As a whole, the regiment was a body thoroughly representative not only of the army of which it was a fraction, an army as has been often said unlike any other the world has known, but also of the population from which it was drawn. It was made up of men of almost all conditions of life and of widely different ages, though naturally with young men in a large majority; of mechanics from the Housatonic and Naugatuck valleys, and farmers' boys from the hills; of men of education and men of none. Though the large addition to its numbers which the increase in size necessitated made it perhaps somewhat less homogeneous than at first, it did not greatly alter its essential characteristics.
The records kept by the association referred to, furnish suggestive revelations as to the various elements that composed it. The names of men of every sort and kind are found upon the rolls. There were veterans of the Mexican War; there were refugees from the revolutionary uprisings in Europe of 1848; there were some who had served under compulsion in the armies of the South; there were men whose obviously fictitious names concealed stories which could be guessed to be extraordinary; there were names which have been for years among the best known and most honored in this state; and there were those of outcasts and wrecks.
A large part of these men came back after their service ended to resume the peaceful life of citizenship, and every town among us has known some of them ever since among its leading figures, while some in quarters far distant have also attained to honors and responsibilities, as the records show. Connecticut has known for many years no small number of them as foremost in all lines of activity, and knows to-day, in official station and in private life, men of many honors, who count not least among these the fact that they were enrolled among the soldiers of the Second Connecticut Heavy Artillery.
