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: 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.