Tag Archives: John Day Smith

Bath taxes the rich to recruit 90 soldiers

Known as the City of Ships, Bath on the lower Kennebec River already swarmed with soldiers when Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton issued General Order No. 94 on August 4, 1862. The order called for the loyal states to draft 300,000 militia for nine months’ service in the army. On Tuesday, July 8, Maine […]

Mainers endured the “ominous silence” prior to Pickett’s Charge

As the eastern horizon barely paled on Friday, July 3, 1863, the 19th Maine Infantry lads shifted their position north “fifty-eight rods [858 feet], a little to the left of the copse of trees,” said Sgt. Silas Adams, Co. F. He referred to a scrub-oak grove clumped high on Cemetery Ridge’s western slope, near the […]

Will the real John Smith please stand up?

NEW YORK, N.Y. — With kudos to a TV game show popular with Americans during the 1950s and 1960s … Whispers ripple through the live audience seated at Studio 54 on W. 54th St. as host Bud Collyer steps on stage at 7 p.m., Monday, December 18, 1865.1 Dressed elegantly despite the cold winter swirling […]

Artillery pounds 19th Maine lads prior to Pickett’s Charge

Twenty-two when he mustered as a corporal with Company I, 19th Maine Infantry Regiment on August 25, 1862, Edgar A. Burpee displayed leadership skills that saw him promoted to first lieutenant by summer 1863. Midcoast men filled Company I, commanded on the march north to Gettysburg by Capt. George D. Smith of Rockland. The towns […]

A long day’s tramp to Gettysburg, part 2

Their brogans and socks soaked after fording a stream, the 19th Maine Infantry lads tramped onward through the afternoon on Monday, June 29, 1863. The miles fell away across Maryland — and suddenly the regiment (Col. Francis Heath) and 1st Brigade (Brig. Gen. William Harrow) and 2nd Division (Brig. Gen. John Gibbon) led II Corps […]

A long day’s tramp to Gettysburg, part 1

As Part 1 noted, Pvt. John Day Smith would always remember Monday, June 29, 1863, when the 19th Maine Infantry Regiment “set out on the longest day’s march in its history.” From Litchfield in Androscoggin County, Smith belonged to Co. F, which would provide a rogue’s gallery of regimental historians long before the last 19th […]

J.E.B. Stuart kills a Mainer

  Editor’s note: This is the 400th post published by Maine at War Was it something in the apples the 19th Maine boys stole? Was it because they joined a mob in raiding a “friendly” sutler? Or was it simply a lucky shot by a Confederate gunner? Whatever the reason — bad luck, divine retribution […]

Lottery winner catches the Maine-bound boat

However badly that Joseph Hooker blew the Battle of Chancellorsville, an order he issued on January 30, 1863 went over very well with the Army of the Potomac’s rank-and-file. “Orders were given on January 30th from the headquarters of the army that furloughs might be granted for fifteen days to one regimental and two line […]

Al Williams escapes a Gettysburg grave, part 1

President Abraham Lincoln delivers his 271-word “Gettysburg Address” during the Nov. 19, 1863 dedication of the new Soldiers’ National Cemetery under development on Cemetery Hill in Gettysburg. (National Park Service) Despite some 8 inches of snow dropped by what the Weather Fools dubbed “Winter Storm Avery” (real people don’t name snowstorms), the 155th anniversary of […]

Emancipation: Criticize Abe Lincoln at your own peril

A Phippsburg officer learned the hard way that shooting his mouth off about presidential policy (i.e., the Emancipation Proclamation) was a real bad idea. William H. Wheeler, publisher of the Bangor-based Daily Whig & Courier, reported on January 2, 1863 that “there are now three regiments of colored troops and 150 [men in a] heavy […]