Governor
William Buckingham was a wealthy businessman and energetic Republican; he won a narrow election in April 1860, as a moderate Republican who was temperamentally cautious. His anti-slavery attitude hardened as the war went on. Even before Fort Sumter, he collaborated with fellow Republican governors in New England, and alerted the state militia to watch out for sabotage. The state specialized in machinery, and had a strong reputation for making artillery and firearms. The opposition party, the Democrats, were largely dominated by the antiwar or peace element, led by former governor
Thomas H. Seymour. When Lincoln called for troops the day after Fort Sumter, Buckingham mobilized militia units, but had no state authority for financing the war. The legislature was not in session, but the banks eagerly volunteered to loan money to the state until the Legislature made good. by local
copperheads to show support for peace
Military recruitment and participation Following the bombardment of
Fort Sumter in
Charleston Harbor in April 1861, a few days later, on the 15th, President Lincoln called for volunteers to join the new Union army. The next day,
Governor William A. Buckingham, like Lincoln a Republican, issued a proclamation urging his citizens to join state-sponsored
regiments and
artillery batteries. In response, by the end of the month, the
1st Connecticut Infantry and two other regiments had been raised and recruited for a term of three months (all the time that was expected to be needed to crush the rebellion and end the war).
Daniel Tyler of
Brooklyn was selected as the 1st Regiment's initial
colonel, and the regiment arrived in
Washington, D.C., on May 10. The state furnished thirty full regiments of
infantry, including two that were
made up of black men. Two regiments of heavy artillery also served as infantry toward the end of the war. Connecticut also supplied three batteries of light artillery and one regiment of
cavalry.
Fort Trumbull in
New London served as an organizational center for Union troops and headquarters for the
U.S. 14th Infantry Regiment. Here, troops were recruited and trained before being sent to war. Among the regiments trained there was the
14th Connecticut Infantry, which played a prominent role in the
Army of the Potomac's defense of
Cemetery Ridge during the
Battle of Gettysburg. The
2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery (19th Connecticut Infantry) suffered significant casualties in the 1864
Overland Campaign and the
Siege of Petersburg. Among the troops from the "Nutmeg State" that fought in the
Trans-Mississippi Theater was the
9th Connecticut Infantry, which aided in the capture of
New Orleans, Louisiana, as part of the "New England Brigade." During the war, the State Hospital in New Haven (a precursor to
Yale-New Haven Hospital) was leased to the government to serve as the Knight U.S. Army General Hospital. 23,340 soldiers were treated in the hospital with only 185 deaths. One of the first officers killed in the Civil War was New Haven's
Theodore Winthrop, who died in an early engagement at
Big Bethel in
western Virginia. Casualties from Connecticut military units during the war included 97 officers and 1094 enlisted men killed in action, with another 700 men dying from wounds while more than 3,000 perished from disease. Twenty-seven men were executed for crimes, including desertion. More than 400 men were reported as missing; the majority were likely held by the
Confederate Army as
prisoners of war.
The homefront Prominent among military manufacturers with Connecticut ties was the
New Haven Arms Company, which provided the army with the
Henry rifle, developed by
New Haven's Benjamin Tyler Henry.
Colt's Manufacturing Company, founded and owned by Hartford-born industrialist
Samuel Colt, was another significant arms and munitions supplier. The company shipped large quantities of sidearms to the Union Navy. The Hartford-based firm of
Pratt & Whitney provided machinery and support equipment to Army contractors to produce weapons. Most of the brass buttons used on Federal uniforms, belt buckles and other fittings, were made in
Waterbury, the "Brass City", notably by the Chase Brass and Copper Company. The shipyards at
Mystic provided ships for the Union Navy. The
USS Monticello (1859),
USS Galena (1862),
USS Varuna (1861) were all built at Mystic. The popular late war marching song
Marching Through Georgia was written by
Henry Clay Work, a Middletown resident. ==Notable leaders from Connecticut==