Tag Archives: Ulysses S. Grant

The Maine connections with Grierson’s Raid, part 1

The most successful cavalry raid conducted by North or South until the war’s closing months, the May 1863 expedition known as Grierson’s Raid saw two Union cavalry regiments and an artillery battery cut some 500 miles through interior Confederate-held Mississippi. Commanded by Col. Benjamin H. Grierson, the raiders tore up vital infrastructure and ran Confederate […]

Bullet-broken jaw did not silence a 1st Maine Heavy Artillery veteran

Confederates could not keep patriot James Harvey Stinson quiet, not even by almost obliterating his lower jaw. In fact, history suggests that Stinson — “Harvey” to his family and friends — became the life of the party during future veterans’ meetings in Maine’s Waldo County. Born in Prospect to Graham and Jane (Mudgett) Stinson on […]

George Burns, Bar Harbor, and the 1st Maine Heavy Artillery

The gateway to Acadia National Park, Bar Harbor teems with visitors right now. Traffic’s heavy on Route 3, the main road into Mount Desert Island’s largest town. Until the mid-20th century or so, the highway ran through Salisbury Cove, a Bar Harbor village on MDI’s north shore. Then the state built a bypass, and many […]

Kentucky state park recalls Confederate folly and Grant’s first battle

Civil War buffs think “Perryville” when they think “Kentucky,” but overlooking the Mississippi River on the state’s western border is a place closely affiliated with Ulysses S. Grant and a Confederate general who hurled the Bluegrass State squarely into Abraham Lincoln’s arms. The place is Columbus-Belmont State Park, taking its name from Columbus in Kentucky […]

Commemorating the 150th at Appomattox Court House — April 9, 2015

  The Civil War sesquicentennial officially ends this weekend as the 150th anniversary observances wind down at Appomattox Court House in Southside Virginia. Organizers pulled out all the stops to educate ACH National Historic Park visitors about what happened here in this quaint village exactly 150 years ago. Maine at War visited the park on […]

The Wilderness, Part II — “The air was filled with lead”

  Theodore Gerrish and his 20th Maine Infantry comrades knew little about strategy — — but they certainly knew how to fight when the generals got their strategy all wrong. Ulysses Simpson Grant intended to hustle the well-rested and -equipped Army of the Potomac through The Wilderness on Wednesday, May 4, 1864. By emerging into […]

Isabella Fogg investigated reports of Army mistreatment of wounded Union soldiers

    Isabella Fogg had already encountered the horrors of war when the slaughter known as Antietam took place on Sept. 17, 1862. Then Fogg discovered the hell that is war. Surnamed Morrison, her parents had emigrated to New Brunswick from Scotland before Isabella’s birth in 1823. Practically a child bride when she married William […]