What would really kindle your interest in searching for a Civil War veteran on your family tree? Finding out that he served at the Battle of Gettysburg? Then keep reading if you’re related to Daniel M. Wescott of Maine — or Daniel M. Wescott of Vermont. They’re the same person. Read Entire article
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Reinforcements marched to assist war-weary Union veterans
February 27th, 2013 
javal To paraphrase the patriotic song “We Are Coming, Father Abraham,” by February 1863, the war-weary Maine veterans who manned the nation’s ramparts from Virginia to Louisiana could “look across the hilltops that meet the southern sky,” where “long moving lines of rising dust your vision may descry.” In this dark midwinter of the war, reinforcements [...]
History buff co-founded Civil War re-enactment outfit
August 31st, 2012 javal The news spread fast on Friday, July 6, that Maine had lost a dedicated Civil War historian and re-enactor. Gordon McRae, 63, of Eddington had died suddenly of an apparent heart attack on that sunny Friday. His loss has been felt immensely by his wife, Amy, and his daughters, Andrea McRae and Wendy Lynds, and [...]
John French avoided the temptations that awaited Union soldiers
January 10th, 2012 javal John S. French epitomized a Maine recruiting sergeant’s dream: a naturally talented youth who took so easily to soldiering that he would earn a battlefield commission — and keep himself out of trouble. Hailing from Albion, the 21-year-old French enlisted as a private in the Lewiston Light Guard on April 27, 1861; French then worked [...]
A few of Maine’s lesser known Civil War heroes
January 9th, 2012 javal The 150th Anniversary of the Civil War is being noted from now until April 2015. It might be likened to our nation’s “Iliad,” having done more to shape who we are as a nation today than any other event. It seems fitting to pay homage to some of the lesser known Mainers who put their [...]
Belfast women sewed a patriotic legacy in 1864
November 9th, 2011 javal If cloth could only talk, what a tale Belfast’s last surviving Civil War veteran could tell. Patriotic fervor swept through Belfast after Fort Sumter fell to Confederate troops. Local men joined such outfits as the 4th Maine Infantry Regiment. Local women “enlisted,” too. On Saturday, April 27, 1861, “the Ladies of this city met at [...]
Inaccurate rebel shooting let a LaGrange farmer come home alive
October 12th, 2011 javal Credit inaccurate shooting by Confederates for populating LaGrange with Hinkleys — and credit inaccurate shooting by Benjamin Franklin Hinkley for populating LaGrange with crows. Hinkleys figure prominently in LaGrange lore: • First settler: David Hinkley Jr. in 1822. • First frame house: built by David Hinkley Jr. • First married woman to settle in LaGrange: [...]
How the Civil War Made the Maine Coast a Backwater
September 8th, 2011 javal For the past 125 years or so, outsiders have been coming to our coast precisely because of its unspoiled, under-populated, and surprisingly un-industrialized and undeveloped landscape. Our coast—unique to the seaboard of the northeastern U.S.—has been a backwater, a place people come to get away from it all, rather than in pursuit of economic opportunity. [...]