Fredrickburg

Bartlett Ellsworth - Civil War Soldier

Alice Elmore Putney's grandfather, Bartlett Ellsworth, was a farmer on Ellsworth Hill in Wentworth NH. According to a story told to Hazel Wall by an elderly Wentworth resident when she was a young girl in the early 1900s, a recruiter came to Wentworth after harvest time in the fall of 1862. He rounded up the male residents and told them that they could help their country and help their families by signing up for the New Hampshire Infantry. The war was just about over, he told them, and it would be just a mopping up operation. They would have a little adventure and then be back in time for Spring with money in their pockets. Bartlett signed up along with his brother Benjamin and several other Wentworth residents.

After traveling to Washington, he ended up at the First battle of Fredericksburg in December of that year. He died a few days after the main battle on December 22, 1862, in a regimental hospital at Potomac Creek VA. His brother was wounded and permanently disabled at the same battle, probably as a result of bombing of a pontoon bridge descibed in the regimental reports of the battle. At least 10 other Wentworth residents died in the Civil War including Thomas J. Ellsworth (Died of wounds May, 1863) and Jason Ellsworth (Typhoid Fever, June 24, 1864).

Nancy Batchelder Ellsworth was left to raise four young children on a small veteran's pension and whatever she could grow on their little farm. She put up a stone for Bartlett Ellsworth in the Foster Cemetery in South Wentworth NH with his name on it, birth and death dates and where he was buried; and after her death, her name was added to it. Bartlett was buried in the Fredericksburg Military Cemetery which is behind the current vistor's center in Fredericksburg VA.

Regimental Reports of 12th New Hampshire Infantry at First Battle of Fredericksberg

Fredericksburg Military Cemetery