USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Cornwall > Historical records of the town of Cornwall, Litchfield County, Connecticut; > Part 45
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The remains of General SEDGWICK reached Cornwall- Hollow on Friday, in charge of three of his staff officers, Major Whittier, Captain Beaumont, and Captain Halsted, and were delivered over to his family. The funeral services were held Sunday. The coffin upon which lay his sword, was draped with the dear old flag of his country, and was covered with holly leaves and flowers, conspicuous among which was a wreath from Mrs. President Lincoln, and another from Mrs. Senator Dixon of his own State. The deceased was clad in full uniform, and his features presented an almost life-like appearance, as
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he lay in his last sleep. A slight discoloration just beneath the left eye, where the winged messenger of death had entered, told the sad story that the noble life was stilled forever.
The services consisted of a prayer, after which the Rev. Charles Wetherby, pastor of the village church, delivered a discourse, followed by Prof. William B. Clarke of Yale College, who was a former pastor, and a friend of General SEDGWICK. After a hymn was sung, an opportu- nity was given to the great multitude present to take a last look at the fallen hero, and for more than an hour they passed by with bowed heads and weeping eyes. As the remains were brought from the house by the pall bearers, who were his old friends and neighbors, and placed upon the hearse, the sun which had been obscured all day by the clouds, shone out, lighting up the valley which he loved so well, and was an omen of the greater light, into which he had entered.
The burial place where he had often expressed the wish to rest with his kindred, was about half a mile from the house.
As the coffin was being lowered to its final resting place, a distinct peal of thunder like the roll of distant artillery, reverberated along the hills, a most solemn requiem to the buried soldier. The Rev. Mr. Wetherby then raising his right hand pronounced the benediction : "And now, oh thou God of battles, be with this nation in its hour of trial. And may grace, mercy and peace abide with us forever."
Thus ended the simple funeral services of one who was worthy of the honors of the nation.
SERMON
BY
REV. MR. WETHERBY.
II SAMUEL I:25 .- " How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle."
There are sentiments in the individual and public heart that men never will outgrow-emotions that must live perpetual and unchanged so long as the world endures. The mournful and yet glorious events which issue from these emotions are ever repeating themselves throughout entire history. The progress which alters much, leaves these unaffected and immutable in their unique and peren- nial glory. Some acts, sacrificies, lives and deaths, stand forth from of old so grand and so illustrious that the abil- ity to repeat them is the proudest boast of each people and age.
The event to which reference is made in our text is one of these marked facts. On Mount Gilboa in a stern battle for national integrity Saul and Jonathan had fal- len, and the Psalmist utters his lament and the public sorrow in the ode of which our text forms a part. "How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle." The nation educated by Jehovah lauded its brave battle-he- roes; and stirring hymns in that rugged Hebrew tongue breathed out the warlike grief of Israel. And if, turn- ing from the ancient Jordan, we pass to Greece, or Rome, or France, or to England, or any grand nationality which has left its impress on the line of the world's march, the like sacred battle-fields, the Mount Gilboas of history, shine forth, and we tread on consecrated ground ;- we hear the national anthems, we read in prose or song of
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the high achievements, and man is more manly as he looks upon the places enriched with the blood of the brave.
Ever, from age to age, the birth or consolidation of races, institutions and liberties, has been hallowed by blood, and from the hours when heroes fell we date the upspringing of better eras for humanity. From the dawn of time in vindication of earth's holiest good, how have the mighty fallen! but the blood of such martyrs is a river the streams whereof make glad and fertilize the State.
At present we are living amid events of this nature. The God of these years is ushering in a new epoch for this continent. The angel of the apocalypse is speaking as in trumpet tones to this generation. The time is glorious, but the glory is sombre, melancholy: yet through it break gleams of a worthier future. This republic needed the purification which the ordeal of a great war can only give. It required to be taught anew the necessity and value of heroism. This nation had its birth in heroic virtue and sacrifice. The stories that are told of Plymouth and the Mayflower pilgrims, of Lex- ington and Bunker Hill, are fragrant with this sublime emotion, this sacred, generous fire. The Fathers knew what it was to do and dare and die for religion, for freedom and law. But the traditions of those earlier times were fading from men's memories and the spirit from their hearts. The hour had arrived when the heroic in us needed a revival-a re-assertion-a coming forth again into its beauty and bloom. The sacred warmth was in the populous North, but latent, and the stimulus of a grand emergency could alone disengage and set it free, as a living, positive force. Heroism was needed in religion, in statesmanship, at home, and in com- mon life. The churches were languishing for want of it.
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The best moralities were losing their persuasive power through a lack of inspiring vitality. Essential truths and principle were periled, and institutions which have been the corner-stones of the republic grew weak and tottered because selfishness had crept into the state. Our calm, polished Chistianity had lost the fire, which burned in the soul of a Peter or Paul-an Augustine or Edwards. Our State-craft was not ennobled by the sublime con- sciousness and pure faith of an Otis, an Adams or a Clay. Men had lost sight of the eternal landmarks which guided the ancient mariners on the stormy political sea. Our prosperity had been too much for us, and when Satan of- fered his temptations, showing us a broad empire and the glory of it, we listened and believed in material good as man's chief end. But the kind God would not leave us in this low estate. He said-I will lead that people through a Red Sea to a noble inheritance. Men shall learn again the glory of heroic devotion to Right, Justice, and Liberty. The virtue and the valor of the North shall burn again, touched by celestial fire. Hence God sent the siege of Fort Sumter; and how the boom- ing of those first guns thrilled us! He sent the wild Baltimore mob to impress upon the nation the worth of law and order. For three bloody years a costly, cheq- uered strife has disciplined in our hearts a patient hero- ism; and that which at first was only a high impulse has become a high and stated principle, a controlling law of action and endeavor. The moral tone of our nation has grown purer these three bloody years. As war has made its cold, pitiless demands, the dear ones have gone from the home fireside, have pressed the lips of their best-be- loved and left for the front, men have felt the sway of unwonted generosities, of holy sacrifice and of quenchless patriotism. A strong, beautiful love that subdues narrow selfishness and bids the soul be great-a love of country
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broad as the latitude of this free land, has poured its new day upon the continent. The war is supplying higher emotions of conduct, fresh incentive to devotion. Thank God, we are learning what the heroism of thought, senti- ment and action means. We feel its quick thrill-we breath its holier atmosphere-we behold its stirring ex- amples. As battle succeeds battle the slain and wounded reveal unto us its import. The firm array of our lines preserved steady and unwavering while the dead fall rapidly and the massed columns of the enemy charge on us-this teaches it. The Christain and Sanitary commis- sions-they speak to us of the meaning and force of hero- ism. The fact shines for us in the field and hospital, from man in the full strength of his valor-from woman in her watching of the brave, in her kind ministries to the wounded and the dying.
We have a country now ; not simply a broad domain, wide prairies, hills, mountains, lakes, cities, seas, but a country whose soil is enriched by character, by brave words spoken and brave deeds performed-a country that the traveler will visit as he visits the hallowed spots upon which men have fought their hard battles and won their immortal triumphs in the eastern and older world. Let us thank 'our Heavenly Father that we have those ready to die for America as the mighty men of old died for their Fatherlands. Let us praise God that he has sent such men who read to us anew the century-old lesson of sacri- fice, consecration, and surrender of one's self to truth and the state. Let us rejoice in this fact which makes our tears over countless graves less bitter, and the sorrow of our bereavements less oppressive ; for when death comes to the hero it wears a soft smile and a white robe.
And now the sons of Connecticut, we of this state and town, are again called especially to mourn. The war in its afflictive results has reached to our households and
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hearts. God waits to-day to behold how we sustain this new trial of our faith. He would teach us the heroism of patient and resigned sorrow. He would have us weep with- out bitterness, and without losing aught of heart or hope for the great, good cause. I feel to-day, with King David, " How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle. The beauty of Israel is slain upon her high places:" But I cannot join in the sentiment of the Psalmist's ex- clamation-"Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither let there be rain upon you, nor fields of offering;" for I hope that where Sedgwick fell, there may be plenteous dew, and abundant rain, and rich offer- ing from the fields-of grain, and fruits and flowers. I hope that the day is not far distant when peace shall come and dwell in that war-scathed, war-cursed land. I hope that they who love best this honored officer and true man shall live to see that his blood was not spilled nor his life wasted in vain. Let the sun of the future shine warmly and the summer-showers fall plenteously upon that fatal field of Spottsylvania. Let the Potomac as it glides fer- tilize those shores, and let those who shall dwell there, live prosperously under the national flag, emblem of a restored quiet, a regenerated state. Let them live to possess the rights for which our hero fought, and to thank the fallen mighty who have offered themselves up in the fierce battle for constitutional law, national union and American liberty.
The sympathies of this occasion seem to require a brief statement of the life and actions of him whose funeral honors we have assembled to celebrate. But a mere out- line is all I shall attempt, for the full account belongs to history, and there only can it be adequately told. The Sedgwick family is and long has been connected with the history of this state. Deacon Benjamin Sedgwick, great- grandfather of the deceased, came from Hartford in 1748, and settled upon a large tract of land in Cornwall-Hollow.
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This land has formed the homestead of his family for four generations and more than one hundred years. At the period of his arrival the town was sparsely populated, and dense forests covered the hills; but the hard spirit of the Puritan was his and he was prepared to subdue the wilderness, and did it. General John Sedgwick, son of the first immigrant, inherited the virtue and energy of his father. He served first as Captain, then as Major, in the armies of the Revolution, and was, at Valley Forge, one of the faithful few who stood firm by the country and by Washington in that trying winter. The tories of that age knew well his love for independence, and burned his house a few nights after his departure for the field. But his neighbors erected another, taking hold of the work so heartily that the frame-work was completed in three days. After the war, Major Sedgwick was one of the most prom- inent men of the place, was made General of Militia, represented the town three successive years in the State Legislature, and was a person of weight and influence wherever known. His son Benjamin, father of the de- ceased, needs no mention from me; and whatever is said of his life and character will be spoken by one personally familiar with him.
General John Sedgwick was born September 13, 1813. He entered West Point at the age of twenty, and gradu- ated as Lieutenant of Artillery in 1837. After gradua- ting he went immediately into the Florida War and served there two years. He was then on the Northern frontier during the Canadian Rebellion. He went to Mexico in 1846, where he served first on the body-guard of General Scott, but afterward entered upon the regular duties of his position. He was engaged in the capture of Vera Cruz, and in all the battles in the Valley,-was brevetted Captain for gallant conduct at Cherubusco, and Major at Chepultepec. In 1848 he received his commission as full
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Captain in the U. S. Army, and was assigned to Duncan's battery. This was the famous battery of light artillery, commanded by Major Ringgold during the war, and which under him performed such splendid service in the earlier engagements. Captain Sedgwick had charge of it until 1855, when he was raised to the rank of Major in the 4th Cavalry, one of the new regiments then formed. He was commissioned as Colonel at the opening of the present war, April, 1861, succeeding to his friend Colonel Lee, who is now in command of the rebel armies. While in Mexico the young officer was not heard from for nearly three months, and his relatives had almost lost hope of seeing him again, supposing that he had fallen in one of the fierce conflicts of Scott's onward march to the Capital. Imagine then, the deep joy at the home fireside when tidings at length reached there from the absent son. Im- agine the intense interest with which his letters were read- those letters which told of safety and success. On the morning before one of those fierce conflicts in the Valley, four companions in arms sat down with young Sedgwick to breakfast-a brave, healthy group. At night, when the contest had ceased, he alone remained unhurt. The others lay covered with honorable wounds, or cold in the embrace of death. So sudden and so strange are the mutations of battle. From the close of the Mexican War to the commencement of the present Rebellion, Major Sedgwick served for, the most part on our Western frontier, protecting our posts against the Indians, some- times contending with them, guarding the lines of travel, and performing the customary duties connected with frontier service.
In October previous to the attack upon Fort Sumter, he was sent with his command to construct Fort Wise, in the vicinity of Pike's Peak. The fort was completed in the winter, but there seemed to exist a purpose to keep
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all loyal troops at a distance before the present admin- istration came into power. But his duties, in Florida, along the Canadian line, in Mexico, and on our Western frontiers, formed the preparatory discipline which enabled him to achieve the position he has won as General in the armies of the Union. Inured to hardship and danger- accustomed to rely upon his own resources-forced to be inventive in expedients-prompt and persistent in action-exposed to the rugged influence of a mountain climate, and often called to sustain the force of want and suffering, he was thereby formed a leader and made ready for heroic achievements. On one occasion when in the far west, he was separated from his supplies for twenty days, and was forced to subsist on fresh meat, without salt or vegetables; yet he bore it, and enabled his com- mand to bear it with fortitude and cheerfulness, until relief came. Hardship is a rough school, but the students who pass through it make admirable men. The firm physical endurance, the perfect health of General Sedg- wick, and a constitution rendered more robust by the char- acter of his service on the frontier, helped to mould him the man he was.
Soon after his arrival East, he was raised to the rank of Brigadier General, and in this capacity served through the peninsular campaign. It was his earnest and indomit- able spirit, according to the statements of the Prince de Joinville and General Richardson, that saved the battle of Fair Oaks, a battle in which our forces were imperiled as never afterward in that memorable campaign.
General McClellan had thrown three divisions of his army across the Chickahominy, when a fearful storm broke over the camp, a heavy rain fell, and the narrow stream was changed into a broad river, which converted the adja- cent swamps into expanded sheets of water, carried away one military bridge, and endangered the safety of another.
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This swelling of the stream appeared to isolate the two portions of McClellan's army from each other, and the rebels under Johnson determined to improve the advantage and annihilate the divisions that had crossed, before rein- forcements could reach them. In massed and solid col- ums they fell suddenly and swiftly upon Casey's advance lines. The greater number of his regiments broke and fled in the wildest disorder. Cranch and Heintzelman moved to his assistance, but the enemy's onset was not arrested until Sedgwick's brigade had crossed the river, and he had arranged his twenty-four guns in an open field and poured their destructive fire into the masses of the foe. General Richardson in his letter speaks in the warm- est terms of this exploit. He says: "Half an hour more would have cut the column in two, which would have in- sured the defeat of our army. The danger was imminent, but the division of General Sedgwick, advancing at quick time, came up at the critical moment and formed in line of battle in the edge of the wood at the skirt of a large open field. At this point opening a fire of cannister shot upon the head of the column from his twenty-four pieces staggered it, and the division then moving down in line of battle swept the field, recovering much of our lost ground." But to reach this grand result had been a peril- ous and herculean task. Through swamp, mud and water, over tottering bridges and tottering earth, and with the floods of the Chickahominy around him, Sedgwick pushed on his columns in time to snatch from the rebels the triumph almost won.
But the campaign on the peninsula was unsuccessful, and he returned with Mcclellan's army to Alexandria, and was commissioned as Major General, July 4th, 1862. Soon after, he marched under his old leader to check Lee in his first attempt at invasion of the North. At An- tietam he was twice wounded while rallying his forces and
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endeavoring to keep them firm. He remained in action, however, for an hour after receiving his first wound, and only when fainting from loss of blood was he carried from the field. The severe nature of the wounds compelled him to seek what he had not sought for many a year-a brief respite from service and leave of absence to visit his friends.
Two summers since, he was last in his childhood's home. He loved these rough hills and the ancestral farm so long linked with the fortunes of his family. At this time he remarked to a nephew : "I have been over the greater part of the United States, but no place looks so pleasant to me as Cornwall-Hollow." During this visit, upon sunny days, when his wounds permitted, he would walk over his fields, watch the construction of these solid stone walls, and superintend the various improvements upon his estate. He was fond and proud of his home, and anticipated with much pleasure the hour when he could sit under the shade of his own tree or within his own dwelling. He loved action, loved the stir and thrill of exciting events, and yet was domestic in his sympathies and character. A short time previous to the attack upon Fort Sumter he had contemplated retiring from service, feeling that he had performed his part in the military defense of the republic. But when armed rebellion raised its hostile standard against the Govern- ment, every such thought was at once banished from his mind. He said to a relative, " I had hoped to leave military life, but this cannot be now, for my country needs my services." He would have cut off his right arm, or plucked out his right eye, sooner than have failed his country in her hour of danger and war. The high patriot soul in him flashed forth in action, not in speech. Would you learn how he loved his country and its institutions, behold him at the head of his legions,
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watch the grand enthusiasm brightening his features then. When at home in the summer of 1862, wearied from wounds and hard labor, he would doubtless have been pleased to remain amidst the quiet of these hills as he had won competence, fame, and all that he wished in that direction.
General Sedgwick was a modest, unassuming, unosten- tatious man, who never sought honors, but one whom honors sought. Yet a sense of duty forbade any purpose of repose. In this struggle he believed that his country had a claim upon the services of trained military minds. And so, taking his final look upon the farm, the garden, the home-bidding good-bye to sister, brother, and native place, he left again for the front-left an abode of peace for the alarms of war-the cares of affection for the shock of battle, and left, as it has proved, for the last time. Still, his thoughts wandered back to his native hills. He requested that his room be pleasantly and tastefully fur- nished-that the elegant sword which his admiring friends, the officers of the second Army Corps, had presented him, should be placed in it: and by and by, he doubtless thought, "When this cruel war is over," I will come back to that room and amid the mementoes of the past spend a quiet old age. The room has been furnished, the sword is there, the arrangements are as he would have them. The green grass grows without, and the flowers in the garden will bloom, but the noble proprietor will never sit within that room, for he is gone. He went from us less than two years since, and not long after, we heard of him in the Chancellorsville campaign. The part assigned him by General Hooker was to attack and carry the fortifications of Fredericksburgh, and then form a junction with the main army. And well did he perform his part in that unfortunate campaign, carrying gallantly the heights, fighting his way six miles towards the posi-
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tion of his commander and retreating when met in over- whelming numbers, in good order, and with perfect self- command. On entering into that engagement he said, "Soldiers, the occasion demands that each regiment should perform the work of a brigade." And those regiments performed it. He could accomplish more with a few men than most Generals in the Potomac army. Bold, calm, resolute, himself, he possessed that highest quality of a true leader, the power to infuse his own daring into the spirits of his troops. His corps, was a fighting corps. "The old 6th" under his discipline has acquired celebrity for the spirit of its every regiment.
But courage was not the only-perhaps not the promin- . ent feature of General Sedgwick's character as a soldier and a man. He was always faithful to his trust, and at- tentive to the work before him. He had a quick eye for the minutest details, and met every smallest necessity of his command. While our armies were encamped near Washington or upon the Rapidan he did not visit the city on a pleasure excursion for a single time. If the Capital was crowded with idle officers away from duty and forget- ful of their work, he was not among that number. If one wanted to see him one must seek him at the headquarters of his corps. He was there, training, disciplining, pre- paring and inspiring his troops for emergencies to come. In the hour of severe trial his forces were reliable because their leader had been faithful during months of patient preparation. In the best meaning of the word, General Sedgwick was a leader. He won the confidence of his troops. They believed in him and felt that he was master of the hour. Hedisliked parade, was plain, simple, puri- tanical in his tastes, and the soldiers loved to call him Uncle John. He was a man of few words, but great actions; and he did them quietly as if they were a mat- ter of course. He excited no envy by ostentation, yet
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secured respect by the force of intrinsic virtue. He was twice offered the command of the Army of the Potomac, which he refused : thinking only how he could win victor- ies and perform his work. His ambition was of that pure kind so free from all self-assertion that it but added charm and force to his character.
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