His hometown newspaper thought Charles T. Sprague “would … have made an excellent soldier.” Boy, did the press ever get that wrong. According to the 1860 U.S. Census for Gardiner, Josiah L. W. Sprague (the “W” was for “Winter”) was a 44-year-old “house carpenter” with real estate worth $2,600. He and his wife, Melinda Joy […]
New Year’s 1863 proved bitter for Gardiner resident John Berry. He was a lumber dealer, with real estate worth $2,800 and a personal estate worth $2,500, according to the 1860 U.S. census. Four sons lived with Berry and his same-age wife, Mary; the oldest boy, 17-year-old George H. Berry, worked as a clerk, possibly in […]
A telegram arriving in Gardiner on Monday, June 22, 1863 broke a mother’s heart and stunned people living in the Kennebec River port. George Stone Kimball, age 30, was dead, killed by hostile fire in Virginia’s Bull Run Mountains days earlier. “In the springtime of life … blessed with education and talents and all that […]
As Gardiner residents staged a proper “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” celebration for their city’s Port Hudson veterans, a local reporter nitpicked about a particular matter. He was fortunate that the weary soldiers did not hoist him on their bayonets. Mustered for nine-months service in mid-October 1862, the 24th Maine Infantry Regiment reached Augusta on […]
Veterans who had endured Port Hudson’s hell patiently listened as two politicians — one a minister just as long-winded as any elected Maine official — welcomed the weary warriors home. Then they finally got to eat. And a local newspaper reporter criticized their perceived (and collective) lack of appetite. Commanded by Col. George Marston Atwood, […]
After more than a year’s service in the Army of the Potomac, a combat veteran from Maine noticed that pets — animals of almost any kind — often turned even the most callous soldier a bit softer. Edmund J. Brookings, 23, had enlisted in Co. B, 16th Maine Infantry Regiment, on August 1, 1862. A […]
Pain wracking his shattered body, George Ray Parsons shivers as he stirs in the damp Fredericksburg mud in midafternoon on Saturday, Dec. 13, 1862. He’s been hit, whether by a 0.58-caliber lead bullet or a shell fragment, he cannot tell. Seeping blood suggests the wound in his side is bad … real bad. Parsons […]
