Category Archives: Maine’s role

Confederate cat kills a Maine soldier

The last Confederate that Corp. Nahum H. Hall ever thought could kill him was an angry tabby, perhaps Sgt. Puss N. Boots, First Florida Feline Regiment. Hall, a Rockland resident, was 33 when he enlisted as a private in in Co. G, 28th Maine Infantry Regiment, a nine-month regiment that mustered at Camp E.D. Keyes […]

Bath taxes the rich to recruit 90 soldiers

Known as the City of Ships, Bath on the lower Kennebec River already swarmed with soldiers when Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton issued General Order No. 94 on August 4, 1862. The order called for the loyal states to draft 300,000 militia for nine months’ service in the army. On Tuesday, July 8, Maine […]

The Confederate standing watch at Frankfort, Kentucky

They were Americans who later called themselves Confederates. Killed in battle or by wounds, disease, or old age, they lie together for eternity, their graves placed circularly within the obscure Confederate Cemetery in the 100-acre Frankfort Cemetery in Frankfort, Kentucky. And they lie almost forgotten, except by Civil War buffs or those descendants remembering distant […]

The ultimate in Civil War cruises is scheduled for 2024

David Glasgow Farragut would be jealous! If you’re a Civil War buff who’s also “into” cruising, American Cruise Lines has got the ultimate dream excursion for you! Based in Guilford, Connecticut, ACL announced on May 22 “a new cruise that visits nearly every major battlefield of the Civil War.” The 35-day Civil War Battlefields Cruise […]

Nurse Abba Goddard hears mention of the 10th Maine, part 4

Maine at War celebrates Women’s History Month with a four-part tale about nurse Abba Goddard and her adventures at Harpers Ferry during the Antietam Campaign. You can read part 1 here, part 2 here, and part 3 here. Cheers erupted (and probably echoed) across Harpers Ferry as civilians and paroled Union soldiers saw that “our […]

Nurse Abba Goddard meets hard-bitten Confederates at Harpers Ferry, part 3

Maine at War celebrates Women’s History Month with a four-part tale about nurse Abba Goddard and her adventures at Harpers Ferry during the Antietam Campaign. You can read part 1 here, part 2 here, and part 4 here. Named matron of the Clayton General Hospital in Harpers Ferry in summer 1862, Maine nurse Abba Goddard […]

New Brunswick men bolstered the Union ranks during the Civil War

Maine sent approximately 73,000 men into the army to fight during the Civil War, but not all those recruits hailed only from the Pine Tree State. In fact, “over 2,400 New Brunswick-born men enlisted in the State of Maine,” says Canadian historian and Civil War re-enactor Larry Burden. He and his wife live in St. […]

Charged up to fight: 4th Maine Battery “sees the elephant” at Cedar Mountain” — Part III

Yelling at his men, Capt. O’Neil W. Robinson Jr. hurtled his 4th Maine Battery across country as they approached a Union firing line about 8 miles southwest of Culpeper, Va. on Saturday, Aug. 9, 1862. Riding on caissons and limbers or running alongside the horse-drawn artillery, the Maine men sweated profusely as they approached the […]

Levant soldier followed Greeley’s advice to “go West, young man”

  As did so many other Maine soldiers, a 19-year-old cavalryman from Levant who helped shove Confederate troops from their Petersburg defenses discovered that greater economic opportunity lay elsewhere than Maine after the Civil War. Born in Levant on December 6, 1845, Perley Lowe grew up in a decidedly rural Maine. Most men found employment […]

The 5th Maine Infantry’s “galvanized Rebel” — Part II

After Confederate troops captured William Frederick Irwin of the 5th Maine Infantry Regiment at Spotsylvania Courthouse in mid-May 1864, he was soon shipped to a prison camp at Salisbury, N.C. “This was a nasty place,” according to Maine historian Curt Mildner. The prisoners suffered from malnutrition, lack of clothing and shelter, disease, and sadistic guards […]