Military Monday: John B Armstrong, Civil War Veteran or Not?

I am unsure any of ancestors fought in the Civil War.  Which seems strange, since many of my ancestors resided in the United States during the war.  I have uncovered evidence that two of my relatives took part in the Civil War Battle of Portland, Maine which I blogged about in a previous post.  I don't believe either of those relatives were active military.

However, I have reason to believe that my 2nd great grandfather, John B. Armstrong, was a veteran of the Civil War.  While researching some cemetery records, I found the plot record for the Armstrong gravesite in S. Portland, Maine.  The plot record indicated that John B. Armstrong was a Civil War veteran.  This notation was probably useful when they put out flags for memorial day and/or veteran's day.

The only problem is that when I have conducted research on John B. Armstrong's participation serving in the Union Army in the Civil War, I wasn't coming up with any records which show in what capacity he served in the war.

Recently, I found a record on familysearch.org  of Maine, Veterans Cemetery Records, 1676-1918
for John H. Armstrong with the same  date of death and in the same Armstrong plot as my ancestor.  This looked promising and it was understandable that the person who created the record may have made an error on this cemetery record between John B and John H Armstrong.

What was exciting was the record showed that John H. Armstrong had served in the Maine 7th infantry regiment, company G.  Enlistment date was listed as August 21, 1861.  He had entered as a private and was discharged as a sergeant.

So there you go.  John B. Armstrong, Civil War veteran.

The thing is that I didn't stop there.  I could have been satisfied to know that my ancestor was a veteran, but I went on to research the regiment to see if what I could find about their history of battles.  Also, I looked for more Civil War records that might show my ancestors role and involvement in the war.

Maine has such a wealth of genealogical records online, but they haven't made the Civil War records searchable, but I did find the records on familysearch.org.  The military records are under the Maine, State Archive Collections, 1718-1957.  Once you are under the archive collection, don't look at the individual Maine county records.  The civil war records AREN'T there.  They are under the first option "Maine".  Click on Maine and you will be able to select Military Records-Civil War.  From there you can browse records by the different Maine regiments and companies.

You have to review them one by one to find the records you are looking for.  Luckily, I knew the regiment and company and date of enlistment...so that should make it easy to find the records I was looking for.  

Which caused a problem.  I found the Enlistment Rolls, which includes the new recruits.  There is no listing for a John B Armstrong from Cape Elizabeth, Maine, but there is a John H. Armstrong from Portland, Maine.  Other records for John H. Armstrong for this regiment and company indicated he was born in 1838...my ancestor was born in 1822.  The discrepancies were adding up.   I suspect that there really was a John H. Armstrong and my ancestor was getting confused with his military records.

The last indicator that lead me to this conclusion was the US, Civil War Draft Registration, 1863-1865 on Ancestry.com.  The draft record indicated John B Armstrong of Cape Elizabeth, Maine eligible to be drafted in June 1863.  Seems very unlikely that an active military personnel would be listed as eligible to be drafted.

Did my ancestor, John B. Armstrong, serve in the Civil War?  I still don't know, but I feel confident it wasn't with the Maine 7th Infantry.

My search continues......

Sunday's Obituary - Civil War Pension for the family of Thomas Stokes of Utica NY

My wife's great great grand uncle was Thomas Stokes of Utica, NY.  Thomas Stokes enlisted in the Navy as a landsman (not sure what that is) July 28, 1859.  He first served on the USS North Carolina and on Sept 16, 1859 was transferred to the USS Mohawk.


On January 13, 1860 he died while on the USS Mohawk.  The circumstances of his death are not 100% clear.  One report states that he was killed by the accidental discharge of a gun and another states that he was drowned.


After the Civil War, his parents Patrick and Julia Herland Stokes (my wife's 3rd Great Grandparents) applied for a Civil War pension for their deceased son.   The federal government originally rejected this pension request, because Thomas Stokes died prior to the start of the Civil War.


Patrick and Julia were not eligible for the pension.


However, they re-applied and appealed to the hardship they experienced because of their sons death. Thomas had been sending a portion of his salary as a landsman home to help support his parents.  It is important to remember there was no social security back then and very few companies had any form of old age pension.


In the application we learn a lot about the tough condition that Patrick was in physically in his old age.  According to the record, Patrick had been blind for the last 15 years of his life and was unable to work.


Patrick Stokes was born in Ireland about 1805, he probably immigrated to Boston prior to 1840 and worked in Northampton, Mass in the Mills there until relocating with his family to Utica, NY prior to 1850.  He died May 16,1885.  His wife, Julia Herland Stokes was born in Ireland about 1807.  They had three children together:  Thomas, Mary and Ellen.  Julia died in Utica, NY in 1890.

Four years after the initial pension application was submitted it was approved for Thomas' parents to receive a civil war pension which must have helped their financial burden until their death a few years later.

The Civil War Battle of Portland, Maine??

Yes, that isn't a typo.  The confederates actually made it to Maine, which caused quite a stir for those New Englanders who thought they were safely away from the civil war fighting.

In June 1863, Lieutenant C.W. Read commanded a confederate ship named the Archer (a ship he had captured), which marauded off the east coast.  He and his men intercepted American trading vessels and set about burning and scuttling them.  Union forces were put on alert and at one point 40 ships were searching for them.

With Union vessels everywhere scouring the seas for him, Lt. Read decided on the audacious plan of sneaking into Portland harbor to steal a steam powered ship.


In the early morning of June 26, they passed into the port undetected.  They failed in their pursuit of a steam ship, but decided upon the revenue cutter the Caleb Cushing.  The Caleb Cushing was in port due to the recent death of their captain.  As a result, the ship only had a skeleton crew on watch which was easily overcome by the rebel forces.  The Caleb Cushing was a two masted sailing craft.  The rebels were able to exit the harbor without being challenged.

By early morning, the alarm was raised and a group of union forces, including local men, were in hot pursuit.


Two key events worked against Lt. Read and his men being successful in their escape.   First, the fact that shortly after clearing Portland Harbor the wind died down and they were nearly dead in the water.  Second, the fact that in their rush to escape they failed to realize that they had plenty of gunpowder, but almost no ammunition.  Had the wind been with them or they had adequate ammunition they would have almost certainly gotten away.  The Caleb Cushing was armed with a 32lb gun vs. the 2 brass 6 lb guns of the union ships.


It wouldn't have been a fair fight, that is for sure.


Lt. Read and his men abandoned the Caleb Cushing and set it ablaze which culminated in the dramatic explosion of the gun powder stores.  They surrendered and were incarcerated at Fort Preble in Portland.


Two of the union sailors in hot pursuit of the Caleb Cushing were my Great-great-grand uncles, Andrew Hanley Fuller and Collingwood Fuller.  Both sailors served on the Caleb Cushing, but were not aboard at the time it was taken.


Andrew H. Fuller's obituary includes the details of the excitement of this event.  Special thanks to my distant cousin, Marc Brouillette, for providing me a copy of Andrew Fuller's obituary and telling me about the story of Andrew's part in the capture of the confederates that took the Caleb Cushing.


To find more about the historic incident of the taking of the Caleb Cushing, I was able to find a variety of of archived articles from Geneologybank.com and at the Chronicling America Newspaper project from the Library of Congress.


If you find out that your ancestor was involved in a historical event, these resources make a great first stop to find out more first hand knowledge of the event and how it was viewed at that time in history.