Maine at War: June 2021

Here’s what our friend Brian Swartz was up to in June at his blog, Maine at War:

June 2, 2021: Edward Baker was country before there was “country”
Eighteen-year-old Edward Baker was a country boy all the way, raised in rural Maine before joining the 3rd Maine Battery. He fought and died for his country, and his family gave him a country funeral. 

June 9, 2021: Hannibal Hamlin sparks life into a dying soldier
When Hannibal Hamlin walked into a Washington, D.C. hospital ward filled with sick and dying heroes, “he sat down for a while … and talked to us as if we were his own boys,” recalled a young soldier who credited the visit for saving his life.

June 16, 2021: Civil War fort protects entrance to Down East Maine river
Far from Virginia battlefields, the War Department constructed a five-cannon fort in 1863 to protect a lumber port against Confederate sea raiders. Maine maintains the well-preserved fort as a state park to this day.

June 23, 2021: What good are Union monuments (part 1)?:
After a year of monumental destruction in the United States, Mainers should ask what good are the 150 or so Union monuments scattered around the Pine Tree State. That is, if Mainers can find them.

June 30, 2021: What good are Union monuments (part 2)?:
When they dedicated a Civil War monument on July 4, 1864, residents in a certain Maine town knew what the monument represented.