Tag Archives: Ellsworth American

Gettysburg shot them all out

Maine newspapers are excellent “original source” documents from the Civil War. The Daily Whig & Courier in Bangor, the Republican Journal out of Belfast, the Eastern Argus and Portland Daily Press of Portland, the Ellsworth American, and the Maine Farmer of Augusta are among the better Fourth Estate sources for letters and reports from Maine […]

Cemetery of Flies — Part II

The stench grew as Col. Harris Plaisted and an 11th Maine Infantry companion known only as “S” approached the front lines west of Seven Pines, Va. on Friday, June 19, 1862.* Here, on Saturday, May 31, Maj. Robert F. Campbell of Cherryfield had brought companies A, C, and F out of the 11th Maine camp […]

Cemetery of Flies — Part I

So big they all but clogged his horse’s nostrils, the swarming flies also targeted Col. Harris Plaisted as his nervous horse clopped across a sloppy Virginia field on Friday, June 19, 1862. Beside him a mounted 11th Maine Infantry Regiment officer — Plaisted commanded the battle- and disease-shredded unit — waved a hand at the […]