Troopers of the 1st Maine Cavalry Regiment fight dismounted. Combat artist Alfred Waud sketched this image on June 19, 1863, the same day the regiment fought at Middleburg, Va. (Library of Congress) An 18-year-old Houlton farmer when he enlisted in Co. E, 1st Maine Cavalry Regiment, Charles C. Putnam charged to glory at Middleburg, Virginia on Friday, June 19, 1863. His memory lives on at a winery nearer Washington, D.C. Standing 5-8, Putnam had black eyes, black hair, and a dark complexion when he joined Co. E as a corporal on September 24, 1861. After the 1st Maine Cav arrived in Virginia ..read more

Ordered by Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker to conduct a devastating cavalry raid behind Confederate lines in central Virginia in mid-April 1863, Maj. Gen. George Stoneman and his troopers waited for the incessant rain to stop. It did not. Edward Parsons Tobie Jr. enlisted in the 1st Maine Cavalry Regiment in late 1861. He later became the regiment’s historian. (Maine State Archives) “Saddled and packed before daylight” on Wednesday, April 16, 1st Maine Cavalry troopers “remained ready to move at an instant’s warning” until 2 p.m., said Corp. Edward Parsons Tobie Jr. of Co. G. Men and horses endured ..read more

Despite their 14 months in the Virginia war zone, 1st Maine Cavalry troopers had “never met the enemy’s cavalry in any force,” said 1st Lt. Charles W. Ford, a 27-year-old shipmaster from Bristol when he enlisted in autumn 1861 as a sergeant. Charles W. Ford of Bristol was a sergeant when he joined the 1st Maine Cavalry Regiment in 1861. He quickly moved up to lieutenant. (Maine State Archives) Until his late January 1863 sacking, Ambrose Burnside had treated his cavalrymen as errand boys, useful as convoy guards, orderlies, and pickets, the last duty wearing out men and horses and exposing t ..read more

The field staff played musical chairs at the 9th Maine Infantry Regiment’s Hilton Head camp in South Carolina in March 1863. The game began when Lt. Col. Horatio Bisbee Jr. mustered out March 19. Then Col. Rishworth Rich recommended Maj. Sabine Emery for Bisbee’s slot and Capt. Zina H. Robinson for major. Sabine Emery was among the 9th Maine Infantry officers shuffled around in a game of promotional musical chairs in March 1863. (Maine State Archives) Emery, an Eastport school teacher, stood 5-8½ and had light hair and a fair complexion. His gray eyes likely resembled the dull Down East sea ..read more

The rails of the Manassas Gap Railroad glisten beneath the Shenandoah Valley sky between Front Royal and Strasburg. Preservationists are proposing two ways to preserve the railroad — or at least its corridor. (Brian F. Swartz Photo) A battle’s brewing in Virginia over preserving 450 acres of historic land directly tied to the Civil War’s first major battle in 1861, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, and Phil Sheridan. And Maine soldiers certainly crossed this land during the war, the earliest units being the 1st Maine Cavalry Regiment and the 10th Maine Infantry Regiment in May 1862. The 450 acres ..read more

The cannons of Hazlett’s Battery are visible (upper left) in this recent photo showing the rock wall being built along the new accessible sidewalk at Little Round Top. This photo was posted in mid-February. (National Park Service) Photos recently released by the National Park Service suggest that the too-long-by-far closure and restoration of Little Round Top may soon end. The NPS closed LRT and its approach roads in July 2022 for a restoration project scheduled to take 12 to 18 months to complete (as advertised then). The project’s complexity obviously made 12 months unfeasible, at least fo ..read more

The last Confederate that Corp. Nahum H. Hall ever thought could kill him was an angry tabby, perhaps Sgt. Puss N. Boots, First Florida Feline Regiment. Hall, a Rockland resident, was 33 when he enlisted as a private in in Co. G, 28th Maine Infantry Regiment, a nine-month regiment that mustered at Camp E.D. Keyes in Augusta. A self-employed trader, he stood 5-11 and had gray eyes, dark hair, and a dark complexion. According to the 1860 U.S. Census for Rockland, Hall and his wife, Lydia, had a 7-year-old daughter, Sarah. A fierce Confederate cat bumped off a Maine soldier briefly stationed in ..read more

Known as the City of Ships, Bath on the lower Kennebec River already swarmed with soldiers when Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton issued General Order No. 94 on August 4, 1862. The order called for the loyal states to draft 300,000 militia for nine months’ service in the army. On Tuesday, July 8, Maine Adjutant General John L. Hodsdon had issued General Order No. 18, directing the three-year “Nineteenth of Maine Volunteers, to rendezvous at Bath.” Recruiters focused on Kennebec, Knox, Lincoln, Sagadahoc, Somerset, and Waldo counties. By early August “boys and young men, in squads and singly ..read more

Confederates shot Reverend Joseph P. French, and his own navy drowned him. Born in Solon in Somerset County, the 35-year-old French was a Methodist clergyman living in Old Town in 1860 with his 34-year-old wife, Lucretia. They had three daughters: Clara (5), Sarah (4), and Josie (2). Hannah French, 64, lived with the family; she apparently was French’s mother. Union and Confederate troops fight inside a cemetery during the August 5, 1862 battle of Baton Rouge, La. (Library of Congress) Within a year the family moved to Bucksport, where French likely pastored the Methodist church. He stood 5 ..read more

They were Americans who later called themselves Confederates. Killed in battle or by wounds, disease, or old age, they lie together for eternity, their graves placed circularly within the obscure Confederate Cemetery in the 100-acre Frankfort Cemetery in Frankfort, Kentucky. And they lie almost forgotten, except by Civil War buffs or those descendants remembering distant ancestors. The graves of 68 Confederate soldiers surround a statue erected in 1892 at the Confederate Cemetery in Frankfort, Kentucky, (Brian Swartz Photo) Located at 215 East Main Street, the Frankfort Cemetery occupies a h ..read more