Showing results for "Chancellorsville"
ECW Weekender: Vicksburg National Military Park
An ECW colleague emailed me a note the other day: “I’m reading the Vicksburg/Tullahoma book, and really enjoyed your article about visiting Vicksburg. I’ve never been and I’m more motivated now than ever.” The article he mentioned was based on this blog series, which I wrote in 2018 while on a video tour of the […]
Read more...Fallen Leaders: Maine’s Hiram Berry
Haunted by a premonition, Maj. Gen. Hiram Berry recklessly exposed himself to Confederate snipers at Chancellorsville and paid the price for his carelessness. A 36-year-old Rockland (Maine) merchant in spring 1861, the physically robust Berry led the 4th Maine Infantry Regiment at First Manassas. Promoted to brigadier the following spring, he commanded the 3rd Brigade […]
Read more...ECW Weekender: Snow at Spotsylvania
The Virginia snow storm this week made national news as once again weather conditions prevented anyone from advancing on Richmond. Though the restoration of the power grid and the arrival of plows and salt seemed to take as long as waiting for pontoon bridges in 1862, the snow did create a scene of beauty on […]
Read more...December 2021 Maine at War blog posts
In December, my Maine at War blog examined topics ranging from a little-known Mainer with a famous name to women overlooked by history’s focus on soldiers and their battles. December 1, 2021: Scarborough’s Hiram Berry fought in Louisiana and Virginia The highest-ranking Mainer to die during the Civil War was Rockland’s Hiram Berry, a major […]
Read more...Favorite Soldier Memoirs
In his self-published book An Epic on “Old Abe,” The War Eagle (The War Eagle Book Association, 1894), S. C. Miles, a veteran of the 8th Wisconsin, extolled the virtue of first-person accounts of the war. Such accounts required “no coloring of imagination or romance to satisfy the taste of the reader for the romantic […]
Read more...The “Emerging Civil War Series” Series: Afterword
On November 1, we kicked off our “Engaging Civil War Series” Series. It’s been like the 12 Days of Christmas that won’t die: a gift that has kept giving and giving and giving! Well, now it’s time to wrap things up. For your handy reference, here’s a list of the blog posts in the order […]
Read more...2nd Maine veteran funded the monument to his regiment
A veteran’s desire to immortalize the 2nd Maine Infantry Regiment in bronze and stone finally bore fruit more than a century after the outfit left central Maine to help save the Union. Born to lumberman Waldo Treat Peirce and his wife, Hannah Jane Peirce, in Bangor in 1837, Luther Hills Peirce grew up on Harlow […]
Read more...130 Years Later: A Return to Antietam
Recently I returned to Antietam with two objects from my personal collection of veteran items. These ribbons were worn by veterans of the 130th Pennsylvania Infantry when they returned to Antietam to reunite and reminisce. I have a familial connection (my 4th-great grandfather) to the 130th Pennsylvania, and I’ve previously written about the regiment’s recruitment, […]
Read more...Civil War Cooking: Dr. Potter’s Fine Dining on May 31, 1863
The most complicated food menu experience ends the series this year… Civil War surgeons had a hard and unenviable experience, but some of them ate pretty well between battles. Multiple menus from surgeons’ dining tables caught my eye this year, but Dr. William Potter of the 57th New York Regiment won the prize for the […]
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