Heroes for All Time. Dione Longley

      The Waits had their only son’s body brought home, and they buried him in Yantic Cemetery in Norwich. Over his grave they set a white monument carved with spy glass and signal flags, and engraved “He died with his young fame about him for a shroud.”

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      Somehow, two regiments—the 16th Connecticut and 4th Rhode Island—hadn’t received (or understood) the order to advance. General Rodman, commanding the division, directed Colonel Harland to continue on with the 8th, while Rodman himself would race back to hurry on the other two regiments. But the two missing regiments never came up, and the 8th Connecticut found itself alone as it moved through a hurricane of bullets and shells coming from three sides. The men didn’t flinch for a moment.

      Captain Wolcott Marsh, twenty-three, led the men of Company F, many of them farmers from rural communities like Plainfield, Canterbury, and Brooklyn. Writing to his wife just after the battle, Marsh wonderingly recorded their grit:

      the order came for us to go forward which we did on a double quick as we came to the brow of hill & over it a terrible fire was concentrated upon our little band but on we pushed down the hill & up the top of next bullets came in terrible showers & from all sides of us