Chauncey S. Aldrich (1833-1909)

(Second from the Left)

Chauncey S. Aldrich was born in New York state in 1833 and taught at an academy before being admitted to the New York bar. When the Civil War broke out he immediately organized a volunteer company of which he was captain. He served throughout the war, part of the time as a prisoner in the infamous Libby, Andersonville, and other Confederate prisons. Escaping from prison, Aldrich was pursued by bloodhounds but managed to get to Union lines and return to service. When the war ended he was a major. He moved to Illinois and went into the mercantile business. In 1884 he came to Colorado to help build up the San Luis Valley agriculturally, and found Monte Vista and the San Luis Valley Graphic..

  At twenty-seven he enlisted as a first lieutenant of Company "B" Eighty-fifth New York Infantry.Chauncey S. Aldrich joined the Union Army as a 1st Lieutenant on August 26, 1861 in Canandaigua, New York at the age of 27 according to American Civil War Soldiers. He later was adjutant of the regiment for a few months, and finally was promoted to Captain of Company “B”.

  The Eighty-fifth New York was part of the troops garrisoning the Union fort at Plymouth, North Carolina, on the Roanoke River. On April 17, Confederate troops launched an attack to retake the town and fort, long held by the enemy. On April 19 the great Confederate ironclad battleship Albemarle, under Commander Cooke, closed in on the Union ships and fort, sank the U.S.S. Smithfield, and drove away the smaller defending Union ships. The heavily outnumbered Union troops held to their fort until all hope was lost. Aldrich and his fellow officers handed over their swords to their Confederate captors, and the regiment laid down their weapons. For the Eighty-fifth New York the fighting was over, but not the dying. The 478 enlisted men were marched to train cars, where they were carried to Georgia and the infamous Andersonville Prison. Here, in less than a year, over half of them died. The twenty-two officers were more fortunate. They were sent south to Charleston and Columbia, South Carolina. Captain Aldrich was taken to Columbia, South Carolina, and put in a prison compound. Here he escaped on October 11th..   One month and three days later he reported for duty in Knoxville, Tennessee.

  Captain D. A. Langworth of the Eighty-fifth wrote a book entitled “Reminiscences of a Prisoner of War and His Escape”. Not only did Langworth know Aldrich, they escaped together! Here is a whole book on the perils and narrow escapes of Aldrich, Langworth, and three other officers, which included a photograph of the five taken just after their escape over the mountains of North Carolina into Union-held Tennessee. He was mustered out as a major at the end of a three-year enlistment on December 16, 1864.

Aldrich was active in the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) and took an energetic part in the effort to get the Colorado Soldiers' and Sailors' Home located in Monte Vista. He was persuaded to become commander of the home. Six years later, the Denver Post, in reporting his death, commented:

Among the amenities Aldrich added to the home were gardens, a dairy, a reading room, a billiard hall, conservatories,and an apiary. He had resigned as commander of the home and planned to say farewell at Memorial Day exercises.

C.S. Aldrich died at 2 a.m., May 21, 1909, after a two-day illness. Said the Denver Post: He died at his post, in harness, and this was the way he probably would have ordered it."

Two of Aldrich's young daughters died in a January 1885, scarlet fever epidemic, blamed by the Graphic on "the carelessness of one who ought to have known better than to do as he did." Another Aldrich daughter was Effie Aldrich Newcomb, remembered as a San Luis Valley historian and "poetess." She wrote the Rio Grande County Chapter in the press association's 1938 "Who's Who."