Antietam: Seeking the elusive story of Captain John Drake

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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