Maine in the Civil War

United States     U.S. Military      Maine      Maine Military      Maine in the Civil War



Introduction
Maine was a source of military manpower, supplies, ships, arms, and political support for the Union Army. About 70,000 men from Maine served in the U.S. military as soldiers and sailors. They were organized into 32 infantry, 2 cavalry regiments, 7 light Artillery batteries and1 heavy artillery regiment. Hundreds of civilians served as nurses, doctors, relief workers, and agents at home and on the field of battle.

Maine Military Units
Most units were numbered, however, some were named. See the table below for lists of the regiments, battalions, batteries, and unassigned companies.

The information in the lists of Maine Military Units comes from the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors web site. That web site also can be searched by the name of a soldier. Maine Units by Number or by Name Union Units 1st-11th 12th- 32nd A-Z

Maine Units by Type of Unit Union Units Infantry Cavalry Artillery Unassign- ed Other

Battles fought in Maine
The only Civil War battle fought in Maine was the Battle of Portland Harbor.


 * Battle of Portland Harbor - a naval battle fought in June of 1863 near Portland, Maine when Southern raiders triggered the Battle of Portland Harbor after seizing a pair of non-military vessels and trying to escape to the ocean.

Service Records
Indexes to service and pension records of Union army volunteers are available at the Family History Library. The actual service and pension records are available only at the National Archives. For the index to these records see:

Service records - United States. Adjutant General's Office. Index to Compiled Service Records of Volunteer Union Soldiers Who Served in Organizations from the State of Maine. Washington, D.C.: National Archives, 1964. (Family History Library .) This index is arranged alphabetically.

For more information on service records see Union Service Records.

Rosters
Published Civil War rosters of soldiers and officers are found in:

Annual Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Maine Adjutant General, 1861-66. Five Volumes in seven. Augusta, Maine: Stevens and Sayward, 1862-67. (Family History Library .) The Family History Library lacks the 1861 report.

For a supplement to the Adjutant General reports, see:

Maine. Adjutant General. Supplement to the Annual Reports of the Adjutant General of the State of Maine for the Years 1861,'62,'63,'64,'65 and 1866. Augusta, Maine: Stevens &amp; Sayward, 1867. (Family History Library .) Contains alphabetical lists of volunteers.

Additional information on soldiers of the Civil War may be found in:

Johnson, Daniel F. The American Civil War: the Service Records of Atlantic Canadians with the State of Maine Volunteers. Two Volumes. Saint John, N.B.: D.F. Johnson, 1995. (Family History Library .) A transcript of the service records compiled from the adjutant general office records for enlisted men of the Maine State Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery, and Navy who recorded New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, or Newfoundland as their birth place. The information is alphabetical.

Muster Rolls
Muster-In Rolls, Descriptive Rolls, Monthly Returns and Muster-Out Rolls of each Regiment. Bound and encapsulated in such a way that they cannot be photocopied.

Related to them is the Soldiers' Index, a 3x5 card file for each soldier, on which all information from the Regimental Rolls has been abstracted.

The Adjutant General's Office also tried to maintain a separate index for seamen, but it is very incomplete.

The "obituaries" are a file of newspaper clippings or other memorials regarding the death of Maine veterans; it is very incomplete as are the General Law Pension records.

- 225 microfilms located at the Family History Library. The compiled records are card abstracts containing information relating to the stations, movements, or activities of each unit or a part of it, and frequently to its organization or composition, strength and losses, and disbandment. Sometimes the names of commanding officers, the dates the unit was called into service and mustered out, the terms of service, and similiar information are included.

Pensions
Civil War Pension Index Cards - An of veterans who served in the US Army between 1861-1917 is available on FamilySearch. Each card gives the soldier’s name, application and certificate numbers, state of enlistment, and might include rank and death information. The majority of the records are of Civil War veterans, but the collection also includes records for veterans of the Spanish-American War, the Philippine Insurrection, the Indian Wars, and World War I. For more information see Union Pension Records.


 * USGenWeb pension project - a project still underway to provide actual transcriptions of Pension related materials for all Wars prior to 1900.


 * FamilySearch Record Search - Currently working on digitizing documents online. A free Internet index to pension applications of veterans who served in the US Army between 1861-1917. Each card gives the soldier’s name, application and certificate numbers, state of enlistment, and might include rank and death information.


 * - films of military pensions for Maine located at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Family History Library in Salt Lake City, UT. They are stored in the church vault and must be requested to be viewed. This can take a couple days if viewing in them at the Salt Lake Library.

1890 Veterans Census Schedule
1890 Census Veterans Schedules - The "Special Schedules of the Eleventh Census (1890) Enumerating Union Veterans and Widows of Union Veterans of the Civil War" (NARA M123) are available online for the state of Maine. The schedules list Union veterans and their widows living in Maine in 1890. The veterans census lists the individual soldier's name, regiment served in and other information. For widows, it gives the widow's name with the above information for her husband. It does not list other family members of the soldier.

The FHL films are:


 * has the counties of Androscoggin, Cumberland, Franklin, Kennebec, Oxford, Sagadahoc, Somerset, and York
 * has the oounties of Aroostook, Hancock, Knox, Lincoln, Penobscot, Piscataquis, Waldo, and Washington

For more information on the 1890 Veterans Schedules including online sources see Union Census Records.

Once you have the above information, look at the appropriate regiment page in the Wiki (see Maine Military Units table above).

1890 Maine census index of Civil War veterans or their widows

Military Unit Histories
For regimental sketches and lists of officers, see:


 * Whitman, William E.S., and Charles H. True. Maine in the War for the Union. (Lewiston, Maine: Nelson Dingley, Jr., 1865). (Family History Library .)

A helpful reference source on Maine's participation in the war is:


 * Jordan, William B., comp. Maine in the Civil War: A Bibliographical Guide. (Portland, Maine: Maine Historical Society, 1976). (Family History Library .)

Additional records are:


 * Adjudant General Office September 1 1861. Official Army Register of the Volunteer Force of the United States Army for the Years, 1861, '62, '63, '64, '65.(Govermant Printing Office) Internet Archive American Libraries- Official list of the men that enlisted in each year during the war. Not inclusive to New Hampshire and not alphabetized.


 * Maine Adjutant General. Returns of Desertions, Discharges, Deaths, etc., in Maine Regiments for the Months of August, September, and October, 1864 ( Bethesda, Maryland:University Publication of America c 1991). Microfiche of original published: [Augusta : s.n., 1864]. 80 p.


 * Stanley, Ruel H, and George O. Hall. Maine in the War for the Union: a History of the Part Borne by Maine troops in the Suppression of the American Rebellion. (Bowie, Maryland : Heritage Books, c2002). - 7 fiche.


 * Stanley, Ruel H and George O. Hall. Eastern Maine and the Rebellion: Being an Account of the Principal Local Events in Eastern Maine During the War and Brief Histories of Eastern Maine Regiments.(Bowie, Maryland: Hertage Books, C2002) Contains accounts of mobs, riots, destruction of newspapers, war meetings, drafts, Confederate raids, peace meetings, celebrations, soldiers' letters, and scenes and incidents at the front, never before in print.


 * Member of Bosworth Post ,Grand Army of Republic. Portland Soldiers and Sailors: a Brief Sketch of the Part They Took in the War of the Rebellion(B Thurston &amp; Co) The Booklet was published for Sale at the Fair held in Portland in aid of Soilders and Sailors Monument. Google Books


 * Maine State Archives - includes brief summary of the regiment, names of each company and the records that are available.


 * The Civil War Archive, Maine;- The Union Regimental Index links to a detailed description of each company.

Soldiers Homes
For records of national old-soldier homes including the one in Togus, Kennebec County, Maine, see:

United States. Veterans Administration. Registers of Veterans at National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, 1866-1937. Salt Lake City, Utah: Genealogical Society of Utah, 1988. (On 282 Family History Library films; Togus, Maine is on .) This source includes general indexes for each of the 12 homes, but some individual volumes are indexed separately. These Historical Registers may list soldier's name, date and place of enlistment, rank, military unit, length of service, date and place of discharge, place of birth, age, physical description, religion, occupation, previous residence, marital status, nearest relative, pension, soldier home admission and discharge dates, disability, death date, or cause of death.

Military Cemeteries
See Cemetery Records for a list of veteran burial records with descriptions of the records and how to access them.

Union soldiers from Maine interred in the National Cemetery, Arlington, Va., from May 13, 1864, to June 30,1865; also, interments in the Harmony Cemetery, between the same dates.

Grand Army of the Republic Records

 * GAR Maine Posts lists the Union veteran records to date collected and compiled by the GAR.

Other Source Material

 * A Brief Guide to Researching your Maine Civil War Ancestor - Andrea L. Solarz; January 2001; online PDF. An excellant list of Maine sources and websites.


 * United States Civil War, 1861 to 1865, lists and explains Federal Civil War records.

Grand Army of the Republic (GAR)
Grand Army of the Republic founded in 1866 - 1956, was the largest veteran’s organization in the country after the Civil War. It was a fraternal organization members were veterans of the Union Army, US Navy, Marines and Revenue Cutler Service who served in the American Civil War. The group supported voting rights for black veterans, and lobbied the U.S. Congress to establish veterans' pensions. In 1890 the membership was 490,000.

In 1888 there were 150 posts and 9,345 members in the state of Maine

GAR Posts in the State of Maine

Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War
With the death of the last member of the Grand Army of the Republic the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War was formed.