Bibliograph

A broken regiment, the 16th Connecticut's Civil War, Lesley J. Gordon

Type

Label

A broken regiment, the 16th Connecticut's Civil War, Lesley J. Gordon

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references and index

resource.biographical

contains biographical information

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

A broken regiment

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

875056081

Responsibility statement

Lesley J. Gordon

Series statement

Conflicting words: new dimensions of the American Civil War

Sub title

the 16th Connecticut's Civil War

Summary

A Broken Regiment recounts the tragic history of one of the Civil War's most ill-fated Union military units. Organized in the late summer of 1862, the 16th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry was unprepared for battle a month later, when it entered the fight at Antietam. The results were catastrophic: nearly a quarter of the men were killed or wounded, and Connecticut's 16th panicked and fled the field. In the years that followed, the regiment participated in minor skirmishes before surrendering en masse in North Carolina in 1864. Most of its members spent months in southern prison camps, including the notorious Andersonville stockade, where disease and starvation took the lives of over one hundred members of the unit. The struggles of the 16th led survivors to reflect on the true nature of their military experience during and after the war, and questions of cowardice and courage, patriotism and purpose, were often foremost in their thoughts. Over time, competing stories emerged of who they were, why they endured what they did, and how they should be remembered. By the end of the century, their collective recollections reshaped this troubling and traumatic past, and the "unfortunate regiment" emerged as "The Brave Sixteenth," their individual memories and accounts altered to fit the more heroic contours of the Union victory

Table Of Contents

Camp Williams: "The best class of volunteers" -- Antietam: "soldiering with a vengeance" -- Fredericksburg and winter camp: "Sick of the war" -- Newport News and Suffolk: "Regeneration" -- Portsmouth: "A perfect village" -- Plymouth: "The rebs' took us all" -- Andersonville, Florence, and Charleston: "Oh horrors of horrors!" -- Roanoke, Camp Parole, and New Bern: "Another day gone and one day nearer home" -- Postwar: "They were heroes" -- Conclusion: "Only remembered by what I have done"

Classification