YouTube – A Soldier’s Welcome: The Forlorn Soldier Comes Home

On September 18, 2013, 150 years after the battle of Antietam, hundreds of Nutmeggers gathered at the Connecticut State Capitol to pay their respects to the Forlorn Soldier. Just days before, the soldier was placed in his permanent home within the building that James Batterson contructed as a shrine to the Civil War generation. The Forlorn Soldier, now protected from the elements, joined other relics commemorating the Civil War. These artifacts include a statue of Civil War Governor William Buckingham and a collection of wartime battle flags.

Mariano Brothers Specialty Moving of Bethel, Connecticut, facilitated the statue’s move and ConservArt of Hamden, Connecticut, supervised it. Donald E. Williams Jr., senate president pro tempore, Linda Schwartz, commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Veterans Affairs, Peter G. Kelly, proprietor of the statue, and political and constitutional historian Matthew Warshauer, all spoke at the ceremony.

Anthony Roy is a regional historian and social studies teacher at Connecticut River Academy whose work related to the Forlorn Soldier was completed as a part of his candidacy for a master’s in public history from Central Connecticut State University and as a part of the Connecticut Civil War Commemoration Commission’s efforts to study and inspire awareness of the American Civil War and Connecticut’s involvement in it.

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