Freelance Historian

Winthrop Phelps (1845 – 1885):

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Enlisted May 4, 1863 in the 19th Connecticut Infantry as chaplain, received his commission June 5, 1863 and served with the unit for the duration, mustered out August 18, 1865. The regiment was reorganized as the 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery unit in November 1863, but it won its fame as infantry in the latter part of the war, suffering frightful casualties while performing with valor. The 2nd Connecticut was singled out for mention in dispatches for its bravery at Cold Harbor and the third Battle of Winchester, among others. The official regimental history recalls the action on the first day of Cold Harbor:

June 1st, under command of Colonel Kellogg, the regiment
was disposed in three lines, under Majors Hubbard, Rice, and
Ells, and advanced in that order, the objective point being the
heavy earthworks defended by Longstreet’s veterans. It passed
at double-quick to the first line, capturing it and sending to
the rear over 300 prisoners; forward again at double-quick,
with intervals of less than 100 yards between the battalions,
to and through a stiff abattis, within twenty yards of the
enemy’s main line, where it met a most destructive fire from
both its front and left flank, but pressed on, some even to the
top of the main line of earthworks. Nothing could withstand
the murderous fire that now met them, and the First and Second
battalions crept back to the somewhat less exposed position
held by the Third, but leaving on the field 323 of Litchfield
County’s bravest sons, 129 of them dead or mortally wounded, –
a record unsurpassed by any regiment of the Union army during
the war. Among these were that ideal soldier, Colonel E. S.
Kellogg, who fell riddled with bullets in the advance with the
First battalion, Captain Luman Wadhams, who was mortally, and
Major Ells, who was severely, wounded.

We are not allowed space in which to chronicle individual
acts of bravery and devotion to duty, but cannot pass to record
other scenes without saying that the fortunate survivors of
this terrible conflict remember with loving pride the last
words and acts of such comrades as Corporal Baldwin of Company
E (reported “missing,” but certainly killed in action), and the
cool, quiet, but quick and sensible decisions of Kellogg,
Hubbard, Ells, Skinner, Fenn, Wadhams, Berry, Burnham, Hosford,
Spencer, and other officers, and the unrecorded bravery of very
many of our fellow-soldiers.

This advanced position was “stubbornly held” (vice Upton),
and on the 3d another advance was made, the regiment being
under fire continuously until the 12th.

After participating in the initial assault against Petersburg, the 2nd CT Artillery was sent to fight Jubal Early’s Rebels in the Shenandoah Valley. Account of the Battle of Winchester, September 19, 1864:

September 19th, was called into action to check the enemy,
who had broken our lines near Winchester.

General Sheridan’s report tells the story, as follows: “At
Winchester for a moment the contest was uncertain, but the
gallant attack of General Upton’s Brigade (Second Connecticut
Artillery, Sixty-fifth and One Hundred and Twenty-first New
York, and Ninety-fifth Pennsylvania) restored the line of
battle until the turning column of Crook and Merritt and
Averill’s divisions of cavalry sent the enemy whirling through
Winchester.” The regiment lost here 14 officers and 122
enlisted men, killed and wounded, among them Major Rice and
Lieutenants Candee, Hubbard, and Cogswell killed, Captain Berry
and Lieutenant McCabe mortally wounded, and Lieutenant Fyler
crippled for life by a wound in the leg. Colonel Mackenzie and
Major Skinner were among the less seriously wounded.

Reverend Phelps was present at all battles of the 2nd Connecticut; his absences being during times of idleness for the regiment.