Tag Archives: 10th Maine Infantry Regiment

Chickens don’t fly at Christmas

With Christmas 1862 approaching, relatives and friends of Maine soldiers serving far afield packed and shipped boxes filled with holiday goodies. Women knitted warm socks and mittens and cooked and baked food for their menfolk so far away. Everything went carefully into a wooden box carefully marked with its recipient’s name and address (if only […]

Don’t be a “Captain’s Pet”

A combat veteran from the 10th Maine Infantry Regiment passed along wise advice to a Maine recruit around the time of Antietam. An unidentified officer, the hard-bitten veteran apparently shared his wisdom sometime between the battles of Cedar Mountain and Antietam. Whether or not he survived the 10th Maine’s blood-letting in the East Woods is […]

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 […]

Soldier’s pet

After more than a year’s service in the Army of the Potomac, a combat veteran from Maine noticed that pets — animals of almost any kind — often turned even the most callous soldier a bit softer. Edmund J. Brookings, 23, had enlisted in Co. B, 16th Maine Infantry Regiment, on August 1, 1862. A […]

Maine soldiers had little time to enjoy historic Williamsport in Maryland

WILLIAMSPORT, Md. — Located just off traffic-plagued Interstate-81, this historic and lovely town on the Potomac River has multiple Civil War connections with Maine. Just for that reason alone, Williamsport would be worth the visit — and the sites encountered along the C&O Canal Towpath and the downtown shops only add to the experience. Many […]

Maine heroes believed that “merit was worth more than fame”

Some Maine soldiers did not know when to quit, and that attitude led them to spend some five years in a Union uniform during — and after — the Civil War. Of the 32 infantry regiments (not counting the 1st Veteran Volunteers formed in Virginia) that Maine sent to war, three were directly related in […]

A Maine at War exclusive: Recent construction mars 10th Maine Infantry site at Antietam

  The 21st century and weak conservation easements have overrun a battlefield where soldiers from the 10th Maine Infantry Regiment fought and bled on Sept. 17, 1862. Early on that far-off Wednesday, Col. George Beal led the 10th Maine boys into a bivouac on the George Line farm, located near the Smoketown Road several miles […]

Mud on the Mules

  Cold rain dripping from his campaign hat, Lt. Col. James “Jim” S. Fillebrown sat squarely in the saddle and watched the mucky chaos engulfing his 10th Maine Infantry Regiment on Wednesday, Jan. 21, 1863. Until three days earlier, Fillebrown and his men had spent the early winter camping near Fairfax Court House in Virginia. […]

Hang ’em, shoot ’em, just do something with ’em

After leaving his home to stroll through Portland on a pleasant June morning, John Mead Gould chased Confederate raiders, helped save innocent sailors from murder, and informed the Associated Press that the Civil War had come to Maine. All in all not a bad day’s work for a former soldier currently between battlefield gigs. Born […]