"I do not regret having done as I have done, for I with many thousands was honest and enlisted for our country. If I was home and knew as much as I do now I would enlist at the first opportunity."
Corporal Andrew D. Couch - January 1863
Killed May 2, 1863 at Chancellorsville, Virginia
Contents
Notice of Individual Officers
Bridgeport to Brooke's Station
Chancellorsville and Gettysburg
South Carolina to Florida
History of the Seventeenth Connecticut by Colonel William H. Noble
Notices of Individual Officers
In the formation of the Seventeenth all the towns of the county were represented, though some furnished only a few members. It was officered as follows:
Colonel. William H. Noble, of Bridgeport, commanding; brevetted brigadier-general on recommendation of Gen. Grant.
Lieutenant-colonel, Charles Walter, of Bridgeport. Born in Denmark; came to America when young, private in Capt. Speidel's company of the First Connecticut; promoted to be first lieutenant and made aide-de-camp on Gen. Tyler's staff at the battle of Bull Run, where he was captured and spent a year afterwards in rebel prisons; on his return was made lieutenant-colonel of the Seventeenth, and was killed at Chancellorsville, May 2, 1863. He was a man of high education, civil and military, and a speaker of several languages, a fine musician, and an accomplished artist.
Major, Allen G. Brady, who had seen service as lieutenant-colonel in the three-months' regiments; enlisted and brought Company B to the regiment, and was made its major; was wounded at Gettysburg and transferred to the Veteran Reserve.
Adjutant, A.H. Wilcoxson, of Norwalk, who was in the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, where he distinguished himself by coolness and daring. He was promoted to be captain of Company I, and afterwards to be lieutenant-colonel of the regiment; was mortally wounded at Dunn's Lake, Fla., and died afterwards at Tallahassee while a prisoner.
First surgeon, Dr. Robert Hubbard, then and still a distinguished physician and surgeon of Bridgeport, who was soon promoted to be acting medical director of the Eleventh Corps, which distinguished position he held till failing health compelled his resignation.
First assistant surgeon, Dr. Robert D. McEwen, of Stratford, who remained with the regiment until he resigned, on Folly Island, S.C., November, 1863.
Second assistant surgeon, Dr. Elijah Gregory, of Bridgeport, who remained with the regiment til its muster out; since deceased.
Quartermaster, First Lieut. Hanford N. Hayes, of Bridgeport, who resigned his position, July 18, 1863.
Sergeant-major, Theodore Gray, of Bridgeport; afterwards promoted to be captain of Company K.
Quartermaster-sergeant, John S. Ward, of Bridgeport; afterwards promoted to be quartermaster, and mustered out with the regiment.
Commissary-sergeant, Josiah L. Day, of Danbury; discharged for disability, March 6, 1863; succeeded by Edwin D. Hurd, of Fairfield.
Hospital steward, Jesse S. Nash, of Bridgeport; discharged for disability,Dec. 29, 1862.
Assistant adjutant, Henry W. Chatfield, of Bridgeport; afterwards promoted to be sergeant-major, and for gallant conduct at Chancellorsville, in rallying and re-forming the regiment, promoted to be adjutant, serving with distinguished gallantry at Gettysburg, and killed in action at Dunn's Lake, Fla.
Captain of Company A, Douglas Fowler, of Norwalk; a captain in the three months service, afterwards captain in the Eighth Connecticut; promoted to be lieutenant-colonel for gallantry at Chancellorsville, and killed in the first day's battle at Gettysburg.
Captain of Company B, Charles A. Hobbie, of Darien; who was wounded at Chancellorsville, captured in Florida, and imprisoned at Andersonville.
Captain of Company C, James E. Moore, a soldier of the Mexican War, and a captain in the three months' service. A faithful officer, serving with distinguished gallantry at Chancellorsville, and killed in the first day's fight at Gettysburg.
Captain of Company D, William H. Lacy, of Bridgeport; wounded at Chancellorsville, and resigned in May, 1863. He was succeeded by Lieut. William H. Hubbell, of Bridgeport, who was successively promoted to be adjutant, captain of Company D, and major of the regiment.
Captain of Company E, Henry P. Burr, of Westport; served with distinguished gallantry at Chancellorsville (where he was taken for a short time prisoner) and afterwards at Gettysburg, where, at the close of the battle, he was in command of the regiment.
Captain of Company F, Enoch Ward, of Norwalk, who raised his company in three days from nothing to one hundred and two men; resigned in March, 1863, on account of ill health. He was succeeded by Lieut. Henry Allen, of Norwalk; afterwards promoted to be major and lieutenant-colonel of the regiment, which position he held to the close of the war, his three predecessors having been killed or mortally wounded in action.
Captain of Company G, James E. Dunham, of Bridgeport; in the winter of 1862 and 1863, promoted to be provost-marshal on the staff of Gen. Devens, First Division, Eleventh Corps; badly maimed at Chancellorsville by the fall of his horse, and unable to march as captain; resigned to accept the position of Captain and provost-marshal of the Fourth District of Connecticut. He was succeeded by Lieut. Wilson French, of Stratford, who was on picket at Chancellorsville with his company, and met the first onslaught of Stonewall Jackson' assault; also wounded at Gettysburg, and for a short time prisoner; afterwards provost-marshal of the Eastern District of Florida, and then captured and taken to Andersonville.
Captain of Company H, Enos Kellogg, of New Canaan; a gallant officer; in the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, and in the trenches on Morris Island. At Volusia, Fla., with only fifty men, seventy-five miles from any other Union force, he so fortified his position, aided by Lieut. Ruggles of Company K, that he frightened off the rebel captain Dickenson with his artillery and two hundred mounted rifleman.
Captain of Company I, D.O. Benson, of Greenwich, who died early in his service at Baltimore, and was succeeded by Adjt. Wilcoxson, afterwards lieutenant-colonel.
Captain of Company K, J.J. McCarthy, of Fairfield; a very gallant officer; marked for his behavior as such at the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, and in the trenches on Morris Island; was specially selected to head any dangerous or difficult post on picket or skirmish line; a bold and fearless officer; resigned at Folly Island in the winter of 1863.
The regiment had no chaplain at its organization, but the Rev. Alexander R. Thomson, D.D., of the Second Congregational Church of Bridgeport, while the regiment was in camp, filled the place of two or three chaplains, procured them a chapel tent and a library of five hundred volumes, and was most active in every work to promote the interests, spiritual and temporal, of the regiment. He would have gone out with the regiment as its chaplain could he have obtained leave of absence from his congregation; he afterwards visited them at Baltimore, and held there their first divine service and a grand temperance-meeting. The regiment, from its colonel down, reveres and loves him.
He was succeeded by the Rev. William Hall, who joined at Antioch Church, November, 1862, and continued with the regiment through the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg and until November, 1863.