Dudley Landon Vaill

“ Litchfield County had given up the flower of her youth, the hope and pride of hundreds of 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 a whit less competent or worthy to wear sash and saber if it had been their fortune. ”

“ The story of a body of Litchfield County men, such men as we see every day, drawn from such homes as we know all about us, is a potent help to understanding in what way and with what aspects these great historical movements bore upon the people of the country, for the experience of this group of towns and their sons furnished but one small instance of what was borne, infinitely magnified, throughout the nation. ”

“ Here, for the first time during the whole of this bloody day, did the regiment have orders to fire, and for ten minutes they had the privilege of pouring an effective fire into the rebels, who were thick in front. Then a flank movement was made along the fence to the right, followed by a direct advance of forty rods into the field. Here was the deadliest spot of the day. The enemy's artillery, on a rise of ground in front, plowed the field with canister and shells, and tore the ranks in a frightful manner. ”

“ The victory was as complete and satisfying as it was spectacular; the enemy was at last so thoroughly beaten that a dangerous attitude could not be taken again. It was a fitting close for Sheridan's famous campaign in the Shenandoah Valley.
To the Second Connecticut the day at Cedar Creek brought losses nearly as heavy as were suffered at Winchester just a month before: thirty-eight killed, ninety-six wounded, and two missing, besides a large number made prisoners,—an entire company having been captured early in the morning while on picket,—of whom eleven died in captivity. ”

“ The men had flung away whatever was fling-away-able during the charge of the morning and the subsequent hot march—as men always will, under like circumstances—and now they found themselves blanketless, stockingless, overcoatless,—in cold and damp trenches, and compelled by the steady firing to lie still, or adopt a horizontal, crawling mode of locomotion, which did not admit of speed enough to quicken the circulation of the blood. ”

“ The preceding pages have outlined the career of the Second Connecticut Heavy Artillery, and have narrated some of the more memorable events of its history. Enough has been told of what it did to furnish grounds for deducing what it was; but to deal with the regiment on the personal side is hardly possible within the limits of such a sketch as this, though it is a matter that cannot be entirely passed by. It need not be said that there is abundant human interest attaching as a matter of course to such men as were in the aggregate the subjects of so fine a record. ”

“ There is also something more than mere interest to be gained, in considering historical matters of such immensity as the Civil War, in giving the attention to some minute section of the whole, such as the account of individual experiences, or of the career of a particular regiment such as this; it is of great value as bringing an adequate realization of the actual bearing of the great events of that time upon the people of the time. ”

“ There had been many opportunities already for all to volunteer who had any wish to do so, but the call now came to men who a few weeks before had hardly dreamed of the need of their serving; men not to be attracted by the excitement of a novel adventure, but who recognized soberly the duty that was presenting itself in this emergency, and men of a very different stamp from those drawn into the ranks in the later years of the war by enormous bounties. It is reasonable to think that pride in the success of the county's effort was a factor in stimulating enlistments ”

“ The battalion dropped flat on the ground, and the second volley, like the first, nearly all went over. 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, notwith [Pg 32] standing 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. ”

“ Throughout the terrible night they held their ground, keeping up a constant fire to prevent an attempt by the enemy to reoccupy the line, until they were relieved in the early morning by other troops; they had secured a position which it was indispensable to hold, and the line thus gained remained the regiment's front during its stay at Cold Harbor. Until June 12th the position was kept confronting the enemy, whose line was parallel and close before it, while daily additions were made to the list of casualties as they labored in strengthening the protective works. ”

“ The Confederate belief in their victory was not unreasonable, but it was now to suffer an astonishing upset. Weary and demoralized with success, they were entirely unprepared for the vigor of their opponents, who after repulsing their last assault, quickly reformed the lines and prepared for a general advance. Sheridan writes: "This attack was brilliantly made, and as the enemy was protected by rail breastworks and at some portions of his line by stone fences, his resistance was very determined." ”

“ Before the end of the day (April 3rd) the regiment, with the rest of the Sixth Corps, had turned westward and joined the pursuit. The chase was stern and the marches rapid, but far less wearing to these victorious veterans, [Pg 92] filled with the consciousness of success, than those that had initiated their campaigning less than a year before. On April 6th the regiment, after an all day march, came up with the enemy in position at Sailor's Creek, and went into the last engagement of its career. ”

“ As a whole, the regiment was a body thoroughly representative not only of the army of which it was a fraction, an army as has been often said unlike any other the world has known, but also of the population from which it was drawn. It was made up of men of almost all conditions of life and of widely different ages, though naturally with young men in a large majority ”

“ Like the ancient Eastern king who suddenly died on the eve of an engagement, and whose remains were bolstered up in warlike attitude in his chariot, and followed by his enthusiastic soldiers to battle and to victory, so this mighty leader, although falling in the very first onset, yet went on through every succeeding march and fight, and won post [Pg 16] humous victories for the regiment which may be said to have been born of his loins. ”

“ Thus the chase was continued, from position to position, for miles and miles, for hours and hours, until darkness closed in and every regiment went into camp on the identical ground it had left in such haste in the morning. Every man tied his shelter tent to the very same old stakes, and in half an hour coffee was boiling and salt pork sputtering over thousands of camp fires. Civil life may furnish better fare than the army at Cedar Creek had that night, but not better appetites ”

“ That commander had chastised us with whips, but this one dealt in scorpions. By the time we reached the Shenandoah Valley, he had so far developed as to be a far greater terror, to both officers and men, than Early's grape and canister. He was a Perpetual Punisher, and the Second Connecticut while under him was always a punished regiment. There is a regimental tradition to the effect that a well-defined purpose existed among the men, prior to the battle of Winchester, to dispose of this commanding scourge during the first fight that occurred. ”

“ Judge Augustus H. Fenn, Major and Brevet-Colonel, came back from the war, having lost an arm at Cedar Creek, to take a course in the Law School at Harvard, and Yale made him a Master of Arts in 1889. His prominence for many years in public life and as judge in the highest courts in the state is well known. At the time of his death in 1897, he was a lecturer in the Yale Law School, and member of the Supreme Court of Errors. ”

“ The man who sat on a sharp-backed wooden horse in front of the guard house, would sometimes watch the motions of the Colonel on drill or parade, until he forgot the pain and disgrace of his punishment in admiration of the man who inflicted it. ”

“ They could not fire without injury to the line in front, and could only hold their dangerous and trying position in readiness to support their comrades ahead, protecting themselves as they could from the fire that seemed like leaden hail. There was no suggestion of retreat at any point and several hundred of the enemy, taking advantage of a lull in the firing, streamed over the breastworks and gave themselves up, but through a misunderstanding of the case the credit of their capture was given to other regiments, though clearly due to this. ”

“ The Second Connecticut captured the headquarters train of General Mahone, a battle flag, and many prisoners, and ended the tale of its losses with three men killed and six wounded.
The chase was taken up next morning (April 7th) , and the regiment had reached a point close to Appomattox Court House, when on April 9th Lee met Grant and surrendered what remained of his army, at that historic place.
To imagine all that this meant to the men in arms is far easier than to attempt its description. ”

“ It was now needful to fill it up to the artillery standard of eighteen hundred men, and this was successfully accomplished. Officers and men were despatched to Connecticut to gather recruits, and their advertisements set forth enticingly the advantage of joining a command so comfortably situated as "this famous regiment" in the Defences of Washington, where, it was permissible to infer, it was permanently stationed, a belief which had come to be generally held. The effort, however, was not confined by geographical limits, and a large part of the men secured were strangers to Litchfield County. ”

“ Any body of men—a college class, a legisla [Pg 101] ture, a regiment—is in character what its component members make it; in this case there was the material, which, furnished with worthy leadership—and it unquestionably had that—made up the organization whose not uneventful existence has been described. That they were better men, or worse, braver men, or more patriotic, than their descendants and successors would prove under similar conditions, or than the hundreds of thousands of their contemporaries who devoted themselves to the same service, is not to be believed ”

“ Here the troops were rallied and a slight defence of rails thrown up. The regimental and brigade flags were set up as [Pg 68] beacons to direct each man how to steer through the mob and in a very few minutes there was an effective line of battle established. A few round shot ricochetted overhead, making about an eighth of a mile at a jump, and a few grape were dropped into a ditch just behind our line, quickly clearing out some soldiers who had crawled in there, but this was the extent of the pursuit. ”

“ To the members of the Litchfield County University Club it is perhaps a point of interest to take brief notice of those names on the regimental rolls which would probably have been found upon its list of members had the organization been in existence in that earlier time. A number of the officers and men were college graduates when they enlisted, and others gained degrees after the war ended; the list which follows is, however, necessarily incomplete; in fact, an absolutely correct list is no doubt hopelessly impossible. ”

“ Connecticut has known for many years no small number of them as foremost in all lines of activity, and knows to-day, in official station and in private life, men of many honors, who count not least among these the fact that they were enrolled among the soldiers of the Second Connecticut Heavy Artillery. ”

“ The regiment from its beginning was Kellogg's, and he received in due course the commission vacated by its first commander in September, 1863.
A thorough and well-tried soldier himself, he quickly gained the respect of his command by his complete competency, and its strong and admiring affection was not slow in following. There are men among us to this day for whom no superlatives are adequate to give expression to their feelings in regard to him. ”

“ It is possible to gain some idea of how the great tides of war were felt throughout the whole land by imagining the stir and turmoil thus brought, in the summer of 1862, into this remote and peaceful quarter by the engrossing struggle. ”

“ Those of the first battalion who were not killed or wounded gradually crawled or worked back; wounded men [Pg 34] were carried through to the rear; and the woods began to grow dark, either with night or smoke or both. The companies were formed and brought up to the breastworks one by one, and the line extended toward the left. The enemy soon vacated the breastwork in our immediate front, and crept off through the darkness. ”

“ As a consequence the Sixth Corps was once more ordered to rejoin Grant's army, and the regiment left the historic valley on December 1st, arriving on the 5th before Petersburg, where it was assigned a position near the place of its skirmish on June 22nd.
"Then it was unbroken forest," says its history; "now, hundreds of acres were cleared, and dotted with camps. A corduroy road ran by, and a telegraph, and Grant's railroad. No other such railroad was ever seen before, or ever will be again. ”

“ The pursuit which began at once entailed some hard marching, but the enemy could not [Pg 49] be brought to a stand. It continued for several days until the Valley of the Shenandoah was reached, when Early, as was supposed, having hurried back to join Lee at Petersburg, the Sixth Corps was marched again swiftly to the capital. Here it developed that the authorities had decided to keep part of the forces sent for their protection, to man the defences, since Early's attempt had come so dangerously near succeeding, and the Second Connecticut was chosen to remain. ”