The "Twenty-Seventh": A Regimental History

by Winthrop Dudley Sheldon

The blessing of his quiet life

Was in his every look.

We read his face as one that reads

A true and holy book.”

JEDEDIAH CHAPMAN, Jr.,
Captain of Company H.

Death singled out another shining mark when Captain Chapman fell in the fore-front of battle, on the same afternoon that beheld the close of Colonel Merwin’s life. Two congenial spirits in nobility and worth together passed to the land of immortality on that day of death’s high carnival.

Jedediah Chapman, Jr., was born in New-Haven, November twenty-first, 1839. Like Colonel Merwin, he was a member of the New-Haven Grays at the opening of the war, and accompanied them to the field as a private in the three months’ service. When the Twenty-seventh was being recruited under the call for nine months’ troops, he took hold of the work with vigor, and was in great part instrumental in raising Company H, of which he was chosen First Lieutenant. During more than one third of the campaign he had command of the company, and to his exertions and military experience its efficiency was largely due. Amid the terrors of that disastrous day at Fredericksburg, no one acquitted himself with greater bravery and coolness than Lieutenant Chapman. In consequence of protracted sickness during the spring of 1863, he did not participate in the battle of Chancellorsville, and thus escaped the fate of the regiment. But it was a great disappointment to him not to be with his men, and share with them the vicissitudes of the campaign. By reason of the disaster to the Twenty-seventh in that battle, only two companies of the regiment remained in the field, with a few remnants of those which were captured. These scattering portions were formed into one company, and Lieutenant Chapman was placed in command. His peculiar qualifications of discipline and character contributed much to their unity and effectiveness during the succeeding campaign of Gettysburg; and at their head he fell on the second of July, 1863. His commission as Captain of Company H, dated May thirteenth, 1863, had been already issued and forwarded; but he did not live to know of this well-deserved honor.

Much that has already been said of Colonel Merwin might, with equal propriety, be applied to Captain Chapman. He was an officer well known, and highly esteemed, not only in his own company, but throughout the regiment. He possessed in a peculiar degree all the elements which constitute an efficient, and yet popular, commander. In all his relations, he manifested a genial frankness of manner, a conscientiousness of purpose, and keen sense of justice, which at once gained universal confidence and regard. He was one of the most unassuming of men, and yet in that soul burned a depth of devotion to duty, and a power of noble action, which seemed to require the stern, trying scenes of war to bring them forth in their original strength and glory. So long as the campaign of the Twenty-seventh lives in the memory of those who participated in it, so long will the members of Company H cherish the name and reputation of their beloved commander, Jedediah Chapman.