Maine at War: September 2021
With 9/11’s 20th anniversary occurring in September, my Maine at War blog focused on comparisons with Fort Sumter and its aftermath.
September 1, 2021: Efforts are under way to preserve a 5th Maine Battery site at Gettysburg
The American Battlefield Trust announces plans to purchase Baltimore Pike property across which the 5th Maine Battery maneuvered late afternoon on July 1, 1863.
September 8, 2021: Fort Sumter and 9/11
Americans living in mid-April 1861 experience their 9/11 moment when Confederates attack Fort Sumter — and react similar to Americans who watch the Twin Towers fall in New York more than 140 years later.
September 15, 2021: Sumter’s 9/11 aftermath: A shell explodes in central Maine
Standing not quite 5-5, Abner Small has a lion’s heart, and he patriotically responds after “one [Confederate shell] flew north and exploded under me.”
September 22, 2021: Sumter’s 9/11 aftermath” “Speak well of the land we love”
Admitting that the Fort Sumter attack meant war, a small-town newspaper editor lays out for his readers what they must do to support their country.
September 29, 2021: Sumter’s 9/11 aftermath: “We fondly imagined ourselves soldiers”
When the Fort Sumter news reached rural Piscataquis County, Charles Clark and other classmates drop out of their prep school and join the 6th Maine Infantry.