Thursday, July 02, 2009

Luman Wadhams: Civil War research

I unearthed a goldmine of information today in my quest to find out more about the Wadhams brothers of Connecticut. As noted in this post, the brothers died within a span of about two weeks in fighting in Virginia in 1864 during the Civil War. Luman Wadhams, a captain in the 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery, was the last of the brothers to die. He was wounded at the Battle of Cold Harbor on June 1 and died two days later. Thanks to 2nd Connecticut re-enactor Matt Minor (in red shirt above), today I found the grave of Luman and his brothers, Henry and Edward, in Litchfield, Conn. We also discovered a copy of a photo of Edward (above) and a wealth of other information on the brothers at the Litchfield Historical Society archives. (Tonight I also found a photo of Henry Wadhams on the 14th Connecticut Infantry site.) In addition to visiting the brothers' grave site, we checked out the site of Camp Dutton, where the 19th Connecticut (which later became the 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery) trained before being shipped off to war. The grounds are now mostly open land about two miles from Litchfield. The Civil War affected nearly every family in the United States, but I haven't run across many accounts of a family losing three sons in the span of two weeks. With top-notch researcher Matt's help, we'll post much more information on the brothers here soon. I am still interested in contacting a relative of the brothers. I may be reached through this blog.

Update: At top is a photo of the 19th Connecticut -- it later became the 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery -- that I found at the small visitors center at the Cold Harbor battlefield. It shows the 19th in Litchfield,Conn., before heading south. Is Luman Wadhams among them?

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