Connecticut's "Fighting Fourteenth"
Words and Music by Tom Callinan • © 2012 – CANNU YUSIC, LTD.

REFRAIN: The 14th C.V.I. filled first after Lincoln's call,
And in the war the 14th was the most engaged of all.
The 14th shed the most blood of Connecticut's regiments.
And the 14th C.V.I. is etched on many monuments.

From 1862 they served, through the Rebellion's end –
Mustered-in at Camp Foote, Hartford; and trained in Maryland.
Through D.C. they marched, and crossed the Potomac in August, '62;
Fighting thirty-four battles and skirmishes before the war was through.
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Connecticut's "Fighting Fourteenth" first entered in the fray
At the battle of Antietam, the bloodiest of any day ...
Behaving like veterans, the 14th made their stand
Where an obelisk may be seen today in Sharpsburg, Maryland.
REFRAIN

Across our blood-soaked land the 14th marched, fought, and bled,
With thousands of their countrymen, in their prime, struck-down and dead.
At Gettysburg, four sentinels of stone mark the locations
Where the 14th held the ridge, repelling Rebel infiltrations.
REFRAIN

A simple song would take too long to list all that they gave
To help reunite our nation, and emancipate the slaves.
They were there at Appomattox, where Lee gave Grant his sword,
And they returned home to Connecticut to help our land move forward.
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