Sound the loud timbrel...

As word spread of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation on that cold New Year's Day of 1863, black and white abolitionists gathered in the North and in areas of the Union-occupied South to celebrate and praise God. "Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea, Jehovah hath triumphed, his people are free" became the most popular hymn among freedmen and former slaves. What specifically, did emancipation mean for  black men in the town of Winchester, CT?

Prior to the Emancipation, ironically at the very battle that allowed President Lincoln to announce his preliminary Emancipation, a black man from Torrington who signed up in Winchester was killed in the bloodbath of Antietam. Over the next year, the political  and social ramifications of arming black men would rise to the fore at the Connecticut State House and through every city and town in Connecticut. 

Thomas M. Clarke, abolitionist editor of the Winsted Herald was originally aghast at the idea claiming that the subservience of black men would make them poor soldiers. He stated " our word for it, all the battles fought by negroes will be lost; all the forts garrisoned by them will be captured; and all the weapons placed in their hands will be considerably worse than thrown away, for the enemy will get them, cheap, and turn them against us."

In August of 1862, an unidentified person from Winsted, wrote to Governor William Buckingham telling him that he was asked, apparently, numerous times by black men who wish to be enlisted in a regiment of black men. The governor carefully worded his reply that a black regiment being introduced into a white brigade would create "so much unpleasant feeling and irritation that more evil than good would result."

Clarke moved away from his former position, ever so slightly, to align himself with the governor, "there is in many regiments an almost unanimous aversion to that kind of negro equality which must exist when both are brought into camp and into battle together."

By December 12, 1862 some black troops had been used and General Butler and General Saxton lauded the armed former slaves. Saxton was quoted as saying "they are obedient to orders, vigorous in attack, and in battle they are trumps", adding that " I have always been a Democrat", as was Butler, " and I am not now an abolitionist, but I cannot help acknowledging the valor and capacity of these men. I tell you they would finish up the war themselves if they were given the opportunity to do it..."

At this point, agreement was coming together. On May 22, 1863, the official order-General Order #143 was issued giving details on how the United States Colored Troops would be organized (some states like Massachusetts were allowed to start recruiting earlier). Although Buckingham started recruiting in August, the State House did not give its approval until November 1863. Many black men did not wait for Connecticut to begin recruiting, enlisting in Massachusetts-and in the case of black Winchester patriots-enlisting in Rhode Island.

 Eventually 10% of all enlisted men in the Union army were black. They would suffer incredible casualties due to the Southern position that blacks were not to be taken prisoner and to the Northern use of black troops as skirmishers on the front lines. Disease also took a heavy toll. Of the 6 black men currently identified- only 2 survived the war in their segregated brigades, however,  in death their names are integrated with those of their white comrades-in-arms on the Soldiers' Monument.

William Coggswell                              Henry Dee
Edward Hazzard                                 Edward Dolphin 
Lewis Hazzard                                    James Dolphin