Tag Archives: 7th Maine Infantry Regiment

A soldier named Benn, Benj, or whatever

Known as “Benn” or “Benj” (depending on the printed record), his full name was Benjamin P. Webb, and he unknowingly displayed perfect timing to miss his regiment’s Götterdämmerung at Antietam. According to Caribou historian George Whitneck, Benjamin P. Webb was born to Converse L. and Emily (French) Webb in St. Albans on February 4, 1834. […]

The fates of the Fales

The sunlight falling across the Thomaston Village Cemetery on a warm mid-August Saturday casts deep shadows beneath the trees and illuminates the Fales family monument, three sections of sculpted gray granite perched atop a slight grassy rise. The front inscription identifies Ebenezer Fales (1801 to 1872) and his wife, Mary Perkins (1814 to 1898). Each […]

Typhoid fever sweeps away the 7th Maine Infantry’s top dog

“Mr. Editor: We have lost our colonel,” a 7th Maine Infantry Regiment private informed the Bangor-published Daily Whig & Courier’s William H. Wheeler on Saturday, October 26, 1861. The news shocked many people in the Pine Tree State — and opened the promotion door to an Army captain. Hailing from Belfast, Thomas H. Marshall had joined […]

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 […]

The 7th Maine Infantry’s “gallant remnant” goes home

Portland raised a ruckus for one battered Maine infantry regiment in October ’62. With disease, the Peninsula Campaign, and their heroic and shot-to-pieces Antietam charge behind them, the 7th Maine’s survivors numbered around 350 men, with perhaps 150 fit for service by early October. Bestowing a rare wartime honor, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan ordered […]

Confederates trap the 7th Maine in an Antietam apple orchard, Part III

Ordered by Col. William Irwin to take the depleted 7th Maine Infantry Regiment and charge Confederate skirmishers hiding among haystacks at the Piper Farm near Sharpsburg, Maj. Thomas Hyde rode out with his 170-or-so heroes to make a suicide charge shortly after 5 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 17, 1862. The Maine lads marched south and “crossed […]

The 7th Maine were to find their Balaklava at Antietam, Part II

The 3rd Brigade commanded by Col. William Howard Irwin absorbed casualties from Confederate artillery and rifle fire at Antietam throughout the afternoon on Wednesday, Sept. 17. 1862. Including the 7th Maine Infantry Regiment commanded by Maj. Thomas Hyde, the brigade held ground east of the Dunker Church; from his vantage point amidst the boulders sheltering […]

They Are Our Glory — the 7th Maine at Antietam, Part I

Wind-stirred flags attracted Confederate attention at Antietam, as Thomas Worcester Hyde realized by mid-afternoon on Wednesday, Sept. 17, 1862. A Bowdoin College graduate and the only son of a Yankee trader from Bath, Hyde had commanded the 7th Maine Infantry Regiment during the Sept. 14 attack on Confederate-held Crampton’s Gap on South Mountain in Maryland. […]

Reports of My Death are Greatly Exaggerated: Selden Connor

The news struck Kennebec Valley residents like a lightning bolt: Selden Connor, long associated with the vaunted 7th Maine Infantry Regiment, was dead, shot and mortally wounded on May 6, 1864, during the Battle of the Wilderness. “Gen. Seldon (sic) Connor, late of the 19th Maine … died last week in Washington,” reported the Daily […]

Daring thieves wore the uniform of the 7th Maine

With a nod to Merriam-Webster: Thief \theef\ Noun 1. A person who steals something. 2. Hungry Maine soldiers willing to steal food from anybody at any time. Just as empty-bellied as his 2nd Division soldiers trudging south toward Malvern Hill in the wee hours of Tuesday, July 1, 1862, Brig. Gen. William F. “Baldy” Smith […]