Two Union officers stayed at Richmond’s Libby Prison in autumn and early winter 1862. Or was it the same Libby Prison? In its Oct. 17, 1862 issue, the Belfast-published Republican Journal ran a “Narrative of Released Prisoners,” a wire report dated October 9 out of Washington, D.C. The first paragraph introduced Capt. F.G. Young, “direct […]
A Civil War walking tour of Mount Hope Cemetery in Bangor will kick off Drums on the Penobscot: A Civil War Experience, slated to be held Friday-Sunday, July 28-30 in Bangor. Led by historian Ryan Hews and titled Soldiers at Rest, the Civil War walking tour will begin at 6 p.m., Friday, July 28. Visitors […]
The price of war came home to Kenduskeag during late winter 1863. In August 1862, brothers Leonard E. Kenneston and Thomas E. Kenneston left Kenduskeag to join Co. H, 16th Maine Infantry Regiment. Their mother, Julia, had died two years earlier; their 65-year-old father, Thomas Beath Kenneston, did not want his only sons to join […]
Edwin Batchelder ran away and lived — but he should have died. John Ayer stayed and died — but he should have lived. Thus occurred the tale of two captains at Fredericksburg. Hailing from Augusta, Batchelder (also spelled “Bachelder”) raised Co. B for the 3rd Maine Infantry Regiment and, as a captain, led it […]
The 16th Maine boys know that if they charge those distant hills, they will die. So do the Johnnies awaiting them. And today, just 12 days before Christmas 1862, there can’t be a more miserable place to die than on these muddy farm fields about 2 miles downriver from a Virginia town called Fredericksburg. […]
