed by a comrade, who almost constantly remained by his side. When his wound was dressed in a tent one day, the wounded soldier screamed out in agony, bringing the doctor who was treating him to tears. “Oh this wicked cruel war,” cried the physician, whose young patient later died. “Oh, take me to my mother,” another wounded man, a young soldier from Pennsylvania with a chest wound, moaned repeatedly before he “fell asleep and was transported to that home where the weary are forever at rest.”

LEFT: Marker for 8th Connecticut Lieutenant Edwin Main in South Cemetery in Brooklyn, Conn.
RIGHT: Marker for 16th Connecticut Private Francis Burr in Higganum-Burr Cemetery
in Higganum, Conn. The 23-year-old soldier's remains were buried at Antietam National Cemetery.
Both soldiers died at Crystal Springs hospital in Keedysville, Md.

At least seven soldiers from Connecticut who suffered wounds at Antietam died at Crystal Springs hospital in October 1862, including 18-year-old Henry Fanning, a private in the 8th Connecticut from Norwich who succumbed to his wounds 152 years ago today. Private Francis Burr of the 16th Connecticut, who suffered a bullet wound in the groin and had lain with his wounded brother in a cornfield for 40 hours until they were rescued, died there on Oct. 12. Corporal John Bentley of the 8th Connecticut, who vowed to get revenge on the Rebels for the death of his son at the Battle of Seven Pines, died Oct. 17, likely from infection, from a bullet wound in the ankle. Days earlier, according to a comrade, he had "appeared very cheerful."

Gravestone for 8th Connecticut  Corporal John Bentley at
Antietam National Cemetery. He died at Crystal Springs hospital on
Oct. 17, 1862, one month after the battle.

Well into November, Connecticut soldiers were dying at Crystal Springs hospital. Suffering from a severe hip wound, 8th Connecticut Lieutenant Edwin Main was comforted at the hospital by his wife, Mary, who had traveled from Brooklyn, Conn. The 40-year-old officer died there on Nov. 17, exactly two months after he was wounded. Two days earlier, 18-year-old Private Henry Dodge of the 11th Connecticut and 8th Connecticut Corporal Andrew Kimball, who had been wounded in the shoulder, also perished. In all, at least 17 soldiers from Connecticut died on Geeting's farm. (Click here for my downloadable Excel spreadsheet of Connecticut Antietam deaths.)

Many of the dead were buried on the farm, probably on a knoll across the road from the farmhouse. In April 1863, the cemetery, which was enclosed by a stone wall, included 63 wooden grave markers, each painted white and marked with a soldier's name, regiment and date of death.  A monument made from a cannon tube from the battle and topped with a cannonball had been placed among the grave markers. A plaque on it read: “Sacred to the memory of Union soldiers who lost their lives in defence of their country at the Battle of Antietam."

"I am sure anyone who visits this spot, sacred to the memory of our brave dead, will feel grateful to those who have shown respect for their remains," reported Reverend J.O. Sloan, a delegate of the U.S. Christian Commission of Maryland. "Ought not our Government to see that every burial place attached to a field hospital is enclosed and properly protected, and the graves marked. The dead deserve this mark of respect."

After the war, the remains in the hospital cemetery were disinterred and re-buried in Sharpsburg in the national cemetery, which was formally dedicated in 1867. No photo or illustration is known to exist of the original resting place of the soldiers who died at Crystal Springs hospital. The site believed to have been used for the cemetery is overgrown with trees and weeds and rarely visited today. (For a Q&A with the current owners of the Geeting farm, click here.)

The Crystal Springs hospital cemetery is believed to have been located across the road from the 
Geeting farmhouse. Nature has taken over the site.

Antietam: Sergeant George Marsh 'returns' to burial site

Cased tintype of George Marsh in front of a family memorial at Old North Cemetery in Hartford.
The word "Antietam" is barely legible on the weathered brownstone monument.

Daguerreotypes of George Marsh and his
 mother, Lamira. (Blogger's collection)

In a letter from New Bern, N.C., on June 29, 1862, Sergeant George Marsh of the 8th Connecticut assured his parents that he was well and told them not to worry if they didn't receive another message from him soon. "... we are having three days rations cooked for a march somewhere," he wrote, "and I don't know when we shall get to a place where we can write from."

The 29-year-old officer also passed along his regrets that he was unable to send his parents a gift. "I meant to have had my daguerreotype taken before I left here but guess I shall not get a chance now," he wrote to Guy and Lamira Marsh. "The saloon is full of customers and it is not every day I get a chance to go to the city and as you have got one picture of me, that would do for I have not grown handsome, I can assure you!"

Less than three months later, Marsh was dead, one of 11 members of the regiment's color guard to die at the Battle of Antietam. Camped on the farm of Henry Rohrbach, he was killed by the concussion of a solid shot fired by the Rebels from across Antietam Creek about dawn on Sept. 17, 1862. In late September, Marsh's brother-in-law, Oliver D. Seymour, traveled to Sharpsburg, Md., and recovered George's remains. En route back to Connecticut, Seymour sent a telegram from Baltimore that George's body would reach Hartford from New York by steamer on Monday morning, Sept. 27. Later that day, a service was held for him at the home of his parents at No. 77 Main Street before the casket containing his remains was taken to nearby Old North Cemetery for burial.

This afternoon, I took a tintype of Marsh from my collection to the cemetery to shoot the photos at the top and bottom of this post. Perhaps Lamira Marsh held the same tintype -- maybe the same photograph that George mentioned to his parents in his letter home -- when her son was laid to rest. For me, it completed the circle on the Marsh story. In late September, I took the tintype of him to Antietam to shoot an image near the site where he was killed more than 152 years ago.

State-issued gravestone for George Marsh in Old North Cemetery in Hartford.

8th Connecticut Sergeant George Marsh 'returns' to Antietam

Image of  George Marsh photographed near where he was killed at Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862.

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In late September 1862, a funeral that "was very largely attended" was held for 29-year-old George Marsh at the home of his parents at 77 Main Street in Hartford. Afterward, the remains of the 8th Connecticut sergeant, who was killed at the Battle of Antietam about dawn on Sept. 17, 1862, were buried in Hartford's Old North Cemetery—one of many such services held in Connecticut after the battle that claimed more than 200 of the state's sons. 

Early Saturday morning, Marsh returned to the battlefield—figuratively speaking, of course—for the first time in more than 152 years.

Thanks to the current land owner, who drove me in her truck on rugged trails on her property, I finally found the spot on the ridge by the Henry Rohrbach farm where Marsh and two other 8th Connecticut soldiers were killed and several others were wounded when Rebels lobbed shells from across nearby Antietam Creek. I carried with me two images of Marsh—a daguerreotype and tintype—that I bought from a Michigan antiques dealer who earlier this summer contacted me after she saw another photo of Marsh on my blog. After the land owner and I traipsed through thick undergrowth near an old Civil War-era lane, I shot the image above at the edge of a cornfield, near where the regiment was shelled.

According to contemporaneous newspaper account, a 12-pound solid shot struck directly in front of the prone Marsh—he had been ill that morning—passed under him and re-emerged from the ground a few feet away.  The chunk of iron never touched Guy and Lamira Marsh's son, who died from the concussion of the shell—probably the first soldier from the state to die at Antietam. Soldiers in the 8th Connecticut panicked and scattered after the shelling, but they were calmed by their 19-year-old lieutenant, Marvin Wait, who had been covered by earth as well as blood of the wounded and killed.

"The brave fellow sprung to his feet ... and ordered every man back to his post in the most gallant manner," an account noted.

Hours later, Wait was dead, riddled with bullets as the 8th Connecticut's final push toward Sharpsburg was stopped on another ridge.

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Sergeant George Marsh: First Connecticut death at Antietam?

A daguerreotype (top) and tintype of 8th Connecticut Sergeant George Marsh, who was
 killed at Antietam. (Photos: Blogger's collection)

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Shortly after sunrise on Sept. 17, 1862, “some curious fools” in the 8th Connecticut climbed atop a knoll on Henry Rohrbach’s farm to sneak a peek at their enemy, alerting Rebels on the far side of Antietam Creek. Suddenly, a 12-pound solid shot burst from a cannon and crashed into the regiment’s ranks in a field near Rohrbach's farmhouse, killing Sergeant George Marsh and two other soldiers, wounding four, and splattering 19-year-old Lieutenant Marvin Wait with blood and dirt.

At least one report speculated that railroad iron fired by the Rebels killed Marsh, but the real cause was the massive concussion of the solid shot that plowed into the ground in front of the prone soldier. A "trusty soldier with a spotless reputation," the 29-year-old Marsh, who was "ill that morning but determined to be at his post," may have been the first soldier from Connecticut killed at the Battle of Antietam.

George Marsh's family: Father Guy (top), mother 
Lamira and sister Susan. The Marsh family was 
from Hartford.
(Photos: Blogger's collection)

For his parents Lamira and Guy and sister Susan back in Hartford, George's death must have been a crushing blow. An unmarried carpenter and polisher for a silversmith, Marsh financially supported his sickly father, who worked in a sash and blind factory and was described as a man of "feeble strength, and never able to do anything like hard labor." From 1855 until George's death, Guy Marsh made from $1.25 to $2.25 a day. Two years before his son enlisted in the army, the elder Marsh, who barely weighed 110 pounds, had a "long and dangerous sickness" that the family physician attributed to the "effects of working with paints" at the factory.

While he served in the Union army, George frequently sent money home, sometimes as much as $40 at a time, and often inquired about his father's health, noting in one letter that he thought it "will do father good to take a trip to Waterbury [Conn.]." In rich detail, he also wrote about his war experience, telling his parents of skirmishing against Rebels, frustrations and boredom with army life and about prisoners of war.

"Today I have tattoo'd about 2 dozen men with India ink just to keep myself busy," he wrote in one letter.

In another letter, he wrote about a young Rebel POW: "One man showed me his thigh today where he had a bayonet put through it for putting his head over the line to vomit, and that was by a boy not over 14 years old."

In late spring 1862, George proudly told of his promotion from corporal to sergeant.

"I am fourth sergeant now," he wrote on June 3, 1862 from New Bern, N.C., "our orderly having been promoted to be second lieutenant of our company. Lieutenant [Wolcott] Marsh is captain of Company F now. I have to do the duties of 2nd sergeant as the 2nd is color bearer and the 3rd has done no duty since we left the Banks and I guess never will do any more. He is the tallest man in the regiment and I am the shortest sergeant so we look gay marching near each other and are known as the 'long' and 'short' sergeants of Company A."  (Marsh, who had a light complexion, hazel eyes and light hair, stood only 5-4, about four inches shorter than the average height for a Civil War soldier.)

Added Marsh in the same letter: "Some of this military business is like a farce but I like to see the whole performance and think I shall be able to if I don’t get killed in a battle or by disease."

Oliver D. Seymour, Marsh's brother-in-law, went to the battlefield to retrieve George's body, which was sent to New York by steamer. In late September, Marsh's remains arrived on a noon train to Hartford, and three hours later, a funeral service that "was very largely attended" was held at his parents' house at 77 Main Street. Afterward, his remains were buried a short distance away at Hartford's Old North Cemetery.

Today, on the battered, brownstone Marsh family memorial at the ancient Hartford cemetery, the word "Antietam" is barely legible.

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SOURCES:

-- Croffut, William Augustus, and John Moses Morris. The Military and Civil History of Connecticut During the War of 1861-65, New York: Ledyard Bill, 1868.
-- George Marsh pension file, National Archives and Record Service, Washington, D.C.
-- Hartford Daily Times, Sept. 27, 1862.
-- PG 80, Box 3, Connecticut State Library, Hartford, Conn.

George Marsh's state-issued tombstone in Old North Cemetery in Hartford.

Antietam Mann's plea to FDR: 'Please read this letter'

Antietam Burnside Mann (upper left), whose father was mortally wounded at the Battle of Antietam, 
suffered with various health issues for her entire life. She made one final plea for a pension 
to President Franklin Roosevelt in 1935. (Mann photo courtesy of her descendants)

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Decades after the Civil War, awful ripple effects of family tragedy rocked Antietam Burnside Mann. Her 54-year-old father, Peter, a private in the 8th Connecticut, suffered a bullet wound in the groin at the Battle of Antietam. A weaver from Enfield, Conn., Peter died in a field hospital near Sharpsburg on Sept. 27, 1862, 10 days after the battle. Her husband's death was a great shock to Mann's wife, Ann,  pregnant at the time with her fourth child. After an extremely difficult labor, Ann gave birth to a daughter on Jan. 31, 1863.

Antietam Burnside Mann's grave
 in Friends Southwestern
  Burial Grounds in Upper Darby, Pa.

"Imperfectly developed," the girl was blind in her left eye and suffered from heart and stomach ailments. The midwives who aided the delivery blamed "depressing influences of prenatal sorrow, grief and anxiety" for the poor health of the child, who was named for the battle and General Ambrose Burnside, the man who directed the attack in which Peter Mann was mortally wounded. 

Life was a struggle for Antietam, who suffered from fainting spells and headaches and dropped out of high school to work in a carpet mill. The family sought help from specialists, but they offered her little hope.

"Thus she lives on," the family's longtime doctor wrote, "doomed to perpetual hopelessness and suffering."

After her mother died in 1890, Antietam lived with relatives in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. Unable to work and hoping to take advantage of an act passed by Congress to aid helpless children of Civil War vets, she sought a pension. After the government twice rejected her claims, 72-year-old Antietam took her case to President Franklin Roosevelt himself in 1935. 

Whether the president read her letter is unknown, but it did indeed made it to the White House. A stamp acknowledging its receipt included the signature of Louis McHenry Howe, the president's secretary and son of a Civil War vet.

"I can truthfully say I have never enjoyed a day's health in my life," Mann wrote in the letter dated Aug. 7, 1935.  (See below for complete text of Mann's letter to FDR.)

"I have often prayed to the Lord to take me, but God's ways are not our ways.," she added in the heart-rending letter, which I discovered in the National Archives while researching my book, "Connecticut Yankees at Antietam."

Ten days after receipt of the letter, however, the government rejected her claim. "This action was taken after a thorough field examination," a bureaucrat wrote.

Mann, whose story is detailed in my book, lived with relatives until the end of her life. She died at age 79 on Dec. 29, 1943.

SOURCE

• Peter Mann's pension record, National Archives and Records Service, Washington, D.C., via fold3.com.

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Antietam Burnside Mann's letter to President Roosevelt reached the White House.
The arrow points to its receipt by Roosevelt's secretary, Louis McHenry Howe.

Aug. 7, 1935

Mr. President
Washington, D.C.

Sir:

Please read this letter. My father, Peter Mann of Thompsonville, Connecticut, served in the Civil War; he was over fifty years when the war started but being very patriotic, he soon inlisted (sic). He came home on a furlough, May 1862, went back and was fatally wounded in the battle of Antietam, September 17, 1862. This was a great shock to my mother as I was born the following January 31, 1863. I can truthfully say I have never enjoyed a day's health in my life. The government granted a pension for me until I was sixteen years. My mother died October 9, 1890. Since then I have depended on my relatives.

Unable to hold a job, Mann lived with relatives in three states.

For the last forty five years, I have lived first with one and then with another. It has been a great trial for me for I knew they could not afford to keep me, but I was always treated with kindness. About twenty eight years ago, Mr. Liddell, an old veteran, put in a claim for a pension for me. Several doctors gave statements, stating I was not capable of supporting myself. I was rejected as I was not an idiot, or permanently helpless. I have heart and stomach trouble, very little sight in one eye, and my hands are crippled from arthritis. I have been with my niece in Drexel Hill (Pa.) for the last eight years; they have lost their home as they could not keep up the payments, her husband being out of work. I should feel very thankful if the government would grant me a pension. I should pay may board and have medical attention. I don't like to ask for charity, but that is what I have depended on for ...

"PS," Mann wrote the president, "please excuse pencil writing!"

...many years. I have often prayed to the Lord to take me, but God's ways are not our ways. I sometimes think it was sent to test my faith. If my father had been spared, I would never had to depend on charity and no doubt would have been born with good health. Pardon me for writing you, but everybody advised me to write. If I am not asking to (sic) much, will you please answer.

Yours respectfully

Antietam Mann

Miss Antietam Mann
508 Alexandria Ave.
Drexel Hill, Pa.

PS. Please excuse pencil writing!

Ten days after Antietam Mann wrote a letter to FDR, her claim for a pension was rejected.

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