Tag Archives: Harris Plaisted

Mount Hope Cemetery walking tour will launch Civil War weekend in Bangor

A Civil War walking tour of Mount Hope Cemetery in Bangor will kick off Drums on the Penobscot: A Civil War Experience, slated to be held Friday-Sunday, July 28-30 in Bangor. Led by historian Ryan Hews and titled Soldiers at Rest, the Civil War walking tour will begin at 6 p.m., Friday, July 28. Visitors […]

Eastport editor liked a correspondent’s rah-rah-sis-boom-bah attitude

Noel B. Nutt knew a good letter-to-the-editor when it crossed his desk — and this particular letter from Corp. Philip H. Andrews of Co. B, 11th Maine Infantry Regiment certainly fit the bill: • Addressed to the correct newspaper (The Sentinel), check; • Addressed to the right person (“Mr. Editor”), check; • Espoused the Republican […]

Cemetery of Flies — Part II

The stench grew as Col. Harris Plaisted and an 11th Maine Infantry companion known only as “S” approached the front lines west of Seven Pines, Va. on Friday, June 19, 1862.* Here, on Saturday, May 31, Maj. Robert F. Campbell of Cherryfield had brought companies A, C, and F out of the 11th Maine camp […]

Cemetery of Flies — Part I

So big they all but clogged his horse’s nostrils, the swarming flies also targeted Col. Harris Plaisted as his nervous horse clopped across a sloppy Virginia field on Friday, June 19, 1862. Beside him a mounted 11th Maine Infantry Regiment officer — Plaisted commanded the battle- and disease-shredded unit — waved a hand at the […]

Tomatoes, green corn, and apples made for a good meal at Yorktown

Food: Maine soldiers accustomed to the bountiful harvests and diverse crops of the Pine Tree State dreamed about food, salivated about food, and stole it when- and wherever they could while escaping the Peninsula of Virginia. When all the army could serve up was rancid pork and weevil-ridden hard tack, even a green ear of […]

Sliced and diced 11th Maine: Part III – reading between the lines

  Sometimes a historian discovers a poignant story written between the lines — and later stumbles elsewhere onto an obscure written reference to that untold tale. Such occurred as I researched the honor that Col. Harris Plaisted bestowed on the slain lions of his 11th Maine Infantry Regiment. Perhaps two days after staging a fighting […]

Sliced and diced 11th Maine fights in four pieces: Part II

For a precious few minutes around 12 noon on Saturday, May 31, 1862, all four pieces of the 11th Maine Infantry Regiment stood on the battlefield at Seven Pines, Va. Then the Confederate onslaught smashed into the Union picket line astride the Williamsburg Stage Road, and the collision sliced and diced the already quadrisected regiment. […]

Sliced and diced 11th Maine fights in four pieces: Part I

With thousands of boiling angry Confederate troops knocking on his door, Col. Harris Plaisted could find only one piece of his 11th Maine Infantry Regiment at Seven Pines, Va. on Saturday, May 31, 1862. That left the other three pieces of the 11th Maine pie to fight independently under the splendid line officers (and a […]

Life in the Florida swamps

For the 11th Maine Infantry boys accustomed to relatively tame reptiles and bugs back home in the Pine Tree State, duty in the northeastern Florida swamps proved eye-opening. Boarding the steamer “Boston” at Beaufort, S.C. on Thursday, June 4, 1863, soldiers assigned to the 11th Maine headed south to Florida. “Daylight of the 5th found […]