Remembering the 4th Maine regiment fought on battlefield at Gettysburg

On May 3, 1861, barely three weeks into the Civil War, Hannah Rogers of Bangor, perhaps borne on the intense wave of patriotism sweeping the country, took pen in hand. Signifying her consent, she affixed her signature to official papers that enlisted her 18-year-old son, Frederick H. Rogers, as a member of the Volunteer Militia of Maine.

This paper, and three letters from Rogers written to his mother, is part of the collection of Civil War-era artifacts housed at the Bangor Museum and Center for History’s Thomas Hill House on Union Street in Bangor. Today, on the heels of the 140th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, in which Rogers took part and died, these documents have special meaning. The battle took place over three days, July 1-3, 1863.

The 4th Maine Regiment, the one in which Frederick Rogers would serve, was in the process of being raised in April 1861 at Rockland. The bulk of the initial 1,120 men who composed the regiment were from towns in Waldo, Knox and Lincoln counties.

Exceptions were 10 Penobscot County recruits from Bangor: Frederick Rogers, Michael Dorsey, Jerry Dunning, Charles Hopkins, Robert Grant, Rufus Bickford, George Cox, Charles Rose, Adolphus Whitney and Melvin Nichols.

The fervor of raising the regiment spurred three Rockland women, Miss Ruth Mayhew, a teacher; Miss O.A. Packard, a compositor at the Rockland Gazette; and Miss Jennie Grafton, to enlist as nurses.

Officials in charge of raising the regiment asked the ladies of the area to prepare clothing for the regiment. By June 17, when the 4th Regiment left for Portland on the steamer Daniel Webster, local women had met at Pillsbury Hall in Rockland where they sewed 1,050 shirts, 2,000 towels, 52 bed sacks and 400 cotton cap covers. They furnished each soldier with bags equipped with pins and needles. Perhaps the women also stitched the banner the 4th Regiment carried, which said, “From the Home of Knox,” a reference to Gen. Henry Knox, secretary of war in 1785, who settled in Thomaston in 1796.

Late-19th century war historians described the 4th Regiment as “one of the truest veteran regiments in the Army of the Potomac.” The 4th saw action at Bull Run, Yorktown, Chantilly, Chancellorsville and Fredericksburg. By the time they took up their positions at Gettysburg, Frederick Rogers and his regiment knew their way around a battlefield.

In one of three surviving letters, this one dated July 10, 1862, Rogers wrote his mother from Camp Kearney, Va.: “The banks of the Pond are almost covered with Roses – White and Red while the margin of the Pond … is white with Pond lillies. The woods about the camp are almost alive with Squirels, Hares, and Phesants … and Birds and some Snaix.” He describes the weather. He refers to the tent he lives in and sends a drawing of it. He sends his love to “the children and Grandfather and Grandmother.” He says nothing about war.

In a second letter, from Lawson’s Hill, Va., dated Oct. 11, but with no year, Rogers writes: “I should like very much some stockings and Mittens … and I must have a pare of Boots … a lot of the Belfast Boys are going to have them. …Our Reg’t has been partly furnished with Riffles and Co’s A & K [Rogers’ unit] are to have Winsor rifles and Bayonetts.”

In a third letter, dated March 23, 1863, Rogers writes: “I can assure you that Maine has just got its name up during this campaign and so high too that it will remain up in the estimation of other and more popular states. Maine now has in the field 2 Major Generals, 7 Brigadeers, 28 Reg’ts of Infantry, 1 of Heavy Art., 6 Batteries, 2 companies of Sharpshooters & 1 reg’t of Regulars 17th U.S. & 1 Reg’t Of Cavalry (called the best Volunteer Cavalry in the service). … When our division went into the Battle at Fredericksburg Gen. Birney [commander of the 1st Division, III Corps] was overheard to say to one of his Ade’s de Camp that he thanked God that he had got 3 Maine regiments in his division for they would not run from anything no matter what example other Regts might set. Yes, as long as I have been in the field I never saw the time that I was not proud to say I am A Maine man, and well might be for never has a Maine Reg’t Disgraced its self by word or deed.”

One hundred forty years ago, on July 1, 1863, the 4th Maine Regiment arrived at Gettysburg with 300 men, to engage in a battle the Southern forces believed they would win, to mark the beginning of the freedom of their nation, the Confederate States of America.

The 4th was assigned to establish a picket line. The next day, it moved to a hill to the right of what came to be called the Devil’s Den, a steep ravine filled with huge boulders, to support two sections of the 4th New York Battery. At 4 p.m., the regiment moved from the rear to the left across the gorge of Plum Run to help defend the approaches to Little Round Top where Col. Joshua Chamberlain of Brewer and the 20th Maine Regiment were poised to turn the tide of the battle that marked the final phase of the Civil War.

The 4th Regiment repulsed the 44th Alabama with a bayonet charge. The regiment was part of 83,289 Union troops facing 75,054 Confederate troops.

When the smoke cleared after the battle was won and the Union preserved, the cost was 51,000 lives – 23,000 Union soldiers and 28,000 Confederate soldiers. Frederick Rogers, 20, was among the dead. Jerry Dunning received a hip wound. Rufus Bickford was taken prisoner. Charles Rose was wounded and taken prisoner. The other six Bangor soldiers did not appear on the casualty list and, presumably, survived, as did the Union army and the nation.

On July 4, 1863, the day some in the South believed would be a decisive one in their final push for independence, Lee began his retreat. Although the war would churn on for two more bloody years, Gettysburg marked the beginning of the end for the Confederate States of America.

In 1913, Joshua Chamberlain wrote an account of his thoughts on the aftermath of the Battle of Gettysburg. The article was published in Hearst’s Magazine. He wrote: “I thought of those … noble men of every type, who bore their wounds so bravely. … Nor did I forget those others, whether their names are written on the scrolls of honor and fame, or their dust left on some far field … nameless never to me, nor nameless, I trust, in God, where they are tonight … “