Hidden History of Connecticut’s Union Soldiers with author John Banks at the Guilford Free Library

Join author John Banks as he shines a light on many of these long-forgotten Connecticut Yankees in his talk about his book, Hidden History of Connecticut Union Soldiers. More than 50,000 Connecticut men and boys served in the Union army during the Civil War, but most of them are forgotten today. Among them is a 16th Connecticut chaplain, who as a prisoner of war boldly disregarded a Rebel commander’s order forbidding him to pray aloud for President Lincoln. At least forty sets of brothers from the state perished of battlefield wounds or disease. Stunningly, three families each lost three sons. A 7th Connecticut private was tormented by the ghost of a comrade, whom he had murdered in battle. Seven soldiers from Connecticut, survivors of the horrors of Antietam and Andersonville, drowned two weeks after Lee surrendered to Grant when their ship collided with another on the Potomac.

Banks graduated from West Virginia University. In his first job out of college, he was sports editor of the Evening Journal in Martinsburg, W.Va., 15 miles from the Antietam battlefield in Sharpsburg, Md. A longtime editor at The Dallas Morning News, he now works for ESPN in Connecticut.

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