A Very Local Sacrifice: Litchfield County and the Civil War

By Joe Kelly

In the middle of Norfolk’s village green stands the Soldiers’ Monument, a tall, tapered tribute in stone to 35 soldiers from Norfolk who lost their lives in the Civil War. It’s a monument to the sacrifices made to end slavery and preserve the Union, but inevitably it’s also a monument to how much we’ve forgotten—or perhaps have never known— about those men, their families, the community they were part of and what it was like to be alive during that bitter and divided time.

To fill those gaps in our knowledge, Peter C. Vermilyea, who teaches history at Housatonic Valley Regional High School, wrote “Litchfield County and the Civil War,” a detailed portrait of the local home front pulled together from information found in back issues of local newspapers, diaries, letters, payment registries, medical records, town meeting notes and numerous other firsthand resources. Using these accounts, Vermilyea tells stories that haven’t seen the light of day in over 150 years. 

In the beginning, there was excitement. After decades of debate, the slavery issue was now being settled by war. President Abraham Lincoln’s call, in April 1861, for 75,000 volunteers drew 43 men from Litchfield County—most from Winsted, Norfolk or New Hartford—early enough to see action in the disastrous Union defeat that July in the Battle of Bull Run. One of them was Samuel J. Mills, a great-grandson of Capt. Michael Mills, an early Norfolk settler. Mills died in Norfolk of an unspecified disease on Sept. 5 at age 28, shortly after completing his 90-day tour of duty, making his the earliest fatality recorded on the Soldiers’ Monument. 

By October of that year, the South Norfolk district (which had 31 voters) had sent 16 soldiers off to fight. The Litchfield Enquirer doubted “if there is any locality that has done better than this.”

But the Litchfield County home front was anything but unified. The flying of all-white or all-black peace flags, or sometimes flags in outright support of secession, was increasingly common, but done at great risk. When Andrew Palmer, a farmer in Goshen, flew such a flag, an armed mob descended on his home. The Litchfield Enquirer openly rooted for the mob, declaring that the Goshen incident “tells traitors that they cannot raise the emblem and insignia of rebellion with impunity, in the free air of our Litchfield County hills.” Vermilyea is unstinting in documenting how the relentless, pro-Union boosterism of the local press encouraged this kind of behavior, making any dissent seem like treason. It’s a reminder of the old saw that in war, the first casualty is always truth.

By the summer of 1862, the initial blush of excitement over the war was fading as newspapers reported on the rising tide of fatalities, which, like that of Samuel Mills, did not always occur in battle. Halsey Roberts and Willard Evans of Norfolk both died of measles—their names are on Norfolk’s monument. So is that of Albert Bailey. Enlisting at age 18, he went off for training in Hartford, but came home on leave and failed to return to duty. The Winsted Herald initially slandered Bailey as a bounty hunter—suggesting that he would go to another town, volunteer and receive another enlistment bonus—and then was forced to admit that it was Bailey’s father who had leaned on his son not to return. Somehow, the father knew something. It was said that Albert was “tender.” Five months later, his fellow volunteers wrote informing the family that Albert had died of disease. Along with the letter, they enclosed his pinky ring. 

With the Union losing 20,000 men a month, in July of 1862 Lincoln issued a call for 300,000 more volunteers. Towns all across Litchfield County, including Norfolk, were now paying bounties of $100 and more to attract recruits. Volunteers who lasted a full three years would earn well over $500. Noting that the median wealth in Connecticut at the time was about $500, Vermilyea argues persuasively that enlistments were heavily driven by economics.

As the war dragged on, to assuage complaints that Litchfield County was under-represented in the officer corps, the decision was made to give the county its own regiment, the 19th Connecticut Infantry, with the men undergoing training at what became known as Camp Dutton, just outside the town of Litchfield.

By late August, hundreds of recruits—including 95 from Winsted and Norfolk—were drilled for hours each day, learning how to act cohesively as a unit: standing at attention, marching in columns, deploying into battle lines and then redeploying based on bugle calls. There was no firearms training; weapons were not distributed until the men were in the south.

Locating an army training facility in the rural Litchfield hills proved a sensation. Every day, scores of onlookers lined the gates with food and gifts. Women sought romance. Purveyors of alcohol did a brisk business—apple cider brandy was popular. Despite the distraction, in September, 900 men were deemed ready for action and marched to the Naugatuck train station in East Litchfield where they headed south to Washington. They spent 20 months protecting the capital before being summoned to the front just in time for the Battle of Cold Harbor, a Union debacle. Of the 35 names on Norfolk’s monument, seven have been identified as dying as a result of injuries at Cold Harbor.

“Litchfield County in the Civil War” is relentlessly interesting and ably written by a historian in full command of the material, continually weighing the evidence on questions such as the role of the press, the cowardice or lack thereof of those seeking medical exemptions or what to say about men paying other men to take their place on the front lines.

Earlier this year, during the Republican presidential primary race, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley was asked about the causes of the Civil War and was roundly criticized for her failure to mention slavery. It was an inexcusable gaffe but, in at least one respect, understandable. On a topic as fraught as the Civil War, it’s unlikely Haley ever had a teacher of history as rigorous, clear-eyed and focused on the facts as Peter Vermilyea.