History of Litchfield county, Connecticut, Part 12

Author: J.W. Lewis & Company (Philadelphia, Pa.)
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1532

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The late Dr. Eldridge, who preached his funeral sermon, in speaking of his prominent traits, said,-

" His intellect was clear, strong, and remarkably well balanced. Endowed with strong common sense and a sound practical judgment, he was peculiarly re- liable, and always proved himself adequate to an emergency. Though modest and unobtrusive, he shrunk not from responsibility, and on several import- ant occasions met and sustained it with a composure, self-possession, independence, and ability that even surprised his most intimate friends. They hardly looked for so much vigor and force in one whose kindness of heart had been decmed his most promi- nent characteristic. He evidently possessed traits that gave promise of the highest distinction as a physician and as a man. His disposition was exceedingly ami- able and affectionate. He was greatly beloved. He soon won a place in the hearts of those who were brought into association with him.

" Dr. Brownell says,-

"' His affectionate disposition had endeared him very much to myself. My heart grows heavy as I think of the many dull hours I shall pass in my tent alone, when I had expected to have his pleasant face before me; for I had decided that he and I should have quarters together.'

" Dr. Avery observes in his letter,-

"' When your son was a student in New Haven I formed a very strong attachment to him, and have al- ways considered him as a man of great purity of char- acter. I had anticipated much pleasure in having him here.'"

Dr. Welch had gained the confidence and the love of the soldiers of his regiment, who deeply deplored his death. His piety was humble, sincere, and un- questionable. He had quarters with the chaplain at Hartford and on ship-board. Rev. Mr. Bradford, the chaplain, mentions a circumstance that was very sig- nificant. He says, "I have seen Dr. Welch in his private devotions, both in Hartford and on the steamer." Hence, it is evident that he did not in- tend to be deprived of his communion with his God, though he could not command that degree of retire- ment that he would have desired. He was sincere ;

MILITARY HISTORY.

he had a true, manly independence. How clear it is that he was getting ready for that event which, though then unlooked for, was so near at hand !

Such was the young man whom God in his Provi- denee removed from the earth. He summoned into eternity a native of this place, known, esteemed, and beloved by all; he took from the family a beloved and devoted son and brother; he called away from the medieal profession a well-educated and promising young physician; he struck from the roll of the United States army a genuine patriot; he took to Himself, from the bosom of the Church here, a sincere, humble, devoted member.

"It were easy," says Dr. Eldridge, "to imagine reasons, many and weighty, why the life of such a young man should he prolonged : his promise of use- fulness in his profession and as a man; the comfort and the stay he would have been to his parents; the honor he would have done religion. Oh, how many such things crowd on the mind !"

The reasons why God took, though satisfactory to God, are hidden from man. Still it is the Lord that hath done; be content to leave the mystery unex- plained now. You shall know hereafter.

Then the affliction is very severe; the sensibilities wounded are very tender; the hopes blighted were very bright; the objeet taken away was very dear. Yet complain not ; murmur not. It is the Lord, your Father, and the Father of him who is gone.

" For God has marked each sorrowing day, And numbered every secret tear, And heaven's long years of bliss shall pay For all his children suffer here."

THE THIRTEENTHI REGIMENT

was organized in November, 1861, and mnstered into the service with Henry W. Birge as colonel, and Alexander Warner as lieutenant-colonel.

Only one company was recruited entirely from this county,-C,-officered as follows : Captain, Charles D. Blinn, of Cornwall ; first lieutenant, Isaac F. Nat- tleton, of Kent ; second lieutenant, Charles E. Tib- betts, of New Milford. Company I was raised prin- cipally from this county, its captain being HI. L. Sehleiter, of New London. Its first lieutenant, Frank Wells, was from Litchfield. The second lieutenant, Joseph Strickland, was also from New London.

The regiment enjoys the distinction of having been in the service longer than any other Connectient or- ganization. In January, 1864, the Thirteenth, almost to a man, re-enlisted. In the following December it was consolidated into five companies, called "The Veteran Battalion Thirteenth Connecticut Volun- teers."

During the regiment's long service it participated in numerous hard-fought battles, a few of which are here enumerated : Georgia Landing, Irish Bend, siege of l'ort Hudson, Cane River, Mansura, Ope-

quan, Winchester, and Fisher's Hill. It was mus- tered out April 25, 1866, and paid off May 5th follow- ing, having been in the service four years and six months.

CHAPTER V.

MILITARY HISTORY (Continued).

TIIE NINETEENTH REGIMENT.#

THIS regiment was raised during the dark days of 1862, when the glamour of military life had died away and grim-visaged war in all its horror stood out before the people of the country. At the elose of Gen. MeClellan's disastrous Peninsula campaign, 1862, President Lincoln called for three hundred thou- sand volunteers, and on the 22d of July a meeting of the citizens of this county was held at Litchfield, and it was resolved to recruit an entire regiment from this county, and the convention unanimously recom- mended Leverette W. Wessells, of Litchfield, for col- onel, and requested the Governor to rendezvous the new regiment at Litchfield. Recruiting immediately commenced, and on the 24th of August nine com- panies had been raised, as follows: Company A was recruited by Win. Bissell, A. B. Shumway, and C. B. Ilateh ; was composed of men from the following towns : Litehfield, 63; Harwinton, 10; Morris, 7; Washington, 5; other towns, 7. Company B, re- eruited by James Hutton and F. A. Cooke : Salis- bury, 43; Kent, 24; Canaan, 7; other towns, 14. Company C, recruited by James Q. Rice and W. T. Spencer : Goshen, 42; Torrington, 34; other towns, 12. Company D, recruited by A. H. Fenn, W. H. Lewis, Jr., and Robert A. Potter : Plymouth, 53; Watertown, 18; Harwinton, 13; Burlington, 1; Morris, 1. Company E, recruited by Jeffrey Skinner, B. F. Hosford, and H. D. Gaylord : Winchester, 62; Norfolk, 16; Barkhamsted, 5; other towns, 7. Com- pany F, recruited by E. W. Jones and James Dean : New Hartford, 30; Canaan, 16; North Canaan, 19; Colebrook, 14; Barkhamsted, 9. Company G, recruited by Lyman Tentor and George N. Smith : Sharon, 41 ; Conwell, 34; other towns, 15. Company 11, recruited by G. S. Williams: New Milford, 37; Washington, 21; Warren, 5; other towns, 3; Company I, recruited by Eli Sperry : Woodbury, 6l ; other towns, 20. Com- pany K was composed of recruits from the different towns in the county. The rendezvous of the regi- ment was at Camp Dutton, Litchfield.

" On the 10th of September the regiment marched to the village to receive an elegant stand of colors from Mrs. William Curtis Noyes, and to listen to a presentation address by her husband, then in the ze- nith of his power and fame. On the 11th the regi-

. Compiled and condensed from the excellent " History of the Second Connecticut Volunteer Heavy Artillery, originally the Nineteenth Con- neetleut Volunteers," by Theodoro F. Valll.

HISTORY OF LITCHFIELD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.

ment was mustered, by Lieutenant Watson Webb, into the service of the United States 'for three years or during the war ;' and on the 15th, having formed in line and given three parting cheers for Camp Dutton, the long and firmly-treading battalion, con- sisting of eight hundred and eighty-nine officers and men, moved to Litchfield Station, where a train of twenty-three cars stood ready to take them to New York. The journey was a continuons ovation. The deep interest everywhere felt in the 'Mountain County' regiment was attested by crowds of people at the stations and all along the railway, and by white hand- kerchiefs and white hands that waved us a farewell and a blessing from window and veranda and hill-top. The good people of Bridgeport and Stamford entered every car without ceremony, and fortified the soldiers with melons and cakes and sandwiches, and with the last cup of real, civilized, cultivated Connecticut coffee that they were to taste for months and years. The next day found us in Philadelphia, that noblest city of America, where we were treated like royal gnests, as hundreds of other regiments had been, by the beneficence of her private citizens. At night we slept on the floor of the immense railway station at Baltimore, and the next night in the barracks at Washington, where the government insulted us with coffee that was viler than anything else in the world except the unwashed cups that held it. On the 18th we moved to Alexandria in transports, and bivouacked after dark just north of the city. The line wheeled into 'column by company,' and, being informed that that would be their rest for the night, the tired men spread their blankets on the ground, and, with their blue overcoats for a covering and their knapsacks for pillows, were soon deeply and carnestly sleeping their first sleep on the 'sacred soil,' all unconscious of the rain that washed their upturned faces.

"' What are they going to do with us?' was the question in every man's mind the next morning, as soon as he was sufficiently awake to take his reckon- ing. Would an hour later find us en route for Har- per's Ferry to join Mcclellan's army and take the place of those who had fallen at Antietam only forty- eight hours before? or on board a transport bound for Charleston or the Gulf? Nobody knew. Out came pencils and rumpled paper from hundreds of knapsacks, and behold a bivouac of reporters, all briskly engaged in informing friends at home that we had got so far, but there was no telling where we might be to-morrow. But the order which was to decide our fortunes for at least eighteen months had already been issued, and before night the regiment moved to a pleasant slope about a mile west of Alex- andria which had been selected for a permanent camp; and it was announced that we were attached to the command of Gen. John P. Slough," military governor of Alexandria, and that our first actual

military service was to consist in doing patrol- and pieket-duty in that city. On the following day we received our first hard bread, and our arms and A tents; and the Nineteenth Connecticut thenceforth had a local habitation as well as a name.

" Yes, a name. Alexandria, under martial law ever since the breaking out of the war, had suffered un- speakable things from the troops on duty in her streets or quartered in her environs, and the Alexandrians had come to regard a soldier as a scoundrel, always and everywhere. But the Nineteenth Connecticut had not been a week in Virginia before the self- respecting good behavior of its men became the gen- eral theme, and the authorities were petitioned by the citizens-nearly all of whom were rebels-not to re- move that regiment from Alexandria.

"The arms were Enfield muskets. In process of time the men became acquainted with the nomencla- ture and functions of every part of the weapon from bayonet to butt-plate, although at first it seemed wonderful how so awkward and inconvenient a tool could ever have been constructed. Emery paper and crocus cloth were soon brought to bear upon the bronzed barrels, and by the middle of October there were a good many men-the foremost of whom was Pendleton, of Company C-who could use their 'lock-plate' or 'upper band' for a looking-glass. The A tents were of linen, woven about as compactly as a sieve, and were intended for just five men and no more; and woc to the squad that contained a fat man or one over six feet long, for somebody, or at least some part of somebody, must sleep out of doors. 'Spoon-fashion' was the only possible fashion; no man could make a personal revolution on his owu axis withont compelling a similar movement on the part of each of his tent-mates, and a world of com- plaint besides. Most of the days of that autumn were warm, and even hot; but the chill of night would penetrate the bones of the soldiers and cause them to turn over and over from midnight until dawn, when each company, without waiting for réveille, would rally in a huddle on the long sheet-iron cook- stove at the foot of the street, and endeavor to burn the pain out of their marrows while toasting their bread.

"On the 22d of September a detail of five officers and seventy men relieved the patrol of the Thirty- third Massachusetts in Alexandria, and the same was daily furnished during the remainder of 1862. It was the duty of the patrol to move about the city in small squads, or stand guard at theatres and certain other places, and arrest all soldiers who could not produce passes, or who were in mischief, and bring them to the provost-marshal's office, whence they were usually escorted to the 'Slave-Pen' in Duke Street,-a horrible den, with the following sign in large letters over the door : 'Price & Burch, Dealers in Slaves.' It had a large room or yard, about fifty feet square, with windowless brick walls fifteen or

* Pronounced like " plow."

MILITARY HISTORY.

twenty feet high, a door of iron bars, and no floor except the earth. It had been one of the chief insti- tutions of Alexandria, and any urchin could direct a stranger to the 'Slave Pen' as readily as a New York boy can point out the City Hall.

" From the soft beds and regular habits of Connecti- cut homes to the hard ground, severe duties, irregular sleep, bad food, and worse water of a Virginia camp was a change that could not be made without loss of health and life. Measles and mumps began to pre- vail, rheumatism made the men lame, chronic diarrhea weakened them, typhoid fever fired their blood, and jaundice painted their skins and eyeballs yellower than saffron. Two hospital tents were soon filled to overflowing, and an African church near by was appropriated as regimental hospital; while the ' sick call' brought to the surgeon's quarters a daily- increasing crowd who desired medical treatment or an excuse from duty. The first death- that of Daniel E. Lyman, of Company C-occurred on the 2d of November. Corporal Frederick B. Webster, of D Company, followed him on the 6th, and Arthur G. Kellogg, of C Company, on the 10th; and by New Year the number had increased to seventeen. Some of them were embalmed and sent home, and some buried in the soldiers' cemetery in the southern edge of the city with military honors, which consisted of an escort of their comrades with reversed arms, a roll of muffled drums, the mournful 'Pleyel's Hymn' tremulously executed upon the fife, and a salute fired over the grave, with sometimes a prayer from the chaplain, and sometimes without.

"Colonel Wessells, having been taken ill soon after reaching Alexandria, was confined at King Street Hospital during the greater part of the fall, and went home about New Year on a two months' leave of absence; so that Licut .- Col. Kellogg had almost un- interrupted command from the time the regiment left Connecticut until the following April.

"Company A was sent into the city and quartered at the foot of Duke Street on the 15th of November, to guard the government stores, where it remained until about New Year, when the regiment was trans- ferred to Gen. Robert O. Tyler's command, which now consisted of the Nineteenth Connecticut, First Con- necticut Artillery, Fourteenth Massachusetts, and a New York regiment, and was entitled the 'Military Defenses of Alexandria.'

"Jan. 12, 1863, the regiment moved up the Lees- burg pike, passed Fairfax Seminary, and oncamped among the stumps a few rods from the abatis of Fort Worth. The liability of an immediate call to the front was now so far diminished that there was a very noticeable relaxation of military rigor. Dress parade, guard mounting, and camp guard were for some days the only disciplinary duties required, and great was tho enjoyment afforded by the respite. Stumps were to be cleared awny, and ditching and draining done for a camp and parade-ground, and the

change from constant duty under arms to chopping, grubbing, and digging fresh earth was extremely grateful and beneficial. True, the month of Jannary witnessed a greater mortality than any other of the entire twenty months passed in the 'Defenses,' but it was the result of disease previously contracted. The improved and improving condition of the regi- mental health is shown in the record of deaths for 1863, which is as follows: January, 16; February, 5; March, 3; April, 5; May, 1; June, 1; July, 0 ;* Au- gust, 1; September, 3; October, 3 ; November, 2; De- cember, 2.

" Fort Worth was a neat little earthwork, situated about a quarter of a mile in rear of Fairfax Seminary, overlooking the broad valley of Hunting Creek and the Orange and Alexandria Railway, and mounting some twenty-four guns of all kinds,-Rodman, Par- rott, Whitworth, eight-inch howitzers, and iron and Coehorn mortars. Here the winter was passed.

" After the middle of March a large number of men were daily sent to load cars with wood, several miles out on the Orange and Alexandria Railway, and each man always brought home a stick on his shoulder, so that firewood was no longer dug out of stumps. On the 13th of April orders were received from Gen. Ileintzelman, the commander of the Department of Washington, directing the Nineteenth Connecticut Volunteers to be provided with shelter tents and seven days' cooked rations, and to be hell in readiness to march. The regimental pulse was instantly quick- ened. Troops were hourly passing, on their way to join Hooker's army, and the command to 'fall in' and take the 'route step' in the same direction was hourly expected. Superfluous property was dis- posed of, and bushels of letters dispatched northward. Capt. Bissell, quite as much excited as any of his men, gave an enormous ham to a squad in Company A, with much the same liberality wherewith a death- doomed voyager flings his gold and jewels about the cabin of a sinking ship. But army life is full of va- rious surprises. Troops sometimes unexpectedly go, and sometimes unexpectedly stay. Not only that April, but the next April also, left us still in the de- fenses of Washington.

"On the 12th of May the regiment was for the first time broken up into separate garrisons. Companies B, F, and G went to Fort Ellsworth ; Company A, to Redoubt A; Company D, to Redoubt B; Com- panies C and K, to Redoubt C; and Companies E, Il, and I, to Redoubt D; and this arrangement con- tinned during the summer. These redouble were small works in the vicinity of Fort Lyon, on the Mount Vernon road, and commanding the land and water approaches to Alexandria on the south. About this time Gen. Tyler was relieved in command by Gien. De Russy, and all the fortifications from Alex-

. July, 1:63, was the only month of the ontiro three years in which no death occurredl.

HISTORY OF LITCHFIELD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.

andria to Georgetown received the name of the 'De- fenses of Washington South of the Potomac,' and the troops stationed therein constituted the Twenty- second Army Corps. During the entire season the Nineteenth was called upon for nothing more labori- ous than drilling, target practice, stockade-building in Alexandria, picking blackberries, drinking a quar- ter of a gill of whisky and quinine at reveille and retreat, and drawing pay from Maj. Ladd every two months. Yet a good many seemed to be in all sorts of affliction, and were constantly complaining because they could not go to the front. A year later, when the soldiers of the Nineteenth were staggering along the Pamunkey with heavy loads and blistered feet, or throwing up breastworks with their coffee-pots, all night under fire, in front of Petersburg, they looked back to the defenses of Washington as to a lost Elysium, and fervently longed to regain those bliss- ful seats. O Happiness! why is it that men never recognize thy features until thon art far away ?

" Col. Wessells resigned, on account of ill health, on the 16th of September. In October the regiment was withdrawn from the redoubts and brigaded with the First Connectient Heavy Artillery, under the command of Col. Henry L. Abbott. The regimental headquarters were established at ' Oak Grove House,' and the companies distributed at three forts,-Ells- worth, Williams, and Worth,-where they remained until the following May.

" About the middle of November, Gen. Barry, chief of artillery of the Department of Washington, re- viewed Col. Abbott's brigade, and made a particularly careful inspection of the Nineteenth Connecticut ; aud, from what occurred a day or two thereafter, it was inferred that he bore to Washington a good report of Col. Kellogg and his command, for on the 23d of November the War Department issued an order changing the Nineteenth Connecticut Infantry to a regiment of heavy artillery,* and directing it to be filled up to the maximum artillery standard. This was joyful news. It did not take long (for every man was his own tailor) to exchange the faded blue straps and chevrons for bright red, and that soldier could not be accused of overmuch ambition who did not see some chance for promotion among the two majors, two companies, two captains, twenty-eight lieutenants, forty-six sergeants, and sixty-four cor- porals that would be required in addition to those already on haud. Lieuts. Edward W. Marsh and Oren H. Kuight were already in Connecticut on recruiting service, and on the 30th of November Lieut. Benja- min F. Hosford, with a party of ten enlisted men, left for home on the same dnty. A draft was then pending and enormous bonnties were offered for vol- unteers, and these officers and men entered npon their duties with vigor, aud achieved a success which, it

may safely be said, had no parallel in the history of recruiting during the entire war. The first install- ment-68 men-arrived on the last day of the year ; on New Year's day (1864), forty-four more; fifty on the 6th of January; another lot on the 9th; one hundred and fifteen on the 10th; more on the 17th ; and so on until the 1st of March, by which time the regiment had received over eleven hundred recruits, and now contained eighteen hundred men. The new- comers were divided equally among the several com- panies, and the full complement of officers and non- commissioned officers forthwith ordered. It was as- tonishing to see with what celerity a promoted ser- geant would shed his enlisted man's coat and appear in all the pomp and consequence of shoulder-straps and terrible scimitar, and it was for some time a question of serious discussion among the older officers whether the fort gates would not have to be enlarged in order to facilitate the ingress and egress of the new lieutenants wlio drew such an alarming quantity of water.

" After the resignation of Col. Wessells, the colo- neley remained vacant for some time. It was sup- posed that Governor Buckingham hesitated to give the eagles to Lient .- Col. Kellogg on account of his rude treatment of Maj. Smith a few months before, and a rumor reached camp that a certain unpopular major of the First Artillery was endeavoring to ob- tain this position. A petition praying that Kellogg might not be thus ignominiously 'jumped' was in- stantly signed by nearly every member of the regi- ment and forwarded to the Governor, who thereupon immediately sent him a colonel's commission.

" It was abont one o'clock on the morning of the 17th of May when an orderly galloped up and dis- mounted at headquarters near Fort Corcoran, knocked at the door of the room where Col. Kellogg and the adjutant lay soundly sleeping, drew from his belt and delivered a package, received the indorsed envelope, and mounted and galloped off again, as little con- scious that he had brought the message of destiny to hundreds of men as the horse which bore him. The dispatch, as nearly as can now be remembered, read thus :

""' WAR DEPARTMENT, ADJT-GENL'S. OFFICE,

" WASHINGTON, May 16, 1864.

"' [SPECIAL ORDERS, NO. 438.]

""The commanding officer of the Second Connecticut Heavy Artil- lery will proceed at once, with hie command, to join the Army of the Po- tomac, now in the vicinity of Spottsylvania Court-house. Transporta- tion from Alexandria to Belle Plain will be furnished by Capt. A. S. Lee, A.Q.M. At Belle Plain he will report to Brig .- Gen. Abercrombie for supplies, and for directione how to proceed.

"' Having arrived at the Army of the Potomac, he will report imme- diately to Maj .- Gen. Meade, commanding, for duty. "" By order of the Secretary of War, "'E. D. TOWNSEND, "' Assistant Adjutant-General.'

" Five minutes had not elapsed before staff-officers and orderlies were hurrying from fort to fort, and in less than five minutes more the sound of the reveille

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History of Litchfield county, Connecticut, Part 12

Author: J.W. Lewis & Company (Philadelphia, Pa.) Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1532

Author: J.W. Lewis & Company (Philadelphia, Pa.)
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1532