Tag Archives: Stonewall Jackson

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 […]

Nurse Abba Goddard steps in harm’s way to save ex-slaves at Harpers Ferry, part 2

Maine at War celebrates Women’s History Month with a four-part tale about nurse Abba Goddard and her adventures at Harpers Ferry during the Antietam Campaign. You can read part 1 here, part 3 here, and part 4 here. Hailing from Portland since the 1850s, nurse Abba Goddard decided to literally lay her body and life […]

Nurse Abba Goddard withstands Jackson’s bombardment at Harpers Ferry, part 1

Maine at War celebrates Women’s History Month with a four-part tale about nurse Abba Goddard and her adventures at Harpers Ferry during the Antietam Campaign. You can read part 2 here, part 3 here, and part 4 here. Maine nurse Abba Goddard went livid when Col. Dixon Stansbury Miles surrendered the Harpers Ferry garrison to […]

Spooked by ol’ Stonewall himself

Does the ghost of Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson haunt the Shenandoah Valley, site of his legendary 1862 Valley Campaign? What a silly idea! Family and friends buried Jackson more than 150 years ago in the Presbyterian Cemetery in Lexington, Va. Later renamed the Stonewall Jackson Memorial Cemetery, the burial ground contains ol’ Stonewall and other Southern […]

Charged up to fight: 4th Maine Battery “sees the elephant” at Cedar Mountain” — Part III

Yelling at his men, Capt. O’Neil W. Robinson Jr. hurtled his 4th Maine Battery across country as they approached a Union firing line about 8 miles southwest of Culpeper, Va. on Saturday, Aug. 9, 1862. Riding on caissons and limbers or running alongside the horse-drawn artillery, the Maine men sweated profusely as they approached the […]

Charged up to fight: 4th Maine Battery rolls toward Cedar Mountain — Part II

After catching a few winks at their camp north of Culpeper, Va. on Aug. 9, 1862, the gunners of the 4th Maine Battery got up and tended to their horses, cannons, and equipment. Led by Capt. O’Neil W. Robinson Jr. of Bethel, the Maine artillerymen expected to “see the elephant” (experience their first battle) on […]

Horsemen in the Shenandoah: Part IV — “Where [in heck] was the Maine Cavalry?”

  Shattered by the Confederate ambush known as the “Middletown Disaster,” surviving Maine and Vermont cavalrymen fled into the descending Shenandoah Valley darkness on Saturday, May 24, 1862. As his soldiers gathered prisoners on the body-plugged Valley Pike, Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson had greater prey in mind; rather than chase the fleeing cavalrymen, he headed […]

Horsemen in the Shenandoah: Part II — Piscataquis County sheriff vs. Stonewall Jackson

  On May 9, 1862, the five 1st Maine Cavalry companies assigned to the “Railroad Brigade” of Col. Dixon Miles received orders from him to “March forthwith via Winchester to New Market” in the Shenandoah Valley and “wait for nobody, but be in haste.” The War Department had assigned Maj. Gen. Nathanial Banks and his […]

June 11 online auction to include many Civil War-related items

 Maine at War exclusive President Abraham Lincoln could not conceive while penning a letter to Postmaster General Montgomery Blair on November 2, 1863, that because of the presidential signature signed on the bottom of page 2, the document would one day fetch a starting bid of  $30,000 during a 21st-century auction. And when Gen. Robert […]