26th Regiment Connecticut Volunteeers

26th Regiment Connecticut Volunteeers. . ( inscribed around the obelisk ) June 14, 1863 · Port Hudson · May 27, 1863. ( south side ) Erected To the Memory of the 26th Regiment Conn. Volunteeer Infantry 26th Regt. Conn. Vols.. ( north side ) Total Membership 825 Casualties Killed In Action 52 Wounded 142 Died In Service 84. ( descriptive plaque ) Once upon a time in Norwich… the 26th Regiment Connecticut Volunteers formed. The members were all from Eastern Connecticut. During the Civil War, 194 of them were killed or wounded in one day. This monument is to their memory. There is no single event in the history of Eastern Connecticut that was more tragic than the Battle of Port Hudson fought on May 27th, 1863. Port Hudson was strategic to the Confederate strategy and was the backdoor for providing supplies and ammunition. The great ports of Charleston, South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia were blockaded, thus supplies moved up the Mississippi and overland. It was a time prior to the Battle of Gettysburg and Vicksburg. There were 557 men in the 26th Regiment, and on that single day, in the heat of the state of Louisiana, on the banks of the Mississippi, 52 were killed and 142 wounded. The casualty rate was 30%; worse than the Battle of Iwo Jima or Invasion of Normandy during World War II. This Memorial Plaque is sponsored by The Waitte Insurance Agency.