Connecticut's Soldiers in the Civil War

By James P. Walsh

See also: A Quaker Firebrand Swings An Election

From beginning to end, Connecticut troops fought heroically in the Civil War. In the first major battle at Bull Run, three regiments from Connecticut prevented a Union defeat from becoming a rout. When Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, fell, the first foot patrols to enter the city were men of the Connecticut Twenty-Ninth Regiment, a black unit.

Connecticut easily raised volunteers in 1861. The first three regiments, approximately 2,500 men, enlisted for three months, and many of them reenlisted when their terms expired. As the war went on, however, the number of men needed increased as did the terms of enlistment. In the summer of 1862, for example, Lincoln asked Connecticut for an additional 7,145 men to serve for three years. By that time, Connecticut already had about 10,000 in the Army. Eventually, the Union had to resort to a draft. It is sometimes said that nobody in Connecticut had to be drafted because there were always enough volunteers to fill the state's quota, but this is not quite true. Once the draft was instituted, it made sense to volunteer because being drafted became a virtual certainty and because volunteers received bounties. By war's end, about 55,000 men had served in the military, probably more than half of all the young men in the state.

Connecticut men served in the Navy, the Marines and the regular Army, but most served as infantrymen in State Regiments. These men served in every theatre of the war, and in virtually every major engagement. Connecticut soldiers were at Antietam in Maryland; at Port Hudson in Louisiana; at Gettysburg in Pennsylvania; at Cedar Creek in the Shenandoah Valley; and again and again in Virginia—at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg. And where they fought, they shed their blood. The Fourteenth Regiment lost 1,462 men, the worst losses of any Connecticut regiment. Altogether, nearly half of all the men who served were killed, wounded, or taken prisoner.

When General Grant rode to the McLean House in Appomattox to take Robert E. Lee's surrender, he was escorted by Connecticut cavalrymen. It was an honor that the state had truly earned.

For Further Reading

The best history of Connecticut's Civil War military effort is John Niven, Connecticut for the Union (New Haven, Connecticut, 1965).

There is a fuller, but less readable, treatment in W. A. Croffut and John M. Morris, The Military and Civil History of Connecticut during the War of 1861-1865 (New York, 1869).

* Entry under revision.