Tag Archives: Portland Daily Press

A Prince for Joshua Chamberlain

A surprised Joshua L. Chamberlain received a unique present before departing for war with the 20th Maine Infantry Regiment. Several “energetic friends” (identified by the Brunswick Telegraph as W. R. Field, S. R. Jackson, “and a few others”) purchased “a splendid dapple gray horse and trappings [saddle, bit, reins, etc.] to match.” Its previous owner, […]

Nurse Abba Goddard meets hard-bitten Confederates at Harpers Ferry, part 3

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 2 here, and part 4 here. Named matron of the Clayton General Hospital in Harpers Ferry in summer 1862, Maine nurse Abba Goddard […]

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 […]

Confederates raid Portland harbor, and Edwin Stanton does not care

Confederate sailors under Lt. Charles W. Read, CSN, had captured the Revenue Service cutter Caleb Cushing in Portland harbor early on June 27, 1863 and had almost gotten away. Unable to fire up the cutter’s steam engine and hampered by a fickle, apparently pro-Union breeze, Read and his crew were overtaken by two pursuing steamers […]

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 […]

Augusta CSI pursues a soldier’s killer

Had a serial killer struck in the Kennebec Valley? Had he dispatched yet “another victim”? Augusta authorities knew they had a serious problem “on Tuesday morning,” November 25, 1863. “The dead body of a man having no clothing on but an under shirt, was found in a pasture” on the Randall farm, “about four miles […]

Reign of terror off Nova Scotia, part 2

Last week: Reign of terror off Nova Scotia, part 1 After his CSS Tallahassee bagged the Maine-based schooner Floral Wreath about 40 miles off Cape Sable Island on Thursday afternoon, August 11, 1864, Confederate Navy Capt. John Taylor Wood soon spotted another victim. With the Floral Wreath sinking (if not sunk) and her crew now […]

Reign of terror off Nova Scotia, part 1

Men — lots of them — likely lined the ship’s rails as the schooner Sarah B. Harris sailed into Portland Harbor on Thursday, August 18, 1864. Aboard the crowded schooner, Capt. Delano probably chatted with his unexpected guests, particularly other merchant skippers who had quite the tale to tell. They had survived (but not so […]

A Gettysburg mystery

Among the Mainers killed at Gettysburg exists a mystery: John C. Wadsworth of Cornish. His Masonic brothers held a funeral for their brother slain on the field of valor, and everyone in Cornish believed he died at Gettysburg. Yet … When he enlisted in the 5th Maine Infantry Regiment on August 5, 1862, Wadsworth was […]