Civil War (1861-1865)
Some 55,000 Connecticut men served during the Civil War and, of those, roughly 10 percent lost their lives. On the home front, state industries gave the Union a strategic manufacturing advantage in arms, munitions, and other provisions. Women’s innovations included soldier’s aid societies, with Bridgeport’s being the nation’s first. The societies supplied essential items to troops and tended to the wounded and dead. This was not, however, a time of easy unity. Residents debated almost every aspect of the war and remained divided on the subject of African American rights. Today, over 130 monuments, including the oldest one in the north, mark the Civil War’s lasting imprint on the state.
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- Book: Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) was a best-selling anti-slavery novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe that greatly influenced pre-war attitudes about African Americans and slavery – Harriet Beecher Stowe Center
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- Broadside: Volunteers, attention! Volunteers wanted immediately to join a company to be attached to one of the regiments called for by the executive of this state – Connecticut Historical Society
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- Photograph: Civil War soldiers on New Haven Green – Connecticut Historical Society
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- Broadside: Blankets are wanted for the army! – Connecticut Historical Society
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- Photograph: 29th Regiment Connecticut Volunteers, U.S. Colored Troops in formation near Beaufort South Carolina – Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs
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- List of certified cowards in Woodbury! 84 men with medical exemptions declared unfit for military service – Connecticut Historical Society
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- Music: Union war song! To the tune of the Star-Spangled Banner- Connecticut Historical Society
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- Diary: Civil War Diary Part X (Dec 1863-Feb 1864) of Arminius Bill, a physician in the Union Army – Bill Memorial Library
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- Newspaper: National Jubilee organized by the Ladies from the Soldiers’ Aid Society advertised in the Litchfield Enquirer, June 29, 1865 – Library of Congress, Chronicling America
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- Photograph: Civil War veteran George W. Warner of Co. B, 20th Connecticut Infantry Regiment with amputated arms – Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs,
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- Newspaper: “Courant extra! Glorious news! The end of the war” Special publication by the Hartford Courant announcing the surrender of the Confederate Army – Connecticut Historical Society
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- Poem: Poem by Frank A. Cargill, M.D who served as a private in the Civil War at the age of 14 – Connecticut Historical Society
