Tag Archives: George W. Buck

20th Maine: A warrior goes to glory, a bastard to prison, part 3

As the 20th Maine fought at Little Round Top, Pvt. George Washington Buck stood in the Co. H firing line. Buck had been a sergeant until the regiment’s bastard quartermaster, 1st Lt. Alden Litchfield, had physically assaulted the sick Buck in camp and then reported him for insubordination. The 20th Maine’s colonel, Adelbert Ames, had […]

Hell dumps a bastard on the 20th Maine, part 2

Among the privates assigned to Co. H, 20th Maine Infantry, was Theodore Gerrish, a 5-11, teen-aged farmer from Falmouth. Born in New Brunswick, he would become the 20th Maine’s first official historian, publishing his memoirs 17 years after the war. Gerrish remembered Sgt. George Washington Buck of Linneus as “a young man … a brave, […]

20th Maine: the warrior and the bastard, part 1

His gray eyes peering through swirling gunsmoke, Pvt. George Washington Buck loaded and fired as fast as possible as Alabamians raged against the 20th Maine Infantry Regiment’s left flank on July 2, 1863. Numbering three officers, five sergeants, five corporals, and 33 privates, Buck’s Co. H reported to Capt. Joseph F. Land, a black-eyed merchant […]