Maine in the American Civil War

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Flag of the 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment in the war.
The Great Seal of the United States of America during the American Civil War
Union states
in the
American Civil War
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Territories and D.C.

As a fervently abolitionist and strongly Republican state, Maine contributed a higher proportion of its citizens to the Union armies than any other, as well as supplying money, equipment and stores. No land battles were fought in Maine. The only episode was the Battle of Portland Harbor (1863) that saw a Confederate raiding party thwarted in its attempt to capture a revenue cutter.

Abraham Lincoln chose Maine's

Joshua L. Chamberlain and the 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment played a key role at the Battle of Gettysburg, and the 1st Maine Heavy Artillery Regiment lost more men in a single charge during the siege of Petersburg
than any Union regiment in the war.

Maine's contributors

Maine was so eager for the cause that it ended up contributing a larger number of combatants, in proportion to its population than any other Union state.[1] About 80,000 men from Maine served in the U.S. military as soldiers and sailors. They were organized into 32 infantry and two cavalry regiments, and seven light artillery batteries and one heavy artillery regiment. Hundreds of civilians served as nurses, doctors, relief workers, and agents at home and on the field of battle. Many served in the United States Sanitary Commission or United States Christian Commission, as well as similar organizations.[2] According to a letter by Walter Stone Poor, a Union soldier from Maine, his reason for fighting for the Union in the war was to end slavery, a cause he stated he would gladly give his life for:

What a splendid cause is this on which we are engaged. I think it is the grandest that ever enlisted the sympathies of man. Nobler even than the Revolution for they fought for their freedom while we fight for that of another race. I firmly believe that the doom of slavery is fixed and if it is not wholly rooted out by the present war, measures will be taken to wipe it out forever. If such an event can be consummated by any sacrifice of mine, it shall be cheerfully made. I could die for this as readily as I could lie down to rest at the close of a day of wearisome toil. Men have called this age dull. They can do so no more ... War is bad, heaven knows, but slavery is far worse. If the doom of slavery is not sealed by the war, I shall curse the day I entered the Army, or lifted a finger in the preservation of the Union. Of the old Union we have had enough and more than enough.

— Walter Stone Poor, letter to George Fox (May 15, 1861), emphasis added.[3][4][5]

The homefront

During the early part of the war, several vocal abolitionist organizations kept the issue of slavery in the public eye. Newspaper editors informed the populace of the conduct and outcome of the war efforts. Maine factories produced ships, naval stores, and supplies, army equipment, tents, etc.

Fort Knox on the Penobscot River.[6]

No Civil War land battles were fought in Maine, but anti-Confederate passions were inflamed in June 1863 when Southern raiders triggered the Battle of Portland Harbor after seizing a revenue cutter and trying to escape to the ocean.[7]

Notable leaders from Maine

Political

Hannibal Hamlin of Paris, Maine, was Lincoln's vice-president during his first term. A strong orator and opponent of slavery, he urged both the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation and the arming of African Americans. He became aligned with Radical Republicans, which may have caused him to be dropped from the ticket in 1864.[8]

Reconstruction period. The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
was substantially Blaine's proposition, and later he was the 1884 Republican nominee for president.

Union Army

More than two dozen men from Maine served in the Union army as generals, and dozens more Mainers led

Carolinas Campaign.[9]

John Wilson (sculptor)

Perhaps the most widely known officer from Maine to today's generation is

XXIV Corps), accompanying his men into the formidable coastal fortress as most of his staff were shot down by Confederate snipers.[10]

Other notable generals from Maine included

Price's Missouri Raid.[13]

New Orleans and later commanded the District of Florida.[16]

Brothers

Quartermaster General of the Army of the Potomac and later of all armies operating during the sieges of Richmond and Petersburg. He built up the huge supply depot at City Point, Virginia
.

IV Corps of Army of the Potomac during the first half of the war. Augusta's Seth Williams was assistant adjutant general of the Army of the Potomac and later was inspector general on the staff of Ulysses S. Grant. At Appomattox Court House in April 1865, he carried Grant's message offering to accept Robert E. Lee
's surrender to the Confederate lines and later delivered Grant's terms to the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.

Danville Leadbetter, born in Leeds, cast his lot with the Confederacy and became a general in its army.

Others, including

private soldiers
.

Union Navy

West Gulf Blockading Squadron in a combined arms action against Mobile, which surrendered April 12, 1865.[19]

See also

References

  1. ^ Whitman & True, p. 21.
  2. ^ Maine Civil War Trails Retrieved 2008-10-13 Archived August 7, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  3. OCLC 34912692
    . Retrieved March 8, 2016.
  4. ^ New York Historical Society (1966). New York Historical Society Quarterly. Vol. 50. New York: New York Historical Society. pp. 114–127. Retrieved March 11, 2016. What a splendid cause is this on which we are engaged. I think it is the grandest that ever enlisted the sympathies of man. Nobler even than the Revolution for they fought for their freedom while we fight for that of another race. I firmly believe that the doom of slavery is fixed and if it is not wholly rooted out by the present war, measures will be taken to wipe it out forever. If such an event can be consummated by any sacrifice of mine, it shall be cheerfully made. I could die for this as readily as I could lie down to rest at the close of a day of wearisome toil. Men have called this age dull. They can do so no more ... War is bad, heaven knows, but slavery is far worse. If the doom of slavery is not sealed by the war, I shall curse the day I entered the Army, or lifted a finger in the preservation of the Union. Of the old Union, we have had enough and more than enough.
  5. ^ Poor, Walter Stone (May 15, 1861). "Letter to George Fox". Sandy Hook. Retrieved March 9, 2016.
  6. ^ "Brigadier General Thomas Lincoln Casey". Portraits and Profiles of Chief Engineers. Archived from the original on March 6, 2005. Retrieved May 12, 2005.
  7. ^ Harper's Weekly, July 11, 1863.
  8. ^ Biography at Mr. Lincoln's White House Retrieved 2008-10-13.
  9. ISBN 0-393-04758-X
    .
  10. ISBN 978-0-670-01840-6
    . p. 65.
  11. ^ public domain One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1891). Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  12. New International Encyclopedia (1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help
    )
  13. ^ Collins, Robert (2005). General James G. Blunt: Tarnished Glory. Pelican Publishing. p. 11.
  14. ^ Mundy, James H., No Rich Men's Sons: The Sixth Maine Volunteer Infantry, Cape Elizabeth, Maine: Harp Publications, 1994.
  15. ^ Obituary of Daggett, Portland Press Herald, 8/14/1938 Archived 2005-11-09 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 2008-10-13.
  16. ISBN 0-88448-069-0
    .
  17. ISBN 0-89141-878-4
    .
  18. ^ University of Maine biography of Hamlin Archived 2012-01-18 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 2008-10-13.
  19. ^ Public Domain This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.

Further reading

  • Beattie, Donald A. and Rodney Cole. A Distant War Comes Home: Maine in the Civil War Era (1991) Excerpts; short popular essays
  • Miller, Richard F. ed. States at War, Volume 1: A Reference Guide for Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont in the Civil War (2013) excerpt
  • Whitman, William E.S. and True, Charles H., Maine in the War for the Union, Lewiston, Maine, 1865.

External links

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