USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > The memorial history of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884, Vol. I > Part 14
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1 Colonel Frank Beach was a son of George Beach, for many years president of the Phoenix Bank, Hartford. He was graduated at West Point in 1857, and in subsequent campaigns in Utah and on the Plains his health was seriously injured. When the war broke out he was adjutant at Fort McHenry. In the summer of 1862 he was appointed Colonel of the Sixteenth Connecticut Volunteers. His regiment had the misfortune to be ordered into the fight at Antietam before it had had an opportunity for a battalion drill, and was terribly cut to pieces, althoughi Colonel Beach exhibited reckless bravery in his efforts to rally and lead them. Colonel Beach was taken prisoner with his regiment at Plymouth, North Carolina, when that outpost was surprised and captured. After his exchange ill health prevented his further service in the field. He never recovered his strength, and he died in New York, Feb. 5, 1873.
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THE WAR OF THE REBELLION.
Fourteenth ; and from the Sixteenth, Captains Samuel Brown of Enfield, Frederick M. Barber of Manchester, John L. Drake of Hartford, and Newton S. Manross of Bristol.1 Of Company I of the Sixteenth, Cap- tain Drake, First Lieutenant Horton, First Sergeant Orville Campbell of New Britain, and Second Sergeant Thomas McCarty of Hartford were killed ; Third Sergeant Rufus Chamberlain of Stafford was mortally wounded. Sergeants W. A. Washburn of Berlin and Charles C. King of East Windsor were among the killed in Company G. Among the wounded at Antietam were Lieutenant-Colonel Frank W. Cheney (Six- teenth) of Manchester, Sergeant Frederick R. Eno (Fourteenth) of Bloomfield, Captains Charles Babcock of Canton and Nathaniel Hayden of Hartford (both of the Sixteenth). No other battle of the war brought so much sorrow to Connecticut.
The death-roll of the county, of those who were killed or died in the service, amounts to nearly thirteen hundred, to which might be added the many who have died since the war from diseases caused by wounds or exposure. The graves are on every great battle-field, and scattered through many States. To the list Hartford contributed very largely, among the more distinguished of her dead sons being General Griffin A. Stedman, Captain James Harmon Ward 2 (Navy), Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas S. Trumbull3 (First Heavy Artillery), Major Henry W.
1 Newton S. Manross was a highly educated and accomplished gentleman, a graduate of Yale, and just before entering the service had been elected Professor of Chemistry and Botany in Amherst College.
2 James Harmon Ward, U. S. N., at the outbreak of the Rebellion was recognized as one of the most intelligent and promising officers of the navy, being of mature years, and having established a brilliant reputation. He was born in Hartford in 1806, the son of Colonel James Ward, commissary-general of the War of 1812. He entered the navy as midshipman on the old frigate "Constitution " in 1823. He was the author of the "Manual of Naval Tactics " published about 1835. In 1842 he delivered a course of popular lectures in Philadelphia on Gunnery, in which he advocated the establishment of a naval school, and when the school was founded he became one of its foremost professors and so continued until the outbreak of the Rebellion. He was then summoned to Washington, where he speedily organized (or cre- ated) the Potomac flotilla, our first effective naval force, of which he was given command May 16, 1861. Only a month later, while endeavoring to silence a Rebel battery at Acqnia Creek, he was killed by a sharp shooter. He was buried in Hartford, from St. Patrick's Church, with the highest military honors. Those who knew him best regarded his death at that time as a greater loss to the country than would have been the loss of a division of troops.
3 Thomas Swan Trumbull was born at Stonington, Feb. 15, 1835 ; died at Wash- ington, D.C., March 30, 1865. At the outbreak of the war Mr. Trumbull, a graduate of the Harvard Law School, was in the practice of his profession in New York City. At once he enlisted as a recruit in the famous Seventh Regiment of New York, with the purpose of following it to Washington. He received word that no more recruits would be needed there. Then he hastened to Hartford, where he had a similar experience in his enlistment into the company of Captain - afterward General - Hawley ; the later names on the roll of that com- pany being stricken off to reduce it to regulation standard. Yet again he enlisted, into the Third Connecticut Regiment, under Colonel Levi Woodhouse, and was, at the latter's request, transferred with him when he was given command of the Fourth Regiment, - the first front the State for a three years' term. Appointed First Lieutenant and Adjutant, Trumbull left for the front, with his regiment, June 10, and first saw service on the Upper Potomac, under General Patterson and General Banks. The regiment being changed into the First Connecti- cut Heavy Artillery, under Colonel Robert O. Tyler, an officer of the regular army, Adjutant Trumbull was promoted to a majorship, March 1, 1862 ; the Colonel taking this unusual step, as he said, " solely for the good of the service, and because of Trumbull's extraordinary capa- city as an artillery officer." From doing duty in the defences of Washington, the regiment went forward as the siege-train of General Mcclellan in the campaign against Yorktown and in the Peninsula. Major Trumbull had charge of one of the most important batterics before Yorktown ; and he fought through the campaign with his regiment, down to the close of the series of battles around Richmond, in the battle of Malvern Hill. While yet on the Upper Potomac Trumbull had received an injury, by the fall of his horse, from the effects of which he never entirely recovered. The pestilential influences of the Chickahominy Swamp aided in
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
Camp1 (Tenth), Captain Henry A. Wells (Tenth), Lieutenant John C. Coffing (Tenth), Captain Horatio D. Eaton (Sixth), Adjutant Heber S. Smith (Fifth ), Lieutenant John H. Wilson (Seventh), Captain Edwin R. Lee (Eleventh), Captain William H. Sackett (Eleventh), Captain Wil- liam S. Buckley (Twelfth), Captain Charles A. Tennant (Sixteenth), Lieutenant John M. Waters (Sixteenth), Captain Henry C. Smith (Twentieth), Captain Oliver R. Post (Twentieth).
From other towns the names are recalled of Colonel Albert W. Drake (Tenth) of South Windsor ; Colonel Richard E. Holcomb of East Granby, who was shot through the heart at Port Hudson while leading the First Louisiana Regiment, to the command of which he had been promoted from major of the Thirteenth ; Major Joseph H. Con- verse (Eleventh) of Windsor Locks, killed at Cold Harbor; Captain Joseph R. Toy (Twelfth) of Simsbury ; Lieutenant Horace E. Phelps (Twelfth) of Windsor Locks, killed at Cedar Creek ; Lieutenant Theo- dore A. Stanley (Fourteenth) of New Britain, killed at Fredericksburg ; Captain Samuel S. Hayden, (Twenty-fifth), killed at Irish Bend,
sapping his life forces ; but he battled with disease as bravely as with the enemies of his Gov- ernment. Again, in the defences of Washington, Major Trumbull was in command of Forts Richardson, Scott, and Barnard. In December, 1862, he was in command of two companies and their batteries, under General Burnside, at Fredericksburg. In the spring of 1864 the regiment, under Colonel - afterward General - H. L. Abbot, another regular-army officer, went again to the front, at Bermuda Hundred. There Major Trumbull was given " the post of honor," in command of Battery No. 3, later known as Fort Anderson. His skill and efficiency in that position were recognized by his commander, and in June he was sent to assume command of bat- teries in front of Petersburg. For some time after this he was " in charge of all the guns of the siege on both sides of the Appomattox." "He showed in this higher sphere," says Colonel Abbot, "the same admirable qualities which had distinguished him when in command of Battery No. 3." In two instances Major Trumbull was tendered the position of Chief of Artillery on a corps commander's staff ; but he preferred to remain with his regiment while he could have so active and important service there. He was promoted to be Lieutenant-Colonel, Nov. 29, 1864. When a return of his illness forbade for a time his service along the extended line of the Petersburg front, he did duty on the staff of General Benham, in completing the line of defences at City Point, and having charge of the reserve artillery there. In the early spring of 1865 Lieutenant-Colonel Trumbull was detailed on a general court-martial at Washington, pre- sided over by General I. L. Briggs, where his legal training was again of service. It was while on this duty that he finally succumbed to disease, and died March 30, 1865. His remains were taken to his Hartford home, and as they were borne to their resting-place in Spring Grove Cemetery, on the afternoon of April 2, his friends heard the shouts of rejoicing over the fall of Petersburg, for the accomplishing of which he had striven so bravely and untiringly. Possessed of a vigorous constitution, young Trumbull was early distinguished for physical strength and athletic accomplishments, "few excelling him in those manly sports requiring cool nerves, trained muscle, and a quick eye." Of brilliant intellectual powers, and of rare geniality in spirit and manner, he was exceptionally winsome and popular, and withal he had a keen sense of honor, a lofty purpose of noble doing, and an indomitable will. He had given promise of success in his chosen profession, but all his good qualities found amplest play in the duties of his soldier life. Overtaxed and maimed in the discharge of those duties in his first year of army service, he kept up and persevered in arduous campaigning for wellnigh four years ; and he lay down to die only within eleven days of the close of the war at Appomattox Court-House. While he was yet living, Colonel Abbot wrote of him, in his official report for 1864 : " Lieutenant-Colonel Trumbull has highly distinguished himself for ability, courage, and devotion to duty. Entering upon the campaign with health much impaired, . . . he seemed to throw off disease by determined will. . . . His only fault was in laboring beyond his strength. Few officers have the energy and ability to accomplish what he has done." With such a record, a life closing at thirty years cannot be called incomplete !
1 Major Henry W. Camp, of the Tenth Connecticut Volunteers, was a Hartford high-school boy, son of the Rev. Henry B. Camp. He was graduated at Yale in 1860, and was distin- guished for manly beauty, physical vigor, and intellectual nobleness and strength of character. The story of his brief life is told in " The Knightly Soldier," from the pen of his intimate friend and companion in arms and in prison, Chaplain Henry Clay Trumbull, of the Tenth. Major Camp was killed Oct. 13, 1864, near Darbytown, Virginia, while leading a charge of his regiment.
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THE WAR OF THE REBELLION.
Louisiana ; Captain Newton P. Johnson (Twenty-fifth) of East Granby ; Captain Andrew Upson (Twentieth) of Southington ; Sergeant Albert Stillman (Twentieth) of New Britain; Sergeant John F. Carroll (Twenty-fourth), killed at Port Hudson; Lieutenant Owen S. Case (Thirtieth), killed at Petersburg, Virginia.
The total expenditure of the towns of the State for bounties, pre- miums, support of families, and other war-purposes was $5,195,877.80, of which the towns of Hartford County paid $1,217,966.19, or nearly one quarter of the entire amount. The tables published below are taken from the " History of Connecticut during the Rebellion," but the figures are not in every instance trustworthy.
TOWNS.
Expenditure of Towns for Bounties, Premiums, Commu- tation, and Support of Families.
Estimated Amount paid by Individuals for Bounties to Volunteers and Substitutes.
Estimated Amount paid by Individuals for Commutation.
Grand List, 1864.
Hartford
$269,646.86
$35,403,478
Avon .
15,094.17
$1,975.00
$1,800
546,454
Berlin
35,880.66
4,825.00
1,078,882
Bloomfield .
39,235.00
1,000.00
. .
833,529
Bristol
55,534.99
13,551.98
2,100
1,765,942
Burlington .
20,250.00
2,000.00
3,600
456,487
Canton
36,644.63
4,700.00
3,500
1,224,792
East Granby
13,295.00
1,800.00
1,170
495,888
East Hartford
58,209.46
24,800.00
550
1,464,822
East Windsor
45,730.04
3,000.00
1,214,300
Enfield .
66,314.00
4,450.00
2,669,099
Farmington
89,975.98
9,000.00
6,000
2,162,570
Glastonbury
45,947.00
5,950.00
1,422,656
Granby .
16,700.00
3,316.00
2,000
609,726
Hartland
12,492.25
1,300.00
2,100
356,847
Manchester
47,212.70
8,000.00
1,632,047
Marlborough
6,674.00
350.00
305,482
New Britain
45,628.45
35,000.00
14,400
2,608,418
Rocky Hill .
20,605.00
130.00
7,000
471,038
Simsbury
14,575.00
2,500.00
3,600
1,257,503
Southington
35,695.00
12,250.00
1,564,150
South Windsor
25,800.00
10,000.00
1,211,873
Suffield .
74,224.02
1,720,255
West Hartford
36,981.50
5,401.00
1,200
1,726,711
Windsor
34,700.00
5,225.00
1,421,333
Windsor Locks
15,944.98
2,630.00
612,990
$1,217,966.19
$163,153.98
$49,020
$67,626,129
. .
1,388,857
Wethersfield
38,975.50
Returns from present town officials vary slightly from these figures in many instances, but they are probably as nearly correct as it is pos- sible at this date to make them, owing to the fact that frequently the town records fail to specify whether certain individual appropriations were in aid of soldiers or their families.
The following additional statistics are furnished by town officials :
BERLIN. - Appropriated for bounties, $22,307.17 ; for support of families of volunteers, $6,959.58, - total, $29,966.57. Furnished 171 men, of whom 12 were killed, 22 died in service. In Company G, Sixteenth, were 27 Berlin men, of whom 2 were killed and 6 wounded at Antietam, and 6 died in Rebel prisons.
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
More than 30 soldiers of the late war are buried in the town cemeteries. There are two soldiers' monuments in the town, -one in Kensington and one in East Berlin, the former believed to be the first erected in the State ; it bears the names of fifteen soldiers. That of East Berlin has thirty-five names of soldiers, some of whom belonged in adjoining towns. Private E. W. Bacon of Berlin, of the Fourteenth Regiment, captured the colors of the Sixteenth North Carolina Regi- ment at Gettysburg. He was afterward killed during the Wilderness campaign.
BRISTOL. -- Appropriated $40,300 as bounties to volunteers and drafted men. There were also large expenditures for support of families. Furnished 250 men, of whom it is believed that some 75 are dead. Among the most conspicuous of the dead was Captain Manross, of the Sixteenth, heretofore mentioned. The town has a soldiers' monument.
CANTON. - Furnished 257 soldiers during the War of the Rebellion. Of these, 186 were honorably discharged ; 41 were either killed in battle or died from the effects of wounds or disease while they were in service ; and about 30 are classed in the records published by the adjutant-general's office as deserters, but most of these were hired substitutes who were never residents of the town. The town voted a bounty of $100 to each man who counted on its quota, and also paid considerable for the expense of enrolling, and the records show that the sum of $36,242 was paid towards the expense of furnishing soldiers for the war. There has been no appropriation from the town for the expense of a soldiers' monument, though the subject has sometimes been agitated.
EAST HARTFORD. - Expended for volunteers and substitutes $70,733, a por- tion of which was paid by individuals. Furnished 311 men, of whom 211 were volunteers, 55 drafted or substitutes, and 45 paid commutation money. There were killed, 14; died in service, 18; wounded, 10.1 The town has a fine soldiers' monument of freestone, surmounted by an eagle. It was erected chiefly by sub- scription, and bears the inscription : " Erected to the Memory of those brave men who gave up their lives that the country might live." The town annually votes an appropriation to assist in the observance of Memorial Day.
FARMINGTON. - Paid for volunteers and substitutes, $73,000 ; to families of soldiers, $26,475.98 ; by individuals for sanitary commission, soldiers' relief, etc., $7,635.97 : total, $107,111.95. Furnished 360 men, the full proportion of whom are among the killed and wounded. The town has a soldiers' monument.
GLASTONBURY. - War expenses, $50,035.94. Number of men furnished, 393, as follows : three months' volunteers, 10; nine months' volunteers, 62 ; three years' volunteers, 159 ; re-enlisted veterans, 28; three years' recruits, 74; three years' substitutes, 46 ; surgeons, 3; lieutenant regular army, 1; navy, 10. The bounties paid by the town ranged from $10 to $500 per man. Appropria- tions were also made for the mothers and infant brothers and sisters of volunteers. There were killed in battle, 16 ; died in service (including 3 at Andersonville), 16. The town furnished 1 lieutenant-colonel, 2 captains, 2 lieutenants, 3 sur- geons, I lieutenant in the regular army (Robert G. Welles, severely wounded at Gettysburg), and 3 warrant officers in the navy.
MARLBOROUGH. - Furnished 42 men, of whom 9 were killed or died in the service. The amount paid for volunteers and substitutes was about $2,700.
MANCHESTER. - Sent to the War of the Rebellion 251 men ; namely, volun- teers, 224; substitutes and drafted, 27, - total, 251. These are accounted
1 The most distinguished resident of the town who served during the war was Harry Howard Brownell, private secretary of Admiral Farragut, who was called by Oliver Wendell Holmes " the battle laureate of the Union." He was the author of " War Lyrics," and wrote an account of the " Battle of Mobile Bay " in verse, which is the most graphic and accurate description of the fight ever written. During the thickest of the fight, in passing the forts, he sat on the quarter-deck making notes of every incident, the notes being written as carefully as though he had been a hundred miles away from any danger. He died in 1875, and is buried in the Centre Cemetery.
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THE WAR OF THE REBELLION.
for as follows : missing in action, 1 ; enlisted in C. S. A., while prisoner of war, 1 ; not taken up on rolls, 3 ; killed in action, 6; died in service, of disease and wounds, 32; deserted, 33;1 honorably discharged, 175, - total, 251. As the total population of Manchester in 1860 was but 3,294, making by the ordinary estimate 658 voters, the town must have sent nearly, if not quite, one half of the number of those fit for military service. The 251 Manchester men were scat- tered into many widely separated commands, being distributed according to their enlistments as follows : First Regiment Connecticut Volunteers (three months'), 8; Second Regiment Connecticut Volunteers, 1 ; First Squadron Cavalry, 4; First Regiment Cavalry, 5 ; First Light Battery, 4; Second Light Battery, 1; First Connecticut Artillery, 40 ; Second Connecticut Artillery, 8; Infantry, - Fifth Volunteers, 15 ; Seventh Volunteers, 11; Eighth Volunteers, 5; Ninth Volun- teers, 4 ; Tenth Volunteers, 38; Eleventh Volunteers, 7; Twelfth Volunteers, 10; Fourteenth Volunteers, 9; Fifteenth Volunteers, 3; Sixteenth Volunteers, 44; Twentieth Volunteers, 8; Twenty-First Volunteers, 1; Twenty-second Volun- teers, 7; Twenty-fifth Volunteers, 4; Twenty-ninth Volunteers, 7; Third Bri- gade Band, 2; First United States Artillery, 1; Wisconsin Volunteers, 1; United States Navy, 3, -total, 251. John L. Otis, Second Lieutenant Com- pany B, Tenth Connecticut Volunteers, was promoted to the coloneley of his regi- ment, and at the close of the war was made brigadier-general by brevet " for gallantry at the crossing of James River, Va., June 20, 1864, and at the battle of Flusser's Mills and Deep River, Va. ; to date from March 13, 1865." The first five volunteers from Manchester enlisted April 20, 1861, in Captain Com- stock's Company (A, First Regiment Connecticut Volunteers, three months'). Their names were Philip W. Hudson (afterward captain Company B, Tenth Connecticut Volunteers), George C. Chadwick, John B. Warburton, William Annis, and Charles Avery. Manchester has a tasteful soldiers' monument, cost- ing with its surroundings $3,029.03, of which the town paid $2,636.34, and Drake Post No. 4, G. A. R., $392.69. This was selected and purchased by Robert H. Kellogg, Frank W. Cheney, and Horace White (a committee appointed by the town), and dedicated Sept. 17, 1877. Manchester has a flourishing Post of the G. A. R. (Drake No. 4), named after Colonel Albert W. Drake, of the Tenth Connecticut Volunteers, and organized July 9, 1875.
ROCKY HILL. - Seventy-three men were credited to this town, receiving from $100 to $300 bounty each, the total town bounty amounting to $12,000. In addition to this amount, volunteers under the first and second calls received from General James T. Pratt, then a resident of the town, the sum of $10 each. More than one household gave all its young men, many of whom never returned. Representatives of Rocky Hill families enlisted in other States to a considerable extent.
SOUTHINGTON. - Gave 311 men to the army and 1 man to the navy. Of this number 50 died in service. $35,695 was expended by the town for boun- ties, the support of soldiers' families, etc. ; and it is estimated that in addition to this amount the sum of $12,250 was paid by individuals in aid to volunteers and for substitutes.
WETHERSFIELD. - On July 21, 1862, the town voted $50 bounty to every resident enlisting under the call for 300,000 men. The amount was increased, August 18, to $125, with an additional $25 if the town's quota should be raised without a draft. On July 20, 1863, the sum of $300 was voted to each drafted man, thus paying them double what the volunteers received. On Aug. 22, 1863, the treasurer was authorized to borrow $14,400 to meet the expense. The quota under this draft was 48. In December, 1863, the town was called on for 33 more men, and $4,200 more was appropriated. On July 28, 1864, $6,000 was
1 The deserters were largely from the " bounty-jumping " class, eighteen out of the twenty-seven substitutes being recorded as such.
104
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
appropriated to meet the demands under the call for 500,000 men. On Nov. 28, 1864, the selectmen reported that they had procured 46 volunteers and substi- tutes at an expense of $9,681.66, and the town voted $10,000 to defray the cost. The town has no soldiers' monument.
WINDSOR. - The town furnished 2 three months' men, 71 nine months' men, and 184 three years' men, or the equivalent of 202 three years' men. Of this number 5 were killed or died of wounds received in action, 1 was missing in action, 7 were wounded, 10 died in service, 8 were discharged for disability, 4 were promoted to commissions, 4 deserted after muster and 13 as recruits be- fore muster, the latter belonging to the infamous army of bounty-jumpers. There are 35 soldiers' graves in the town. E. N. Phelps, of Windsor, was lieutenant- colonel of the Twenty-second Regiment. Windsor at the beginning of the war had a large anti-war party, but the Union sentiment prevailed. To the Women's Soldiers' Aid Society great credit was due for stimulating patriotism at home and sending supplies into the field. Among the prominent Union men of the town was the late Brevet Brigadier-General William S. Pierson.
A.CKinney
CHAPTER VI.
THE BENCH AND THE BAR.
BY SHERMAN W. ADAMS.
GENERAL VIEW. - THE COURTS. - JUDGES AND LAWYERS.
F YOR the trial of causes, civil and criminal, courts are almost as old as governments. And the Bench, a term which is significant of the magistrate or judicial officer who occupies it, must, of course, be as ancient as the court. This is not so, however, with the Bar. For there have been periods when there were suitors at law without attor- neys, and culprits without counsel ; in other words, when there was no Bar, in the figurative sense of the word as here used. But neither those who sat upon the Bench nor those who practised at its Bar have always been trained to the legal profession. Hence, we must notice persons who were not lawyers, nor bred to the law, but who fall within the class indicated by the title which heads this article.
The members of the first court which existed in this colony, estab- lished in March, 1635-1636, were eight in number ; namely, Roger Ludlow, William Pynchon, John Steele, William Swayne, Henry Smith, William Phelps, William Westwood, and Andrew Ward. Of these, only five participated in the first recorded session of the court, that of April 26, 1636, at Hartford. These gentlemen had been com- missioned by the General Court of Massachusetts "to govern the people at Connecticut for the space of a year next coming." They were in effect invested with exclusive legislative, judicial, and executive power ; including "military discipline, defensive war," and "to make and decree such orders, for the present, that may be for the peaceable and quiet ordering the affairs of the said plantation," etc. They ruled the plantations during their term of office; and when, in the following year, the plantations became townships, the latter chose the " commit- tees" which represented the towns in the General Court, and formed the lower section of that body. The court was aided by a jury.
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