Looking Back: Connecticut Volunteers Capture Flag

Editor's Note: The following historical account is submitted by noted Cheshire researcher and historian, Robert Larkin:

April 2 marks the 150th anniversary of the capture of the Third Mississippi flag, the first taken during the Civil War, by the Ninth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers, CT’s Irish regiment. New discoveries reveal some local connections. 

Thomas Murray’s 1903 “History of the Ninth Regiment C. V.” has documented the regiment’s action throughout the war from 1861-1865 and has now been added to Quinnipiac University’s website. Most recently an extensive collection of letters from Col Thomas Cahill belonging to Hamden resident, Charles Sibley, has been uncovered providing new insight into their history.

The Ninth, recruited from 71 different Connecticut towns and cities including Cheshire,left New Haven on November 4, 1861 for Camp Lowell, Massachusetts. As part of General Butler’s Army of the Gulf they were the second regiment to arrive the following month after a long sea voyage at Ship Island, Mississippi, a staging area for the blockade of the Gulf Coast and the eventual attack on New Orleans.

Ship Island was split in two by hurricane Camille in 1969 and damaged further by Katrina in 2005. According to Colonel Thomas Cahill’s April 2nd letter to his wife in New Haven, the Ninth was ordered to make preparations including four days of rations, all part of being sent on shore in response to a firing on a sloop, under a flag of truce.

The Ninth landed in Biloxi two days later and found the city unoccupied by Confederate soldiers. They soon discovered the general area where they were located and set sail for Pass Christian, some 20 miles away. It was there that the Ninth marched inland, surprised the Third Mississippi, drove them off after a brief fight and captured their regimental colors as well as a letter being written to a Confederate general, other valuable paperwork, arms and supplies.

They burned everything in their camp that couldn’t be carried away. Cahill wrote his wife, Margaret, afterward on April 8:

“The rough ninth have been trooping around the splendid summer residences of the southern aristocracy built upon the meanest of all foundations: the unwilling labor of the Black: and such beautiful places; Hillhouse Avenue is a beautiful place, well “Pass Christian” has a street 5 miles in length 3 miles of which is fringed with residences equal in many respects and though of a different architecture full as well built the grounds well kept and full of tropical plants such beautiful cactus in flower, such sweet flowering trees, such splendid hedges of evergreens and roses, fragrant and of all colors. O such a change from the bleak sands of Ship Island. ….. “

Cahill's letter continues:

"O such a hurrah our boys kicked up and such a bonfire. It was burned when I turned in on board the “Lewis” at 1 O Clock in the morning of that night when miles out in the sound it lit up the whole country and with such clarity that the inhabitants of Pass Christian did not know it was done. When we came they thought we’re going to get Licked. I cannot write any more at present. Good night.

Kiss the Babies for Me

Your Loving husband,            

Thos. W. Cahill”  

Cahill’s April 8 letter was written on paper taken from Confederate Colonel Mellon’s tent. The letterhead titled Camp Lovell, Bay Saint Louis, Miss. included a portrait of Jefferson Davis and the poem:  “Stand firmly by your Cannon, Let Ball and Grape-Shot fly, And Trust in God and Davis,  But keep your Powder dry”. In writing his wife, Cahill had crossed out the word Davis and with Irish sarcasm inserted the word Cromwell.