Civil War
With the advent of the American Civil War, De Forest returned to the United States. As a captain in the Union Army, he organized a company from New Haven, the 12th Connecticut Volunteers. He served constantly in the field until January 1865, taking an active part under Maj. Gen. Godfrey Weitzel's command in the southwestern states, and under Philip Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley.
Graphic descriptions of battle scenes in Louisiana, and of Sheridan's battles in the valley of the Shenandoah, were published in Harper's Monthly during the war by Major De Forest, who was present on all the occasions thus mentioned, and though experiencing forty-six days under fire, received but one trifling wound.
De Forest mustered out from the volunteer army in 1865 with the brevet rank of major.
Read more about this topic: John William De Forest
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