According
to the New York Evening Post of September 4, 1862, the Seventeenth Connecticut
Regiment “left New York for a seat of war” on the previous evening. Having been
organized on August 28, the unit was assigned to garrison duty until it
participated in the famous “Mud March” of January 1863. A mid-winter storm left
Virginia roads of “shocking” condition.
Among
the privates who made up the regiment was inventor Elias Howe. At that time,
the sewing machine he perfected was widely pirated in England and Europe, but
Howe was not generally known. When his improved sewing machine won a gold medal
at the Paris Exposition in 1867, the ground was laid for his later induction
into the American Hall of Fame.
