Photo journal: Oldest permanent Civil War memorial in U.S.

                                    Click on image for full-screen interactive panorama.

Ivy covered the memorial during this 10th anniversary gathering in 1873.
CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

The memorial includes the names of soldiers from the Berlin, Conn., area who died during the 
Civil War, including Private John Kent of the 16th Connecticut. He was killed at Antietam.
CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

A souvenir from the 50th anniversary 
celebration of the memorial in 1913.

On a sweltering July day a little more than three weeks after the Battle of Gettysburg, a small crowd gathered on the lawn of the Kensington (Conn.) Congregational Church for the dedication of  a Civil War memorial.  The event would have been better attended, the Hartford Courant reported the next day, but area farmers were too busy tending to their crops.

With the nation mired in a hellish war, area residents listened to Sen. Lafayette Foster's stirring speech on July 28, 1863, in which he decried the "wicked ambition of southern leaders" before the 18-foot brownstone obelisk that honors the fallen sons of the Berlin, Conn., area., was unveiled. Among the names the etched on the monument were Private John Kent, who was killed at Antietam about 10 months earlier, and Private Birdsey J. Beckley, who was killed at Fredericksburg on Dec. 13, 1862.

 Rev. Elias Brewster Hillard, who delivered a patriotic sermon from the pulpit of his church after the Rebels shelled Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, was instrumental in developing the idea for the monument and another church member, Nelson Augustus Moore, designed it.

Church members and area residents raised funds for the monument -- one account said it cost $350, another indicated $475 -- and since its dedication the congregation has dutifully taken care of the upkeep of what now is recognized as the oldest permanent Civil War memorial in the country. The monument is in fine shape despite its age.

On Sunday at the 150th anniversary re-dedication ceremony, Hillard and Moore undoubtedly would have been pleased. More than 200 people, including an Abraham Lincoln lookalike, re-enactors, a descendant of Moore and descendants of  Civil War Medal of Honor winner Elijah Bacon, attended the event on the muggy afternoon. An application to place the monument on the National Registry of Historic Places was recently approved, ensuring that it will be in good hands for future generations.

The oldest permanent Civil War memorial in the United States was dedicated on July 28, 1863.

Even President Lincoln, escorted by reenactors, showed for the re-dedication ceremony.

A plaque near the base of the memorial honors 14th Connecticut Private Elijah Bacon, who was
 posthumously  awarded the Medal of Honor for capturing a Rebel flag at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863. 
Bacon was killed at the Battle of the Wilderness on May 6, 1864. 
CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

Soldiers' Lot in West Cemetery in Litchfield, Conn.

                                   Click on image for full-screen interactive panorama.

Granite monument in the Soldiers' Lot at West Cemetery 
in Litchfield, Conn.

In the Soldiers' Lot near the entrance to West Cemetery in Litchfield, Conn., there is a group of closely spaced headstones inscribed with the names of men who died in the South during the Civil War. There are markers for Privates Willard H. Parmalee and John Iffland of Company A of the 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery, both of whom died at at Cold Harbor on June 1, 1864; Private Jacob Kearn of the 14th Connecticut, who was killed at North Anna River (Va.) on May 24, 1864; and musician John Gutterman of the 1st Connecticut, who died of disease as a prisoner of war at Andersonville, Ga., on July 26, 1864.

During a recent visit, I counted 23 such headstones, each marked with an American flag and inscribed with the name of a Civil War soldier, his unit and date of death. But there are no bodies buried beneath any of  them. As Connecticut Civil War expert Peter Vermilyea notes on his excellent "Hidden In Plain Sight" blog, these are "effigy" graves,  memorial stones for victims whose bodies were unable to be returned home because they were unidentifiable or perhaps for financial reasons. (There is an effigy grave section in West Avon Cemetery in Avon, Conn., which includes a marker for Henry Evans, who was killed at Antietam and is buried at the national cemetery in Sharpsburg, Md..)

In her excellent book, "This Republic of Suffering," on death and dying during the Civil War, Drew Gilpin Faust wrote that at least half of the 625,000 Civil War dead were never identified, a staggering statistic. (Last year, a demographic historian estimated that 750,000 died during the Civil War.) The effigy grave section in West Cemetery was added in 1894, decades after the war ended, for the Litchfield Civil War soldiers whose remains were not returned home or never found or identified. Perhaps the effigy grave brought some comfort to a familiy that was unable to mourn the death of a loved one at a "real" grave. Musician Gutterman's actual grave, No. 4,015, is in Andersonville National Cemetery, 1,100 miles from his hometown of Litchfield.

Antietam: The death of color bearer George Booth

Corporal George Booth's markere in West Cemetery in Litchfield, Conn. .
CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

At Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862, the color guard of the 8th Connecticut suffered terribly as it advanced late in the battle near Harpers Ferry Road. Among those killed were Sergeant Whiting Wilcox of New Haven; Sergeants Henry Strickland and Harvey E. Elmore of New Hartford; Corporal Elijah White of Barkhamsted, Sergeant Charles E. Lewis of Griswold, Corporal Oscar W. Hewitt of Stonington; Sergeant David Lake and Corporal Robert Ferris, both of New Milford; and Corporals William G. Lewis of Meriden and George E. Booth of Litchfield. (Another member of the color guard, Sergeant George Marsh of Hartford, was killed by the concussion of a 12-pound solid shot just as the battle opened on the Union left flank.)

The regimental and national colors held a special significance to Civil War soldiers. Protecting a unit's flags from capture was paramount; losing one to the enemy was considered disgraceful. In a sermon shortly before "Battle-Flag Day" was celebrated in Hartford on Sept. 17, 1879, Reverend W. Jamison Thomson of Hartford eloquently described the importance of a battle flag: 

"It represents the cause, is the rallying point, while it is aloft  proclaims that victory is still intended, is the center of all eyes, is the means of communication between soldiers, officers, and nation and after the engagement, and after many of them, is their marked memento so long as its identity can be preserved."

"We have been through the bloody battle which has cost our regiment many precious lives," 
Sergeant Seth Plumb began his letter to friends on Sept. 20, 1862, "and among 
them was our dear George." (Litchfield Historical Society)
CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

As the 8th Connecticut advanced in a "storm of death" late in the battle at Antietam, its color bearers were rapidly picked off by the enemy. (2) In a courageous act later praised by 8th Connecticut Major John Ward, 20-year-old Private Charles Walker of Norwich seized the regiment's fallen national colors, planted the flag in the ground and shook it at the Rebels as they advanced before he retreated from the field with the rest of his comrades. "I will notice particularly the conduct of Private Charles Walker, of Company D," Ward wrote in the after-action report, "who brought the national colors off the field after the sergeant and every corporal of the color-guard were either killed or wounded."

In a three-page letter written three days after Antietam, 8th Connecticut Sergeant Seth Plumb of Company E described the circumstances of the death of one of the regiment's color bearers, his 21-year-old friend, George Booth.

"We have been through the bloody battle which has cost our regiment many precious lives, and among them was our dear George," the 26-year-old soldier's letter to friends began. "He was the color guard of our company and was shot down beneath the colors. All but one of the color guard of the regiment was shot."

"George was shot through the right arm and into his side," Seth Plumb wrote.
(Litchfield Historical Society) 
CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

Recounting details passed on from Connecticut wounded who lay near Booth after the battle, Plumb wrote that his friend was shot through the right arm and side, the bullet that killed him "probably also reaching his lungs, as he bled from the mouth." Booth died about 3 a.m. on Sept. 18, "perfectly calm and in his right mind to the last." Another Litchfield man, Thomas Mason, a 41-year-old private in the 8th Connecticut, "was shot through the head and died instantly," Plumb noted. 

Plumb himself narrowly escaped death. A bullet grazed his head above his right ear but didn't break the skin, he wrote, and another bullet went through his blanket. A piece of shell also smashed into the stock of his gun, "but by the mercy of God I escaped unhurt." 

Until the Rebels retreated to Virginia on the night of Sept. 18, Booth lay in no-man's land, his body unrecoverable. "There was no chance to get on the field until [the morning of Sept. 19] without getting shot," Plumb lamented.

Like most Federal dead on that section of the battlefield, Booth's body probably was stripped of shoes and valuables by the Rebels. After the Confederates abandoned the field, Plumb helped gather bodies of his comrades, presumably Booth's too, and pinned names to their clothes so they could be identified before he was ordered away.

Most Connecticut dead from the 8th and 16th regiments were buried nearby, their graves marked with crude, wooden headboards on which their names were inscribed. (Some of the dead, including Private Oliver Case of the 8th Connecticut, were recovered by family members and returned to Connecticut for re-burial. Others, such as Private Henry Aldrich of the 16th Connecticut, were disinterred after the war and re-buried in the national cemetery in Sharpsburg, Md.)

"It seems very sad to us that we could not have taken George from the field," Seth Plumb wrote. 
Corporal George Booth's body was later recovered and returned for burial in Litchfield, Conn.
(Litchfield Historical Society)  CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

"It seems very sad to us that we could not have taken George from the field and been with him in his last hours to comfort him and take his last words to his sister,"  Plumb wrote. "It seems sad, too, that we could not have the privilege to burying him, but such are the fortunes of war and we are obliged to accept them. George died as he wished to die if he must die in the army.

"We have every reason to believe that death found him prepared, and that his spirit now rests in a world where wars and fighting are not known. May God in mercy comfort his poor sister in this great affliction."

Delivered from the "jaws of death on the battle field," Plumb wrote that he was thankful to be alive. But a little more than two years later, the horror of war jolted his family, too. In a charge on a Confederate battery, Plumb was killed at the Battle of Chaffin's Farm near Petersburg, Va., on Sept. 29, 1864. At West Cemetery in Litchfield, he is buried a short distance from Booth, one of 11 members of the 8th Connecticut color guard to die at Antietam.

SOURCES

-- Croffut, William Augustus, and John Moses Morris. The Military and Civil History of Connecticut During the War of 1861–65. New York: Ledyward Bill, 1868.
-- History of Battle-Flag Day, Sept. 17, 1879,  Hartford, Conn,; Lockwood & Merritt, 1879, Page 232
-- The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1890–1901, Vol. 19, Page 455.
-- Plumb, Sgt. Seth, Letters home during Civil War, Litchfield Historical Society collection.

Seth Plumb's grave in West Cemetery in Litchfield, Conn. The gravestone mistakenly notes
 he was killed at Caffin's Farm. He was killed at the Battle of Chaffin's Farm near Petersburg, Va.

A teenager's death: 8th Connecticut Private Francis Barber

"Through life, you will find many dangers to encounter," Robert Jones wrote in
 1859 in  Francis Barber's autographs album. Jones, from Bethlehem, Pa., was a classmate 
of Barber's  at Fort Edward Collegiate Institute in New York. 
(Litchfield Historical Society)  CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

The front cover of teenager Francis E. Barber's tattered autographs album is detached at the spine, but the words inside are still discernible more than 154 years after his schoolmates wrote them.

"Keep thy heart with all dilligence [sic], for out of it are the issues of life," wrote W.W. Moffet of Westfield, N.J.

"When in after days these lines you see, don't forget to think of me," noted Harvey A. Baker of Youngstown, N.Y.

Barber's autographs album from Fort Edward 
Collegiate Institute. 
(Litchfield Historical Society)

In words that proved to be eerily prophetic, N. Tucker of Lakeville, N.Y. wrote: "Walk thoughtfully on the silent, solemn shores of that vast ocean on which we will soon sail."

Another of Barber's classmates at Fort Edward Collegiate Institute -- a boarding school on the east bank of the Hudson River, 200 miles north of New York -- may have had a sense of what their country soon would face.

"Through life, you will find many dangers to encounter, many temptations to brave," Robert W. Jones of Bethlehem, Pa., wrote in pen in neat cursive on June 16, 1859, "but by firmness and divine blessing you will be enabled to overcome them all."

A little more than two years after Barber's friends wrote in his album, the young man from Litchfield, Conn.,  enlisted in the Union army as a private, believing it was his duty to help put down the Great Rebellion. Ethan and Frances Barber weren't keen on the eldest of their two sons joining the army, but they left it up to Francis, who prayed over the decision. On Sept. 25, 1861, the teenager was mustered into Company E of the 8th Connecticut in Hartford. Three weeks later, the regiment left the state bound for Annapolis, Md., where it soon was attached to the Third Brigade of Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside's Expeditionary Corps.

When Barber and the 8th Connecticut first arrived in Annapolis in early November, they were billeted on the campus of St. John's College, a preparatory school that supplied men and boys to both Civil War armies.  Barber remained in camp with his company through November and December, but in early January, he was transferred to a hospital ship although he apparently wasn't very sick. Disease was rampant in the ranks of the Union army in Annapolis, where a lack of hygiene was apparent in camps and aboard hospital ships, and some soldiers died. (Delirious and in a "stupid state," 8th Connecticut Pvt. Henry Sexton of Canton died of jaundice aboard a hospital ship in Annapolis Harbor on Jan. 7, 1862.)

Seth Plumb, a sergeant in Company E from Litchfield, was concerned when Barber, called "Frank" by his friends, left camp.

"Don't forget to think of me," classmate Harvey A. Baker wrote in
 Barber's autographs  album on June 9, 1859. (Litchfield Historical Society)
CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

 "I must speak about Frank B. again," Plumb wrote home from Camp Burnside in Annapolis on Jan. 5, 1862. "Last Sunday he had a chance to go with sick aboard the boat or stay with us. He said he guessed they would live better aboard the boat than he could here so he went. We think he was very foolish as he was apparently as well as any of us, and it would cause his people more anxiety by his going there ..." (1)

Barber's obituary is glued to the inside back cover
 of his autographs album. (Litchfield Historical Society)
CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE

On Jan. 7, 1862, the 8th Connecticut set sail as part of Burnside's Expedition, which aimed to close the Rebels' blockade-running ports along the North Carolina coast. Nearly every inch of space on ships was used for supplies and soldiers, who were jammed into the fetid hulls. The expedition sailed along the East Coast through a storm -- a "perfect gale," according to Plumb -- and many aboard the bobbing ships suffered from seasickness. Plumb, in fact, was so sick that for three days he "could not stir without vomiting." In a letter home, he complained about the squalid conditions aboard his ship as it was anchored in Hatteras Inlet off the Carolina coast.

"The quarters here are worse than they would be in your hog pen," he wrote to his parents on Jan. 17, 1862. "The hold is dark and the straw that was put in is used up, and here are 400 men who by great exertion can find room to ly [sic] down if they ly on their sides. It is against the rule to ly on the back as it takes up too much room." (2)

Jammed into the rocking ship with hundreds of other soldiers, it's not hard to imagine how men fell ill.  Sometime in late January, Barber suffered from a case of dropsy, or edema -- an excessive swelling of tissues caused by a buildup of  fluids. Probably also battling a fever, he was transferred to the hospital ship Swanee, where he died on Jan. 30, 1862, as he was bound for home.

"His chaplain and fellow-soldiers all unite in saying that he was a good soldier of Christ and to his country to the day of his death," an obituary glued to the back of Barber's autographs album stated. "He leaves to mourn his loss a deeply afflicted father and mother and one brother. May the Great Comforter be very near them. The Church, the Sabbath school and community 'weep also with those who weep.' "

Barber is buried in a family plot in West Cemetery in Litchfield, not far from the grave of Plumb, who was killed at the Battle of Chaffin's Farm on Sept. 29, 1864.  Near the bottom of Barber's grave are these words:

"Death has no terror for me."

(1) Plumb, Sgt. Seth, Letters written home during Civil War, Litchfield Historical Society collection.
(2) Ibid

 

Francis E. Barber died aboard a hospital ship off the coast of North Carolina 
on Jan. 30, 1862. Barber, 19 when he died, is buried in
 West Cemetery in Litchfield, Conn.

Francis Barber's name appears near the top of the Roll of Honor on the 
Civil War memorial  on the town green in Litchfield,Conn. The names of Litchfield
 men who died during the Civil War are inscribed on three sides of the monument.
(CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE.)

John Brown's birthplace: Interactive panoramas, photos

                                  Click on images for full-screen interactive panorama.

John Brown, about 1856.

"Move along, there's not much to see here," the little voice in my head said as I shot the interactive panoramas above this afternoon at the site of abolitionist leader John Brown's birthplace in Torrington, Conn. Well, Little Voice was correct.

Aside from a pile of rocks forming the outline of the house Brown was born in in 1800 and the remains of the foundation of an outbuilding, there definitely isn't much to see of  the former home of one of the most polarizing figures in American history. Nearly two decades ago, there apparently was some sentiment to restore Brown's birthplace, which was destroyed by a chimney fire in 1918, but the effort never got off the ground.

"There's nothing to admire in John Brown,'' former John Brown Association president John Brooks, 96, told the Hartford Courant in 1995. "I wouldn't honor him. That guy got us into the Civil War. John Brown was born here, but that isn't anything we should be proud of. That scoundrel took the law into his own hands.'' The ruins of the house lay in a clearing off John Brown Road on the outskirts of Torrington.

John Brown was baptized in this church in
Torrington, Conn.

If you remember from your high school textbooks -- and for those too young to know about a textbook, it is two pieces of thick cardboard-like material with lots of paper and printed material in between -- Brown led an armed insurrection in Harpers Ferry, Va., in 1859. His aim was to overthrow the institution of slavery, but his failed effort was one of the sparks that led to a Civil War in which at least 750,000 Americans died. Before he was hanged on Nov. 2, 1859, Brown said:  "If it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments -- I submit; so let it be done."

Tough talk from the fiery leader whose proclamation that he was "quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land can never be purged away but with blood" proved to be prophetic. While his 1859 effort may have been noble, Brown did indeed have a lot of scoundrel in him -- and a lot of blood on his hands. He and his band of merry men murdered five men with pro-slavery ties in Kansas in 1856. 

Brown's birthplace is just one of many remnants of the abolitionist's life within a short distance of our house here in the miniature state of Connecticut. In Collinsville, Brown arranged to by pikes with which he hoped to incite the slave rebellion in Harpers Ferry. One of the pikes is on display at the Unionville (Conn.) Museum, a little more than a mile from our house. The Torrington church in which Brown was baptized still exists, although it was moved to its present location well after that blessed event.

A marker at the site includes an illustration of Brown's birthplace before it burned to the ground.
CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

This granite marker was placed at Brown's birthplace in 1932.
CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

Ruins of an outbuilding at Brown's birthplace in Torrington, Conn.
CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

A flower blooms near the ruins of  Brown's birthplace.
CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

Antietam panorama: Joseph Sherrick farm (Part 2)

                                                 Click on image for full-screen panorama.

Here's the last of my series of interactive panoramas taken at Antietam during the spring. This one is a slightly different angle from one posted several weeks ago of  the Joseph Sherrick farm, which was used as a field hospital after the battle. John Otto's farmhouse and barn, opposite the Sherrick property, were also used as field hospitals. The Otto farmhouse is the white building in the distance at right. Only the foundation remains of Otto's Pennsylvania-style bank barn, which you may see in my interactive panorama here. When I head to Antietam later this summer, I'll aim to shoot at least 10 more interactive panoramas, taking you to places on the battlefield that few people ever see.

Antietam photo journal: Evidence of a family's pain

In a letter to his son Louis, Daniel Tarbox Sr. noted the circumstances of the 
death of Daniel Jr. at Antietam. (CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)

 Richard and Joyce Arnold, descendants of  Pvt. Daniel Tarbox of 
the 11th Connecticut,  have preserved many of the letters Daniel
 wrote home during the Civil War. Richard holds an image
of Daniel as a youngster.  (CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)

Twelve days after 18-year-old Daniel Tarbox suffered a mortal gunshot wound through the bowels at the Battle of Antietam, Daniel Sr. worried about how to arrange for the return of his son's body home to Brooklyn, Conn.  "Geo. Preston ... buried Daniel near the hospital in Middletown, [Md.]" Daniel Sr. wrote to his son, Louis, on Sept. 29, 1862, "and placed a board at the head of his grave so that he might be found at any time (bearing his name, etc.) Capt. John Kies writes from Sharpsburg [and] says he died next day after he was shot -- but we have no particulars yet. We are very anxious that his remains be brought home, but how to bring so desirable a thing about is the question.

Daniel Tarbox, 18, was shot through the bowels at Antietam. 
He died Sept. 18, 1862, a day after the battle.  
(Photo courtesy of Scott Hann)

"I have no idea what  the expense will be," added Daniel Sr., "but be it what it may I want his body if it is possible to get. The cheapest kind of metallic coffin will do providing it is air tight. Contrive some plan to get his body home without delay. He [Daniel] has always intended to keep funds enough by him to pay his expenses home, but George says he has nothing left but his pipe & tobacco and a pocket knife -- I think his money was concealed in his clothes."

As they awaited news of Daniel's fate, the last two weeks of September 1862 must have been excruciatingly painful for the Tarbox family, which had qualms about Daniel Jr. serving in the Union army in the first place. On Sept. 21, 11th Connecticut Capt. John Kies wrote a letter to Daniel Sr. informing him of his son's death at Antietam, but that note may have arrived in Brooklyn days after the family read the dreadful news in newspaper accounts. (Kies wrote a similar letter to the mother of Private Fennimore Weeks, who was killed at Antietam.) Louis, who lived in New Brunswick, N.J., saw Daniel's name among those killed at Antietam in a list published in the New York Tribune on Sept. 25. Daniel's name also was listed among the dead in a lengthy list of Connecticut casualties printed in the Hartford Courant on Sept. 23.

Thankfully, much of the historical record of the demise of 11th Connecticut private survives. His descendants have preserved many of the letters Daniel wrote home during the Civil War as well as Louis' letter to his father after Antietam  inquiring about his half-brother's fate and the note Kies wrote to Daniel Sr. informing him of  his son's death.

 In the end, Louis followed through on the wishes of his father, who insisted later in the letter to his son that "no matter what the expenses are, bring his [Daniel's] body home." Louis arranged to have his half-brother's body disinterred in Maryland and paid for the zinc coffin for Daniel to be transported in back to Brooklyn. It cost him $30, according to a receipt that has survived 150-plus years and remains in possession of Tarbox's descendants. Sometime in early October 1862, Louis accompanied the body back to Connecticut, where Daniel was buried in South Cemetery in Brooklyn. "Father and brothers," it notes on his memorial marker, "all a long farewell!"

Eight days after Antietam, Louis Tarbox saw his half-brother Daniel's name published 
in the New York Tribune among those killed in action. "I have every reason to believe
the list is true," Louis wrote his father in this letter, dated Sept. 25, 1862.

In this envelope addressed to Daniel Tarbox's father ...

.... this letter from 11th Connecticut Capt. John Kies, dated Sept. 21, 1862, informed 
him of the death of his son. "I did not see Daniel after he was taken 
from the field," Kies wrote.  (CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE.)

Louis Tarbox received this receipt for the cost of disinterring his half-brother's body
 and the purchase  of a zinc coffin to transport him in back to Brooklyn, Conn.
(CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)

Pennies, Lincoln side up, on gravestone of Daniel Tarbox in South Cemetery in Brooklyn, Conn.

Close-up of Tarbox's memorial in Brooklyn, Conn. Daniel "fell wounded while defending the bridge
at the battle of  Antietam, Md.," it notes.

Connecticut Yankees at Antietam Pinterest page

Earlier this week, I beefed up my Antietam Pinterest page with 70-plus images.

About a year ago, I decided it would be interesting to account for where every soldier from Connecticut who was killed or mortally wounded at the Battle of Antietam was buried. Possible? Who knows? But I have had fun trying, driving to cemeteries in all corners of the miniature state of Connecticut (and elsewhere), scouring records at the Connecticut State Library and mining the nooks and crannies of the Internet for nuggets of info. In the spring, I made this Excel spreadsheet of Connecticut Antietam deaths (updated June 29, 2013) available for download. It accounts for more than 200 soldiers from the state who died as a result of wounds (or other causes) suffered on Sept. 17, 1862. The spreadsheet includes soldier's name, regiment, company, date of death and family details you can't find in one place anywhere else. In an attempt to keep things interesting here on Banks Mountain, I started this Pinterest page earlier this week, aggregating images of soldiers from Connecticut who were killed or mortally wounded at Antietam as well as photos of their gravestones and memorials. I plan to add to it frequently -- unless I get called away to a card game or two.