Chapter 14

JOHN LYMAN CHATFIELD: AN OXFORD BOY WHO BECAME A COLONEL

    John Lyman Chatfield was born on September 18,1826 in Oxford, the son of Pulaski and Amanda Tibbals Chatfield of Oxford. He spent his boyhood in Oxford and was educated in the public schools. He had a brother, Benjamin Pulaski Chatfield, who became a mason and worked on the first high school building in Waterbury. This brother went into business for himself and built the Church of the Immaculate Conception and St. John's Waterbury.
    The Chatfield brothers moved from Oxford to Waterbury when John was 25 years old. When he arrived in Waterbury he joined the City Guard, and was eventually made first lieutenant, an office he held until the attack on Fort Sumter.
    At the call of President Lincoln for his first group of 75,000 men, Chatfield volunteered, along with his entire company, for service. It was one of the first troops to be accepted by the governor. He was promoted to the rank major, and in June of 1861 was made colonel of the Third Connecticut Regiment. He served for three months in this group, as enlisted of three month's volunteers. At that time, very few, if any, people thought that the war would last longer than three months.
    Lieut. Colonel Chatfield was transferred from the First Regiment to the Third to be commissioned as Colonel, after the resignation of Colonel John Arnold. The historians of the Record of Connecticut Men In the War of the Rebellion, had the following to say of Chatfield's service in the Third Regiment:
    "Colonel Chatfield had the advantage of long experience as a militia officer, was an excellent drill-master and disciplinarian and knew not how to tolerate insubordination in any form. Lieut-Colonel Brady considered that the commissioning of Colonel Chatfield over himself in the Third Regiment was a violation by the governor of the current regulations and usages of the State militia, and refused to recognize Colonel Chatfield as his superior. For this