Tag Archives: Winfield Scott Hancock

The midnight ride of Thomas Hyde

Clattering into “the pretty little town of Manchester, Md.” on Tuesday, June 30, 1863, the 7th Maine Infantry’s peripatetic young Maj. Thomas Hyde anticipated an evening spent flirting with “fair Union ladies.” Appropriated as an aide pre-Chancellorsville, he arrived with Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick and the VI Corps staff. As they marched into Maryland and […]

Winfield Scott Hancock runs afoul a Maine sea captain, part 2

Editor’s note: You can read part 1 here. Soon after Robert E. Lee launched his artillery bombardment at Gettysburg on Friday, July 3, 1863, some 115 to 150 Confederate cannons fired steadily, “the air was filled with projectiles, there being scarcely an instant but that several were seen bursting at once,” said Maj. Gen, Winfield […]

Winfield Scott Hancock runs afoul a Maine sea captain, part 1

After sunrise on Friday, July 3, 1863, Lt. Col. Freeman McGilvery started bringing batteries “into line on the low ground on our left center,” along Cemetery Ridge’s southern slope. His guns faced west toward distant Seminary Ridge and the nearer Emmitsburg Road, along which Confederates “were massing artillery in force.” Hailing originally from Stockton Springs […]

1st Maine Heavy Artillery survivor opens a Bar Harbor hotel

From Confederate target to Bar Harbor hotel keeper, such were the fortunes of war and peace for John H. Douglass. Living in Eden (now Bar Harbor) in 1862, the 21-year-old Douglass married Margarette Higgins of Eden on April 19. A sailor since he had hired on as a $5-per-month cook on a fishing schooner at […]

Artillery back story at Gettysburg, part 4, all hell breaks loose at the seminary

As his North Carolina brigade emerged from McPherson’s Woods outside Gettysburg and started down the swale separating McPherson’s from the Lutheran seminary, all hell broke loose. Opposite on the seminary campus stood a 10-gun Union artillery line, comprising the six bronze Napoleons of Capt. Greenlief T. Stevens and the 5th Maine Battery and the four […]

So you think you know Maine at Gettysburg, part 2

Here’s Part 2 of the Maine Monument Minutiae quiz involving Pine Tree State monuments at Gettysburg National Military Park. The answers are printed below. 1. Two Union generals lurk around the 2nd Maine Battery’s main monument on the Chambersburg Road. Who are those generals? 2. A small monument honoring a wounded Union general rises on […]

A long day’s tramp to Gettysburg, part 2

Their brogans and socks soaked after fording a stream, the 19th Maine Infantry lads tramped onward through the afternoon on Monday, June 29, 1863. The miles fell away across Maryland — and suddenly the regiment (Col. Francis Heath) and 1st Brigade (Brig. Gen. William Harrow) and 2nd Division (Brig. Gen. John Gibbon) led II Corps […]

A long day’s tramp to Gettysburg, part 1

As Part 1 noted, Pvt. John Day Smith would always remember Monday, June 29, 1863, when the 19th Maine Infantry Regiment “set out on the longest day’s march in its history.” From Litchfield in Androscoggin County, Smith belonged to Co. F, which would provide a rogue’s gallery of regimental historians long before the last 19th […]

Battle of the Bards — Part 2: Regiments trade volley fire in a Maine newspaper

  If Col. Hiram Burnham was pleased that his 6th Maine Infantry received a brief mention in the May 15, 1862 issue of the Maine Farmer, he certainly did not care when he blew his Down East gasket nine days later. Several Maine infantry regiments had battled at Williamsburg, Va. on May 5. The 6th […]

Battle of the Bards — Part 1: The 7th Maine fields a two-man PR machine

  Not until after the Battle of Williamsburg, Va. in early May 1862 did Col. Hiram Burnham learn what Col. Edwin Mason instinctively knew: the value of a good press agent. A Cherryfield native, Burnham commanded the 6th Maine Infantry, Mason the 7th Maine. Months before that regiment fought at Williamsburg, readers of the Maine […]