Under his Bernard Bee-administered moniker “Stonewall,” Thomas J. (for “Jonathan”) Jackson of VMI and Lexington became a wartime celebrity. Revered in the South (which, like the North, lacked “winning” generals), Jackson ran amuck on the Valley, defeated just about every Union general he fought, and scared the bejeebers out of the Lincoln Administration whenever he […]
As the eastern horizon barely paled on Friday, July 3, 1863, the 19th Maine Infantry lads shifted their position north “fifty-eight rods [858 feet], a little to the left of the copse of trees,” said Sgt. Silas Adams, Co. F. He referred to a scrub-oak grove clumped high on Cemetery Ridge’s western slope, near the […]
Twenty-two when he mustered as a corporal with Company I, 19th Maine Infantry Regiment on August 25, 1862, Edgar A. Burpee displayed leadership skills that saw him promoted to first lieutenant by summer 1863. Midcoast men filled Company I, commanded on the march north to Gettysburg by Capt. George D. Smith of Rockland. The towns […]
Here’s Part 2 of the Maine Monument Minutiae quiz involving Pine Tree State monuments at Gettysburg National Military Park. The answers are printed below. 1. Two Union generals lurk around the 2nd Maine Battery’s main monument on the Chambersburg Road. Who are those generals? 2. A small monument honoring a wounded Union general rises on […]
Their brogans and socks soaked after fording a stream, the 19th Maine Infantry lads tramped onward through the afternoon on Monday, June 29, 1863. The miles fell away across Maryland — and suddenly the regiment (Col. Francis Heath) and 1st Brigade (Brig. Gen. William Harrow) and 2nd Division (Brig. Gen. John Gibbon) led II Corps […]
As Part 1 noted, Pvt. John Day Smith would always remember Monday, June 29, 1863, when the 19th Maine Infantry Regiment “set out on the longest day’s march in its history.” From Litchfield in Androscoggin County, Smith belonged to Co. F, which would provide a rogue’s gallery of regimental historians long before the last 19th […]
Editor’s note: This is the 400th post published by Maine at War Was it something in the apples the 19th Maine boys stole? Was it because they joined a mob in raiding a “friendly” sutler? Or was it simply a lucky shot by a Confederate gunner? Whatever the reason — bad luck, divine retribution […]
However badly that Joseph Hooker blew the Battle of Chancellorsville, an order he issued on January 30, 1863 went over very well with the Army of the Potomac’s rank-and-file. “Orders were given on January 30th from the headquarters of the army that furloughs might be granted for fifteen days to one regimental and two line […]
His direct assaults on Confederate-defended Fredericksburg handily repulsed in mid-December 1862, Ambrose Burnside decided to outflank Robert E. Lee’s dug-in veterans 5½ weeks later. Burnside planned to wheel his Army of the Potomac over the Rappahannock River to flank Lee’s army and force it to fight on open ground, where the Yankees could surely outmaneuver […]
There’s a time to yap and a time to shaddup, as a promising Maine officer discovered in winter 1863. Having toyed with its wording for months, President Abraham Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation in autumn 1862 and set January 1, 1863 as its effective date. All slaves in areas hostile to the United States government […]
