Tag Archives: 7th Maine Infantry

The Baltimore incident, part 1

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 […]

The 7th Maine lads faced a hillside alive with 16,000 Confederates

After capturing Fredericksburg on Sunday, May 3, 1863 and then fighting the bloody and inconclusive Battle of Salem Church later in the day, what else could possibly go wrong for Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick and his VI Corps — and indirectly for the 7th Maine Infantry Regiment? A whole lot, it seems. Sedgwick learned early […]

Seven days in May shatter the 7th Maine

My God. The casualty list runs almost 1½ columns in the Daily Whig & Courier — and this is real “broadsheet,” not the narrow pages that pass for newsprint nowadays. And this is only the 7th Maine Infantry Regiment, which will muster out in 98 days. Paraphrasing George Pickett post-Gettysburg charge, Capt. John H. Channing […]

Battle of the Bards — Part 2: Regiments trade volley fire in a Maine newspaper

  If Col. Hiram Burnham was pleased that his 6th Maine Infantry received a brief mention in the May 15, 1862 issue of the Maine Farmer, he certainly did not care when he blew his Down East gasket nine days later. Several Maine infantry regiments had battled at Williamsburg, Va. on May 5. The 6th […]

Battle of the Bards — Part 1: The 7th Maine fields a two-man PR machine

  Not until after the Battle of Williamsburg, Va. in early May 1862 did Col. Hiram Burnham learn what Col. Edwin Mason instinctively knew: the value of a good press agent. A Cherryfield native, Burnham commanded the 6th Maine Infantry, Mason the 7th Maine. Months before that regiment fought at Williamsburg, readers of the Maine […]

Meet the Heroes of Evergreen Cemetery: Part II

  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 […]

Balaklava at Antietam

Thomas W. Hyde led the 7th Maine Infantry to glory at Antietam, where 25 of his men died for nothing. Hailing from Bath, the 24-year-old Hyde commanded the 7th Maine by Sept. 17, 1862, when death, disease, and desertion had thinned the regimental ranks to 15 officers and 166 enlisted men. “They were all seasoned […]