Radio Script #529

Little Talks on Common Things

March 11, 1962

We must not forget from time to time, during this period that marks the hundredth anniversary of the Civil War, to refer to that war in connection with the Waterville area. it will be July, 1963 before we honor the exact centennary of the Battle of Gettysburg, but because it was the turning point in the war that looked so grim for the Union in 1862, it may not be out of place to say something about it tonight.

In General Meade’s army at Gettysburg there were 5,342 men from Maine, of whom 330 were officers. Fully engaged in the battle were 185 officers and 2,685 men from Maine; the rest were either partially engaged or were in non-combatant status. Of those 2,685 Maine soldiers who were fully engaged in the battle, 205 were killed or died of wounds inflicted there. Of their 185 officers, 18 were killed. The wounded who later recovered numbered 35 officers and 486 men.Taken prisoner were 209 men and 13 officers. When one compares figures in either the First or the Second World War, when only junior officers were often in danger, one is astonished to note that at Gettysburg the peroentage of casualties among the Maine officers was greater than among the enlisted men. Killed and wounded alone, not counting the prisoners, were 29% of all the Maine officers engaged at Gettysburg. But the losses among the men, though less in percentage, were of course greater in gross numbers. At Gettysburg, Maine lost 25% of the state’s enlisted men who fought in the battle. That is a terrible record of casualties, one man out of every four.

The rosters of the various regiments show that 41 men from Waterville had some part in the battle. The highest ranking Maine officers on the field during those terrible July days were Col. (afterwards General) Joshua Chamberlain, commanding the 20th Maine; and Col. Francis Heath of Waterville, leader of the 19th Maine. Other Waterville officers leading troops were Captain William A. Stevens of the 16th Maine, Adjts. Abner Small of the 16th and Francis Haskell of the 19th, Lieutenants George McIntire and Charles Lowe of the 3rd Maine, and Addison Lewis of the 20th. Among the Waterville sergeants at Gettysburg were Edwin Stevens, Martin Soule, William Copp, George Davis, Charles Shorey, and Albert Clark. Martin Bowman was Commissary Sgt. of the 1st Maine Cavalry. Among the corporals and privates appeared family names well known in Waterville: Bates and Ballentine, Bacon and Lyford, Pooler and Thayer, DeRocher and Tozier.

Winslow, too, was represented at Gettysburg by fifteen men, of whom the highest rated Was Sgt. Charles uarland of the 19th Maine. In fact most of the Winslow men in the battle were in that 19th regiment led by Col. Francis Heath of Waterville. Among other well known Winslow family names that appear in the Gettysburg record are Abbott, Pollard, Webber, Palmer and McCausland.

Fairfield had 24 of her citizens at Gettysburg, of whom the highest ranking was the commanding officer of the 7th Maine in the battle, Selden Connor. Although then only a lieutenant colonel, he was promoted to the rank of Brig. General before the war ended. Francis Foss of Fairfield was a lieutenant in the 19th Maine, as was Augustus Emery of the 7th. Common Fairfield names in the list are Nye, Emery, Bray, Nichols, Mayo and Pratt.

Yes indeed, the communities of Waterville, Winslow and Fairfield were wellmpresented at the Battle of Gettysburg.

Besides having several men in the 16th Maine, there is another reason today why the people of t~s area should be interested in what happened to the regiment at Gettysburg. The granddaughter of the commanding officer of that famous regiment is a resident of Oakland, Mrs. Amy Willey, and last spring on this program I told you quite a bit about her gro.ndfather, Col. Charles Tilden. You may remember that I gave a full account of his escape from Libby Prison. Tonight I want to tell you how it happened that Col. Tilden and many others of the 16th Maine chanced to be in Confederate prisons at all.

At the Battle of Gettysburg, when the 16th Maine was assigned to Gen. Paul’s brigade of Gen. RObinson’s division of the First Corps of Meade’s army, the regiment had already been through many battles and had suffered grievous losses. Because of those losses and many transfers to other units, there remained on that memorable July 1, 1863 only 275 of those one thousand men who had left Maine a year earlier.

Everyone who has visited Gettygburg has seen Seminary Ridge, where, before the Civil War, was the spreading campus of an educational seminary. It was on that campus that the 16th Maine were assembled on the morning of July 1, 1863, awaiting orders from Gen. Robinson. Three quarters of a mile to the west, Union troops were already engaging Confederates of Gen. Heth’s division. Heavy Confederate reinforcements were also rapidly coming up.

At 1 P.M. the 16th·’Maine was ordered into battle. They moved northwest over Seminary Ridge and advanced in full view of the enemy. The Zl5 men, extending a battle line of about 450 feet, were an open target. Col. Tilden’s horse was shot from under him. The captain of Company K was killed, and the Captain of Co. I was seriously wounded. Finally a gallant bayonet charge cleared the Rebels from the immediate front, but the regiment’s losses were heavy.

In that Bection of the battlefield were engaged two parts of Meade’s army, the First and the Eleventh Corps. In the middle of the afternoon the whole 11th Corps was broken by enemy attacks and was swept back toward the town of Gettysburg. That left the rear of the First Corps badly exposed. Gen. Paul’s brigade, to which the 16th Maine was attached, was in greatest danger. The only way now to save the First Corps from complete destruction was by the heroic sacrifice of some small group as a holding force while the bulk of the Corps made orderly retreat.

Gen. Robinson galloped up to Col. Tilden with an order. The 16th Maine must advance alone against the enemy, while all the other regiments retired to pOSitions far to the rear. Col. Tilden told the General it would be impossible for his depleted regiment to hold such a position. “Take that position and hold it at any cost”, yelled the General.

It was at 4 P~M. when the 16th Maine advanced. Ahead they saw a heavy column of Confederate infantry. When they looked back, they saw not supporting troops, but only the retiring columns of Union soldiers. The volleys of the little regiment could not long hold back the enemy who so vastly outnumbered them. Within twenty minutes they were surrounded. Annihilation of the whole regiment seemed certain.

Then the men of the 16th Maine performed a memorable act. Taking their two flags, the Stars and Stripes and the flag of Maine (a pine tree on a golden shield in a field of blue), they tore them into small pieces and distributed the pieces among the men. The regiment could do nothing but surrender. Twelve officers and 92 men were captured, but 10 officers and 35 men got away and eventually reached Union lines on Cemetery Hill. But the Confederates did not get the satisfaction of capturing the flags of the 16th Maine. Those distributed fragments were carried into Confederate prisons and finally were brought back to Maine. The small piece that was Col. Tilden’s own share is still carefully preserved by his granddaughter, Mrs. Amy Willey, in Oakland.

Now I want to say a word about early buildings in Waterville.

The first house on Silver Street was built by Reuben Kidder in 1790 on the site of the present Farrar-Brown Company. About 1815 it was moved to a new street running nearly parallel to Main Street. The house was then owned by David McFarland, who set out a beautiful row of elm trees, which gave the new street the name Elm Street.

About 1810 on the east. side of Elm Street, near the Reuben Kidder house, there was built a small one-story structure in which Dr. Moses Appleton set up a distillery for making whiskey out of potatoes. Before 1820 Moses Dalton had built a one-story frame house where Dunham’s store now stands, and about the same time

Edward Estes put up the first brick building in Waterville, near the present site of the Federal Trust Company. Already a frame house bigger than the common one-story cottages had been built in Waterville, because as early as 1794 Dr. Obadiah Williams had built the first two-story house on the west side of the river. That stood on the east side of Main Street somewhere near the present site of Arnold’s store.

A well known Waterville residence at the time when Waterville became a separate town in 1802 Was the Asa Faunce house, which stood in the triangle, now called Lockwood Park, at the southern end of Main Street, and faced directly up that street. In 1840 the old Faunce house was enlarged into a tavern, and for many years after the Civil War it Was called the Continental Hotel. It was later moved and made over into apartments on Kennebec Street. I am not sure of its present identity. If any part of the original structure still stands on Kennebec Street, it is probably now the oldest building in Waterville.

One old house that played an important part in Waterville history was the home of James Wood, built in 1798 on the present site of the Elmwood Hotel. It was then a farmhouse a bit out in the country, because not until much later was there any building along Main Street between Temple Street and the present Elmwood site, and Elm Street did not then even exist.

When the trustees of the Maine Literary and Theological Institution decided to set up their college in Waterville and persuaded Jeremiah Chaplin to take charge, they had to find a place for Chaplin to live. That was in 1818. James Wood had died a few years earlier, his house was unoccupied, and his heirs were willing to rent it for the use of the first professor for the new college that many years later would be renamed Colby. It was a big house and amply held Mr. and Mrs. Chaplin, their four children, and the seven theological students they had brought with them from Danvers, Mass. Not until the next year was a house built on the college lot, and not until four years later in 1822 was the first permanent college building erected, old South College. So it was in the James Wood house, where the Elmwood now stands, that the first classes of the college were held, and it was there in August, 1818 that Waterville’s First Baptist Church was organized — the first religious organization of any denomination in Waterville.

Year: 1962