Radio Script #818

Little Talks on Common Things
November 2, 1969

In the fall of 1862 the correspondence of the Civil War soldier, Hamilton Plaisted, whom we began to talk about last week, concerned property in Waterville. Appleton, at home, wrote to his brother in Virginia: “Old Wheeler, the small beer man, wants to buy the Jackins house, the lot to run back even with the south line of Chipman’s store. If you wish to sell it, please state your price and terms of payment.”

Ham replied: “In regard to Old Wheeler, he is an old fool and has always been talking about that lot, then backing down. If he will make an offer fair and square, we will consider it, but I don’t think it pays to bother with him. I think well of investing the estate money in treasury notes. Can you get them in Waterville?”

By “estate money” Ham Plaisted meant the estate of his father, Dr. Samuel Plaisted, who died in 1862, about a year after Ham’s enlistment. The estate was chiefly divided among the three children, Appleton, Hamilton and Florence. Dr. Samuel Plaisted, a graduate of Brown and of the Maine Medical, was brought to Waterville to practice with Dr. Moses Appleton, whose daughter Mary Jane became Plaisted’s wife. Like Dr. Appleton, Dr. Plaisted became active in the business and civic affairs of Waterville, was a director of the Waterville Bank, and had financial interest in the early manufacture of paper in this locality.

In December, 1862 Ham again wrote his brother about the estate: “If there is any money still coming to the estate, you had better use it for Florence, as I do not want any now. So don’t you suffer for want of money while there is any of ours lying around in the bank. You have never written me about our tenant. Does he still occupy the store and pay the rent? By the way, what has happened to the Waterville Mail? I never receive it.”

A few days later Ham wrote: “I hear that Peletiah Penney is dead. If that is true, can you ascertain from his father the date he died, so I can report the fact on my rolls. You know he was originally in our company. I assure you Co. H is prospering finely with 47 men present and not one on the sick list. If you could see the amount of grub we make away with in a day, you would think every man would be sick; but the men still complain that the rations are too small.”

Then, for the first time since his enlistment, Hamilton Plaisted got home leave for Christmas.

Many of the Plaisted letters pass judgment on the army officers. In one letter Hamilton wrote of conditions since a promotion had taken Col. Howard away from them and placed him in command of a brigade. A battalion commander, Major Staples, was now the new colonel. and the new battalion head was Major Burt. This is what Ham Plaisted wrote: “Col. Howard has been appointed Brigadier General and has left us. Major Staples is now our colonel and Burt our major. With that team the Third Maine bids fair to sink to the lowest depths of demoralization and I shall be ashamed to be connected with it. William Heath ought to have been the new major, but unlike some other men in the regiment, he has no promotions thrust upon him without merit, but earns more of them than he gets. Captain Heath is far above any other men in the regiment in military knowledge and capacity to command. Burt is fit for nothing more than an orderly sergeant. To see such a man major is disgusting. Hall, the new adjutant, is worse than Burt, practically illiterate. He has just asked me to interpret for him an order containing the word subversive, the meaning of which he had no idea.”

In the spring of 1862 Hamilton Plaisted’s letters showed that the Army of the Potomac, was gett1ng closer and closer to battle action. On March 6 they started for Fort Monroe; on the 25th they were near Yorktown; in mid-April they were having daily skirmishes; and on May 2nd they began the siege of Yorktown. Before the end of June they had seen action at Second Bull Run and Fair Oaks.

Hamilton wrote that on June 26 he saw William Heath, who had already been promoted and transferred. On the very next day, at the Battle of Gaines Mill, Heath was killed. On July 10 Ham wrote to his brother: “My heart sinks when I think of William Heath. I am glad it was not my duty, as it has been in cases within the Third Maine, to write the sad tidings to his dear folks.”

Referring to the battles of Second Bull Run and Fair Oaks, Hamilton wrote: “Early July days were mere holidays compared with what we have just seen. Terrible fighting, marching retreat without food or sleep, our broken battalions could only hurl back death and defiance as we retreated. Thank God, our regiment lost but a few men, though some still missing are probably prisoners. I am sick of war and long for the time when we can hang up our arms.”

It was in November, 1862 that Hamilton notified his brother: “Everything is arranged as I wished. I am at last a captain.”

On November 13 Hamilton wrote: “Hearing that the Nineteenth Maine was at Warrenton only five miles away, I rode over and saw lots of familiar faces from Waterville. It was almost as good as going home. Frank Hesseltine and I had a long talk. While at Warrenton I saw General McClellan for the first time. As you know, he has been replaced. He has taken leave of his officers — a sad sight. If the abolitionists of the North have lost faith in Mac, his troops never did. The army that he disciplined and led believes in him still. The future looks to me full of disaster and ruin. I can see no one that can take the reins that were pulled from Mac’s hands by those who think only of the nigger and not of the country. If McClellan should be able to depose the government and set himself up as dictator, he would have the support of the bulk of the army, and on the ruins of our old country he might found a government we could be proud of.”

Those were harsh words, but they expressed what all historians agree was the view of the majority of the men who made up the great Army of the Potomac. For that very reason, President Lincoln’s task was made more difficult. By the fall of 1862 it had become evident that McClellan’s tactics were delay after delay. Lincoln and his military advisers felt sure that McClellan had the strength to launch a major attack and probably capture Richmond, but McClellan would not move. Lincoln had no alternative but to replace him, but the men in the ranks resented that action.

Probably there were plenty of men in the service who were no more anxious to see action than was Hamilton Plaisted, and they would have shared with Ham’s statements to his brother on November 23: “The army is ragged and barefoot and in no condition for a winter campaign. If you want to know the beauties of campaigning at this season, just put a pack of thirty pounds on your back, travel fifteen miles, dip your feet in a puddle of ice water, roll up in a blanket, make a tent of two tablecloths, and you will have some idea of a soldier’s life at the beginning of a Virginia winter.”

Evidently Appleton Plaisted, at home in Waterville, did not agree with his brother about General McClellan, for on November 26, 1862 Hamilton remonstrated with Appleton: “I am sorry to see you so bitter against McClellan, but I am delighted that Florence defends him. App, if you could know the real situation of this army, which you cannot get from the newspapers, you would stand aghast at the prospect before us. I speak of the old Army of the Potomac, those that have not slept under a tent since March and have suffered as much as any men can and still live. We are tired and sick of this Lincoln’s great circus. Since crossing the river I have already lost from Co. H three men by desertion, and the company is near mutiny because five months have elapsed since their last pay. You think that McClellan has done nothing. Have you forgotten that, when he was in command, he disciplined and organized the finest army in the world, that he directed all operations against the enemy? But when Halleck took command, disaster and ruin followed.

Yet the blame was placed on Mac, not on Halleck and Stanton, where it belonged. Mac may have made mistakes in the Peninsula Campaign. Perhaps he could have taken Yorktown or even Richmond, but if either attempt had been made and failed, it would have meant the destruction of the whole army and the Rebels would have won the war. Mac chose a safer but not so brilliant a course. When the record of this war is finally read, and men dare speak and write without a prison wall staring them in the face, McClellan will stand like a colossus above the pygmies that have tried to disgrace him. Last winter in Washington William Heath was told that the politicians would rather see Mac’s army routed and defeated than to see Mac victorious and thereby make himself a candidate for President.”

Fervent as was Hamilton Plaisted’s prophecy about later judgment on McClellan, he was wrong. Among the numerous war historians it is agreed that the only hope of the North’s winning the war lay in the removal of that general. But it was not necessary to wait for historians to justify that removal. When Lincoln ran for reelection in 1864, his Democratic opponent was General McClellan, and Lincoln’s victory at the polls was overwhelming. Even the soldiers were for Lincoln.

What had happened to the Third Maine since they marched off to war was revealed in a letter from Ham Plaisted just before Christmas in 1862: “Our regiment officially numbers over 700, but can turn out not more than 300 armed men. The rest are sick, on leave, or missing. Co. H now numbers only 65, with only 34 carrying muskets. I have seen more bare-footed men this last week than in my five months in the Peninsula. We have laid waste the country over which we have traveled. Everything eatable has been taken. All has fallen to the voracious appetites of our soldiers.”

In June, 1863 the time had come when Lincoln could say, “The Father of Waters now flows unvexed to the sea”, and Ham Plaisted was more cheerful.

But we have used up our time for today. Next week we shall complete the story of that Civil War correspondence, and then have a bit more to say about William Heath, for whom Waterville’s GAR post was named.

Year: 1969