Southold - "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure." These are the words spoken by President Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863.

Pvt. Augustus B. Bennett, 127th New York Infantry, Company K. (Courtesy Photo: NY State Military Museum)

Today, April 12, 2011, marks the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, which lasted four bloody, disparaging years, led to the loss of 620,000 lives, and divided this great nation, leaving scars that are still present to this day. In terms of loss of life, the Civil War was the costliest war in U.S. history, far surpassing the Revolutionary War and the Vietnam War.

While the battle never touched Long Island soil, Long Island as a whole, and particularly the East End, played an important role in fighting for the Union. More than 500,000 New Yorkers served in the Army and Navy during the Civil War. Of those, 53, 114 died. The same streets we walk today on the North and South Forks, were once walked by Civil War soldiers who defended the Union in its valiant cause of putting an end to slavery. They were whalers, farmers, fisherman, fathers, brothers and husbands; and their legacy has endured for a century and half since the battle began.

The war began after Confederate troops fired on a U.S. military installation at Fort Sumter, South Carolina on April 12 1861. In response to this, Lincoln issued a call for 300,000 new, three year volunteers to serve for the Union. It didn't take long for East Enders to rally and join the war effort, many of them joining the 127th New York Regiment, which began serving on September 10, 1862.

The regiment was comprised of six companies in New York City, one company in Brooklyn and three companies on Long Island. Company H was made up of soldiers from Greenport, Southold, Mattituck, Orient and Cutchogue on the North Fork, while Company K was made up of soldiers from Sag Harbor, East Hampton, Riverhead, Southampton and Bridgehampton on the South Fork.

The regiment was commanded by Colonel William Gurney, Lieutenant Colonel's Stewart L. Woodford and Edward H. Little, and Majors Edward H. Little and Frank K. Smith. One Sag Harbor woman named Adelaide Renken, served as a nurse with the 127th regiment.

The 127th New York Regiment marched to Washington, DC with 1000 untrained men, in order to defend the city from General Lee and his army after they crossed the Potomac River. The regiment, nicknamed "The Monitors" throughout the war, was also sometimes referred to as "The Clamdiggers," a nickname originally directed toward the South Fork boys of Company K.

In April of 1864, the regiment moved to Morris Island, where the Long Island boys of company D, E and K patrolled swamps and streams as part of a boat infantry. In October 1864, they were transferred to Beaufort, SC. Their first major engagement took place on November 30, 1864 at the Battle of Honey Hill.

The 127th Battle Flag. (Courtesy Photo: NY Military Museum)

For more than two months after this engagement, they marched up the railroad line until they finally reached the devastated city of Charleston on February 26, 1865. After just under three years of service, the 127th regiment returned to Long Island on June 30, 1865, with 132 dead, 18 missing, 111 surviving wounded, and 100 discharged due to poor health.

Aside from the men serving in the 127th New York Regiment, there were many other East End connections during the Civil War. Famed Reverend Lyman Beecher was the pastor of the East Hampton Church between 1799 and 1809, before moving to Litchfield, CT.

His daughter Harriet Beecher Stowe would go on to author what is now viewed as a National Treasure, the anti-slavery novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin." The book has been credited with definitively turning the North against the practice of slavery, and it is said that upon meeting Stowe, Lincoln said, "So this is the little lady who started the war."

Julia Gardiner Tyler, a member of the famed Gardiner's family, who served as First Lady to President John Tyler became a southern sympathizer, and as a result was unable to inherit Gardiner's Island.

In Sag Harbor, it was local sailors and vessels that played a significant role in the Civil War. The steamer Massachusetts from Sag Harbor served as a transport for Union supply lines. The vessel was chartered by the government in 1861 to ship troops and supplies between Fortress Monroe, Virginia and Annapolis, Maryland.

In December 1861, the U.S. government bought several old whaling vessels from Sag Harbor and New England, including the Timor and Emerald, filled them with rocks, and brought them to Charleston Harbor. The ships were known as the "stone fleet." In Southold, the Southold hotel was used as an enlistment center - 120 men enlisted from Southold in 1862 alone.

On this day, it is our hope that American's participate in an honest remembrance of the history of the Civil War. It was the war that freed four million Americans from slavery. It was the war that changed the nation and shaped it into what it is today. It was the war that indefinitely settled an issue of grammar, when America's collective tone changed from "the United States are" to "the United States is."