Maine’s “Iron Brigade” Led by Waterville’s Harris Plaisted

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by Charles Francis I n August of 1861 a young Maine lawyer named Harris Plaisted volunteered his services for the Union Army. At the same time, his friend Winslow Spofford also volunteered. Republican Governor Israel Washburn appointed Plaisted as Lieutenant Colonel of the 11th Maine Volunteer Regiment, which formed in Augusta in November of that year. Spofford became a major. Probably the best explanation as to why Plaisted and Spofford were given high-ranking appointments is that both were active in the Republican Party. In particular, Plaisted served on the staff of Republican Party founder Governor Lot M. Morrill from 1858 to 1860. The fact that Plaisted and Spofford were political appointees, however, would have no bearing on the great contributions they would make to the overall war ef

fort. Plaisted would become recognized as a brilliant field commander. Spofford would sadly lose his life commanding the 11th Maine at the siege of Petersburg.

The battles of the spring and summer of 1864 are considered among the bloodiest and hardest-fought of the Civil War. They are known in history as the Wilderness Campaign since made famous by Stephen Crane in The Red Badge of Courage. Some consider the Wilderness Campaign to be General Ulysses Grant’s finest hour as a military commander because it was then that his Army of the Potomac broke the back of Robert E. Lee’s Army of Vir- (cont. on page 64)

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ginia. Others, however, question his overall tactics because of the incredible loss of life they incurred. This is especially true of the death toll at the sieges of Richmond and Petersburg.

The 11th Maine was in the front lines at both Richmond and Petersburg. It was one of the four regiments that comprised the 3rd Brigade of the 10th Army Corps of General Benjamin Butler’s Army of the James. The other three regiments making up the 3rd Brigade were the 10th Connecticut, 24th Massachusetts, and the 100th New York. They were remarkably persistent in the face of overwhelming fire at Richmond and Petersburg and, for that, were nicknamed the Iron Brigade. (One should note that there were several other units known as The Iron Brigade, including one Confederate group. The most famous was the Western unit comprised of soldiers from the 2nd, 6th, and 7th Wisconsin Volunteers and the 19th Indiana Volunteers.) (cont. from page 63) Harris M. Plaisted had one of the most remarkable careers of any Maine figure of the mid- to late-nineteenth century. Born on a hardscrabble farm in Jefferson, New Hampshire on November 22, 1828, he put himself through Waterville College by teaching school. He served as principal of Waterville Liberal Institute, as well as its Superintendent of Schools, before going on to prepare for the Bar at Albany Law School, graduating in 1855. He began his law practice in Bangor in 1856. He rose to the rank of Major General in the Union Army during the Civil War. Plaisted’s command of his troops was right in line with family tradition. One of his ancestors, Captain John Plaisted, was killed along with two of his sons fighting off an Indian attack at the Kittery garrison in the early 1600s.

Some five months after the 11th Maine left for the front, Harris Plaisted was promoted to Colonel and placed in command of the regiment for the Peninsula Campaign. He was in command of the 3rd Brigade during the Wilderness Campaign. The 11th Maine lost two hundred and twenty-two men and officers killed or wounded, and four officers and two hundred and thirty-three enlisted men by disease. One commander of the 11th Maine, Colonel Jonathan Hill, had his arm amputated as a result of wounds received in battle. At the siege of Petersburg, Winslow Spofford, now a Lieutenant Colonel and in command of the 11th Maine, was killed.

As a commander of troops, Harris Plaisted never allowed his men to move on the front line without being in the vanguard. He was twice commended by President Lincoln for gallant and meritorious conduct in the field. General Alfred Terry, Plaisted’s immediate commander, said Plaisted’s command was “not only one of the best... but the best I have ever seen.” Major General Foster, Division Com-

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mander, wrote, “The discipline of his brigade is of the highest order, and its fighting qualities unsurpassed by any in the army. Colonel Plaisted, having commanded it since its organization at Morris Island, is, in my judgment, entitled to the greater share of the credit for the remarkable efficiency which it has attained. Colonel Plaisted is an officer of unbounded zeal and energy, loyalty, and patriotism.”

Harris Plaisted’s men held feelings similar to those of his immediate superiors, and probably those sentiments are what led his troops to also be called The Iron Brigade. Sometime after the conclusion of the war, after he had returned to Maine, he received a letter signed by the Colonel, Adjutant, and Chaplain, stating that “General H.M. Plaisted, our late Brigade Commander during long and arduous campaigns, may have formal assurance of what, from long association with us, he must fully understand are the true and hearty

sentiments of the officers of the ‘Tenth Connecticut, Resolved. That the unvarying and remarkable successes of his command are the best evidence of General Plaisted’s faithfulness and ability as a soldier, and that no higher tribute of praise can be paid to his skill and bravery than that he was a worthy commander of the ‘Iron Brigade.’ That until the memory of the events in which we bore a part with him and under him have passed from our minds, we shall ever cherish pleasing recollections of General Plaisted as an able commander, a gallant soldier, and an estimable Christian gentleman.”

From 1873 to 1875 Harris Plaisted was elected Maine Attorney General on three occasions. In 1875 he was elected to Congress. In 1881 he became Maine’s only Fusion Governor when a coalition of the Democrat and Greenback parties joined together in his support. He served as Governor of Maine from 1881 to 1883. He went on to edit

The New Age, an Augusta newspaper of the 1880s and 90s. Undoubtedly, what was one of the greatest moments of Harris Plaisted’s life was when he was asked to give the dedication speech for the laying of the cornerstone of Memorial Hall at Colby University in 1866. Dignitaries in attendance compared his speech to those of Daniel Webster.

Harris Plaisted died on January 31, 1898, and is interred in Mount Hope Cemetery in Bangor. At the time of his death, he was still working as editor and publisher of The New Age. He was also involved with the publication of the Digest of Maine Reports, the proceedings of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. His life’s story, as is the story of the 11th Maine, and The Iron Brigade, is one of the most remarkable in Maine history.

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