Tag Archives: Phil Sheridan

Thomas Jackson was alive and well in Maine

Under his Bernard Bee-administered moniker “Stonewall,” Thomas J. (for “Jonathan”) Jackson of VMI and Lexington became a wartime celebrity. Revered in the South (which, like the North, lacked “winning” generals), Jackson ran amuck on the Valley, defeated just about every Union general he fought, and scared the bejeebers out of the Lincoln Administration whenever he […]

Scarborough’s Hiram Berry fought in Louisiana and Virginia

There’s room in Maine Civil War lore for more than one Hiram Berry. The most famous, the general killed at Chancellorsville, has a quasi-monument at a Rockland cemetery. According to the soldiers’ files maintained by the Maine State Archives, three other Hiram Berrys served in the army during the Civil War. The Hiram Berry who […]

Phil Sheridan conquers Maine, part 2

After capturing Maine in late October 1867, Maj. Gen. Phil Sheridan took a whirlwind tour of Augusta, the capital of his latest conquest. He had come north from Boston to tour Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, and Mainers had welcomed him as the national hero he was. Now, seated in a stylish barouche with Maine […]

Phil Sheridan conquers Maine, part 1

Advancing north from the Piscataqua River, Phil Sheridan realized by the time he captured Maine “that this is the hardest campaign he ever had.” And that difficulty occurred even as Mainers welcomed him as a conquering hero. Viewed by many Northerners as a successful general in the anemically led Army of the Potomac, Sheridan toured […]

Appomattox Road: “We at once charged him with lying” — disbelief on April 9, 1865

  John Haley, the scrappy private from Saco, disbelieved the news that “an inveterate newsmonger” delivered to the 17th Maine Infantry Regiment around 10:30 a.m., Palm Sunday, April 9, 1865. Heading ever westward, Haley and his Co. I comrades had tramped, tramped, tramped their weary way west across southern Virginia the previous day. Up and […]

Appomattox Road: “We waited for morning and Gen. Lee’s army” — April 9, 1865

  Shortly after sunset on Saturday, April 8, 1865, a few dozen 1st Maine Cavalry troopers and their weary horses vanished into the Virginia darkness near Appomattox Station, a major stop on the Southside Railroad linking Petersburg with Lynchburg. The troopers went foraging for food and fodder while their comrades remained near the station. Suddenly […]

Appomattox Road: “The awful tide was rolling toward us” — Chamberlain and the 20th Maine at Battle of White Oak Road

  “Daylight dawned, cold, wet, and cheerless” in the 20th Maine Infantry’s temporary camp west of Petersburg, Va. on Thursday, March 30, 1865, said Pvt. Theodore Gerrish of Co. H. The previous day, elements of the 1st Division, 5th Corps, Army of the Potomac, had captured the Confederate earthworks stretching across the Quaker Road near […]

Appomattox Road: Cavalry fight at Dinwiddie – Part II: “A first-class wild-cat show coming up”

  Jonathan Prince Cilley received short notice about the Confederate surprise attack that almost “rolled up” the 2nd Division, U.S. Cavalry Corps, about suppertime on Friday, March 31, 1865. Throughout the afternoon, his 1st Maine Cavalry Regiment had held the division’s far left flank while strung out along the east bank of Chamberlain’s Run, a […]

Appomattox Road: Cavalry fight at Dinwiddie – Part I: “The sharp, heavy volleys heard over the hill”

  Sent to capture an obscure Southside Virginia crossroads in late March 1865, Phil Sheridan botched the assignment — and the 1st Maine Cavalry Regiment saved him from an embarrassing defeat. Ulysses Simpson Grant sent Sheridan to make an end run around the left flank of Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia. […]

A Christmas gift from God and Abner Coburn

  At Camp Russell south of Winchester, Virginia, Capt. John Mead Gould of Portland and two other 29th Maine Infantry Regiment officers — George H. Nye of Lewiston and Alpheus L. Greene of Portland — received a particularly wonderful Christmas present on Friday, Dec. 23, 1864. The recent promotion of Col. George L. Beal of […]