16th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment The 16th Regiment Maine Volunteer Infantry was an infantry regiment that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War . It was particularly noted for its service during the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg . Service . The 16th Maine was organized at Augusta , Maine , and mustered into Federal service for a three - year enlistment on August 14 , 1862 . The regiment was discharged from service on June 5 , 1865 . The 16th Maine at Gettysburg . Around 11 : 30 on the morning of July 1 , 1863 , two divisions of the 1st Corps , Army of the Potomac arrived to join a fight that had been raging all morning , as the Confederates advanced on Gettysburg from the west and from the north . Among them was the 16th Maine . The regiment , along with the rest of the army , had been marching since June 12 up from Virginia , through Maryland , and into southern Pennsylvania . They were headed toward an eventual clash with the Confederate Army that was fated to take place in and around the little market town of Gettysburg . The 16th Maine fought bitterly for approximately three hours in the fields north of the Chambersburg Pike ; but by mid - afternoon , it was evident that , even with the addition of the rest of the 1st Corps and the entire 11th Corps , the position of the Union forces could not be held . They began to fall back toward the town of Gettysburg . The 16th Maine was then ordered to withdraw to a new position to the east of where they had been fighting . " Take that position and hold it at any cost ! " was the command . This meant that those of the 275 officers and men of the regiment who had not already become casualties had to sacrifice themselves to allow some 16 , 000 other men to retreat . This they valiantly did , but they were soon overwhelmed and forced to surrender to the Confederates . Historians say the 16th Maine fought valiantly , but its soldiers turned their attention to saving their beloved flags when they realized that defeat was inevitable . As the Southern troops bore down upon them , the men of the 16th Maine spontaneously began to tear up into little pieces their " colors . " Like other Union regiments , the 16th Maine carried an American flag and a regimental flag , known collectively as " the colors . " " For a few last moments our little regiment defended angrily its hopeless challenge , but it was useless to fight longer , " Abner Small of the 16th Maine wrote after the battle . " We looked at our colors , and our faces burned . We must not surrender those symbols of our pride and our faith . " The regiment ' s color bearers " appealed to the colonel , " Small wrote , " and with his consent they tore the flags from the staves and ripped the silk into shreds ; and our officers and men that were near took each a shred . " Each man hid his fragment of the flags inside his shirt or in a pocket . The Confederates were thus deprived of the chance to capture the flags as battle trophies . That was the 16th Maine ' s " greatest day , " wrote Earl Hess , a history professor at Lincoln Memorial University in Tennessee , in an introduction to a collection of Small ' s Civil War letters published in 2000 . Hess said that the 16th Maine ' s actions show that battle flags carried " very , very deep symbolism for Civil War soldiers , " representing the " esprit de corps " of a regiment and " a larger entity - - the country , the cause . " Most of the 16th Maine survivors treasured these remnants for the rest of their lives and bequeathed them to their descendents , some of whom still possess them as family heirlooms to this day . By sunset on July 1 , 11 officers and men of the 16th Maine had been killed , 62 had been wounded , and 159 had been taken prisoner . Only 38 men of the Regiment managed to evade being captured and report for duty at 1st Corps headquarters . But the 16th Maine had bought precious time for the Union Army . Those whose retreat they had covered were able to establish a very strong position just east and south of the center of the town of Gettysburg along Cemetery Ridge . During the night and into July 2 the 1st and 11th Corps were reinforced by the rest of the Army of the Potomac . For the next two days they would withstand successive assaults by the Confederates until the final repulse of Pickett ' s Charge , on July 3 . Total strength and casualties . 1 , 907 men served in the 16th Maine Infantry Regiment at one point or another during its service . It lost 181 enlisted men killed in action or died of wounds . 578 members of the regiment were wounded in action , 259 died of disease , and 76 died in Confederate prisons for a total of 511 fatalities from all causes , a rate of 57 % . Small , Abner , " The Road to Richmond : The Civil War [ Recollections ] of Major Abner R Small of the 16th Maine Volunteers " , Small , Harold ed . Fordham University Press , 2000 .