Today in 1861, 32-year-old Major Theodore Woolsey Winthrop of the Union Army was killed during the Battle of Bethel in eastern Virginia, during one of the first land battles of the American Civil War. Winthrop was a direct descendant of John Winthrop Sr., Puritan leader of the Massachusetts Bay colony, and John Winthrop Jr.,…
Tag: civil war and reconstruction
May 9: Radical Abolitionist John Brown Born in Torrington
On this day in 1800, abolitionist John Brown was born in a humble saltbox house in Torrington, Connecticut. The fourth of eight children, Brown left Torrington at the age of five when his father moved his family to the Western Reserve of Ohio. As a young man, Brown briefly returned to Connecticut to attend…
March 17: Connecticut Statesman and Civil War Hero Joseph Hawley Dies
Perhaps best known as a Civil War general who served in the First Battle of Bull Run, the Siege of Petersburg, and other notable engagements, Connecticut’s Joseph R. Hawley proved to be an equally accomplished leader off the battlefield, as one of Connecticut’s foremost statesmen of the late 19th century. A graduate of Hamilton…