Disaster at Cold Harbor: Sunday

The Cornwall Historical Society will present a special talk by S. Waite Rawls III, Co-CEO of The American Civil War Museum and part-time Cornwall resident, on Sunday, August 17, at 2 p.m. at the Cornwall Town Hall, 26 Pine Street, Cornwall, CT.

Rawls will discuss the Battle of Cold Harbor, one of the most devastating battles for Cornwall’s troops during the Civil War. The talk will be illustrated by slides. The program is being held in conjunction with the Cornwall Historical Society’s current exhibit, Cornwall and the Civil War.

The Battle of Cold Harbor began on May 31, 1864 and continued until June 12. Approximately 170,000 Union and Confederate troops fought in the battle, which included nine days of trench warfare. By the end, nearly 13,000 Union troops and nearly 5,000 Confederate troops were either killed, wounded, missing, or captured. One soldier from Cornwall was killed during the Battle of Cold Harbor, while another ten soldiers from Cornwall were seriously wounded; two died from their wounds weeks later. Approximately 200 Cornwall men served during the war, 10% of the town’s population.

Waite Rawls is a native Virginian and has been a Civil War buff all of his life. He graduated from the Virginia Military Institute, served in the U. S. Army, and got his M.B.A. and J.D. degrees from the University of Virginia.

Waite and his wife Malou, moved to New York in 1975, where he began his career in commercial and investment banking, at Chemical Bank in New York before moving to Chicago with Continental Bank. A pioneer in the world of derivatives and securitization, he longed for a change and moved to Richmond, Virginia, in 2004, to become the President of the Museum of the Confederacy, the country’s oldest and largest Civil War museum which includes the White House of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis’ home and office during the War. It has recently combined with the American Civil War Center, to become The American Civil War Museum, the premier destination for those interested in learning more about the Civil War and its legacies. Waite has served on many charitable and corporate boards in New York, Chicago, Florida, and Virginia.

Waite and Malou have been weekenders in Cornwall since 1984, and their house and farm on Popple Swamp Road  is one of the area’s landmarks. The barn received a “Barn Again” award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1990 for its restoration to a working barn (Debra Tyler’s “Local Farm”), and the Joshua Pierce Farmstead was listed on the Connecticut Register of Historic Places just last year. His “new” house in Richmond (1860) is almost as close to the Cold Harbor battlefield as his Cornwall house is to John Sedgwick’s grave on Cornwall Hollow Road.

The Cornwall and the Civil War exhibit and related programs are supported by grants from Connecticut Humanities, Mohawk Mountain Ski Area, National Iron Bank, and Torrington Savings Bank.

Family Day: The Civil War Experience

The Cornwall Historical Society will be hosting a Family Day program on the Green at the corner of Pine Street and Bolton Hill Road in Cornwall on Saturday, July 26, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The program will be run by Company F, 14th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, a living history and preservation organization.

 
The day’s events will include presentations on the camp life of Union soldiers, a military drill and firing demonstration, exhibits of Civil War weapons, and presentations on the role of women and battlefield medicine. Visitors will also be invited to join in a game of 19th century baseball (weather permitting).

Members of Company F, 14th C.V.I.

Children of all ages are welcome to attend the Cornwall Historical Society’s Family Day, which is being held in conjunction with the Society’s current exhibit, Cornwall and the Civil War.

Company F, 14th C.V.I.

Company F is unique in offering both the military and civilian aspects of the Civil War Era. In addition to presenting the life of the common soldier, a retired pastry chef portrays a company cook, who demonstrates period cooking over an open fire. Its civilian re-enactors present the contributions of the U.S. Christian Commission, Civil War medicine and those on the home front, to the success of the Union armies. As part of its presentation, the company provides many exhibits for the public to view. Company F is actively engaged in battlefield preservation as a “Civil War Trust Regimental Color Bearer” donor with donations of over $7,500 since Co. F’s inception in 2011. The Company’s website is www.cof14thcvi.com.

The Cornwall and the Civil War exhibit and related programs are supported by grants from Connecticut Humanities, Mohawk Mountain Ski Area, National Iron Bank, and Torrington Savings Bank.

Cornwall and the Civil War

Our 2014 exhibit, Cornwall and the Civil War, opens on June 28. The exhibit will be open through October 26 on Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sundays and holiday Mondays, 1 to 4 p.m.

The exhibit explores the impact of the Civil War on Cornwall’s residents, from the men who served in the military, to the women who organized fundraisers to help support the troops. Conflicts within the town are revealed by the exhibit—not everyone in Cornwall supported the war, and at least one person even tried, briefly, to fly the Confederate flag at the start of the war.

Cornwall’s best known soldier was Major General John Sedgwick, the highest ranking Union soldier to be killed during the Civil War. Many of Sedgwick’s personal and military memorabilia will be on view in the exhibit, including his uniform, tactical manuals, battlefield maps, calling cards, and a gold-tipped cane presented by Sedgwick to his cousin, Samuel W. Gold. An opulent, jeweled dress sword, presented to Sedgwick by the officers of the 2d Division, II Corps, will be paired with the field sword Sedgwick wore into battle. This is the first time in history that the two swords have been displayed together. The field sword is on loan from The Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford, where it has rested ever since it was donated to the State of Connecticut by Sedgwick’s sister after his death.

Sedgwick's presentation sword (detail). Collection of Cornwall Historical Society.

About 182 men from Cornwall, nearly ten percent of the town’s population, served during the Civil War. Fifty-two of those men died. Four of Cornwall’s soldiers were prisoners of war: only two survived. The stories of many of these soldiers are profiled in the exhibit, pairing photographs and other historic images with first-hand accounts of some of their experiences. Rare artifacts belonging to Cornwall’s Civil War soldiers will be on view; these include letters they wrote to family, tintype photographs they sent home as mementos, a pair of scissors and a thimble carried through the war by a Cornwall soldier, and a cane used by a veteran whose wartime injuries left him with a limp. Also included is a fragment of a wood beam salvaged from a flour mill destroyed by Union troops during General Sheridan’s Shenandoah Valley Campaign in October 1864; the burned beam was sent back to Cornwall as tangible evidence of the war’s devastation.

A particularly poignant letter included in the exhibit was sent by Quarter Master Sergeant Joseph B. Payne, killed at the Battle of Cold Harbor on June 1, 1864, to his sister Charlotte in Cornwall. Payne arranged to have the letter sent in the event of his death and wrote “Do not be at your wits end wondering who this comes from, but receive it as the words of your now Sainted brother Joseph. From one who loves thee with thoughts too dear to tell, let us recognize each other in heaven.”

Joseph B. Payne carte-de-visite. Collection of Cornwall Historical Society.

The exhibit has been generously funded by Connecticut Humanities, Mohawk Mountain Ski Area, National Iron Bank, and Torrington Savings Bank.

The Cornwall Historical Society is located at 7 Pine Street in Cornwall, CT. The exhibit runs from June 28 through October 26, 2014 and will be open Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sundays, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free, although donations are welcome. For more information, visit www.CornwallHistoricalSociety.org or call (860) 672-0505.