The County Regiment Part 4

Colonel Mackenzie graduated at West Point in 1862, but he was never a resident of the county, or of Connecticut, and his only connection with either was through his commission from Governor Buckingham.

There are not a few other names upon the rolls of the regiment which upon more thorough investigation than has been possible in the present case would certainly be added to the list. A complete history of the organization would also give a large place to the a.s.sociation of its veterans formed shortly after the war, whose frequent gatherings have more than a superficial likeness to the reunions of college cla.s.ses.

Memorable among these meetings was the one held on October 21, 1896, the occasion being the dedication of the regiment's monument in the National Cemetery at Arlington, with a pilgrimage also to the scenes of its battles and marches in the Shenandoah Valley near by.

As a whole, the regiment was a body thoroughly representative not only of the army of which it was a fraction, an army as has been often said unlike any other the world has known, but also of the population from which it was drawn. It was made up of men of almost all conditions of life and of widely different ages, though naturally with young men in a large majority; of mechanics from the Housatonic and Naugatuck valleys, and farmers' boys from the hills; of men of education and men of none. Though the large addition to its numbers which the increase in size necessitated made it perhaps somewhat less h.o.m.ogeneous than at first, it did not greatly alter its essential characteristics.

The records kept by the a.s.sociation referred to, furnish suggestive revelations as to the various elements that composed it. The names of men of every sort and kind are found upon the rolls. There were veterans of the Mexican War; there were refugees from the revolutionary uprisings in Europe of 1848; there were some who had served under compulsion in the armies of the South; there were men whose obviously fict.i.tious names concealed stories which could be guessed to be extraordinary; there were names which have been for years among the best known and most honored in this state; and there were those of outcasts and wrecks.

A large part of these men came back after their service ended to resume the peaceful life of citizenship, and every town among us has known some of them ever since among its leading figures, while some in quarters far distant have also attained to honors and responsibilities, as the records show. Connecticut has known for many years no small number of them as foremost in all lines of activity, and knows to-day, in official station and in private life, men of many honors, who count not least among these the fact that they were enrolled among the soldiers of the Second Connecticut Heavy Artillery.