Tag Archives: Culpeper

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, part 2

Continued from “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, part 1” Charles Longfellow, the eldest son and child of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, left the family’s home at Craigie House in Cambridge, Massachusetts without explanation or a “good-bye” on March 10, 1863. He traveled to Washington, D.C. and initially attached himself to a Massachusetts artillery […]

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 […]

Charged up to fight: 4th Maine Battery at Cedar Mountain — Part I

  Capt. O’Neil W. Robinson Jr. had yet to see a serious “elephant” as his 4th Maine Battery crossed hot and dusty Virginia in July 1862. Robinson, the Bethel attorney whose Democratic Party leanings had concerned Maine’s Republican Gov. Israel Washburn Jr. the previous autumn, had detrained with his battery in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, […]