Tag Archives: 1st Maine Cavalry Regiment

Stoneman’s Raid: the 1st Maine troopers find their moxie

Day after day in the latter half of April 1863, inclement weather and heavy rain delayed the departure of Maj. Gen. George Stoneman and his Army of the Potomac cavalry on a deep-penetration into central Virginia, behind the lines of the Army of Northern Virginia. Only after an April 27 chewing out by Joe Hooker […]

Stoneman’s Raid: rain, rain go away, plague the cavalry another day

Despite their 14 months in the war zone, the 1st Maine Cavalry troopers had “never met the enemy’s cavalry in any force” by spring 1863, said 2nd Lt. Charles W. Ford, a 27-year-old shipmaster from Bristol when he enlisted in autumn 1861 as a sergeant. Until his late January sacking as commander of the Army […]

Maine cavalrymen charge across a bridge and bring home the bacon

The first serious 1863 skirmish between the 1st Maine Cavalry and Confederate troops resulted in a 1-0 win for the Maine boys, ham-wise. Leaving their winter camp near Belle Plain, Virginia on Monday, April 13, 1863, troopers of the 1st Maine rode almost 20 miles to camp at Deep Run, then pushed upriver on Tuesday, […]

Bully boys, hey! Bully boys, ho!

They spoiled for a fight. Edward Parsons Tobie Jr., a corporal in Co. G, 1st Maine Cavalry Regiment, figured “the spring campaign” officially began when the regiment left its wretched winter quarters at Camp Bayard near Belle Plain in Virginia’s Stafford County on Monday, April 13, 1863. His company, plus K, formed the rear guard […]

Maine soldiers had little time to enjoy historic Williamsport in Maryland

WILLIAMSPORT, Md. — Located just off traffic-plagued Interstate-81, this historic and lovely town on the Potomac River has multiple Civil War connections with Maine. Just for that reason alone, Williamsport would be worth the visit — and the sites encountered along the C&O Canal Towpath and the downtown shops only add to the experience. Many […]

A Brit rides with the 1st Maine Cavalry: Part III — hell on earth at Andersonville

For a dead man, Pvt. George F. Alexander certainly was a lively corpse. Alexander actually was George Alexander McCluskey, born in Westfield, New Brunswick in August 1846. The 5-4½ , blue-eyed British subject had lied about his age to enlist in the Co. K, 1st Maine Cavalry Regiment in January 1864. The regiment lost 68 […]

A Brit rides with the 1st Maine Cav: Part II — for Queen, Country, and Andersonville!

George Alexander McCluskey (dba with the United States Army as George F. Alexander) probably rode out with Co. K, 1st Maine Cavalry on Sunday, Feb. 28, 1864 to participate in the disastrous raid that Col. Ulric Dahlgren envisioned reaching Richmond, capturing senior Confederate politicians, and releasing Union prisoners of war. Among other cavalrymen, about 500 […]

A Brit rides with the 1st Maine Cavalry: Part I — fibbing to fit in

  The young recruit so assiduously trying to enlist in the 1st Maine Cavalry Regiment on January 4, 1864 looked suspiciously young, hardly needing to shave yet. The kid swore up and down — and officially on his enlistment papers — that he was of legal age to fight for the United States. Angus P. […]

Horsemen in the Shenandoah: Part IV — “Where [in heck] was the Maine Cavalry?”

  Shattered by the Confederate ambush known as the “Middletown Disaster,” surviving Maine and Vermont cavalrymen fled into the descending Shenandoah Valley darkness on Saturday, May 24, 1862. As his soldiers gathered prisoners on the body-plugged Valley Pike, Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson had greater prey in mind; rather than chase the fleeing cavalrymen, he headed […]

Horsemen in the Valley: Part III — The “Middletown Disaster”

After losing precious daylight and time to an upstart cavalry officer from Maine, Confederate Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson swiftly turned the tables at Middletown, Va. on Saturday, May 24, 1862. Commanding a cavalry battalion comprising five companies from the 1st Maine Cavalry Regiment and two companies from the 1st Vermont Cavalry Regiment, Lt. Col. […]