Tag Archives: John Sedgwick

Heat and rain plagued the 5th Maine Infantry’s march to Gettysburg

At Chancellorsville the 5th Maine Infantry Regiment had fought with the 2nd Brigade (Brig. Gen. Joseph J. Bartlett), 1st Division (Brig. Gen. William T. H. Brooks), VI Corps (Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick). Led by Col. Clark S. Edwards, the 5th Maine had taken and administered drubbings at Salem Church and had escaped along with VI […]

The midnight ride of Thomas Hyde

Clattering into “the pretty little town of Manchester, Md.” on Tuesday, June 30, 1863, the 7th Maine Infantry’s peripatetic young Maj. Thomas Hyde anticipated an evening spent flirting with “fair Union ladies.” Appropriated as an aide pre-Chancellorsville, he arrived with Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick and the VI Corps staff. As they marched into Maryland and […]

Seven days in May shatter the 7th Maine

My God. The casualty list runs almost 1½ columns in the Daily Whig & Courier — and this is real “broadsheet,” not the narrow pages that pass for newsprint nowadays. And this is only the 7th Maine Infantry Regiment, which will muster out in 98 days. Paraphrasing George Pickett post-Gettysburg charge, Capt. John H. Channing […]

Merry Maine mutineers meet their match

  The 4th Maine Infantry boys who merrily mutinied near Washington, D.C. in September 1861 soon met their match. Drawn primarily from the Midcoast, the 4th Maine Infantry Regiment officially mustered into Federal service on June 15, 1861. On Saturday, Sept. 16, the boys of Co. H got to thinking that, since they had enlisted […]

Mutineers could drive an officer crazy

Deserters were not the only man-made plague that drove Maine officers crazy during the Civil War; independent-minded Maine soldiers might mutiny, too, if they so decided. Patriotic fervor swept the Midcoast in mid-April 1861. A business partner with Hiram Berry, Elijah Walker sold coal and lumber in Rockland, recently split from Thomaston and designated the […]

Spotsylvania, Part III: Maine soldiers witnessed horrific reminders of war

As the battle-weary men of his 2nd Brigade shuffled through the Chancellorsville battlefield on Sunday morning, May 8, 1864, Col. Emory Upton could see the year-old carnage not yet concealed by Virginia’s brilliant spring growth. He could not foresee the similar fate awaiting four of his five regiments within the next 25 days. The 2nd […]

Great violence happened here in bucolic Spotsylvania County

Mainers visiting the Spotsylvania Court House battlefield will find no monuments dedicated to Pine Tree State regiments. A few Union monuments stand here; the first encountered by visitors is the John Sedgwick monument at the intersection of Brock Road and Grant Drive. The low-key monument marks the spot where the Sixth Corps commander offered himself […]

Hell comes to Rappahannock Station on a dark November night: Part I

Sensing the approaching threat in the deep November darkness, an alert Confederate soldier — probably a North Carolinian — fires his musket. Comrades swarm to their protective breastworks, level their muskets, and loosen a thunderous volley. Hideous screams suddenly erupt in the Virginia night; before the Confederates finish reloading, cold steel leaps through the swirling […]

The 6th Maine’s screaming demons led the way

Frantically loading and firing their rifled muskets, the Mississippi infantrymen defending the stone wall at Fredericksburg about 11:05 a.m. on May 3, 1863, suddenly realized that all the .58-caliber lead bullets in the world would not stop the screaming, wild-eyed berserkers swarming toward them. No matter how many comrades pitched onto the slope below Marye’s […]