Odd site in a cemetery in Norwich, Connecticut

Final resting place for Confederate soldier Francis Goddard in Yantic Cemetery in Norwich, Conn.

In a cemetery filled with graves of Union veterans and the Civil War governor of Connecticut, you'll find the final resting place of a real rebel. Really. Under the shade of a large tree in Yantic Cemetery in Norwich, Conn., I found the gravestone for Francis Adams Goddard, a sergeant in the First Alabama Light Artillery. Goddard was from Norwich, but his mother was from Alexandria, Va., a possible explanation for why he enlisted in the Confederate army on April 24, 1861. The two markers for Goddard, not far from memorial stones for Norwich soldiers who died at Andersonville prison in Georgia, are decorated with the rebel battle flag, an unusual site in a cemetery in the North., Goddard first served as a corporal in the 3rd Alabama Infantry. A prisoner of war during the Civil War, he died in New York on Aug. 17, 1884. This soldier's life could be a nice research project.

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: Lieutenant Marvin Wait

Left, Marvin Wait as a private after he enlisted in Union army on Oct. 3, 1861. Right, Wait
shown as a lieutenant in Company A of the 8th Connecticut. He was promoted on Dec. 24, 1861.
Wait, 19, was killed at Antietam. (Photos: Matthew R. Isenburg collection)

As bodies poured back into Connecticut in the terrible aftermath of Antietam in late September and early October 1862, funerals for soldiers were held in towns all over the state.

Marvin Wait's gravestone in Yantic Cemetery in
Norwich, Conn., about 50 miles south of Hartford.

"It is seldom that we are called upon to bury so many braves in so short a space of time," the Hartford Courant reported nearly a month after the battle.

In Norwich, about 40 miles southeast of Hartford, one of the more impressive services was held for a teen-age lieutenant in the 8th Connecticut Infantry named Marvin Wait. Even the governor of Connecticut attended the funeral.

Described as a "brave, noble-hearted man and highly esteemed by all who knew him," Wait was killed late in the afternoon of Sept. 17, 1862 as the Ninth Corps made an ill-fated push toward the small Maryland farming community of Sharpsburg. (1)

As he urged on his men of Company A, Wait, sword in hand, was struck by a bullet in the right arm and later in the left arm, leg and abdomen. Helped to the rear by a private and the chaplain of the 8th Connecticut, Wait was wounded yet again by a shot that went through his side and pierced his lungs as he lay near a low stone wall. (2)

Wait's refusal to leave the battlefield after initially being wounded may have cost him his life.

"If Lieutenant Wait had left the battle of his own accord when first hit in the arm, all would have been well," Captain Charles Coit, also of Norwich, wrote after the battle, "but he bravely stood to encourage his men still further by his own example, and at last nobly fell pierced by bullet after bullet."  Wait's last words to a private who helped carry him to the rear were: "Are we whipping them?" (3)



Just 19 years old, the son of a prominent Norwich lawyer and state politician was one of 194 men in the 8th Connecticut killed and wounded that Wednesday during the Battle of Antietam.  Wait's body, "plundered by the rebels," was buried on the battlefield, the spot marked so it could be found. (4) Because he was an officer and from an influential family, the army likely sent Wait's body back to Connecticut, where his father, John, and mother, Elizabeth, grieved with his younger sisters Ann, 16, and Mary, 9.

A wartime image of William Buckingham.
The Connecticut governor gave a speech at
Marvin Wait's graveside service.
(Photo: Matthew R. Isenburg collection)

When word of Wait's death reached Norwich, the town passed resolutions of regret and the Norwich Daily Bulletin printed a long, glowing article. "His death brings a peculiar and poignant sorrow," the newspaper wrote of the first commissioned officer from the town who was killed during the Civil War.

On Wednesday, Oct. 1, 1862, the young man who planned to become a lawyer, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, was finally laid to rest. A private service was held late that morning in the house of Wait's parents in Norwich, and mourners later gathered at 2:30 p.m. at the white-washed First Congregational Church, just off the town green. Wait's sword and cap, as well as flowers, were placed atop his flag-draped coffin in the small church vestibule. After a reading of scripture by two local reverends and the singing of a hymn by the church choir, prominent local attorney George Pratt, who once worked in John Wait's law office, eulogized the young soldier.

"What words can add beauty to such life, or what praise enoble such a death?" Pratt said of Wait. "When we think of those who fell on on that field, we count them all heroes -- we name them all among the brave." (5)

Following the church service, a long procession of carriages, escorted by the Norwich Light Infantry, accompanied the teenager's coffin to Yantic Cemetery, about a mile and a half away. In a graveside speech before a large crowd that included the mayor, Norwich city council and line officers of the 26th Connecticut, Governor William Buckingham spoke of the "glory of dying for such a cause."

On Oct. 1, 1862, a service for Wait was held at First Congregational Church in Norwich, Conn.
Above right, the church  in the 1860s. Wait's coffin was placed in the church vestibule (middle right).
The sanctuary is shown at bottom right. (Old church photo: Matthew R. Isenburg collection)

As Wait's coffin was lowered into the grave, the Norwich Light Infantry fired three volleys.

Nearly eight months after Wait was buried, a "beautiful monument" was crafted by Norwich's C.D. Corbett in his workroom on Water Street. (6) Made of Italian marble and seated on a three-foot block of granite, it is adorned with the carving of a shield and crossed swords and muskets on one side; two flags and an outstretched arm holding a signal officer's glass are carved on the opposite side. The names of four battles in which Wait participated appear in raised letters near the bottom of each side of the monument.

Although the impressive, 7-foot white marker for Marvin Wait is worn by the elements over the past 149 years, these words can still be read near the bottom:

ANTIETAM.

 "He died with his young fame about him for a shroud."

(1) Memorial of Marvin Wait, Jacob Eaton, 1863
(2) Ibid
(3) Ibid
(4) Norwich Morning Bulletin, Sept. 29, 1862, Page 2
(5) Ibid
(6) Norwich Morning Bulletin, May 14, 1863, Page 2

A close-up of Wait's gravestone in Yantic Cemetery in Norwich, Conn.

Close-ups of Marvin Wait's gravestone reveal the craftsmanship of a stonemason long ago.

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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.