Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1902-01-06
AUGUSTA LOCALS.
HAVOC UF WAR.
Names Heavy Artillery and lis
Losses in Civil Strife.
L'sses Aggregated 1904 During One
Month Of Fierce Fighting.
Record Greater Than That Of Any Other Reel.
ment Of The Army.

y
Artillery in the Civil War. For long
time ne has been engaged in looking
up information concerning the losses
in killed and wounded sustained by
the regiment during the battles near
Spottsylvania court house and at
Petersburg in 1864. His Investigations
have been carefully and patiently
made and reveal n record surpassed
by no other regiment in the whole
Union army. Major House tells the
story as follows:
During the war of the Rebellion but
three instances are recorded in the
Union army where the loss in any one
regiment in single battle amounted
t. over four hundred in killed and
wounded. One of these three heavy
losses was inflicted on the Eight New
York Heavy Artillery at the battle of
Cold IIarbor on the third of June.
while the other two were sustained by
the First Maine Heavy Artillery, first
at the Fredericksburg pike or Harris
farm. near SpOttsylvania court house.
on the nineteenth of May, and again al
the battle of Petersburg on the eiSh-
tcenth Of June, all in the year 1864. 1t
may be worthy of note that these three
unprecedented losses occurred at in
terVals of fifteen days. and that the
number reported at the time as killed
ana wounded aggregated exactly ff-
teen hundred though many that We're
reported as missing were latter on
found Ia have been either killed or
wounded, which would make the
actual loss considerably higher. By
far, the heaVic loss was that on June
eighteenth whore the casualties in the
First Maine amounted to over six hun
dIed. thus placing it at the head of the
list of regimental losses in n single
battle. Not only this. but the total
losses in this regiment during the war
largely exceed that of any other in the
Union armies: ana what is more re-
markable. this loss all occurred be-
tween May nineteenth. 1864. and April.
seventh. 1865, period of ten and one
half months. And the fact that the
number of killed and wounded in the
regiment during the one month end
ing June eighteenth, 1864, aggregated
eleven hundred and ninetytwo makes
"a record of blood which il would be
hard to parallel in the annals of
ancient or modern warfare.
1t was the lot of the writer to be n
member of this famous regiment and
10 be present and participate in this
thirty days of fighting, and the results
arrived at as to the numbers Of its
losses are not taken from the hurried
and imperfect reports sent out at tn"
time, hut are counted up, name by
name, from well authenticated eases
of deaths or wounds. the result Of
months of patient and careful re-
search from every available record
since the war.
The First Maine Heavy Artillery
was enlisted principally from the
counties of Penobscot, Piscataquis.
Hancock and Washington in the east
en- part of the State of Maine. and
was mustered into service at Bangor
on the twenty-first of August. 1867, as
the Eighteenth Maine Infantry. under
command of Colonel Daniel Chaplain
who had already seen service at Bull
Run and through the Peninsula
campaign as major of the Sec
ond Maine Infantry. Three days
later it started for seat of
war. arriving in Washington on the
twenty-scventh and as Mcclellan and
lie, were then moving northward and
among the possibilities this and many
other new regiments We're furnished
,,,th axes and set at work telling the
forests Just outside the chain of forts
which encompassed the city, in order
tn give the guns in the forts clearer
range in case Of an attack. When
the army had reached the Potomac on
as way to Antietam, the Eighteenth
90 IN
Hancock. then commanding a brigade
in the sixth Army Corps. when 1t I'M
,nediatelv broke camp and started on
abe march.
The members of this regiment,
whose pioneer life in cutting lumber
ana in clearing new farms had made
them most efficient axmen. were 100
valuable a corps to be spared from
skcir work. and the engineer ofhcer III
.harse of the defences of Washington.
hearing Of the order, mounted His
horse and hurried to the Secretary of
War and got it countermanded, anu
,hey were soon overtaken by an or
DERBY and returned to camp. 1hus tie
,s,iment was detained through the
fall. and on January first, 1868. the or
.,nization was changed to the First
was ever afterwards known. 1t re-
,o,ined in the defences OF Washington.
,vi,b headouarters at Fort Sumpter,
MARYLAND. just above Chain Bridge
until the fifteenth of May. 1864. in the
meanwhile having been recruited up 10
eighteen hundred men. making Twelve
companies of one hundred and hity
men each, and becoming most pro-
ncient both in artillery and infantry
drill After the battle of the Wilder
ness and the heavy fighting around
Spottsylyania court house, denera'
Grant called for re-enforcements iot
.ha Potomac army and the rlrs'
uaine was one of the regiments then
ordered to the front. With sixteen
hundred available men present 1oi
,luty. and armed and equipped as IN
fantry. it marched on to the iieid OF
Snottsylvania on the evening OF May
v..syenteenth. On the morning OF tht
eighteenth it went into the trenches
a,uner shell fire in rear of the bloody
angle. but was 50 well protected ina
no ruen were lost.
All day the nineteenth the troop:
49, ,.;<xtt ~ tho rrny wQr. NOV