Greenwich Time, Greenwich, Connecticut
July 5, 1992
At the end of the Civil War in 1865 the troops of Company I, 10th Regiment Connecticut Volunteers, were stationed at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, until April 15. They were among the witnesses to the surrender of Gen. Robert E. Lee to Gen. Ulysses Grant and his Union forces.
Many of the 10th Regiment were Greenwich men, citizen-soldiers who participated in this nation's most wrenching historical event. After moving on to Richmond where they remained until Aug. 26, the regiment was ordered home and formally mustered out of service in Hartford Sept. 5. They had been engaged in action at such places as New Bern, N.C., St. Augustine, Fla.; Strawberry Plains, Va., and other locales most had never visited before the war. No doubt after they returned from the war, the soldiers were embraced by their communities in much the same way we welcome back the soldiers of the Gulf War.
Private Jonathan H. Lockwood was not among those who returned to his town. He died in Salisbury Prison, N.C., on Oct. 28, 1864. His tombstone marks his place of burial in the Round Hill Cemetery across from the First Church of Round Hill. One of his fallen comrades, William Sniffen, is interred a couple of miles away in the Old Burying Ground at North Greenwich on Riversville Road. Though his marble gravestone has been worn away by the elements, its faded letters state that he was in the battles of Roanoke and New Bern, N.C., and died at the latter place June 16, 1862, age 40 years, one month and 10 days.
Sniffen's epitaph is well-faded, yet one line has defied the assault of weather and wear:
Sleep, soldier, sleep
thy duty is done…
The American soldier stands tall among the finest in the history of the world. Those who gave the ultimate sacrifice to preserve freedom are noble, tough, resolute, dedicated to country and brave in times of war. This bold tradition has helped mold our national character from the days of the Revolution to the present. The task left to us, the living, is to defy the inevitable test of time as the past becomes more remote and to remind ourselves of the highest cost of safeguarding the light of freedom and democracy.
The members of America's armed forces have fought in thousands of places around the world. Locally they clashed in the old days at the Battle of White Plains, in skirmishes with British Redcoats in Round Hill off John Street, and in Put's Hill in central Greenwich. They went off to the South in places such as Roanoke and New Bern, N.C., to keep the Union together and emancipate the slaves. Others later went on to Europe to fight a war some thought would be a war to end all wars, only to have another decades later. Americans were sent to the South Pacific, the Far East, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and elsewhere, all with the hope that their fighting would be the last.
My walks in the cemeteries of Greenwich have brought me face-to-face with sentiment inscribed in the form of epitaphs. They speak quietly of the passions of life snuffed out by war throughout our history. I have come to realize in a somber way that our citizens who participated in history. They took risks, and many paid a high price for high cost.
Lewis Palmer was one soldier who survived the carnage of the Civil War and died in 1898. The epitaph on his tombstone next to the First Congregational Church reads:
Comrades I have answered the last roll call
And rest beneath the sod
For nations honor I did my best
My country, home and God.
Nearby is the memorial stone for Capt. Clifford W. Henry, who died during World War I. As a read his stone I was struck by his accomplishments. With his life cut short at such an early age I wondered indeed what life of prominence might have been in store for him, his loved ones and community had he survived to return home:
Captain Clifford W. Henry USA
102nd Infty 26 Div. A.E.F.
Mortally wounded in action
Battle of St. Michiel
Died Oct. 17, 1918, Allerey, France
Aged 22 Years
Harvard '18, Bachelor of Science
Army Service School Lieut. Infty
U.S. Distinguished Service Cross
French Croix De Guerre with Palm
Reinterred here
Feb. 13, 1921.
At the burying ground next to the Second Congregational Church, known as the New Burial Grounds Association Cemetery, there are three gravestones of fallen heroes. 
Elnathan Husted, a private in Company I, 17th Regiment, Connecticut Volunteers, died on Davids Island on March 4, 1864. He was 41 years old and left behind his wife, Sarah Lyon Merritt, and two daughters:
HE DIED FOR HIS COUNTRY
Call Him Not Back From His Home Above
Call Him Not Back To This World of Care
Leave Him In Heaven With His Saviors Love
And Earnestly Strive To Meet Him There
Henry H. Mead was another soldier in the 10th Regiment who fought at the battles of Roanoke and New Bern, N.C. He died aged 21 at New Bern of typhoid fever:
Die on the field of battle
Tis noble thus to die
God smiles on valiant soldiers
Their record is on high
Rise from the field of battle
The Saviours gone before
Who puts his trust in Jesus
is safe for evermore.
Sgt. Caleb M. Holmes was yet another Greenwich boy who volunteered for service to the Union in the Civil War. His tent mate with Silas E. Mead, Jr., of North Greenwich. It was in October 1864 at the Battle of Darbytown Road outside of Richmond that one would fall in battle.
In a collections of transcribed letters assembled by his descendent Douglas Mead in a volume titled "A Connecticut Soldier," Sile Ed, as he was called, went back at one point to help unload the wounded. He wrote in a letter:
"I stayed at the house close by all day helping load the wounded as fast as we could and we just got them as they were falling back. Helped Skip, as we used to call him, Sgt. Holmes & Hays off… I wanted to see and help all the wounded I could… I don't want to see another day like that…."
In a footnote, Douglas Mead remarks that "Sile Ed took the death of Cale Holmes very hard. The story goes that Sile Ed turned over this mangled body and to his dismay, recognized his best friend and tent mate. When others saw it they said, 'Don't touch it, Sile, we'll take care of it." Sgt. Caleb Holmes was just under 23 years old when he was killed, and part of his epitaph quotes a letter he wrote home:
"Duty to my country comes first and I mean
To do that to the best of my ability."
Letter to his Mother
Gone in the act of duty
Gone in his glowing pride
Gone in his manly duty
Our gallant son has died."
The task of commemoration his book simple and profoundly moving. Some of us in 1990, under the banner of the Historical Society and the 350th Commission, went out as the veterans associations to do every year to please flags at the graves of some of those who fought and died. The weekend of our nation's birthday is a fitting time to take a moment from our celebrations and remember those whose sacrifice allow us to enjoy America, the Stars and Stripes and what it represents.
Jeffrey Bingham Mead is a direct descendent of one of the founding families of Greenwich.
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