Concussion of thundering 1st Connecticut mortars at the Battle of the Crater left artillerist Chester Beckwith with bleeding ears and a lifetime of pain. Descendants have donated his 1861 rifle, accoutrements to a New England museum

Tom T. and Kimberly Beckwith with Springfield and cartridge box (NE Civil War Museum) and 1st Connecticut mortars at Yorktown, Company C (labeled 8) position near the Crater and the "Dictator," Company G, Petersburg (Library of Congress)

Amid the heat, flashes of fire and acrid smoke rising from belching siege mortars, Chester Beckwith furiously worked to prepare ammunition to support the Union assault during the Battle of the Crater on July 30, 1864.

The artificer with Company C, 1^st Connecticut Heavy Artillery, was cutting timed fuses in the bombproof/powder magazine of Fort Rice at Petersburg during the bombardment, according to his pension file kept by the National Archives.

“While so engaged the concussion produced by the firing of the heavy siege guns and mortars injured both of my ears so that blood came from them…during many months afterward I was troubled with a discharge of matter from both ears,” he wrote.

In the end, the company’s ten 10-inch mortars fired 360 rounds during the doomed assault that resulted in disaster and eight months of ghastly trench warfare.

A 2019 article on HistoryNet.com details the injury that cost Beckwith much of his hearing for the rest of his life.

Beckwith, a carpenter by trade who repaired artillery equipment as an artificer, served through the end of the war. He was plagued by his injury and the loss of his brother, Robert, who was mortally wounded at Second Manassas in August 1862.

Chester H. Beckwith’s military service and sacrifice will be remembered following the donation last fall of his 1861 Springfield rifle-musket and accoutrements to the New England Civil War Museum & Research Center in Vernon, Ct. (Photos at left and below courtesy of the museum)

Dan Hayden, the museum’s executive director, told the Picket conservators will prepare the artifacts for exhibit rotation.

“We focus on bringing to life individual people of the time period, but more importantly, to create a way to highlight the emotional and human elements that show how similar we are to them, even today,” said Hayden.

Two cousins, Kimberly Beckwith, a Connecticut native currently working in the Netherlands, and Tom T. of North Carolina traveled to the museum to make the donation.

The artifacts for years were kept by Beckwith’s late father. The gift seems especially appropriate because Alfred Pierce Beckwith was a highly skilled machinist who could fix almost anything, she wrote in an email

“So he was sort of artificer too (he was also a jet engine mechanic in the Air Force in the late ‘50's to the early ‘60s.) It seems those skills run in my family of handy Yankees who served their country.”  

His younger brother Robert died at 2nd Manassas

The 1^st Connecticut Heavy Artillery saw extensive service during operations in Washington, D.C., Virginia and North Carolina. Company C participated in the Peninsular Campaign and ended up at Fort Brady on the James River by the end of the war.

Chester Beckwith was 35 when he mustered in for three years in March 1862. His pension records indicate he had red hair and blue eyes. While 22 men from the Vernon area served with the 1^st Heavies, Beckwith hailed from Windham, nearly 20 miles away.

Beckwith’s younger brother, Robert, was living in Pennsylvania when joined the 1^st New Jersey Infantry. Some of Robert’s letters to relatives have been published on HistoryNet and the Spared & Shared blog.

In July 1862, Robert wrote to friends about a visit from Chester at his camp in Virginia.

“Oh, tell Susanna that I was surprised the day I was sitting in my tent & who should come & look in but Chester. He has been [in] one fight with me but I did not know it at the time. He is in the 1st Connecticut Heavy Artillery. They lay about one mile from me. We are to go there 2 or 3 times a week. I expect him over tomorrow -- Sunday. He was paid off the other day & sent $40 dollars home to Minerva (Chester’s wife). Chester said he had written to you the other day.”

Robert was mortally wounded at Manassas a month later, apparently dying days later while being held prisoner. His grave in Windham may be a cenotaph. 

(I have been unable to find a photo of Chester. Robert’s image can be seen here. I have been unable to locate the current owner to obtain permission to include it here. Photo at right by Matthew Dingler, town of Windham)

Chester was detailed as an artificer on January 10, 1864, a role that acknowledged his skills and ability to repair the critical equipment that the 1st Heavies operated, a museum Facebook post says. When his original term expired on March 18, he reenlisted, serving until September 1865.

At Petersburg, the regiment’s companies were stationed at a couple forts, with Beckwith’s at Fort Rice near the larger Fort Sedgwick. They were in the thick of action during the Battle of the Crater.

The 1^st Heavies' most famous mortar, the massive “Dictator,” was operated by Company G.

Company C was in the thick of things

Much has been written about the siege of Petersburg in 1864-65; I won’t be able to get into detail here. But the Federal force depended on heavy guns like those used by the 1^st Heavies.

National Archives map shows Fort Rice (center right) across from Rives Salient (click to enlarge)

Company C was across from Confederate Rives Salient and adjacent to the original location of Confederate Battery 22, part of the initial Confederate Dimmock Line, said Emmanuel Dabney, chief of resource management at Petersburg National Battlefield.

“Keep in mind much work was done by Union troops in July 1864 to dismantle the original Dimmock Line which lay behind the Federal fortifications,” Dabney told the Picket.

The line was a series of 55 Rebel artillery batteries and connected earthworks. They were built to protect Petersburg’s vital railroads and industry.

The 1^st Heavies were among the artillery units meant to suppress Confederate resistance as the attack unfolded on July 30, 1864.

The Battle of the Crater dashed Union hopes for an end to the siege and, for that matter, the Confederacy. After a massive explosion from a mine set off by engineers, Federal troops, including U.S. Colored Troops, rushed in, only to be rebuffed by dazed Confederates who held strong.

According to Beckwith’s pension files from the 1870s, a sergeant from Company C wrote a letter to pension officials detailing the artificer’s injuries. The article on HistoryNet describes how gunners were told to place canister rounds into 10-inch shells to be fired from mortars.

Union artillery on July 30; Fort Rice is numbered 8, click to enlarge (Baylor University Digital Collections)

Sgt. Elisha Jordan wrote the following:

“…I was on duty…near Fort Rice in front of Petersburg Va on July 30th 1864. I know that Chester H. Beckwith was an artificer…and was on duty in the bombproof sawing fuses during the explosion of Burnside’s mine and attack on enemy line….I was ordered to go in the bombproof and direct said Beckwith to put 27 grape shots into a shell which I did and found Beckwith with his ears bleeding badly….I know that ever after this day while in the service Beckwith was excused from roll call because his hearing was bad.”

The HistoryNet authors obtained the pension information from the National Archives in Washington. I have been unable to travel there for those purposes.

A lot of suffering for Chester and Mary

Chester Beckwith returned to Connecticut and worked as a carpenter. His wife Minerva passed away in 1879 and he married Mary E. Beckwith in 1903.

Dana B. Shoaf, editor in chief of HistoryNet in 2019, wrote Mary recalled occasionally “the blood would run out of his ears and head,” and that “he was [in] dretfull suffer as long as he lived.”

Chester died of a “lingering illness” in Hamburg (North Lyme), Ct., in November 1909 at age 82 or 83. Half of his 10 children survived him. His body was returned to Windham, where he was buried at Windham Center Cemetery. At one point, a U.S. flag and Grand Army of the Republic marker were evident at his grave.

An ailing Mary’s application for a widow’s pension in 1912 apparently was denied because the government determined Chester’s wartime injuries did not cause his death, Shoaf wrote.

I have been unable to determine when Mary died and where she is buried.

(Matthew Dingler, Windham’s cemetery sexton, was of great help to me as I researched the resting places for the Beckwith family. He mentioned the history and Victorian homes of Willimantic, which is part of Windham. A mill drew many immigrants. He also mentioned the humorous Battle of the Frogs story. Read about it here)

A trove of weaponry and an ode to hard tack

The inscription about Chester Beckwith is slowing fading away (Courtesy Kimberly Beckwith)

Kimberly Beckwith grew up believing Chester and Minerva were distant a distant uncle and aunt. Not many stories were passed down, though her father said they underwent some kind of tragedy, Beckwith told the Picket.

After further research, Kimberly now believes Chester and Minerva were her great-great-grandparents. To this day, the family has deep ties to the Windham area.

She turned to the museum in Vernon for the donation after doing online research. She and her late sister, Lynda, inherited the items after their father died in February 2023. (Lynda thought first of donating the items to a museum in Pennsylvania, where she lived.)

The items were Chester’s Springfield, bayonet and seven-rivet scabbard, percussion cap box, cartridge box, belt buckle and a book with regimental history. The family also donated an early edition of John Billings' “Hard Tack and Coffee,” a memoir containing tales of the war and illustrations.

The cartridge box still bears the pressed stamp of Gaylord contractors in Chicopee, Massachusetts, with a late pattern percussion cap box and bayonet with seven-rivet scabbard.

The museum says this of the artifacts:

“Though his belt and cartridge box sling have passed out of existence, the buckle remains, as most notably does the musket sling. Along with an early edition of John D. Billings' 'Hard Tack and Coffee,' the remainders of Chester's service with the 1st Heavies will be proudly conserved and interpreted for future visitors at the museum.”

The 1861 Springfield was used by most soldiers from Vernon and many New England soldiers in general. 

Museum serves up soldier artifacts and library

The Civil War museum in Vernon is housed in the former meeting place of the Thomas F. Burpee Post #71 of the GAR. The Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War Alden Skinner Camp #45 meet in the building today.

Highlights of the permanent collection include New England and GAR artifacts, a wartime uniform of Seth Plumb of the 8th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, a pair of trousers owned by James Baldwin of the 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery, and personal effects of Thomas Burpee, including spurs, belt, shoulder boards, tin cup and the bullet believed to have mortally wounded him at Cold Harbor, Va., in 1864. 

1st Connecticut Heavy Artillery monument near Capitol in Hartford (Cosmo Marino, hmdb.org)

Thirty-six Vernon men died during the war, 14 of them killed in battle and 11 dying in Confederate prison camps, said Hayden.

The research center and archives contains letters, diaries, journals

“We curate the library to help researchers find sources around the everyday soldier, as well as to the general public for finding information about their relatives who served during the Civil War. Notably, famed artist Don Troiani donated his research archive he collected while preparing to paint his Civil War works of art. These are being scanned and will be made available for public access,” the director added.

The New England Civil War Museum & Research Center, 14 Park Place, Vernon, is open 10 a.m.- p.m. on Saturday and Sundays. Call 860-870-3563 for more information.