Tag Archives: Abraham Lincoln

The right man at the right time for governor — Part I

  New Year’s Day 1863 gets some attention in American history books because the Emancipation Proclamation took affect that Thursday. But what happened six days later, on Wednesday, January 7? Not much on the national level, Civil War-wise, but a momentous event took place at the State House in Augusta. Maine’s first wartime governor, the […]

Reports of My Death are Greatly Exaggerated: Joshua Chamberlain

Selden E. Connor had already earned his brigadier general’s stars when shot and seriously wounded at The Wilderness on May 6, 1864. Back home in Maine, the promotion seemed a proper reward for a man who soon gave his life for his country … according to inaccurate reports. Despite attempts by generals Gouvernor K. Warren […]

June 11 online auction to include many Civil War-related items

 Maine at War exclusive President Abraham Lincoln could not conceive while penning a letter to Postmaster General Montgomery Blair on November 2, 1863, that because of the presidential signature signed on the bottom of page 2, the document would one day fetch a starting bid of  $30,000 during a 21st-century auction. And when Gen. Robert […]

Appomattox Road: “Forever better, Lincoln dead, than Davis living!” — Chamberlain and his men mourn Lincoln

  Finally convinced that his vengeance-seeking soldiers would not pillage and rape their way through the hapless post-Confederacy residents of  Farmville, Va., Brig. Gen. Joshua L. Chamberlain joined his men in doing what they really wanted to do: mourning the murdered President Abraham Lincoln. Expressions of mourning were handled differently in 1865 than 2015, especially […]

A deserter’s fate, Part I: Even the Confederates didn’t want him

  Bad boy Albert H. Lunt could do no good, so 12 Union soldiers shot him dead at Hilton Head on Monday, Dec. 1, 1862. And in case they missed, another dozen armed soldiers waited to use Lunt for target practice. Assigned to Co. I, 9th Maine Infantry Regiment, Lunt seemed destined to pay for […]

If only Andrew Bean’s trunk could talk

  Sometimes we can almost reach across history and “touch” a Civil War veteran. At least with Andrew Derby Bean from Brooks, we can touch the trunk that he took to war in spring 1861, and if only that trunk could talk, If only the trunk owned by Andrew Derby Bean could talk, the war […]

A bad day for the Lincolns

  Friendly (gun)fire was “heard” as far away as Washington, D.C. after Confederate troops advanced to attack the 14th Maine Infantry Regiment and other Union units at Baton Rouge, La. on Aug. 5, 1862. On July 7, Col. Frank S. Nickerson led the green 14th Maine ashore at Baton Rouge after an uneventful steamboat cruise […]

Answering the call

After Abraham Lincoln asked the loyal states to send more men to fight the Confederacy in early summer 1862, the War Department requested that Maine raise four additional infantry regiments. That meant Maine would send 4,000 men (at 1,000 men per regiment). With 15 infantry regiments already sent to far-flung battlefields, Maine would create the […]

The 2nd Maine Infantry charges onto Henry House Hill at Manassas

    The importance of the battle fought at Manassas, Va. on July 21, 1861 cannot be over-emphasized.Two amateur armies – with the South’s better led and the North’s better equipped – fought a daylong battle across the rolling terrain that borders the Warrenton Pike north of Manassas. The amateur soldiers fought in stifling heat […]