Help wanted: Antietam graves in Connecticut

Close-up of Theodore DeMars' gravestone.

Theodore DeMars of Cromwell, Conn., was only 19 when he was killed at Antietam.
He is buried in Kelsey Cemetery in Cromwell, Conn.

Antietam casualty listed printed in the
Hartford Courant on Sept. 27, 1862. 
This list continued elsewhere on the page
 and did not include the 14th Connecticut.
(CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)

For a pretty cool project, I'm aiming to find graves of Connecticut soldiers killed or mortally wounded at the Battle of Antietam who are buried in the state. A little odd, yes, but it beats what these people do.

Using the casualty list from the Sept. 27, 1862 Hartford Courant as a macabre checklist,  I have visited many Antietam graves in Connecticut during the past year and told the heart-rending stories of men such as Captain Newton Manross of Bristol, Lieutenant Marvin Wait of Norwich and Private John Bingham of East Haddam. (Find A Grave also is a terrific resource, by the way.)

Four regiments from Connecticut -- the 8th, 11th, 14th and 16th -- fought in the fields and woodlots outside Sharpsburg, Md., on Sept. 17, 1862. Scores of Connecticut men, including 19-year-old Thomas DeMars of Cromwell, were killed there. A private in Company A of the 16th Connecticut, DeMars is buried (above) in Cromwell's Kelsey Cemetery, once a quiet country graveyard but now airport runway loud thanks to nearby I-91.

Funerals for soldiers were a common occurrence in Connecticut  in the days and weeks after Antietam.  "It is seldom that we are called upon to bury so many braves in so short a space of time," the Hartford Courant noted on Oct. 13, 1862, nearly a month after the battle.

If you can help with my unusual detective work, shoot me an e-mail here.

A penny atop the gravestone of 19-year-old Theodore DeMars, killed at Antietam.

Best of my 2011 Civil War photos



Factory complex in Collinsville, Conn. Collinsville Co. supplied axes and more to the Union army.
CLICK TO ENLARGE ALL PHOTOS.

Another view of the old Collinsville Company.

Spring sunrise at Antietam National Battlefield.

Springhouse at Roulette Farm at Antietam is bathed in warm morning light in this shot
taken in October. This photo is not quite tack sharp, but I just have a Blackberry to shoot with!

This broken gravestone of "Darling Allie," in Center Cemetery in Rocky Hill, Conn., is
next to the grave of Jarvis Blinn, who was killed at Antietam.

Using special effects on picnik.com, the photo of West Avon (Conn.) Congregational Church is
turned into a "painting." Civil War soldiers are buried in the cemetery next to the
church, including many from the congregation.

The 16th Connecticut monument at Antietam.

Ornate gravestone of John McCall of the 8th Connecticut in Yantic Cemetery in
Norwich, Conn. McCall, wounded at Antietam, was killed at Drewry's Bluff.

A ghostly salute, Blackberry in my hand,  at the graves of Sergeant Charles Lewis and his
fiancee, Sarah Hyde, at Carey Cemetery in Canterbury, Conn. Lewis was killed at Antietam.

Faces of the Civil War: Private Charles H. Walker

Charles Walker of  the 8th Connecticut Infantry posed for this image
 in a photographic studio on Main Street in Norwich, Conn., his hometown. 
Walker survived Antietam physically unharmed.  
(Photo: Matthew R. Isenburg collection)

As the 8th Connecticut Infantry came under intense artillery and musket fire from its front and both flanks during the latter stages of the Battle of Antietam, one of its color-bearers was shot.

Another man picked up the flag and he, too, was wounded.

And then another man grabbed the flag with the same result.

And then another.

And another.

Charles Walker's signature appears on the reverse
 of his CDV image.
(Matthew R. Isenburg collection)

Finally, Charles H. Walker, a  20-year-old private from Norwich,  courageously grabbed the fallen national colors and "seized them in a storm of death." In a singular act of defiance, he planted the flag and shook it out before the rebels as the enemy advanced.  (1) Flag-bearers were prime targets for soldiers on both sides of the war.

"Twenty men are falling every minute," a history of Connecticut's service in the war published in 1869 noted about that part of the battle. "Col. (Hiram) Appelman is borne to the rear. John McCall falls bleeding. (Jacob) Eaton totters, wounded, down the hill. (Marvin) Wait, bullet-riddled, staggers a few rods, and sinks. (Eleazur) Ripley stands with a shattered arm. (James) Russell lies white and still. (Henry) Morgan and (Edwin) Maine have fallen. Whitney Wilcox is dead.

"Men grow frantic. The wounded prop themselves behind the rude stone fence, and hurl leaden vengeance at the foe. Even the chaplain snatches the rifle and cartridge-box of a dead man, and fights for life." (2)

Ordered to fall back, Walker, clutching the flag, and the hundred or so remaining members of the 8th Connecticut retreated from the field. Although whipped by the rebels, no regiment of the Ninth Corps advanced farther on the left flank, a fact trumpeted in post-war accounts. "By their stubborn fight they have saved many others from death or capture," the post-war history noted, "and by their orderly retreat they save themselves."

A C.H. Walker from Norwich, aged 18, is recorded in the 1860 census. (CLICK TO ENLARGE.)

Incredibly, Walker survived physically unharmed but no doubt shocked by the carnage. The 8th Connecticut suffered 34 killed, 139 wounded and 21 missing that Wednesday afternoon just outside Sharpsburg, Md.

For his courage on Sept. 17, 1862, Walker earned a prominent mention in an after-action report written by Major John Ward  two days later. "I will notice particularly the conduct of Private Charles Walker, of Company D," Ward wrote, "who brought the national colors off the field after the sergeant and every corporal of the color-guard were either killed or wounded." Walker's action probably was the reason for his promotion to ordnance sergeant of Company C one month after the great battle.

As an anonymous reader of this blog
pointed out, the star denotes Charles Walker
was promoted to an ordnance sergeant.

On a trip back to Connecticut after his promotion, Walker plunked down a couple bucks at a Norwich photographic studio at 103 Main Street, where he proudly posed wearing his uniform with sergeant's stripes for a carte de visite image. On a break from the war, Charles may have been in Norwich visiting his parents, Francis and Mary, who had three other younger children, Worthington, Abby and Henrietta. The Walkers lived on Cliff Street, and Francis was employed as a cabinetmaker; Mary was a housekeeper. (3)

Walker, who had originally enlisted in the Union army in September 1861, re-enlisted on Christmas Eve 1863. He apparently fell out of favor with superiors early the next year, as he was demoted to private on Feb. 22, 1864. Walker was mustered out of the Union army on Dec. 12, 1865, eight months after Lee surrendered to Grant in Appomatox, Va.

(1) The Military and Civil History of Connecticut During the War of 1861-65, William Augustus Croffut, John Moses Morris 1869, Page 272-73
(2) Ibid
(3) 1860 U.S. Census

Faces of the Civil War: Captain John McCall

John McCall, a captain in Company K in the 8th Connecticut, was killed
at Drewry's Bluff, near Richmond, on May 16, 1864. He is buried in
Yantic Cemetery in Norwich, Conn.

McCall was wounded and captured at
Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862.
 (Photos Mollus collection)

In researching backgrounds of Civil War soldiers, I often find accounts of the last words of dying men.

After he suffered a mortal wound at South Mountain, Union General Jesse Reno told his friend, General Sam Sturgis: "Hallo Sam, I am dead.!" Sturgis thought Reno was  joking and replied: "Oh, no, General, not so bad as that I hope" Reno reponded: "Yes, yes, I'm dead. Goodbye!"

Captain Edwin Lee of the 11th Connecticut, after being struck by an artillery shell at New Bern (N.C.), said:  "Tell my brother I died at the post of duty. Good-by. Go on for your country!"

Mortally wounded at Antietam, Captain John Griswold of the 8th Connecticut  told General Ambrose Burnside: "I am happy, general. I die as I have ever wished to die, for my country."

And Captain John McCall blurted out after he was shot through the heart at Drewry's Bluff in Virginia: "I shall be dead in a minute!" McCall then fell backward and died. (1)

Are these stories romanticized, spot on or a mix of truth and fiction? History can often be untidy, but it's another reason I find the Civil War so riveting.


The Civil War story of John McCall, whose grave I visited this afternoon, is compelling too.

Born in Bozrah, Conn., on June 3, 1835, McCall was the second of four children of Stephen and Judith Ann McCall.  The McCalls resided in Norwich, a major manufacturing town about 60 miles southeast of Hartford. A burgeoning textile and armaments industry, as well expansion of New England railroads, fueled the town's economy during the Civil War.

A year before the first shots of the war were fired at Fort Sumter in South Carolina, the McCalls apparently were gainfully employed. Stephen supported his family as a carpenter, perhaps working in one of Norwich's many mills, and John was an engineer. His younger brother, Asa, was a machinist while oldest sister Amoret was a teacher. John's youngest sister, Sarah, was an 18-year-old student. (2)

In the 1860 U.S. census, John McCall's occupation was listed as engineer.  He was the second
of four children of Stephen and Judith Ann McCall. (CLICK TO ENLARGE.)

Like thousands of other Connecticut men, John McCall heeded the call of his country and on Aug. 28, 1861 enlisted in the Union army. Well-regarded by his peers, McCall was elected sergeant and mustered into Company D  of the 8th Connecticut Infantry on Sept. 21, 1861. After the 8th Connecticut fought in two battles in North Carolina in the spring 1862, it was assigned to the Army of Potomac on July 2, 1862.

On Sept. 17, 1862 at Antietam, McCall, promoted to lieutenant a month earlier, and the 8th Connecticut advanced farther than any other Union regiment on the left flank. But the Connecticut men were unsupported and soon crushed by a Rebel counter-attack.

"No reinforcements come. Twenty men are falling every minute. Col. Applemen falls bleeding. John McCall falls bleeding," a book published in 1869 on Connecticut's role  in the war noted. "...Men grow frantic. The wounded prop themselves behind the rude stone fence, and hurl lead vengeance at the foe. Even the chaplain snatches the rifle and cartridge-box of a dead man, and fights for life." (2)  Wounded in the leg, McCall became a prisoner of war but was later paroled and exchanged, although I have been unable to uncover more details.==


In the video, I should have noted McCall was indeed a captain by the end of the war. Also, McCall was 28 when he died, not 27.

 the final months of his life, McCall -- described as an officer who "possessed all the prominent characteristics of a good soldier" -- continued to distinguish himself. (3) He was promoted to captain of Company K on Feb. 7, 1863. During the siege of Suffolk, Va., he led an attack on Fort Huger on April 19, 1863, crossing the Nasemond River in a daring daylight attack.

After he was killed May 16, 1864 at Drewry's Bluff -- "a battle fought in the midst of an Egyptian fog" -- McCall's body was returned to Norwich, where he was buried with military and Masonic honors in Yantic Cemetery. Hartford, Fishkill and Providence Railroad employees who worked with McCall before the war helped cover expenses for his beautifully carved tombstone, now well-worn by the elements. (4)

On the back it includes these words:

"He sacrificed his life upon the altar of his country."

(1) The  Descendants of Veach Williams, of Lebanon, Conn, Alexander Hamilton Wright, Page 86
(2) 1860 U.S. Census.
(3) The History of Norwich, Connecticut: From its Possession by the Indians, to the Year 1866, Frances Manwaring Caulkins, 1866, Page 665
(4) The Descendants of Veach Williams, of Lebanon, Conn, Alexander Hamilton Wright, Page 86

Close-up of the intricate carving on the reverse side of  McCall's grave.

On the back of McCall's tombstone: "He sacrificed his life upon the altar of his country."

McCall's grave is among many Civil War graves at Yantic Cemetery in Norwich Conn.,
about an hour southeast of Hartford.