USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Litchfield > The history of the town of Litchfield, Connecticut, 1720-1920 > Part 26
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the Nineteenth, thus fairly set on foot, was pushed forward with the utmost vigor. The offer of a commission to anyone who should enlist forty men proved a great incentive to effort, and every young man who contemplated enlisting was straightway beset with a persistent horde of rival drummers, each armed with a persuasive tongue and a marvelous list of inducements. Nine companies were soon filled to the maximum, and some of them had several to spare. Colonel Wessells received his commission on July 25, and on August 13 issued a circular directing all officers recruiting for the Nineteenth Connecticut Volunteers to bring their squads into camp at Litch- field on August 19 or as soon thereafter as practicable.
"On the appointed day the Litchfield Company assembled at the Town Hall. The men who composed it arranged themselves in two rows, each man standing so very erect that his spine described an inward curve painful both to himself and the spectator; and having by much tuition been able to master the evolution known as 'right face', the procession proudly moved with Captain Bissell at its head, to Camp Dutton, on Chestnut Hill, so named in honor of Lieutenant Henry M. Dutton, of the Fifth Connecticut Volunteers, who had fallen at Cedar Mountain only ten days before. Upon arriving, they found a supply of bell-shaped tents awaiting them, which were soon pitched in regular order, under the supervision of Luman Wadhams, who had seen service in the Eighth; and before night the dwellers in the surrounding country, and far away on the hills, were turning their eyes towards the snow-white canvas that marked the first and only military encampment that had been seen within their borders since ancient times. ...
"On August 21, seven Companies with nearly seven hundred men marched into Litchfield, and after halting for refreshments at the Town Hall, where the ever patriotic ladies had lavishly provided for their entertainment, proceeded to camp ... Company I arrived on the 24th of August; and a few days later the commandants of the nine Companies were each required to furnish a quota for the formation of a tenth Company, (K), which was thus made up of recruits from 25 different towns. And so the Nineteenth was encamped. In order to raise it Litchfield County had given up the flower of her youth, the pride and hope of hundreds of her families; and they had by no means enlisted to fight for a superior class of men at home. There was no superior class at home. In moral qualities, in social worth, in every civil relation, they were the best that Connecticut had to give. More than fifty of the rank and file of the regiment subsequently found their way to commissions, and at least a hundred more proved themselves not one whit less competent or worthy to wear sash and saber if it had been their fortune. It was the intelligent obedience, the soldierly bearing, the self respect, the faithfulness, the wounds and blood of the enlisted men of the Nineteenth Infantry, afterwards the Second Artillery, that averted defeat or secured victory for the cause of the Union
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DWIGHT C. KILBOURN
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PRESENTATION OF COLORS, SEPT. 10, 1862
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upon more than one desperate field, and that purchased stars for more than one pair of shoulders.
"Camp Dutton was a beautiful spot, but no place for a regiment to learn its hard and ugly trade. Fond mothers and aunts raked the position with a galling and incessant fire of doughnuts, apples, butter, pies, cheese, honey, and other dainties not conducive to the suppression of the rebellion, and citizens thronged the streets and environs from morning till night. Lieutenant Colonel Kellogg was impatient at this state of things, and well he might be. The actual command had devolved on him from the first, Colonel Wessells being occupied with matters appertaining to the organization and outfit of the regiment, and he feared lest he should be called into fight with the men all innocent and raw as they were, for Lee was in Mary- land, and the rumbling of the storm that shortly afterward burst at Antietam and Sharpsburg could plainly be heard. ..
"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 zenith of his power and fame. On the 11th, the regiment was mustered, by Lieutenant Watson Webb, into the service of the United States and on the 15th, having formed in line, and given three parting cheers for Camp Dutton, the long and firmly treading battalion, consisting of 889 officers and men, moved to Litchfield Sta- tion where a train of 23 cars stood ready to take them to New York. 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 handkerchiefs and white hands that waived us a farewell and a blessing from window and verandah and hilltop. ... "
Leverett W. Wessells, the first Colonel of the Nineteenth, was born in Litchfield, July 28, 1819. He enlisted on July 25, 1862, and was commissioned Colonel on the same day. He held the following offices: Colonel commanding Second Brigade, Defense of Washing- ton, South of the Potomac, and was honorably discharged September 15, 1863, at Washington, D. C., resigning by reason of ill-health. He was appointed Provost Marshall of the Fourth District of Con- necticut, February 9, 1864, and was finally discharged October 5, 1865, by reason of the ending of the War. He died April 4, 1895, at Dover, Del. His brother, General Henry W. Wessells, was also a distinguished soldier, having served in the Mexican War, with the rank of Major. In the Civil War, he was Major of the Sixth Con- necticut Infantry, 1861; Colonel, Eighth Regiment Kansas Volun- teers, 1861; Brigadier General of Volunteers, 1862; and Brigadier General, U. S. A., March 13, 1865; he retired from the military ser- vice on January 1, 1871.
It is not within the scope of this work to follow the Nineteenth Regiment completely through its campaigns in active service; but mention should at least be made of the names of the actions in which
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it took so gallant a part, and the story of Cold Harbor must be told more in full.
"For more than a year and a half the regiment was numbered among the defenders of the Capital, removing after a few months from the immediate neighborhood of Alexandria and being stationed among the different forts and redoubts which formed the line of defence south of the Potomac. ... It was in November 1863, that the War Department orders were issued changing the Nineteenth Infantry to a regiment of heavy artillery, which Governor Bucking- ham denominated the Second Connecticut. Artillery drill had for
some time been part of its work, and the general efficiency and good record of the regiment in all particulars was responsible for the change, which was a welcome one, as the Artillery was considered a very desirable branch of the service, and the increase in size gave prospects of speedier promotion". (Dudley Vaill, pp. 19, 21).
On May 17, 1864, the summons came, which the Second Heavy Artillery had almost ceased to expect, after its long period of immunity.
"The preceding two weeks had been among the most eventful of the war. They had seen the crossing of the Rapidan by Grant on the 4th, and the terrible battles for days following in the Wilder- ness and at Spottsylvania, depleting the army by such enormous losses as even this war had hardly seen before. Heavy reinforce- ments were demanded and sent forward from all branches of the service; in the emergency this artillery regiment was summoned to fight as infantry, and so served until the end of the conflict, though for a long time with a hope, which survived many disappointments, of being assigned to its proper work with the heavy guns". ( Dudley Vaill, p. 25).
When the regiment reached the front, Grant was in full march towards Richmond, and for a week the regiment was put through a series of forced marches which tried the oldest veterans who were in the same corps and which to the inexperienced Second Artillery was almost beyond endurance. At first they were overburdened with their baggage, but they soon threw down by the roadside every- thing that could be spared and much that should not have been spared. Over $20,000. worth of the private property of the men was thrown aside, besides great quantities of government rations. With- out proper food, foot-sore, and without sleep, the regiment struggled on, sometimes getting its only nourishment from the dry corn picked up by the way and eaten raw.
The first contact with the enemy came at a skirmish at Jericho Ford, on the North Anna River, on May 24, resulting in the death of one man and the wounding of three other.s.
On May 31, the regiment reached Cold Harbor. Exhausted with fatigue, they slept on the ground where they stopped, careless of the evident preparations for battle which General Grant was obviously making, by the concentration of great bodies of men. Their stupor
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was such, that even when they were told of the expected engagement by their commander, Colonel Kellogg of New Hartford, they were unable to understand his meaning. It was happy for them, per- haps, that this was the case, for had they known what was in store for them on the morrow even their short rest must have been denied them.
At five o'clock in the afternoon of June 1, 1864, the untried Second Connecticut Heavy Artillery, moving in three battalions of four companies each, was marched out of the breast-works to help in dislodging the enemy from their entrenched positions at Cold Harbor. The first battalion, including Company A, the Litchfield company, was sent across an open field, with the colors in the centre, and easily passed the first line of rifle pits, which was abandoned at its approach. The confederate soldiers had made a barrier of pines and saplings in front of their main line of breast- works, which proved practically impassable. As the battalion came up to it, unsupported on either side, the enemy's musketry opened. The fire passed overhead, and they fell to the ground to avoid further volleys. "Several men were struck, but not a large number. It is more than probable that if there had been no other than this front fire, the rebel breastworks would have been ours, notwithstanding the pine boughs. But at that moment a long line of rebels on our left, having nothing in their own front to engage their attention, and having unobstructed range on the battalion, opened a fire which no human valor could withstand, and which no pen can adequately describe. It was the work of almost a single minute. The air
was filled with sulphurous smoke, and the shrieks and howls of more than two hundred and fifty mangled men rose above the yells of triumphant rebels and the roar of their musketry. 'About face', shouted Colonel Kellogg, but it was his last command. He had already been struck in the arm, and the words had scarcely passed his lips when another shot pierced his head, and he fell dead upon the interlacing pine boughs. Wild and blind with wounds, bruises, noise, smoke, and conflicting orders, the men staggered in every direction, some of them falling upon the very top of the rebel para- pet, where they were completely riddled with bullets, others wander- ing off into the woods on the right and front, to find their way to death by starvation at Andersonville, or never to be heard of again". (Theodore Vaill, p. 63).
The second battalion, behind them, could give no support, for fear of shooting right into their own men. There was however no suggestion of retreat at any point, and, indeed, in a lull in the firing, several hundred of the enemy came across the parapets and surrendered. Through a misunderstanding, the credit of their cap- ture was given to other units.
As the hours passed through the terrible night, the regiment held the ground that had been gained. The enemy under cover of the darkness vacated their breastworks, and when at three o'clock
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in the morning other troops were sent to relieve the Second Regi- ment, the troops which in ten hours had been converted into veterans turned over to them the position which was to remain the front during the rest of the stay until Grant's sudden movement began against Petersburg.
For twelve days, the regiment was more or less in constant action, but the fighting was so much less severe than on the fateful First of June, that it need hardly be mentioned. Indeed that first engagement was the most serious that the regiment saw at any time of the war. Its loss in that one night was greater than that of any other Connecticut regiment in any single battle. "The record of Cold Harbor, of which all but a very small proportion was incurred on June 1st, is given as follows: Killed or died of wounds, 121; wounded, 190; missing, 15; prisoners, 3". (Dudley Vaill, p. 37). This total of 329 casualties, in a regiment of 1,800 men, fell with special force on the Litchfield company. Of 33 men who were killed or died from wounds during the whole service of this company, 29 fell at Cold Harbor, all but two on the night of June 1st. The Litchfield men among these 29 were the following: Corporal Albert A. Jones; Lyman J. Smith, Jr .; Robert Watt; John Iffland; Willard H. Parmalee; Almon B. Bradley; Patrick Ryan; Captain Luman Wadhams (died of wounds) ; Corporal George Wilson Potter; Corporal Charles Adams, Jr .; Corporal Apollos C. Morse; Andrew J. Brooker; Amos H. Stillson.
Other Litchfield men killed the same night, in other companies, were Michael Bray; John Handel.
On June 12, 1864, the regiment moved to Petersburg, where it remained until July 9th. For the next two months or more it took part in the maneuvers under General Sheridan of the Shenan- doah Valley campaign, having its severest battle at Winchester on September 19, where its efficient work at a moment of crisis turned an impending defeat into an important victory. Three days later, the regiment was sent against the fort on Fisher's Hill, considered the Gibraltar of the Valley, which they scaled and captured, with a loss of only four men killed. The enemy were taken completely by surprise and driven it was thought for all time out of the Valley.
The confederate General, Early, took advantage of the with- drawal of Sheridan's forces, to re-occupy Fisher's Hill, and the Second Connecticut found itself ordered back to Cedar Creek, where it arrived on October 14th. Five days later, the dramatic battle, which bears this name, was fought, and again the Second Connecti- cut had a proud and successful part in it. After an apparent defeat of the Union forces, which at one moment threatened to become an irretrievable rout, the tide of the battle turned, and ended in a complete victory which marked the successful conclusion of the Shenandoah Valley Campaign.
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THE TRIUMPHAL ARCH ON EAST STREET, AUGUST 1, 1865
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At Cedar Creek as at Winchester, the regiment had large losses, but for the Litchfield men they were proportionately much smaller than in the fateful battle of Cold Harbor. Corporal Franklin M. Bunnell was wounded at Winchester early in the day, but continued to fight with his company until just before the close of the battle. He died six days later at Jarvis Hospital, Baltimore. Corporal John L. Wilcox was shot at the battle of Cedar Creek in the side and back. The shot was not found until the third day: when it was removed a hemorrhage developed and he died on the way from the Valley to Baltimore, October 28. These were the only two men from Litchfield in the Litchfield Company who were killed after the battle of Cold Harbor.
For two months after Cedar Creek, the regiment saw no more fighting. It was again joined to Grant's army, and on February 5 and 6, 1865, was engaged in the action at Hatcher's Run. Then came another period of inaction, and then the final engagement, which began with the attack on Fort Stedman, March 25, and ended with the capture of Petersburg on April 3, 1865. The Second Con- necticut afterwards claimed to have been the first regiment to enter the city, but they did not carry their colors when they marched against it, and those of another unit were raised above the city. The same day, the regiment started in pursuit of Lee's army, and had reached a point close to Appomattox Court House, when the news reached them of the surrender there on April 9, of all that was left of Lee's forces to General Grant.
The terrible news of Cold Harbor fell upon the families and friends of the Litchfield men like a thunderbolt. For months the letters that came from the South had told only of inaction. Then suddenly came the news that the regiment was on the march, and within two weeks the rumor of a great battle was received. It was impossible to get names or correct particulars. The chief link with official bureaus was through John H. Hubbard, who was then Congressman in Washington. He was an ardent administration man, and Lincoln used to call him Old Connecticut; but even Wash- ington could give no sure information, when many of the wounded were still lying outside the lines. Long afterwards, Mrs. Hubbard
wrote, (Book of Days, p. 87) : "You can have no idea of the intense anxiety in the days following Cold Harbor. It was the same after every great battle in which Litchfield troops were engaged. The telegraph wires had more news than they could carry. It was impossible to get details. All we knew was, that a terrible battle had been fought and that a great number were either dead or wounded. As Mr. Hubbard was Congressman, our house was a
rendezvous for people hoping or fearing for news.
They would
often stay till late at night. I particularly remember one woman from Goshen who waited till eleven o'clock, and then went home, cheered with the thought that no news was good news. She had
·
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just gone home, when we received word that her husband was among the slain".
And George Kenney wrote, (Book of Days, p. 88) : "Such funerals as we had in those days! I had the stage line then and, when the war was over, I brought up from the Naugatuck station all that were left from a company that went from this town. I carried them all up in one stage drawn by four horses".
The heaviest toll, proportionately, was taken of the families who lived in the district west of the center. Here within a small radius were six farm-houses to which one or more of the men who had gone to the war were brought back dead. Three sons of the Wadhams family, who lived in the house west of the road across Harris Plain, were killed in the space of fourteen days. On May 28, 1864, the Second Connecticut happened to be near the Fourteenth Connecticut. Captain Luman Wadhams went to headquarters, requesting permission to go and see his brother in the latter regi- ment. It was given. When he returned, the Colonel asked him if he had found him. "I found he was killed day before yester- day", was the sad reply. Four days after, Captain Luman Wad- hams was killed, and both of them died without knowing that their younger brother, Edward, a Sergeant in the Eighth Connecticut, had been killed at Fort Darling on May 16.
So in Litchfield, when Deacon Adams had been over to break the news of the death of one of the brothers, he was on his way back to the village when he was told that another had fallen.
When the widow of Captain Luman Wadhams learned of her loss, the desire came to her to go herself to the South and help in nursing those who were still fated to go through the experience of her husband, those who were to linger from their wounds for a few days, and perhaps die when some little care beyond what the doctors had to give would have saved them. The number of nurses was very restricted, totally inadequate according to the standards of the present; and it is another source of pride for Litchfield to know that one of its women went and did such good work for the soldiers. She joined Sheridan's army at Winchester, where her husband's regiment had fought in August and where one of the larger field hospitals was situated. One of the letters which she wrote soon after her arrival is preserved, and is worth quoting to show the conditions of the day :
"October 31, 1864. To the Rev. George Richards. Dear Friend: As you were the means of obtaining for me a place here I thought I would tell you how I am passing my time in my new home, that is if a tent can be called a home, and that it can I am sure many will testify. I reached this place the day after Sheridan's last battle, the 19th. I found the place in a state of great commotion: many had, on the news of a repulse, packed up their goods, some had left, some were running distracted, not knowing what to do or where to go: but it is of the wounded I must tell you. I reported
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immediately on arriving to the Medical Director, who informed me I had arrived just in time, as they were expecting fifteen hundred wounded in a short time. I was sent to the Nineteenth Corps Hos- pital for a few days, as I was needed more there at that time. I must tell you of my initiation. I had not slept since leaving Wash- ington, but you may well guess sleep was far from my thoughts. The doctor told me to prepare myself with a basin, towel, etc., and left me with another lady to await the coming of the ambulance train. Now I think it would be impossible to describe my feelings, while sitting there waiting. I had thought it over many times at home before leaving, how I should bear the sight of those poor, wounded, dying men, and I knew my after efforts depended a great deal on it. The train came, they brought them in on stretchers, and placed them on straw beds on the floor of the church, as thick nearly as they could lie. And I, I went to work, washing first, feeding next, then the surgeon asked me 'could I dress wounds?' I told him I would try, and I did. And not until near morning did I leave those poor, wounded, dying men. I never stopped to ask myself how I was bearing it, never thought to cry, never felt like it, I only felt these men were suffering and I must help them, and I, if I were to go home to-morrow, I should thank God that I had come, if only for that one night. I had, as you will remember, taken a few lessons in bandaging at Columbia College Hospital at Washington before coming. I found that of great service to me. There was not an arm, head, leg, or any wound even, I shrank from, however bad it was. There was one poor boy, that had his right eye entirely shot away, and his left was so filled with blood, dirt and powder he thought that was gone too, as he told me: 'I am blind, Lady, blind for my flag'. But by frequent bathing in cold water he can see a very little. I hope to be able to restore that eye entirely. His nose is nearly half gone.
Another has his left lung laid entirely bare, you can look in and see the beating and working of that delicate machinery, but there he lies, unmurmur- ingly, patiently awaiting his death. Of course many have lost legs, arms, and some both, some seem almost literally riddled with shot. I asked one dear boy, covered with wounds, where he was wounded. He replied: 'All over, Lady', and sure it seemed so; he was hit with a piece of shell in his head, a horrible gash, then a ball had entered his left side, passed entirely through his body and had fractured his right arm. He is now doing well. I might tell of many such
Others, apparently
cases, but you will not care to be wearied.
slightly wounded, have since died, many more must. They are sending them as fast as possible to Martensburg, and then on to Baltimore. We are crowded here, but I think it would have been better to have kept them a few days, for the poor boys were so near gone that forty died on the way to Martensburg, and twenty in the cars before reaching Harpers' Ferry. They were brought from Newtown, a distance of eight miles from here and six from Cedar
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Creek, and we fed them here without taking them from the ambu- lances, and they sent them on to Martensburg, making in all 23 miles without resting. We have better accommodations here than at first; I am now at the Sheridan Hospital. It is half mile out from Winchester on a rise of ground and seems doing finely, many must die. They have all done for them possible. ... "
The men of the western part of town were known as the Flower of Litchfield, and it was appropriate that one of them should have given his name to the local Post of the Grand Army of the Republic. This was Seth F. Plumb. He was killed at Fort Harrison, Va., on September 29, 1864. He was a member of the Eighth Connecticut, in the same Company E in which Edward Wadhams was the Cap- tain. He was a deeply religious man; and was participating with other members of the regiment in a service of prayer, when the orders came to charge across an open field upon Fort Harrison. The Fort was captured, but he was killed in the attack. He always considered his soldier life as a religious duty for his country. He was buried at Bermuda Hundred, between the bodies of two young comrades who like himself had just been promoted for personal bravery. At the request of his father, his body was later brought to Litchfield by his friend Joseph H. Vaill, and lies buried in our West Cemetery.
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