Maine’s adjutant general might believe otherwise, but the some four-score enthusiastic volunteers reporting for duty in rural Maine in mid-spring 1861 knew exactly who commanded them. Responding to the Fort Sumter news, young (and not so young) Piscataquis County men had enlisted in a local company by late April. The Maine Legislature had carved the […]
The day before the 20th Maine Infantry broke camp to head into the Wilderness, Pvt. Alonzo Z. Parsons of Co. B wrote a letter to his father, William, knowing full well that his mother, Eliza, would read it, too. We pick up where Alonzo left off last week. A devout Christian, “I have tried to […]
A few days before Ulysses S. Grant launched his multi-front assaults against Southern armies in spring 1864, a 20th Maine Infantry private thought about eternity and what the approaching Virginia campaign could bring. Then he composed a last letter home — and included with it a last prayer. Born to William and Eliza Parsons in […]
