Oh, the Stories Norwalk's Civil War Veterans Could Tell! [Video]

Of all the stories that might've been told by the 46 veterans buried in the Civil War soldier's plot at Norwalk's , Robert Bones had perhaps the most singular.

Not only did Bones serve in the war, but when Abraham Lincoln stopped in Bridgeport during the 1860 presidential campaign and spoke at the building then serving as City Hall, Bones was there. The future soldier had one of the more, ah, "select" locations near the future president: the city jail, which was in the same building.

Bones had been arrested for "excessive swearing," explained local historian Madeleine D. Eckert in a "cemetery tour" talk she gave Saturday at the cemetery.

Bones' was one of 10 soldier's stories she told as part of an event which included lectures on history by Eckert and her husband, Edward, as well as a ceremony honoring the soldiers and conducted partly by Civil War re-enactors.

To top it off, visitors were treated to free ice cream, courtesy of of East Norwalk. Attendees also heard an announcement by the head of the Norwalk History Society that it was looking for donations to restore a statue at the site.

During the ceremony, a wreath was laid by Civil War re-enactors, and one read verses from "The Bivuac of the Dead," published in 1847 by Theodore O'Hara (1820-1867). The poem had been read at ceremonies honoring fallen soldiers as early as 1850 and revised throughout his life. (See accompanying video.) The five re-enactors also fired off a gun salute to the dead.

Robert Bones, William Westlake

A native of England, Bones later served in three different regiments during the Civil War. At least one other veteran buried there was a native Scot, and another had parents from Wales. Three of the interred were African American. All were too poor to afford their own burial plots. All but two of the veterans, like Bones, survived the war.

The first death among the soldiers at the cemetery was that of  William Westlake, who volunteered to scout a position at the Battle of Gettysburg on July 2, 1863 and was shot.

Only 19 years old at the time, Westlake's leg was amputated as a result of his wound, but even that didn't save him, and he died on July 24. Back in Aug. 2, 1862, when he was a teenager working as a clerk, he had joined up in Norwalk with the 17th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry Regiment.

Andrew Geddes

The last soldier whose remains were placed in the Riverside Cemetery plot was Andrew Geddes, who died at age 83 in 1930. Not quite five months after Westlake's death, Geddes, then just 16 or 17, joined the First Connecticut Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, signing up at the offices of the Norwalk Gazette weekly newspaper. A native of Scotland, he had immigrated to America with his family in 1853 when he was about six years old.

Geddes may not have experienced "the last full measure of devotion," by dying in the war like Westlake, but he had plenty of harrowing experiences. At one point, he was wounded in the ankle in the Battle of the Wilderness on May 5, 1864.

As one historian described the action of the First Connecticut Cavalry that day, a group of about 200 men under Maj. George O. Marcy found themselves surrounded by the enemy: "As the only chance of escape, he ordered sabers drawn and a charge through the enemy. This feat was most gallantly accomplished, with the loss of about forty men." It is unknown whether or not Geddes participated in that incident and, if so, whether or not he received his wound in it.

The "loss" apparently was mostly due to men getting wounded, captured or missing in action. According to Blaikie Hines' Civil War Volunteer Sons of Connecticut, of the 1,833 recruits who went into the regiment, only 30 were killed in battle during the entire war (another 10 were missing, 163 died off the battlefield, 98 were wounded and 286 captured).

The next day, May 6, 1864, Geddes was captured at Craigs Church, VA, and he spent seven months in the notorious Andersonville Prison, where prisoners received little food or medicine. Geddes, according to one account, "recalls that the menu there consisted mainly of bones."

Geddes spent some time in a hospital in Annapolis, MD, before returning home after the war. He was living in New Canaan in 1870 with his wife, Sarah, but by the 1880 census he was divorced, living in Norwalk and working at a "woollen factory." At about that time, according to some records, he remarried.

He was a "dyer" living on Sticky Plain Road according to an 1883 Norwalk city directory, and by 1896 he was an employee of "Ellis & Co." doing unspecified work and living at 201 Main St., where he remained for the 34 years remaining in his life. By 1921, he was working for the "L&B Co."

He was a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, a veterans organization, and belonged to its Douglas Fowler Post in Norwalk.

When Norwalk's other G.A.R. organization, the William Buckingham Post, put up a memorial to Buckingham (Connecticut's war governor) and to Norwalk's war dead, in 1926, the plaque listed Geddes among the surviving Civil War veterans in the city.

The small monument was placed together with a newly planted oak tree in front of Norwalk Public Library. While the tree is now as departed as all the Civil War veterans, the plaque on a relatiely small stone can still be seen today, with Geddes' name on it (see photos accompanying this article).

When Geddes died in June 1930, the Norwalk Hour's obituary noted that he was a "widely known Civil War veteran"—perhaps simply because there were few who survived that long.

In the audience for Madeliene Eckert's talk was Nancy Pratt, who said she found out about 10 years ago from a cousin doing genealogical research that she's a descendent of Geddes. Her father's grandmother was Geddes' granddaughter, Pratt said. She hadn't known Geddes worked in the textile industry or how long he was in Andersonville Prison, she said.

"I never used to be interested in this stuff," she said about Civil War history. "Now I find it fascinating."

The damaged statue, "Chester"

David G. Westmoreland, president of the Norwalk Historical Society, and Edward Eckert told the crowd about the seven-foot-tall zinc statue that once stood on the plinth at the veterans plot. The statue depicts a Union soldier at parade rest (see photo accompanying this article).

Zinc is a relatively fragile metal, as was noted during the ceremony when the statue was put in place on one Memorial Day in 1889 (three years after the cemetery was founded), Eckert said. According to one historian, David Ransom, this is the only known example of a zinc statue in Connecticut.

The statue began falling apart, and was further vandalized in about 2002, he said. The parts are now at the society's Mill Hill complex.

Westmoreland said the society is starting a fundraising effort and planned to raise money at a number of events. It will take $40,000 to $45,000 to repair the statue, but society members believe it will qualify for a state grant that would finance about half of that amount, he said. The society hopes to get the statue back up before the 150th anniversary of the war's end, in 2015.

The statue should then last many decades, Eckert said in an interview after the event, and future members of the Norwalk Historical Society would deal with the difficulties of having a zinc statue at that point.

Facts about those buried at Riverside Cemetery

Madeleine Eckert gave these facts about the 46 veterans buried in the soldiers' and sailors' plot:

• Fourteen were members of the William Buckingham Post of the Grand Army of the Republic.
• Five were members of the Douglas Fowler Post of the G.A.R.
• Two died during the Civil War.
• Seven are in unmarked graves (the reason why they are unmarked is unclear).
• Thirty-two are in marked graves near the plinth where the statue previously stood.
• Seven are in an area a bit separated from the rest, just to the west of the plinth.
• Ten of the soldiers were originally interred in the cemetery associated with Norwalk's poorhouse; their remains were disinterred and reburied later at Riverside Cemetery.
• Eleven were wounded or injured in the war.
• Five were captured and became prisoners of war.
• Twelve served in more than one regiment.
• Ten died in their 50s; 8 in thier 60s, 16 in their 70s.
• Samuel Cunningham was the eldest when he died at age 89; William Westlake the youngest at age 19.
• Eleven died in the 1890s, 10 in the first decade of the 20th century, 9 more in the decade of the 1910s.
• The 46 soldiers and sailors served in 14 Connecticut volunteer regiments, two from New Jersey, 13 from New York, one from Ohio and one from Pennsylvania; two in federal organizations: the Veterans Corps and the U.S. Colored Infantry.
• Seven or eight served in the U.S. Navy.

Editor's note: This article previewed Saturday's event: "Visit Norwalk's Civil War Veterans & Hear Their Stories"