The Maine Connection 5: The Civil War

The Maine Connection: The Civil War

Underground Railroad

• Final stretch to Canada

• Hit Abyssianian House in Portland and then went up the coast or inland

• Anti-slavery societies existed in Lincoln, Waldo, and Penobscot County and on MDI

• Southern coastal areas there was believed to be a system of tunnels connecting safe houses

• Other places, safe houses were marked with a white chimney with a black ring on top

• Quilts hung on front porches as code

Lydia Neal Dennett

• Abolitionist and Suffragist from Portland

• Her home was a station on the Underground Railroad

• Kept a "closed carriage with a fine pair of horses" provided by the antislavery society to help

• Later went on to lead a petition campaign for women's suffrage in Maine

Harriet Beecher Stowe House

• Brunswick, ME

• Wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin here

• Today owned by Bowdoin College

• Harriet's Writing Room is open to the public

Open Ended

Were you surprised that there was a connection between Maine and African American history? Explain why or why not.

Soldiers

• 80,000 Maine men (almost 13% of the population) volunteered

• More men served in the navy from Maine than any other northern state

• 1 out of every 10 soldiers from Maine was killed

Important Battles with Mainers

• First Bull Run (1861) - panicked and had to retreat

• The Peninsula Campaign (June and July 1862) - 7 regiments tried to take the city of Richmond but failed. Did take Yorktown and Williamsburg, VA. "On the battlefield, you and your comrades arrested the progress, saved the army from a disgraceful defeat and turned the tide of victory in our favor." ~ General McClellan

• Fredericksburg (January 1863) - Tried to capture Richmond but there was so much mud, they sank in it.

• Gettysburg (July 1863) - 20th Maine with General Joshua Chamberlain defeated Confederates

Poll

Are you surprised that Maine was so involved in the Civil War?

• Yes, I didn't really know

• No, I already knew that

The War on the Home Front

• Donated millions of dollars in cash and goods to the war effort

• Bates Mills in Lewiston supplied the army with blankets and canvas tents

• Women collected candy and jam to send to soldiers, knitted socks, gloves and scarves too, as well as sewed cotton cloth into sheets and bandages

More from Women...

• Nurses on the battlefield

• Dorothea Dix - oversaw the nurses. Went on to help revolutionize mental health in U.S.

Poll

How would you have helped during the Civil War?

• Volunteered to fight

• Knitting/Sewing

• Nursing

The Caleb Cushing Affair

• Most famous raid on Maine shipping (June 1863)

• Charles Read - Confederate Naval Officer - captured 15 Union ships up coast of U.S.

• Encounters the Caleb Cushing outside of Portland.

• Boards ship, takes crew prisoner, and sails out into Atlantic

• 3 Union ships are in pursuit so Read orders the Cushing crew to tell him where the ammo is. They refuse so he shoots out anything else he can find. Including a round of cheese!

Caleb Cushing Continued...

• He knows he can't outrun them so he sets the prisoners free in a small boat and sets the boat on fire

• He and his men escape on another small boat

• When the fire reached the captain's quarters it exploded because of the hidden ammo

• Union troops eventually captured him and his men and sent them to prison in Boston

• Although no one died, it terrified people on the coast of Maine

Open Ended

What is the most interesting you learned from this?