Litchfield County may well be proud of its record in the Civil War. Her sons were scattered in nearly every one of Connecticut's twenty-eight regiments and many also in Regiments of other states. However, it is with the experiences of those Litchfield County men who enlisted in the Nineteenth Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, that this article is concerned.
When, on July 3, 1862, Governor Buckingham issued a call for six Regiments of three years' men, the people of Litchfield County did at they have always done - their full duty - and voted at a County Convention, held in Litchfield on July 22, 1862, to raise an entire regiment within the country. Thus was born the 19th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, The Mountain County Regiment.
At this time the military situation was very discouraging to the supporters of the Federal Government. We had just finished Gen. McClellan's attempt to take Richmond in the disastrous Peninsula Campaign, which ended in failure and recrimination.
On the other hand, the Confederates, flushed with victory, and having filled their ranks, were never better fitted for the conflict. Also, in the North, the so-called "peace faction," were strong and actively agitating for mediation of the issues.
However discouraging were the prospects of the North at this time, the men of Litchfield County saw the terrible necessity of supporting their comrades already in the field, and suppressing the Rebellion.
The project of raising the 19th was pushed forward with great vigor. A bounty of $100 was offered by most, if not all, of the towns, and recruiting officers designated, who canvassed Mountain and Valley, Highway and Hedge for recruits. The offer of a commission to anyone who should enlist 40 men proved a great incentive to effort. Nine companies were soon filled to the maximum and some had men to spare, the surplus being used to furnish the tenth company, Company "K".
The Regiment was made up entirely of men in the County, and of excellent material, some of the oldest and best families being represented in its ranks. Men of all ages from 16 to 60 volunteered. Ira Thomas of Woodbury, 61 years of age, dyed his grey whiskers and enlisted, appearing to be about 20 years younger. Underage boys would write 18 on a piece of paper and put it inside their shoe, then when asked by the recruiting officer could truthfully say "I'm over 18."
Leverett W. Wessells of Litchfield, County Sheriff, was commissioned as Colonel and Major Elisha S. Kellogg of the 1st Connecticut Artillery as Lieutenant Colonel. Major Kellogg, whose home was in Birmingham, Conn., came to the 19th direct from McClellan's army, the dust of the Peninsula, and the mud of Harrison's Landing was still on him.
The following show the makeup of each Company and the towns where raised:
Litchfield, Company A: Litchfield 63, Harwinton 10, Morris 7, Washington 5, other towns 7.
Salisbury, Company B: Salisbury 43, Kent 24, Canaan 7, other 14.
Goshen, Company C: Goshen 42, Torrington 34, other 12.
Plymouth, Company D: Plymouth 53, Watertown 18, Harwinton 13, Burlington 1, Morris 1.
Winsted, Company E: Winchester 62, Norfolk 16, Barkhamsted 5, other 7.
New Hartford, Company F: New Hartford 30, Canaan 16, North Canaan 19, Colebrook 14, Barkhamsted 9.
Cornwall, Company G: Sharon 41, Cornwall 34, other 15.
New Milford, Company H: New Milford 37, Washington 21, Kent 21, Warren 5, other 3.
Woodbury, Company: Woodbury 61, other 20.
Company K: Surplus from other companies.
The Nineteenth Regiment assembled on August 19 at Camp Dutton, on Chestnut Hill, east of Litchfield. The camp was named in honor of Lt. Henry M. Dutton of the Fifth Connecticut Volunteers who had fallen at Cedar Mountain only ten days before.
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 an incessant fire of doughnuts, apples, butter, pies, cheese, honey and other dainties and citizens thronged its streets and environs from morning until night.
On the tenth of September, the Regiment marched to Litchfield Village and received an elegant stand of colors from Mrs. William Curtis Noyes, and on the eleventh of September were mustered into the United States service.
The deep interest everywhere felt in the Mountain County Regiment was attested, when on the fifteenth of September, the Regiment entrained for New York City. Crowds of people thronged the stations and handkerchiefs waved farewell from windows and verandas and hilltops. At Waterbury, Bridgeport, Norwalk and Stamford thousands assembled to bid them godspeed.
The Regiment was ordered to camp about a mile west of Alexandria, Virginia, and attached to the command of Gen. John B. Slough, Military Governor of Alexandria, and its first actual military duty was to consist of doing patrol and picket duty in that city.
Alexandria had been under martial law since the breaking out of the war and had suffered greatly from the conduct of the troops quartered in the vicinity. The Nineteenth had not been a week in Virginia before the good behavior of its men became a topic of conversation among its citizens and the authorities were petitioned by the residents, nearly all of whom were 'rebels', not to remove that Regiment from Alexandria.
From the soft beds and regular habits of Connecticut homes to the hard ground, irregular sleep, bad food and worse water of Virginia was a change that soon affected the health of the Volunteers. Measeles and Mumps began to prevail; Rheumatism made many lame; Chronic Diarrhea weakened them anad Jaundice and Typhoid Fever made their appearance. Two Hospital tents were soon filled to overflowing and soon a church was appropriated as a Regimental Hospital. By New Year's the number of deaths by sickness had grown to seventeen.
As the health of the soldiers continued to grow worse, and there were reports of neglect and harsh treatment of the sick, Gov. Buckingham sent Dr. S. T. Salisbury of Plymouth to investigate, who reported that everything was being done that was possible for the men.
The Regiment was removed to the vicinity of Washington for garrison duty in the Forts on January 12, 1863, and the health of the Regiment improved greatly.
On the twenty-third of November, 1863 the War Department issued an order changing the Nineteenth Connecticut Infantry to a Regiment of Heavy Artillery designated the Second Connecticut Heavy Artillery and directing it to be filled up to the maximum standard of 1800 men. This was good news as many soldiers saw chance for promotion among the two Majors, two Captains, 28 Lieutenants, 46 Sergeants and 64 Corporals that would be required in addition to those already in service.
Three officers and ten enlisted men were sent to Connecticut on recruiting service. A draft was pending and large bounties were being offered for Volunteers. A goodly portion of the new recruits were made up of intelligent, patriotic and honorable men. However, one contingent of 300 men were of the worst types that the slums of New York and Baltimore could furnish - Bounty Jumpers who had deserted from Regiment to Regiment in which they had enlisted under fictitious names and who now proposed to repeat the operation. And they did repeat it. Many disappeared on the way from Connecticut to the Regiment, and many others arrived handcuffed and were consigned to bombproofs in the forts from which many escaped by digging underground passages with their jack knives. No less than 250 deserted before the middle of May, very few of whom were ever retaken and returned to the Regiment. There were 'rebels' in Alexandria who furnished deserters with citizens' clothes and their capture became almost impossible.
During this period of manning the forts around Washington, Col. Wessells resigned and Lt. Col. Kellogg was advanced to replace him.
On the sixteenth of May, 1864, the Regiment was ordered to join the Army of the Potomac under Grant and Meade in the vicinity of Spottsylvania. They reached their destination on the twentieth and were assigned to the second Brigade, First Division of the Sixth Corps, commanded before his death on May Ninth by Major General John Sedgwick of Cornwall Hollow, Conn. It was now commanded by Major Gen. Horatio G. Wright of Clinton, Conn.
This regiment had been in service about 22 months and now after a terrible night march were about to receive their baptism of fire in battle - an event that was to carry death into its ranks, with scarcely a parallel during the war.
The battle received the name of Cold Harbor and many wondered how the area got its name. Its heat was that of a furnace and it was miles from any harbor. And what did this place consist of? Three or four unpainted houses east of a sparse pine woods.
In the opinions of most of the students of the Civil War the battle of Cold Harbor should never have been fought. There was no military necessity to justify Grant ordering an attack on a large force of Confederates in entrenched positions.
At five o'clock on June 1, 1864, the untried Second Connecticut Heavy Artillery moving in three battalions of four companies each, was marched out of their positions to help in dislodging the enemy from their entrenched positions at Cold Harbor. The first battalion was sent across an open field, with the colors in the center 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 breastworks, 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 frontal fire, the rebel breastwork would have been taken, notwithstanding the pine boughs. But at this moment a long line of rebels on the left having nothing on 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 smoke and the shrieks of more than 250 mangled men arose above the yells of the triumphant rebels and the roar of their musketry. "About Face," shouted Col. 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 interlaced pine boughs.
Wild and blind with wounds, noise and smoke, and conflicting orders, the men staggered in every direction, some of them falling upon the very top of the rebel parapet where they were completely riddled with bullets, others wandered off into the woods on the right and front, to find their way to death or starvation at Andersonville Prison or never to be heard from again.
The Second Battalion behind them could give them 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 fighting, several hundred of the enemy come across the parapets and surrendered. Through a misunderstanding, the credit of their capture 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 darkness vacated their breastworks and at three o'clock in the morning other troops were sent to relieve the Second Connecticut, 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 much less severe than on the fateful first of June. Indeed, that first engagement was the most serious that the Regiment saw at any subsequent 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 first is as follows: Killed or died of wounds - 121 Wounded - 190 Missing - 15 Prisoners - 3 thus a total of 329 casualties in a Regiment of 1800 men.
The following description of the field after the battle of Cold Harbor is by Martin T. McMahon, Brevet Major General, U. S. Volunteers, of the Sixth Corps, in his article on Cold Harbor in Volume Four of 'Battles and Leaders of the Civil War."
"The field in front of us after the repulse of the main attack was indeed a sad sight. I remember at one point a mute and pathetic evidence of sterling valor. The Second Connecticut Heavy Artillery, a new Artillery Regiment, 1800 strong, had joined us but a few days before the battle. Its uniform was bright and fresh; therefore its dead were easily distinguished where they lay. They marked in a dotted line an obtuse angle, covering a wide front, with its apex toward the enemy, and there upon his face, still in death, with his head to the works, lay the Colonel, the brave and genial Colonel Elisha S. Kellogg."
"Cold Harbor," said Gen. Grant in his memoirs, "is, I think, the only battle I ever fought that I would not fight over again under the circumstances. I have always regretted that the assault on Cold Harbor was ever made."
On June 12, 1864, the Regiment, now commanded by Col. MacKenzie, moved to the lines before Petersburg where it remained until July 9, 1864. For the next two months or more it took part in the maneuvers under Gen. Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley Campaign, having its severest battle at Opequan Creek, the official name for the battle, but inasmuch as the fighting was pushed to the gates of Winchester, the rebels sent "whirling through Winchester," and the wounded carried to Winchester - the soldiers persisted in calling it the Battle of Winchester. Here, on September 19, 1864, its efficient work 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 Shenandoah 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, Jubal Early, however, took advantage of the withdrawal of Sheridan's forces to re-occupy Fisher's Hill and the Second Connecticut was ordered back to Cedar Creek where it arrived on October 14, 1864. Five days later the dramatic battle of Cedar Creek was fought and again the Second Connecticut played a successful part in it. After the surprise and apparent defeat of the Union forces, which at one time threatened to become a rout, General Sheridan, who had been at Winchester, made his famous ride reaching the field in time to rally the retreating Union forces and drive Early out of the valley turning defeat into victory. At Cedar Creek as at Opequan Creek the Regiment had large losses, but they were proportionately much smaller than in the fateful battle of Cold Harbor.
For two months after the battle of Cedar Creek the Regiment saw no more action. It was again joined to Gen. Grant's Army before Petersburg. On February fifth and sixth, 1865, it was engaged in the fighting at Hatcher's Run. Then came another period of inaction, and then the final engagement which began with the attack on Fort Stedman on March 25, 1865, and ended with the capture of Petersburg on April 3, 1865.
The Second Connecticut afterwards claimed to have been the first Regiment to enter the captured city but Col. Hubbard, their new commander, had ordered the colors to remain behind when the Regiment went out on the skirmish line, consequently, the colors that first floated over captured Petersburg belonged to some other Regiment.
Petersburg, now that it was abandoned by the enemy, had lost its importance and all energies were given over to preventing the escape of its late defenders. Before the end of the day, April 3, 1865, the Regiment with the rest of the Sixth Corps had joined the pursuit of Gen. Lee. On April 6, the Regiment after an all day march came up with the enemy at Sailor's Creek and went into its last engagement. It was a charge, under fire, hot and decisive. The Regiment captured the headquarters train of the Confederate General Mahone, a battle flag and many prisoners - and ended its losses with three men killed and six wounded.
The rapid chase was taken up again next morning (April 7) and the Regiment had arrived at a point close to Appomattox Court House, when on April 9, Lee met Grant and surrendered what remained of his army.
The tremendous task of disbanding the armies of the Union was a most difficult job for the War Department, but to the men of the Second Connecticut, it seemed as if the day would never come.
The Regiment took part in the "Grand Review" at Washington on June eighth, and, finally, on July 7th, 183 men, all that were left of the original enlisted men of the "old Nineteenth" were mustered out, and two days later they departed for New Haven, which they reached on Monday evening, August 20, and passed up Chapel Street amid welcoming crowds of people, the clangor of bells, and a shower of red lights and rockets.
In Litchfield County the return of the various contingents was made the occasion of great rejoicing. Chief among the celebrations was a grand reception at Litchfield on Aug 1st, 1865. There was a triumphal arch, a parade and speeches.
But all who went had not returned. The effects of the Regiment's Casualties were felt in every town - George Kenney of Litchfield wrote in the "Book of Days": "I had the stage line then and when the war was over, I brought up from the Naugatuck station all that was left from a Company that went from this town. I carried them all up in a stage drawn by four horses."
The official statistics of what the Second Connecticut suffered in casualties are as follows: Killed - 147 Missing in action, probably dead - 11 Fatally Wounded - 95 Wounded - 427 Captured - 72 Died of Disease or Accident - 154 Died in Prison - 21 Discharged for Disability - 285 Unaccounted for at Muster Out - 35
To these statistics might be added in succeeding years, a long list of those who had indeed come back, but broken with wounds and disease, did not long survive to enjoy the peace their services had won. For many of the survivors there was the sacrifice of hopes and opportunities, of higher education and business careers.
The rugged hills of Litchfield County have mustered many soldiers for their country's war, but none are more deserving of our consideration and remembrance than the valiant volunteers of The Mountain County Regiment. Testimony to their patriotism and bravery is to be found in every history of the Civil War.