The Siege of Petersburg was one of the most significant military campaigns of the final year of the Civil War. From June 1864 to March 1865, Union troops continuously besieged and harassed the Confederate railroad hub city of Petersburg, Virginia and surrounding environs. The goal of the lengthy siege was to deplete the Confederate…
Tag: war and defense
September 21: A Punishing Treaty Ends the Pequot War
Today in 1638, an “agreement between the English in Connecticutt and the Indian Sachems” of the Narragansett and Mohegan tribes was signed in Hartford, marking the end, at least as far as Connecticut was concerned, of the Pequot War. That war was the first major Anglo-Indian conflict in the region that became New England….
September 17: The Nation’s First Triumphal Arch
On September 17, 1886 — the 24th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam — thousands of spectators and Civil War veterans gathered in Hartford to partake in the dedication of the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch in Bushnell Park. Hartford’s Memorial Arch was the first permanent triumphal arch memorial in the United States –…
September 16: A Hero Dies at the Battle of Harlem Heights
Today in 1776, one of Connecticut’s most valiant heroes of the Revolutionary War, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Knowlton, died while commanding his men at the Battle of Harlem Heights in New York City. Born in Massachusetts but raised in Ashford, Connecticut since early childhood, Knowlton was a seasoned veteran who had served under fellow Connectican…
September 13: The Highest-Ranking Union Officer Killed in the Civil War
One of Connecticut’s most important Civil War figures, Major General John Sedgwick, was born in Cornwall today in 1813. After attending prestigious academies in Sharon and Cheshire, Sedgwick attended West Point and graduated in the Class of 1837 with several other future generals who served on both sides of the Civil War. These included…
September 11: Twenty-One Years. So Many Connecticans. Still Like Yesterday.
Today in Connecticut history, we remember all the victims, and especially those from Connecticut. On September 11, 2001, the course of United States history was forever altered as terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing two into the Twin Towers in New York City, one into the Pentagon in Washington D.C., and the fourth into…
September 6: A Revolutionary War Traitor Comes Home . . . to Watch His Country Burn
Today in Connecticut history marks the anniversary of a horrible homecoming by one of Connecticut’s most infamous native sons — Benedict Arnold. In early September 1781, the Southern Campaign of the Revolutionary War was in full swing, with major battles waged across Virginia and North and South Carolina earlier in the year. With so…
September 4: A Fallen Marine, A World War, & A New Destroyer
Born in Stamford, Connecticut in 1920, Everett Frederick Larson was one of thousands of young Connecticans who answered their country’s call to service during World War II. In January 1942, Larson enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserve and, several months later, participated in the Guadalcanal Campaign, a major offensive by the Allied…
August 25: The State’s First POW From “The Undeclared War” Comes Home
In the late evening hours of August 25, 1953, a motorcade carrying Corporal John H. F. Teal pulled into Hartford’s North End, where a small crowd of family and friends were eagerly gathered to welcome him home. Teal had just been returned to the United States after spending 32 months in a Korean prison…
August 18: Connecticut Man with a Rifle Enters Lincoln’s Office
It would be easy to hold up Connecticut inventor Christopher Miner Spencer as an archetype of 19th century Yankee ingenuity: Not only was he a man who spent his whole life tinkering with machinery, filing patents, and aggressively marketing his creations, but as with so many other Connecticut inventors, his innovations changed the course…
August 13: A Trusted Patriot Defects to the Redcoats
During the eight long years of the Revolutionary War, both British and American commanders employed creative and dangerous tactics in the attempt to gather military intelligence that could give their armies a battlefield advantage. One common but highly risky method of obtaining such intelligence was to have a soldier pretend to “defect” to the…
July 7: The Burning and Looting of Fairfield
Throughout the Revolutionary War, Connecticut citizens lived in fear of devastating British raids on shoreline communities. From the British perspective, Connecticut was a nest of rebel activity, both overt and covert. Not only was it home to a government that had early and ardently supported the Patriot cause, its shoreline towns openly gave shelter…