Tag Archives: 20th Maine Infantry

20th Maine: A warrior goes to glory, a bastard to prison, part 3

As the 20th Maine fought at Little Round Top, Pvt. George Washington Buck stood in the Co. H firing line. Buck had been a sergeant until the regiment’s bastard quartermaster, 1st Lt. Alden Litchfield, had physically assaulted the sick Buck in camp and then reported him for insubordination. The 20th Maine’s colonel, Adelbert Ames, had […]

Hell dumps a bastard on the 20th Maine, part 2

Among the privates assigned to Co. H, 20th Maine Infantry, was Theodore Gerrish, a 5-11, teen-aged farmer from Falmouth. Born in New Brunswick, he would become the 20th Maine’s first official historian, publishing his memoirs 17 years after the war. Gerrish remembered Sgt. George Washington Buck of Linneus as “a young man … a brave, […]

20th Maine: the warrior and the bastard, part 1

His gray eyes peering through swirling gunsmoke, Pvt. George Washington Buck loaded and fired as fast as possible as Alabamians raged against the 20th Maine Infantry Regiment’s left flank on July 2, 1863. Numbering three officers, five sergeants, five corporals, and 33 privates, Buck’s Co. H reported to Capt. Joseph F. Land, a black-eyed merchant […]

History’s fog obscures Freeport’s Anderson Brewer Jr.

On Veterans Day 2020, let history’s bright sunlight clear away the light fog surrounding a Maine hero buried at Antietam. There stands at Woodlawn Cemetery in Freeport a gray-granite monolith (now tilted a few degrees off perpendicular) dedicated on one side to “Anderson Brewer Jr.,” a private in Co. K, 20th Maine Infantry Regiment, “Died […]

That was my last picket line

Notified in mid-July 1865 that they would soon muster out, some 20th Maine lads looked forward to drinking their way home. Col. Ellis Spear quickly put the kibosh to that idea. He realized that when the War Department had called for infantry regiments in summer 1862, surgeons did not examine recruits “in the matter of […]

Joshua Chamberlain goes on a strange tramp

Note: This post is adapted from the wartime biography of Joshua L. Chamberlain that I am writing for Emerging Civil War. Not content to let his battered soldiers rest after Fredericksburg, Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside sent an entire division, including Lt. Col. Joshua L. Chamberlain and the 20th Maine Infantry, on a weird cross-country tramp […]

Gettysburg Burning

Why was Gettysburg burning? Had Confederate Brig. Gen. John McCausland burned the town down as effectively as he did nearby Chambersburg in late July 1864? Not quite. Smoke still wisped amidst the now ashen undergrowth as I stepped onto the summit of Little Round Top on Wednesday, April 12. Brilliant redbud blossoms had brightened the “back […]

His hometown of Hodgdon extends a hero’s funeral to Jewett Williams – Part 1

Jewett B. Williams, late of Co. H of the 20th Maine Infantry Regiment, received a hearty welcome as he came marching home to his native Hodgdon on Saturday, Sept. 24. Approximately 200 people greeted Jewett — he’s on a first-name basis in this southern Aroostook County town — as he rolled into Hodgdon Mills thunderously […]

Would Jewett Williams like chicken McNuggets with his Happy Meal?

An inquisitive 4-year-old Mainer wonders if Jewett Williams, the Maine Civil War veteran whose peripatetic journey from Oregon to Maine has garnered attention internationally, would like chicken McNuggets from McDonald’s. If not, would Jewett at least want a Happy Meal? A few days before Jewett arrived at Kittery, Maine Patriot Guards ride captain Mike Edgecomb […]

Burial of returned Civil War vet Jewett Williams will shift from Togus to Hodgdon

  Apparently abandoned by his immediate family after his death in 1922, Maine Civil War veteran Jewett Williams has been commandeered by distant relatives prior to his burial in 2016 … … and the volunteers responsible for respectfully transporting his cremains from Oregon to Maine are unhappy about the bombshell dropped during today’s ceremony honoring […]