Philo Fuller Talcott (1835-1929) was a salesman in New York in the years leading up to the war. He married Caroline C. Hamilton in Connecticut 1858 and she died in childbirth in 1860. When the call for volunteers came from Connecticut Governor William Buckingham, Talcott enlisted as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 21st Connecticut Infantry. He served throughout the war and eventually attained the rank of Captain in October 1864. He mustered out with the regiment in June of 1865.
He remarried after the war and worked as a merchant, opening his first store Fuller & T in 1868. Talcott and his family moved to Chicago in the 1890s where he worked as a salesman. His second wife Louisa died in 1907 and Talcott moved to Rochester, New York where he lived with his daughter Caroline and her family.
In his later years, Talcott was known in Rochester as an affable veteran and would often be featured in local newspapers. He enjoyed relaying his war stories with reporters and often claiming that General Ulysses S. Grant was a third cousin on his mother’s side and speaking about the two occasions he saw Lincoln during the war. According to Talcott, he was present when the President visited Richmond, Virginia in April, 1865 and witnessed newly freed people falling at his feet. He also relayed a visit Lincoln made to the Fredericksburg battlefield where Talcott and another officer accompanied the President on a ride to see General Winfield Scott Hancock. He died in Rochester in October 1929.
