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Web site honors Norwich Civil War vets
By Brian Lyman
Norwich Bulletin
Bruce Bouley of Norwich has the Soldiers Monument at Chelsea Parade Grounds in Norwich on his Civil War website www.civilwarnorwich.com.
Between 1861 and 1865, the Rose City sent about 1,388 men to fight in the Civil War. And workers in the city's numerous gun factories were producing rifles for the Union. By the time Lee surrendered, they had manufactured 45,000 guns for northern soldiers. To commemorate their efforts, Bruce Bouley, workers' compensation and safety coordinator for The William W. Backus Hospital, has maintained a Web site for five years. "I wanted people to know Norwich was heavily involved in the Civil War and the manufacture of rifles," Bouley said. "The reason I wanted to do it on a Web site was the Civil War was the unique war. It was the only war to take regiments from your hometown."
The Web site also provides a history of the 18th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, considered Norwich's "home" regiment, which served from 1862 to 1865. The 18th CVI, made of five companies from Windham County and five from New London, fought at the second battle of Winchester in June 1863 -- a Northern defeat that was a prelude to Gettysburg two weeks later -- and in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley in the spring of 1864. Norwich residents also served in the 8th, 16th, 21st and 26th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry regiments, and fought from Virginia to Mississippi.
The Web site also features two letters home from soldiers serving near the front. One, from Elias S. Brown, an officer in the First Connecticut Cavalry, has a few pointed comments about Virginian women's dress and manners. "And such swearing as you never heard by man as by some of these things," Brown wrote in a letter dated May 22, 1863. "If this is what they call southern ladies, God deliver me from such." Like many northern soldiers at the time, the Norwich volunteers tended to put preservation of the country above the abolition of slavery, Bouley said. "They were mainly more for preserving the Union," he said. "It's not just in Norwich, but among a lot of the soldiers that did enlist. They definitely had, and I don't mean to offend anyone, a lot more patriotism than what's around today."
Bouley also devotes space to a circle of stones in the Yantic Cemetery, where a group of Civil War veterans are buried. Their ranks include seven soldiers who died in the Andersonville prison in Georgia. Andersonville was the most notorious of many deadly prisoner of war camps in the North and South; 12,000 soldiers died there between 1864 and 1865. The bodies were returned to the city in 1866, so they could be buried in their hometown. "Norwich was one of the few towns that went back down there, that took the soldiers back who were buried there," Bouley said.
The Web site has not been updated for a year; Bouley has been battling cancer, but said he has additional stories he wants to put up. The site has generally met Bouley's expectations. He said he gets e-mails from all over the country from people searching for their relatives. "A lot of high school students and children write to me about the Civil War, asking for research for it," he said. "I've had a lot of positive feedback from the Web site."
By Brian Lyman
Norwich Bulletin
Bruce Bouley of Norwich has the Soldiers Monument at Chelsea Parade Grounds in Norwich on his Civil War website www.civilwarnorwich.com.
Between 1861 and 1865, the Rose City sent about 1,388 men to fight in the Civil War. And workers in the city's numerous gun factories were producing rifles for the Union. By the time Lee surrendered, they had manufactured 45,000 guns for northern soldiers. To commemorate their efforts, Bruce Bouley, workers' compensation and safety coordinator for The William W. Backus Hospital, has maintained a Web site for five years. "I wanted people to know Norwich was heavily involved in the Civil War and the manufacture of rifles," Bouley said. "The reason I wanted to do it on a Web site was the Civil War was the unique war. It was the only war to take regiments from your hometown."
The Web site also provides a history of the 18th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, considered Norwich's "home" regiment, which served from 1862 to 1865. The 18th CVI, made of five companies from Windham County and five from New London, fought at the second battle of Winchester in June 1863 -- a Northern defeat that was a prelude to Gettysburg two weeks later -- and in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley in the spring of 1864. Norwich residents also served in the 8th, 16th, 21st and 26th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry regiments, and fought from Virginia to Mississippi.
The Web site also features two letters home from soldiers serving near the front. One, from Elias S. Brown, an officer in the First Connecticut Cavalry, has a few pointed comments about Virginian women's dress and manners. "And such swearing as you never heard by man as by some of these things," Brown wrote in a letter dated May 22, 1863. "If this is what they call southern ladies, God deliver me from such." Like many northern soldiers at the time, the Norwich volunteers tended to put preservation of the country above the abolition of slavery, Bouley said. "They were mainly more for preserving the Union," he said. "It's not just in Norwich, but among a lot of the soldiers that did enlist. They definitely had, and I don't mean to offend anyone, a lot more patriotism than what's around today."
Bouley also devotes space to a circle of stones in the Yantic Cemetery, where a group of Civil War veterans are buried. Their ranks include seven soldiers who died in the Andersonville prison in Georgia. Andersonville was the most notorious of many deadly prisoner of war camps in the North and South; 12,000 soldiers died there between 1864 and 1865. The bodies were returned to the city in 1866, so they could be buried in their hometown. "Norwich was one of the few towns that went back down there, that took the soldiers back who were buried there," Bouley said.
The Web site has not been updated for a year; Bouley has been battling cancer, but said he has additional stories he wants to put up. The site has generally met Bouley's expectations. He said he gets e-mails from all over the country from people searching for their relatives. "A lot of high school students and children write to me about the Civil War, asking for research for it," he said. "I've had a lot of positive feedback from the Web site."
