Leading Business Men of Fairfield County

That a more appreciative conception of what Bridgeport accomplished in the war may be gained, only those engagements will be referred to in which her " boys " participated. The earliest fighting was met with in the Sixth and Seventh Regiments, which were ordered to the coast of South Cai'olina in the fall of 1861, and did some desper- ate and honorable fighting around Charleston. The Ninth Regiment being sent to Louisiana, the gallant officers and men in it from Bridgeport had a splendid opportunity to display their valor in the hard-fought battles around New Orleans. The Twelfth also played an important part in these operations. Some severe fighting was done by the Sixth and Seventh in Florida during the early part of 1862. Captain Gray, of Bridgeport, received honorable mention for distinguished gallantry in several desperate battles. Although Bridgeport had responded generously to the calls made upon her for men already, when the great call of President Lincoln for more soldiers was issued in July, 1862, she even surpassed her former efforts, showing an increase in zeal and devotion though the black cloud of defeat was then hanging over the country. In the Fourteenth Regiment, enlisted during the mid-summer of '62, Bridgeport sent out Company A, Captain James D. Merritt. The Seventeenth, Bridgeport's " dar- ling regiment," was enlisted at the same time, exclusively from Fairfield County. The city was largely represented in Company D, Captain William II. Lacey; Com- E, Captain Henry P. Burr; Company G, Captain James G. Dunham; Company K, Captain John J. McCarty. Colonel William H. Noble, the gallant Commanding Officer of the Seventeenth, and its Lieutenant-Colonel, Charles Walter, were two of Bridgeport's most honored citizens. About this time Bridgeport came to be called " the Banner Town of the State," having furnished seventy men more than her quota — a total of eight hundred and fifty out of an enrolled militia of sixteen hundred. The Seventeenth Regiment was quartered in a fine position at Sea-Side Park, called "Camp Aiken." When it left for the field, September 3, 1862, a very large concourse of people from all parts of the county had come to the city, and after Governor Buckingham had reviewed the regiment, it was given a most enthusiastic " send-off " by the assembled people. BRIDGEPORT, PAST AND PRESENT. „ 27 In its ranks, as a private soldier, marched Elias Howe, Jr., of Bridgeport, the inventor of the sewing machine, and manager of large industries in the city. Bridgeport also sent out a goodly representation in the Twenty-third (raised in November, 1862): Company D, Charles W. Hall, and Company I, Captain William H. May, being largely from this city. It was also represented in Company K, Twenty-fourth Regiment. The two last-named regiments were immediately dis- patched to take part in General Bank's expedition to the extreme South. The first fighting done by the Bridgeport men in the Fourteenth Connecticut was at the battle of Antietam, where they displayed distinguished valor. . They were under fire for thirty-six hours, and a large number of men were lost. In the desper- ate charges, quick marches and counter-marches under the deadly artillery fire, and more dread yet the long standing still under it, they won a reputation for coolness and bravery which was maintained throughout the war. For the first time, Bridge- port had to mourn heavy losses, for many noble heroes of private rank, who had helped to build up her prosperity and adorned it by honorable lives, had fallen, ne'er to gladden again the hearts of the sufferers at home. In the battle of Fredericksburg, having won a most honorable name for reliability in danger, the Fourteenth Connecticut was sent forward among the first in that terrible charge, where the Union men were mown down like wheat. Again did the publication of the reports, and the "blacklist" cause many sad hearts in Brid re- port. The Seventeenth were employed during the fall and winter of '62 in maintaining the defensive works about Washington, a most distasteful task to men chafino- to take part in the great struggles which were deciding the fate of the nation. The Ninth and Twelfth, with their quota of Bridgeport men, were meanwhile performing distinguished services in the engagements in Mississippi, under Grant, leading up to the siege and fall of Vicksburg. It is a fact worthy of mention that after the battle of Antietam, the soldiers of his regiment being in need of money, and not having been paid off, Elias Howe advanced the thirteen thousand dollars due them. In the battle on the Pocotaligo River, Florida, where gallant fighting was done by the Sixth and Seventh Connecticut Regiments, Lieutenant-Colonel John Speidal, who commanded the former, was severely injured, and Orderly Sergeant Robert B. Gage, of Bridgeport, after displaying heroic bravery, was killed. The Seventeenth found its first chance for showing its devotion to the country at Chancellorsville, May 2, 1863. Here they offered spirited resistance to the masterly flank movement made by General Stonewall Jackson, which decided the battle. A terrible slaughter was made of the men, and eighty were taken prisoners. Heroic Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Walter was killed in the first charge, and Colonel Noble received a severe wound, yet remained on the field as long as he could see to manage his horse, when he had to be taken to the rear. The Fourteenth were engaged in the heavy fighting of the following day, May 3d, and again suffered severely. This was the third great blow which fell upon the anxious hearts and homes in Bridgeport, and to add to the general grief a large number of its citizens were among those who were marching " on to Richmond " as prisoners of war. Bridgeport was represented in the battle of Gettysburg by her men in the Four- 28 BRIDGEPORT, PAST AND PRESENT. teenth and Seventeenth, who proved themselves again worthy of the highest praise. The Seventeenth was one of the first regiments thrown forward as skirmishers, on the first of July. Though outflanked and overpowered, they maintained their advance position until recalled by their Corps Commander, General Howard. They then occupied a position in the very center of the long Union line. During the second of July, the Seventeenth lay quietly but with heroic fortitude under a tremendous artillery fire, losing a large number of men. The same dread story was repeated the following forenoon, but in the afternoon came the crucial contest. When that ever- memorable charge up the hill, under General Pickett, broke against the Union line in its very center, the men of the Seventeenth Connecticut were among the heroes who met the tide of Confederacy at its highest flow, and saved their country by making an invincible bulwark of their own breasts. Nothing in the history of the world surpasses the heroic valor displayed on both sides there, and naught can hinder the citizens of Bridgeport, now that we are a united country, not only from honoring, according to their worth, their own brave fellow-citizens present in the decisive battle of the war and the decisive point in it, but also from remembering with tenderness their brave opponents. The Fourteenth were stationed a short distance to the left of the Seventeenth,, and were not surpassed in steadiness or fortitude by any regiment on the field. It had lost a large number of men, among whom were several of Bridgeport's most honored and most mourned citizens. The Seventeenth had attested its devotion by the loss of more than half its num- ber. Never before in the history of Bridgeport, had the angel of death passed through and laid so many homes in deepest mourning for martyred loved ones. Col. W. H. Noble, who had been obliged to go home on a furlough after the battle of Chancellorsville, in his anxiety to share in the danger of the struggle with the regi- ment, returned five days before the furlough expired, just in time to lead his men in the most desperate and decisive fighting of all on the third day. During the important campaigns around the Mississippi River in the summer of 1863, Major Fredrick Frye of the Ninth, and Captain William H. May of the Twenty-third, were especially active and rendered most valuable services. The Sixth and Seventh Regiments, still together, had meantime been seeing fur- ther dangerous service in Florida and South Carolina. A particularly desperate battle was fought at Fort Wagner, in Charleston Harbor. Here Andrew Grogan, a private from Bridgeport, gallantly rescued Colonel Chatfield of the Sixth, who had been severely wounded within the fort itself which had been partially captured by a charge unsurpassed in bravery during the war. For his services Andrew Grogan was promoted to a Lieutenantcy. During this same charge, Lieutenant Stephen S. Stevens, of Bridgeport, one of the most admired and loved of all the officers in the corps, was slain. The Seventeenth arrived and joined the other two Connecticut Regiments on Folly Island, just off Charleston Harbor, about the middle of the series of bloody but unavailing battles in which it soon became an important participant. In con- sequence of the terrible fighting which they had undergone, the various State Regi- ments had to be repleted by a draft in the fall of 1863, to which Bridgeport cheer- fully responded. In the meantime, those at home had not been unmindful for the warriors in the field. The ladies of Bridgeport had been particularly active in pro- BRIDGEPORT, PAST AND PRESENT. 29 30 BRIDGEPORT, PAST AND PRESENT.