Maine at War Volume I: Bladensburg to Sharpsburg

Maine at War Volume I: Bladensburg to Sharpsburg

Maine at War Volume I: Bladensburg to Sharpsburg

Maine at War Volume I: Bladensburg to Sharpsburg

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Overview

The early strife that would come to divide a nation slowly boiled in the decades leading up to the American Civil War. In 1838, one event became the final tipping point for many Mainers, after which the United States began careening towards a new revolution.

Congressional Rep. Jonathan Cilley, challenged to a duel by a Southern member of the House, was killed at the infamous Bladensburg Dueling Grounds. His death became an electrifying rallying cry for abolitionists. No one would be more furious than his son, Jonathan Prince Cilley, who vowed during the Civil War to make someone, or maybe everyone in the South, pay for his father's death.

As war erupted, the Union states sent its men to fight against their Confederate counterparts--once their brothers in patriotic unity, now their sworn enemies in a conflict that would test a nation barely eight decades old.

Here begins the story of the more than 75,000 Maine men who fought for the preservation of the Union. Long before Joshua Chamberlain would make history at Gettysburg, Mainers headed south to defend their country--or pay the ultimate price in trying.

In this, the first of three volumes of Maine's deep involvement in the American Civil War, noted author, historian, journalist, and storyteller Brian F. Swartz brings us more than just a history book. Beyond merely repeating facts from other books, in this opening volume Swartz delivers an electrifying account of Maine at war--from Cilley's fateful duel at Bladensburg in 1838 to the explosive battle between the Rebels under Lee and the Yankees under McClellan at Sharpsburg, Maryland, in late 1862.

Swartz brings together eyewitness accounts from soldiers and nurses who were there--stories garnered from handwritten letters, articles and letters printed in newspapers of the day, and other firsthand tales. From historical societies to state archives to libraries and beyond, and from decades of walking the actual battlefields while conducting his research, Swartz has spared no expense of time or detail to bring this powerful story to life.

Along with hundreds of photographs and illustrations from the period, and enhanced with some of his own modern-day photography of Civil War battlefields, Brian Swartz has begun the astounding story of how Maine mattered during the war--from the day Jonathan Cilley died to the final end of the war.

Here begins that incredible story in the first part of Brian Swartz's masterwork, Maine at War Volume I: From Bladensburg to Sharpsburg.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780983334651
Publisher: Epic Saga Publishing
Publication date: 05/01/2019
Series: Maine at War , #1
Pages: 492
Product dimensions: 8.50(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.99(d)

About the Author

Brian F. Swartz was a reporter and an editor with the Bangor Daily News for 27 years. He is the author of American Homecoming and Where Good Means the Best: 70 Years at Frank's Bake Shop; and, in collaboration with Richard R. Shaw, he is the co-author of Legendary Locals of Bangor. A Civil War historian, Brian writes weekly posts about Maine's involvement in the war at maineatwar.bangordailynews.com. Brian lives in central Maine with his wife and their fluffy orange cat.

David M. Fitzpatrick is a writer, editor, anthologist, and publisher. He has had nearly 70 short stories appear in print magazines and anthologies in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada, and writes a monthly flash-fiction column on TheCud.com. He has edited or co-edited a half-dozen fiction anthologies, and has published several anthologies and other works.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Nicholas P. Picerno

Publisher’s Preface by David M. Fitzpatrick

Author’s Preface by Brian Swartz

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1: First Blood at Bladensburg

Chapter 2: Ill-Prepared to Save the Union

Chapter 3: Forming for Battle

Chapter 4: This Is Our Colonel

Chapter 5: The California Flag

Chapter 6: Hot Work at Manassas

Chapter 7: Freedom of the Press Takes Flight

Chapter 8: Maine Women Mobilize

Chapter 9: The 6th Maine Infantry Brawls Apart Portland

Chapter 10: Missing the Face of a Pretty Girl

Chapter 11: Of Snow and Ice

Chapter 12: The Sand and Spiders of Ship Island

Chapter 13: Pulaski

Chapter 14: Spring Cleaning

Chapter 15: Traitor

Chapter 16: Old Grizzly Fights

Chapter 17: All Shore Who Are Going Ashore

Chapter 18: They Rode to Delay Stonewall Jackson

Chapter 19: Slaughter at Middletown

Chapter 20: The Inquiry About the Missing

Chapter 21: The Ladies of Augusta, the Rains of Seven Pines

Chapter 22: The Maine Boys Fired and Fired and Fired...

Chapter 23: The Man with the White Handkerchief

Chapter 24: Across the Flood

Chapter 25: Balloon Handler

Chapter 26: Morning Carnage at Seven Pines

Chapter 27: The Application of Cold Steel

Chapter 28: They Sought the Dead Amidst the Disintegrated

Chapter 29: A Maine Hero lay Closest to Richmond

Chapter 30: Resurrection

Chapter 31: Rally Round the Flag, Boys

Chapter 32: Angels of the Battlefield

Chapter 33: Round Up the Reluctant

Chapter 34: Unremitted Fury at Gaines Mill

Chapter 35: On the Road Again

Chapter 36: The Fighting Retreat

Chapter 37: The Battle of Baton Rouge

Chapter 38: The Fearful Place Called Harrison’s

Chapter 39: The Empty Sleeve

Chapter 40: The Elephant Approaches

Chapter 41: Cedar Mountain Combat

Chapter 42: Men Stood Like Statues

Chapter 43: Prelude to Slaughter

Chapter 44: Encounter in the East Woods

Chapter 45: Forward, the 7th Maine

Chapter 46: Tramping Tonight on the Field of the Slain

Chapter 47: Angels of Mercy

Chapter 48: Maine’s Most Hated

Chapter 49: The Blanket Brigade Presses Onward

Chapter 50: They Wanted to Fight



Bibliography

Military Units Index

Maine Military Units

Other Union Military Units

Confederate Units

General Index

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