the Ninth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers - the Irish Brigade

In 1862, during the US Civil War, the plan of the Union was to dig a canal in a Mississippi River oxbow beyond Vicksburg to bypass Confederate batteries. Connecticut’s Irish Regiment began to dig, but conditions and disease nearly wiped out the men. Bob Larkin (New Haven IHRT, Hartford Civil War Round Table  www.htfdcivilwarroundtable.org  ) was the driving force behind the erecting of a monument to the Ninth Regiment, Connecticut Volunteers in honor of their efforts in the Union siege on Vicksburg. He told us the story of the regiment, and the lives of the men before and after their time spent in service. He also brought a model of the structure residing in Vicksburg National Park.