Meet Hartford undertaker who recovered bodies at Antietam

In the Hartford Daily Courant, undertaker William Roberts and businessman M.S. Chapman
 advertised for their services to retrieve bodies of Union soldiers from battlefields in the South. 
(CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)

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To recover remains of loved ones who died at Antietam, some Connecticut families paid for the services of William W. Roberts, a 48-year-old Hartford undertaker/coffin maker, who specialized in the grim task. In early October 1862, he returned home with a ghastly haul of eight bodies from the battlefield, including 26-year-old Jarvis Blinn of Rocky Hill. The well-regarded captain of Company F in the 14th Connecticut was shot through the heart on William Roulette’s farm.

A sketch of William Roberts that appeared 
with his obituary in the Hartford Daily Courant
 on May 23, 1898.

In the Hartford Daily Courant, Roberts and businessman M.S. Chapman, a  former Union soldier, frequently touted their body retrieval services: "...have it done in a thoroughly reliable manner, by one who has had much experience, and is well-acquainted with the different localities in the South," one advertisement noted.

Read another: "Persons having friends who have died in the army, and buried at Port Royal, Washington, Fortress Monroe, Shenandoah Valley, before Richmond, or anywhere within our lines can have their remains brought north for internment by applying at the office of Wm. W. Roberts."

"Those who have lost friends in the army and desire to procure their bodies," the newspaper reported, "will do well to consult W. W. Roberts, No. 12 Pratt st."

Even well into October 1864, months after the war ended, Roberts and Chapman advertised for their  services.

Born in Newington, about seven miles from Hartford, Roberts was orphaned at an early age. After learning to become a carpenter, he operated a furniture business on Pratt Street in Hartford, across the street from a bank. Roberts later added an undertaking business and was known for the impressive innovation of adding glass to the sides of a hearse -- the first man in the United States to do so. He became so good at coffin-making that his "burial caskets of artistic design earned him a reputation which extended throughout New England."

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In September 1866, Roberts, a wealthy man, left the business of death for the entertainment business. In 1868, he built the Hartford Opera House on Main Street and for 17 years "provided practically all of the professional entertainment in the city."

"Silent and uncommunicative by nature," Roberts died at age 84 on May 22, 1898. The man who was very fond of horses and "always had one or more handy steppers in his stable" is buried in Hartford's Spring Grove Cemetery, not far from where he once crafted coffins for the dead of Antietam.

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SOURCE

-- Hartford Daily Courant, May 23, 1898.

Hartford's Old North cemetery: A photo gallery

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A little more than two years ago, I visited Hartford's Old North Cemetery and left disappointed. The grounds, the final resting place for many Civil War soldiers and city luminaries, were strewn with debris and choked with vegetation. It was a mess. But much has changed since that 2012 Fourth of July visit. Many of the toppled tombstones have been re-set and most of the weeds and trash have been removed, making the 206-year-old cemetery well worth a visit. I channeled my inner-Mathew Brady and Alexander Gardner to shoot these images at Old North.

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Commemorating Battle of Irish Bend at Hartford's Arch

A band passes under Hartford's Soldiers And Sailors Memorial Arch on April 14, 1888,
the 25th anniversary of the Battle of Irish Bend. (Photo: Connecticut State Library archives)
.

On April 14, 1888, veterans of the 25th Connecticut marked the 25th anniversary of the Battle of Irish Bend with a reunion and a parade that passed through Hartford's Soldiers And Sailors Memorial Arch. Or, as it's better known to me, the stretch run of the annual Max O'Hartford 5K run held every spring.

Hartford's Soldiers And Sailors Arch today.

Fought in western Louisiana on April 14, 1863, Irish Bend didn't compare to higher-profile battles such as Antietam, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg or Drewry's Bluff. Even the Hartford Courant downplayed its significance in an article published the day of the reunion, noting "Irish Bend will never be regarded as one of the great events of the war."

"The Union troops which served in the Department of the Gulf during the war have had scant justice done them in war histories," the Courant reported. "They saw arduous service in a section of the country where disease was more to be dreaded than battle. They did their duty faithfully and well, but were often handicapped by the incompetency of their department commanders. It was not their good fortune to have much to do with events that will be regarded by historians as decisive of the war."

Union General Nathaniel Banks, one of the most incompetent generals of the war (and thankfully, no relation), won a strategic victory at Irish Bend, fought in the mosquito-filled backwoods and bayous of Louisiana. Union casualties were about 350; the 25th Connecticut suffered 95 killed and wounded in its first  battle of the Civil War.

"The 25th Connecticut, which bore the brunt of the first of the fight, was entitled to special credit and showed the stuff of which it was made," the Courant reported. "In less than twenty minutes it lost, killed and wounded, probably one-sixth of the men present for duty, but it stood up ... like a veteran regiment and was at no time demoralized or broken."

Judging from the photograph, April 14, 1888, wasn't a great day for a parade. Many in the large crowd clutched umbrellas as the band passed underneath the massive arch, the best Civil War memorial in Connecticut. Big victory or not, the Irish Bend anniversary apparently was worth commemorating to some.

Antietam: Cedar Hill Cemetery photo journal

Samuel Thompson, a 19-year-old lieutenant in Company H of the 16th Connecticut, 
is buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery in Hartford. Mortally wounded at Antietam, he died at home.

Antietam-related history can be found nearly in my own back yard here in Connecticut.

In Greenwood Cemetery, just across the road from our house in Avon, rest the remains of 16th Connecticut private Austin Fuller, who served at Antietam. Captured at Plymouth, N.C., in 1864, Fuller was sent to the notorious rebel prisoner-of-war camp in Andersonville, Ga., and later paroled in "greatly emaciated" condition. The 23-year-old soldier died at home in Farmington, Conn., "suddenly and expectedly" on Jan. 8, 1865.

Buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery, Melancthon Storrs, a surgeon in
 the 8th Connecticut, amputated the right leg of 16th Connecticut 
captain Frederick Barber (above). Wounded at Antietam, Barber
 died on Sept. 20, 1862, three days after the battle.

In West Avon Cemetery, two miles over the hill from Banks manor, is the grave of Private Wallace Woodford of the 16th Connecticut. Wounded at Antietam, Woodford also was captured at Plymouth, N.C., in 1864 and sent to Andersonville. Tormented by his treatment by the rebels, Woodford found it difficult to talk about his prison experience. "When asleep he would throw his arms about, thinking he was in Andersonville .. endeavoring to obtain food," the Hartford Courant reported in January 1865. Like Fuller, the 22-year-old soldier from Avon died at home, on Jan. 10, 1865.

And down the road, in Unionville, a Civil War memorial funded by 16th Connecticut captain Nathaniel Hayden, who was wounded at Antietam, stands next to the First Church of Christ.

This morning, I drove about 20 minutes to the beautifully kept grounds of Hartford's Cedar Hill Cemetery, where 36 Connecticut men who fought at Antietam are buried. Cemetery sleuth and Antietam guru Mary Falvey, a friend of the blog, conducted a terrific two-hour tour for about 50 people. Mary tied up a lot of loose ends for me in my first visit to Cedar Hill, pointing out the final resting place of Antietam's unsung hero and other notables from the bloodiest day in American history. I especially enjoyed the stop at the grave of Melancthon Storrs (try saying that three times quickly.) A surgeon in the 8th Connecticut,  Storrs amputated the entire right leg of 16th Connecticut captain Frederick Barber, who suffered a bullet wound in the hip in farmer John Otto's 40-acre cornfield at Antietam.

"Oh, my God," Barber shouted as he was wounded. "I'm killed. Good bye, boys. You've lost your Captain. Farewell. Farewell." (1)

Two days after Storrs' grisly operation in a barn near the battlefield, Barber died of his wounds.

(1) 16th Connecticut private Wells Bingham's letter to his father, Sept. 20, 1862

After Antietam, 16th Connecticut adjutant John Burnham supervised the burial of the dead 
in his regiment on the battlefield.  Broken down physically and mentally, he died at  the 
Connecticut Hospital for the Insane on April 10, 1883. He is buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery.

The final resting place of William H. Lockwood, who succeeded Newton Manross, the beloved
captain of Company K of the 16th Connecticut, after he was killed at Antietam.

Photo journal: Hartford's Old North Cemetery

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

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

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

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

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



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






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






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

Faces of the Civil War: Hartford's Weld brothers

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

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

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

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

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

Charles Theodore Weld

1st Lieut

17th U.S. Infantry

Died May 14, 1863

Aged 32 years

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

Lewis Ledyard Weld

Lieut. Col.

41st U.S. Colored Troops

Died Jan. 10, 1865

Aged 31 years

The Weld monument was commissioned
 by friends of the brothers.

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

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

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

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

Charles Theodore Weld
(Photo courtesy Mary Falvey)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lewis Ledyard Weld
 (Photo courtesy Mary Falvey)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Faces of Civil War: Perkins Bartholomew (update)

Memorial marker for 14th Connecticut lieutenant Perkins Bartholomew in Spring Grove
Cemetery in Hartford. He was killed at the Battle of Boydton Plank Road, near Petersburg, Va.
(Left photo: Mary Falvey; right photo: Mansfield Historical Society via Tad Sattler)

My thanks to friend of the blog Mary Falvey, a Connecticut Civil War researcher, who supplied the
photo at left of the memorial marker for Perkins Bartholomew, a 14th Connecticut lieutenant who was killed at the Battle of Boydton Plank Road on Oct. 27, 1864. Despite efforts by his fellow soldiers and later by Hartford businessman and former Union soldier Maro S. Chapman, Bartholomew's body was never recovered from the battlefield near Petersburg, Va. After the battle, he was buried by the rebels by the side of a plank road. The memorial marker in Hartford's Spring Grove Cemetery was placed there by the 23-year-old soldier's family. It reads:

"A true patriot, an efficient soldier, an affectionate son and brother. He yielded his young life a willing sacrifice for his Country."

Detail of the top of Perkins Bartholomew's memorial marker. (Photo: Mary Falvey)

Civil War under my nose: Hartford, Conn.

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.