Letter from Sharpsburg: 'Buried him with my own hands'

The off-the-beaten path 11th Connecticut monument near Burnside Bridge.

       The 11th Connecticut attacked from right to left across this field on Sept. 17, 1862.
                                      (Click at upper right for full-screen experience.)


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During visits to Antietam, I always stop at Burnside Bridge early in the morning, perhaps the best time and place to contemplate the slaughter that took place in western Maryland long ago. I’ll touch the witness tree feet from the bridge, stare at the long-ago site of Yankee graves along the stone wall and marvel at mist hovering over Antietam Creek. Occasionally, I’ll walk about 150 yards or so, usually through tall grass, to visit the out-of-the-way 11th Connecticut monument.

No one’s ever around, so I’ll linger and read the names on the gray-granite monument, often running my fingers over the inscriptions of those who sacrificed their lives for the Union. Their stories I know so well.

Daniel Tarbox, 11th Connecticut
private, was mortally wounded
at Antietam. He was 18.
(Image courtesy Scott Hann)

• Captain John Griswold, from Old Lyme and the grandson of a Connecticut governor, was mortally wounded as he splashed across the creek in a hail of gunfire on the morning of Sept. 17, 1862. "I die as I have ever wished to die, for my country," he told IX Corps commander Ambrose Burnside shortly before his death.
• Private Daniel Tarbox, an 18-year-old private from Brooklyn, Conn., was shot through the bowels during the attack on the bridge. He died the next day in nearby Middletown, Md. In anticipation of fighting, he had written his father two weeks earlier, "If we go in, we can’t think of coming out."
• Private Fennimore Weeks, from Norwalk, lived a few moments after he was shot through the head. "His effects I will send to you as soon as I have an opportunity and will write you more of the particulars," his captain wrote the soldier's mother.
• And Private William Hall, from Mansfield, also killed in fighting at the bridge. More than 150 years later, the 17-year-old soldier's descendant cleaned his begrimed marker in a rural cemetery in Connecticut.  

And now a poignant letter -- auctioned on eBay -- has surfaced revealing how another soldier in the regiment died at what the 11th Connecticut hospital steward called "the creek of death." In the three-page letter to his brother Charles, written four days after the battle, a shaken George L. Dayton, an 11th Connecticut private, quickly got to the point.

"He is dead," he wrote about their brother Lewis, who was shot through the heart in the charge on the stone-arch bridge. The next day, George wrapped Lewis' body in "4 or 5 blankets" and buried the 11th Connecticut private where he fell.

Uninjured physically, George Dayton certainly suffered mental scars from the battle, perhaps lasting a lifetime. "I am unwell and about crazy," he concluded his letter, "so I will not write any more now."

Lewis, from Winchester, Conn., is buried in an unknown grave, but some believe his spirit may linger near the 11th Connecticut monument.

(Letter posted with permission of eBay seller.)

Sept. 21, 1862
Sharpsburg, Md.

Dear Brother Charles

I received your letter directed to Lewis whitch came to late for him ever to read, he is dead.

It is terrible news, but it is true. He was shot while we were making a charge on the rebels at Sharpsburg in the northwestern part of Maryland on the 17th of Sept. He was shot though the heart and fell saying I am killed ,,,

(Letter posted with permission of  eBay seller)

We were obliged to leave the ground where he fell and when we found him the next day the rebels had taken everything from his pockets.

I dug his grave and buried him with my own hands in the field where he fell after wrapping him in 4  or 5 blankets.

We have been in 4 of 5 skirmishes and battles lately and our regt. is terribly cut to pieces. Also the 8th Conn. and 16th [Conn.]. Our regt. lost about 50 killed and 200 wounded on the 17th of Sept. I escaped without a wound. We have driven Stonewall Jackson across the ...

(Letter posted with permission of eBay seller.)

... Potomac and I suppose we are to follow him. Their is no telling when or how this war will end.

I am unwell and about crazy so I will not write any more now.

Yours,

George L. Dayton.

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Paying respects to teenager William Hall, killed at Antietam

Lonnie Schorer cleans the marker of her ancestor, 11th Connecticut Private William Hall, 
in Chaplin, Conn. (Photos courtesy of Lonnie Schorer)

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At the Battle of Antietam, scores of teenagers on both sides became casualties.

Shot through the side, George Crosby died of his wounds at his parents' house in Middle Haddam, Conn. The 14th Connecticut lieutenant, a student at Wesleyan University, was only 19. Marvin Wait, a 19-year-old lieutenant in the 8th Connecticut, was riddled with bullets and killed near Harpers Ferry Road. "His death brings a peculiar and poignant sorrow," noted his hometown newspaper, The Norwich (Conn.) Daily Bulletin.

Somehow Dwight Carey of Canterbury, Conn. — killed at Antietam — persuaded his parents to allow him to join the Union Army. He was 15. Wrote his local newspaper:

"In September, 1861, while yet but fifteen years of age he entered the service of the United States, as a private, in the Eighth Regiment, Connecticut Volunteers. This act originated in no rash, impulsive enthusiasm, impatient of restraint and headstrong for excitement and novelty, but was the result of calm discussion with his parents and friends, who unwillingly gave their assent on account of his extreme youth."

The 11th Connecticut suffered 139 casualties during
its attack at Burnsde Bridge on the
morning of Sept. 17, 1862.
(Library of Congress collection)

A private in the 11th Connecticut, Daniel Tarbox suffered a wound through the abdomen at Burnside Bridge. The 18-year-old died the next day.

William H. Hall, Daniel's comrade in the 11th Connecticut, was also killed at Antietam, almost certainly in the attack at Burnside Bridge. It's unclear if his body, like the remains of Tarbox, made it back to Connecticut or if the 17-year-old rests in the national cemetery in Sharpsburg, Md., or elsewhere. Years ago, I found a marker for Hall in Bedlam Road Cemetery in rural Chaplin, Conn. Tree branches, weeds, briars and grime covered his slate-gray, state-issued stone. 

In 2016, Antietam guide William Sagle told me about a battlefield tour with a descendant of a soldier from Connecticut. He wondered if I knew the soldier's name.

"Ever hear of William Hall?

"He was killed at Antietam. His descendant really wants to find his grave."

"There," I said, "is your William Hall." I pointed to a post on my iPhone.

And so I started corresponding via e-mail and over the phone with Hall's descendant, former Connecticut resident Lonnie Schorer, who lives in Virginia. It was a  moving experience for her to stand by the 11th Connecticut monument, near Burnside Bridge, and see Hall's name etched on the granite marker among others killed there. I explained that William may not be buried in Chaplin and told what little I knew of her ancestor. No image of the private or wartime correspondence from Hall are known to exist.

On a trip to Connecticut in 2016, Schorer and her husband Dave stopped at Bedlam Road Cemetery. Using toothbrushes, water and determination, they cleaned Hall's out-of-the-way marker. Swarms of mosquitoes couldn't spoil the moment or the view of the cemetery grounds dotted with wildflowers. .

"We had our own Memorial Day service when we finished," Schorer told me, "thanking William for his courage and his life — and letting him know that his family remembers."

A close-up of William Hall's marker in Bedlam Road Cemetery in Chaplin, Conn.

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