An obscure soldier’s file among the tens of thousands kept at the Maine State Archives describes one private as “Drowned in Long Island Sound.” He actually committed suicide by sea. After traveling by train from Boston to Fall River, the 10th Maine Infantry lads boarded the steamer State of Maine early on Monday, October 7, […]
When news reached the 10th Maine Infantry Regiment on Monday, April 27, 1863 that all two-year enlistees would go home (except for those willing to stay in the army), joy exploded across the regiment’s Stafford County, Va. camp. Men kicked over barrel chimneys here and tossed “cartridges down them” there, said 1st Lt. John Mead […]
While passing through Baltimore during the war, the 10th Maine Infantry Regiment developed close friendships with particular Unionists. One such friendship sparked two incidents not forgotten by the regiment’s survivors. The first incident involved Reuben Viele. Born in St. Francis, Province of Quebec, he migrated to Lewiston sometime before the war. Gray-eyed and black-haired, he […]
Of the 50 soldiers’ whose graves are identified by name on the Antietam burial map, one belongs to “Asa Reed 10 Me,” a private in Co. K, 10th Maine Infantry Regiment. Why he was identified among the 5,844 graves marked on the map drawn by Simon G. Elliott, no one knows. The 10th descended from […]
Tony Horwitz, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author who has historically examined such subjects as John Brown and his bloody raid and European exploration of North America, released his delightful “Confederates In The Attic” in 1998. A “must read” for Civil War buffs, the book explores why the war remains so palpable in many Southern locales. But […]
Approximately 1,400 Civil War veterans — I call them “heroes,” if only because they fought to preserve our country — lie buried at Evergreen Cemetery on Stevens Avenue in Portland. On a recent sunny, warm summer’s day, Friends of Evergreen docent Lin Brown introduced me to about 50 of them. We toured the 239-acre […]
Seven days after surviving a horrific battle in Virginia in August 1862, Abial Hall Edwards shared his vivid memories with the young Maine woman who would one day become his wife. Had one particular Confederate bullet zipped a few inches lower, the marriage would never have occurred. Born in Casco in 1843, Edwards worked […]
