Tag Archives: Civil War

Maine rail trail brushes against a Civil War memory

The grizzled, greatcoat-clad Union soldier stands watch over a Maine rail trail, and whether (depending on the season) bicycling, ATVing (“four-wheeling”), or snowmobiling by the veteran standing atop his pedestal, most passersby will not notice him. Only here in Corinna in western Penobscot County does a rail trail brush against a Civil War memory — […]

Civil War weekend in Augusta to highlight Appomattox surrender

The Confederate surrender at Appomattox Court House will be among the highlighted events as the Maine Living History Association stages “Appomattox and the Grand Review March” in August on Saturday-Sunday, June 27-28. Activities will take place at the 224-acre Viles Arboretum at 153 Hospital St. (Route 9) in Augusta. Hours for “Appomattox and the Grand […]

Meet the Heroes of Evergreen Cemetery: Part II

  Approximately 1,400 Civil War veterans — I call them “heroes,” if only because they fought to preserve our country — lie buried at Evergreen Cemetery on Stevens Avenue in Portland. On a recent sunny, warm summer’s day, Friends of Evergreen docent Lin Brown introduced me to about 50 of them. We toured the 239-acre […]

Meet the Heroes of Evergreen Cemetery: Part I

  Nowhere else in Maine can people meet so many Civil War veterans than at Evergreen Cemetery, located at 672 Stevens Ave., in Portland — — and through its well-organized docent tours, the Friends of Evergreen are anxious to make the introductions. Through the mid-19th century, burials gradually filled Eastern Cemetery and Western Cemetery in […]

Preserve the battlefields where the Maine boys fought

  Of the many places where Maine soldiers and sailors fought 150 years ago, some sites no longer exist. The 9th Maine Infantry “went in” with the 54th Massachusetts Infantry on the failed nighttime assault on Fort Wagner near Charleston in July 1863. By war’s end, the sea was already claiming Fort Wagner and the […]

Life in the Florida swamps

For the 11th Maine Infantry boys accustomed to relatively tame reptiles and bugs back home in the Pine Tree State, duty in the northeastern Florida swamps proved eye-opening. Boarding the steamer “Boston” at Beaufort, S.C. on Thursday, June 4, 1863, soldiers assigned to the 11th Maine headed south to Florida. “Daylight of the 5th found […]

Spring gales almost sank the 2nd Maine Cav

Two terrifying ocean storms almost turned a Confederate dream into reality in early spring 1864: wiping out some 300 Maine cavalrymen before they ever fired a shot. In mid-March, troopers from three 2nd Maine Cavalry Regiment companies — A, B, and D — started loading their horses aboard two transports docked at Portland. Orders called […]

Three bold Confederates strolled into a Calais bank

Fidgeting with his revolver earned George Foster a dubious and obscure footnote in Civil War history. By summer 1864, Confederate agents based in Canada dreamed and schemed about carrying the war to the Union home front. Still a British possession, Canada was a neutral territory across which Confederate and Union spies and counterspies danced — […]

Re-enlisting in Texas could get a soldier home to Maine

Did some 15th Maine Infantry Regiment boys re-enlist just to escape the ennui of Texas garrison life — and perhaps to desert after receiving Army-sanctioned leaves back home in Maine? By capturing New Orleans in April 1862 and blockading other Gulf of Mexico ports, the Navy sharply reduced Confederate capabilities to move freight east of […]

Brave Hampden captain shed his life for his country

  Henry Crosby suffered that hot June day as his comrades attempted desperately to save his life. Today only an engraved name on the Civil War monument in Hampden’s Locust Grove Cemetery recalls the unsung hero who meant so much to his men 150 years ago this year. A single man when he mustered into […]