New Vicksburg Memorial To Honor 9th Connecticut Regt.
By Kathryn Jorgensen
(October 2008 Civil War News)

VICKSBURG, Miss. — They dug and they died as the Louisiana heat and malaria took their toll. And now, after 146 years, the 9th Regiment Connecticut Volunteer Infantry will be honored for its part in the Vicksburg campaigns.

They were Connecticut’s Irish Regiment, so named because many of its members were immigrants or first-generation Irish-Americans.

On Oct. 14 a monument authorized by the State of Connecticut will be dedicated in Madison Parish, near Delta, La., across the Mississippi River from Vicksburg. It will sit on a 2.56-acre tract that interprets Williams’ and Grant’s Canal — an engineering effort to cut across De Soto Point and allow U.S. vessels to bypass Confederate batteries at Vicksburg.

 It took the proverbial Act of Congress in order for the monument to be installed. Vicksburg National Military Park Chief Historian Terrence Winschel says that the park’s original enabling act focused on the 1863 campaign and siege against Vicksburg.

A 1990 bill authorized the park to acquire the Louisiana tract, “through a generous donation by local land owners working with The Conservation Fund,” Winschel says. The small site includes the remaining vestige of the canal, at its original width of 60 feet and a depth of 4 to 5 feet in places.

With the federal authorization came a charge for the park to interpret Vicksburg campaign action of 1862 and the canal digging. That meant Connecticut and Vermont, the two states that had not yet erected monuments because their troops did not take part in the final 1863 action, could do so.

Bob Larkin of Cheshire, Conn., can take credit for seeing that Connecticut is honoring its sons. His great-great-grandfather, John Marlow of New Haven, was one of the 150 men in the 9th Connecticut who died attempting to build the canal.

Marlow died of malaria “opposite Vicksburg,” according to his death certificate. Larkin hopes he is one of the unknown burials at Vicksburg National Cemetery, but he has no way of knowing.

“Vicksburg has over 1,300 memorials and 28 official state monuments and the largest Civil War cemetery in the country and it seemed a shame not to have some mention of Connecticut,” he says.

Seven or eight years ago he started talking to people about erecting a signpost there. People at Vicksburg NMP suggested something sturdier and longer lasting, perhaps an official monument, which the park then would care for.

Larkin got together a committee of representatives from historical groups, reenactors and descendants. They designed “what we could afford and what looked proper,” a handsome three-part granite monument that will stand on a concrete plaza on a highlighted center portion in the shape of Connecticut. Two granite benches inscribed “9th Regiment Connecticut Volunteers” are part of the memorial.

The $60,000 cost was privately raised. A major initial donation came from the Knights of Columbus. James Mullen, the organization’s first supreme knight, when it was founded some 20 years after the war in New Haven, Conn., was a sergeant in Co. C, 9th Connecticut, says Larkin.

The unveiling and dedication will begin at 10:30 a.m. The ceremony will feature an invocation by a descendant, a talk about the regiment’s history, Larkin giving the background of the memorial project, a benediction by an Irish priest from Vicksburg and songs about the regiment and canal by state troubadour Tom Callanan.

Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell and others saw the center panel of the monument at an August preview at the Hartford Armory. The Knights of Columbus and reenactors provided color guards, the governor spoke, and the state cable network and press covered the exhibit.

The entire monument stands 10 feet wide and 10 feet tall. The front and back of the center polished black granite panel reflects onlookers as they gaze at the hand-etched regimental and state seals, portraits of soldiers and scenes of the canal digging. Larkin says each green granite wing will have a bronze plaque with text about the regiment’s history.

The center piece was created by volunteers Kerry Sheldon of Durham, Conn., who made the sketches over a two-year period, and Stacey Matthieu of Southington, who hand-etched it.

When the 9th Connecticut left New Haven in 1861 it had 845 members, according to Larkin. They arrived at the canal site in June 1862 and served there approximately one month. Some died there and others became ill there. One hundred fifty men died altogether, many a month after they abandoned work on the canal. Some of them are buried at Chalmette National Cemetery.

The regiment went from the canal to Baton Rouge and then to the New Orleans area. In 1864 they were on furlough to New Haven and reenlisted and were sent to the Shenandoah Valley where they saw action at Winchester, Fisher’s Hill and Cedar Creek. They wound up doing garrison duty in Savannah.

Larkin says the regiment had lost 252 men.

Donations for the monument are still welcome and may be sent to the Irish History Round Table Inc., 9th Vicksburg Monument, P.O. Box 6028, Hamden, CT, 06517. Photos from the Hartford ceremony may be seen at www.ctiahs.com.

Williams & Grant Gave Up Canal To Bypass Vicksburg

The 1990 amendment to Vicksburg National Military Park’s enabling legislation broadened the park’s charge to interpreting the Vicksburg campaigns of 1862-1863, not just the final operations in 1863, explains historian Terrence Winschel.

“The site opens entire new chapters for interpretation of the Vicksburg campaign,” he says. The park has erected interpretive markers that detail the canal operations in 1862 under Brig. Gen. Thomas Williams, those in 1863 under Gen. U.S. Grant, and one detailing the role of U.S. Colored Troops in the Battle of Milliken's Bend that was fought on June 7, 1863.

Most of what was dug has filled or was destroyed during construction of the modern levee and roads system.

Winschel recounts some of the canal’s history:

In the summer of 1862, work on the canal was started by troops under the command of Brig. Gen. Williams. They accompanied Farragut's fleet upstream from New Orleans.

As a direct assault against Vicksburg was deemed unfeasible, Williams recommended that his troops be disembarked in Madison Parish, La., opposite Vicksburg, and put to work digging a canal that would enable Northern vessels to bypass the Confederate batteries.

In addition to the 9th Connecticut, Williams' command consisted of the 30th Massachusetts, 6th Michigan, 7th Vermont and 4th Wisconsin Infantry.

Although the concept was good, the oppressive heat and humidity quickly reduced the numbers and effectiveness of Williams' command, which quickly dwindled from roughly 3,000 to 300.

Heat exhaustion, sun stroke, malaria, and various other maladies took a heavy toll of human life.

To keep work on the canal going, Williams pressed roughly 1,500 blacks from local plantations into service, but to little avail and by mid-July work on the canal stopped. It would later be resumed in January 1863 by troops under Grant's command. The project was given up in March.

It turns out the canal concept was practical, Winschel says. In 1876 the river changed course and cut through the base of De Soto Point not far from where the canal was excavated.

“The Federal engineers had simply miscalculated the angle of the canal to capture the scouring effect of the current,” he notes.