Since acquiring the Republican Journal in May 1858, William H. Simpson had unabashedly shared his political opinions with his readers in Belfast and elsewhere. Thundering against Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party, emancipation, and blacks since late 1862, he vehemently opposed the Civil War in a city committed to Union victory. And now the Lincoln Administration […]
Had a serial killer struck in the Kennebec Valley? Had he dispatched yet “another victim”? Augusta authorities knew they had a serious problem “on Tuesday morning,” November 25, 1863. “The dead body of a man having no clothing on but an under shirt, was found in a pasture” on the Randall farm, “about four miles […]
In the summer of 1862, prospective recruits joining the five new infantry regiments forming in Maine faced one gauntlet not run by the volunteers of ’61: tougher medical exams. Fourteen months earlier, doctors had approved recruits because they had sufficient fingers and toes and a palpable pulse. Stunned by vast numbers of soldiers medically discharged […]
