USA > Maine > Men of progress; biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in and of the state of Maine > Part 33
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HEADQUARTERS ISTH ARMY CORPS, NEWBERNE, N. C., January 6, 1863. HON. HANNIBAL HAMLIN, Vice-President.
Sir - At my instigation our mutual friend, Colonel Harris M. Plaisted, is an applicant for promotion that he may com- mand my old brigade. I can assure you it cannot fall into better hands. He has been well tried on the Chickahominy, at Fair Oaks, White-Oak Swamp, and other battle fields of the Peninsula, and sustained himself and his regiment in such a manner that his State will refer to the history of the war and the conduct of the Eleventh Maine with pride and extreme satisfaction. Let me ask of you, as an especial favor, that you will use your influence with the President and secure the "star " for Colonel Plaisted.
Very respectfully yours, (Signed) HENRY M. NAGLEE, Brig .- General Commanding Division.
In July 1862, after reaching Harrison's Landing, Colonel Plaisted received thirty days' leave of
absence, which he spent in Maine, recruiting the depleted ranks of his regiment, returning in August with three hundred and twenty recruits. Trans- ferred to the Department of the South in December 1862, Colonel Plaisted commanded a brigade in 1863 under Gillmore in the operations on Morris Island, the Siege of Sumter and Charleston, until April 1864. His regiment, thoroughly instructed in heavy artillery and in the art of field fortifications, was regarded by General Gillmore as equal to his best artillerists and engineer troops, and was placed at the front in charge of the big guns and mortars. From the Eleventh he selected the detachment that manned the famous "Swamp Angel " battery, and fired the first shots into Charleston - shots heard around the world, as it was the first time in the history of gunpowder that a city was bombarded at such a distance - five miles. In February 1864, on his second leave of absence home, Colonel Plaisted raised over three hundred recruits for his regiment, and secured town bounties for his re-enlisted veterans. His recruiting fees he turned over to his veterans - eighteen hundred and ten dollars - " to which," said the Portland Press, " Colonel Plaisted was clearly entitled." In April 1864 Colonel Plaisted was transferred with his brigade to Virginia, where he commanded it in Grant's campaign of 1864-5 against Richmond and Petersburg. He was warmly commended by all his commanders. Gen- eral Terry, his Corps Commander, hero of Fort Fisher, wrote, recommending his promotion : -
"Colonel Plaisted is a brave, patriotic and loyal man, and has faithfully served the country since early in the war. His regiment is not only one of the best in the Tenth Army Corps, but one of the best which I have ever seen. He is more than ordinarily attentive and zealous in the performance of his duty, and equally careful for the comfort and welfare of his men. In the battle of the 7th instant (New Market Road) he handled his brigade with marked skill and ability, and it was as much due to his efforts as to the efforts of any one that our flank was not turned and the battle not lost."
Major-General Foster, his Division Commander, 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."
Major-General Adelbert Ames, commanding the Second Division, Tenth Corps, wrote : -
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" The credit for the excellence of his regiment undoubtedly falls to' him. I have been connected with this corps for months, and it is my opinion, as well as that of the officers of the higher grades of corps, that the Eleventh Maine Volunteers is far superior to any Maine regiment in the Army of the James, in fact that it is unsurpassed by any regiment from other states. The conduct of the Eleventh Maine in every battle it has participated in has called forth the highest praise from all, and I must acknowledge it causes me the strongest feelings of state pride in Maine troops."
General Plaisted's , brigade comprised the Eleventh Maine, Twenty-fourth Massachusetts, Tenth Con- necticut, One Hundredth New York, First Maryland Dismounted Cavalry and Two Hundred and Sixth Pennsylvania, constituting the Third Brigade, First Division, Tenth Army Corps, which was reorganized in Virginia as the Twenty-fourth Corps. Besides the siege of Petersburg and Richmond, his brigade was engaged in fifteen battles more or less bloody, in three of which it lost nine hundred and forty-four men, and having men killed and wounded on fifty- nine different days during the campaign between May 7 and October 29, 1864. On November 1, 1864, General Plaisted received his third leave of absence home, to accompany the survivors of the Eleventh - one hundred and three- whose term of enlistment had expired, and to recruit the regi- ment. He returned to his command before Richmond on December 1, having secured over three hundred recruits, almost enough to make good its losses - three hundred and sixty-three- in the campaign. The winter of 1864-5 he spent in drilling recruits and preparing his brigade for the great campaign in the spring, then believed to be the last. General Plaisted was proud of his brigade, but his chief pride was in the Eleventh Maine, always in his command and under his eye, whose officers he selected, and whose ranks he personally recruited. In camp, on the march and in battle, it was easily the first. At- Beaufort, South Carolina, the General commanding ordered all camps to be reconstructed after " the model of the Eleventh Maine," for sanitary reasons. When three thou- sand men fell out of the Tenth Corps on the march, from sunstroke and exhaustion, the Provost Marshal reported " not one from the Eleventh Maine." Fighting always in skirmish order, re-enforced if necessary to a line of battle in one rank, it never gave ground, and was acknowledged unequalled, thus fighting, especially in the woods. The Eleventh excelled also as artillerists and engineer troops. Hence the important part it bore in the siege oper-
ations on Morris Island, manning the Swamp Angel and the big guns and mortars at the front. In the siege of Petersburg General Plaisted was appointed Chief Engineer of the Corps, by General Birney, on account of the excellence of the field works constructed by his command under supervision of the Engineer Sergeants of the Eleventh Maine, which position he declined in vain ; but was allowed to retain the command of his brigade and go with it when it moved. There never was a good brigade nor a good army without good regiments, and never a good regiment without a good head - Napoleon's maxim, " Men are nothing, a man everything," applying equally to both, as the regiment is the unit of drill and discipline. The pride of General Plaisted's service, therefore, was the excellence of his regiment, and he was never more fond of his handiwork than when he left it, two weeks before the Surrender, with full ranks, nine hundred strong, completely officered - and so well officered - from the ranks. Though broken in health as he was in the spring of 1865 by fever and ague, his purpose to see the end of the struggle was never shaken until General Grant, at the review of his division March 17, remarked : " The hard fighting is over ; they will undoubtedly fight behind their works, but they can't hold together when we turn them out." The great commander said this as if the end had really come. General Plaisted's thoughts then all turned to home and family, from whom he had been separated so long, and he applied to be mustered out March 25, 1865. Now Major-General by brevet - having been twice promoted by the President for " gallant and meritorious conduct in the field " - he said farewell to his old companions-in-arms, whose for- tunes he had shared on so many stricken fields, and went to the hospital at Point of Rocks, Virginia. Though not permitted to be " in at the death," he saw the end, and was thankful. On April 4, Gen- eral Plaisted saw (quoting from his War Diary) " Richmond smoking from the ground " - saw " the boys in blue thronging the streets and Capitol grounds" - saw " Libby Prison crowded with pris- oners guarded by boys of the Eleventh Maine." " Lincoln is here !" narrates the diary. "The great emancipator wended his way from the wharf to headquarters - the White House of the late Confederacy - followed by the emancipated, a mul- titude, prostrating themselves at his feet crying : 'Glory, Jesus !' ' Blessed Jesus !' 'O you blessed Jesus !' 'Thank you, dear Jesus !' - like Christ's entry into Jerusalem. Seeing the desolation, l.in-
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coln was moved to compassion towards the brave people whose cause is lost. Almost his first words after reaching headquarters were: 'Let 'em up easy, Weitzel ; let 'em up easy.'" General Plaisted was detained 'in hospital through April, spending his time in the wards, when able, reading to his wounded comrades and writing letters home for them. He left the hospital in Virginia the first of May, but did not reach Bangor until the last of that month, having been held up by illness in Washing- ton, Baltimore, Portland and Waterville. The fol- lowing resolution, among others, adopted May 30, 1865, by one of his regiments, was forwarded to him after his return to Maine, signed by the Colonel, Adjutant and Chaplain : --
"That General H. M. Plaisted, our late Brigade Com- mander 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 unvary- ing and remarkable successes of his command are the best evidences 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."
As soon as health permitted, General Plaisted resumed the practice of his profession at Bangor. He was twice a member of the Legislature from Bangor, 1867-8, was Delegate at Large to the National Convention at Chicago in 1868, and in January 1873 he was elected Attorney-General of Maine, after a notable contest in competition with the ablest lawyers of the state - Thomas B. Reed and A. A. Strout of Portland, and Charles P. Stet- son of Bangor - winning on the third ballot. To account for Plaisted's success, Reed had his little story. Arguing his case to a country member, he thought he was making a deep impression, he said, until he remarked, "They say Plaisted is not a criminal lawyer." Then the countryman retorted, " Square, we don't want no lawyer for "Torney-Gen- eral ; we want a soldier !" General Plaisted was three times elected Attorney-General, 1873-4-5, making a distinguished record in the trial of four- teen capital indictments, which resulted in only two acquittals - one " by reason of insanity." The celebrated Wagner case, the Isles of Shoals murder, tried at Alfred in June 1873, was the new Attorney- General's first test. In a column of editorial com-
ment, the Boston Advertiser, June 20, characterizes his closing argument as "a model for such speeches," and its climax as " a piece of masterly rhetoric which could not have been surpassed." The trial excited wide attention over the country, perhaps more than any other capital trial in Maine. On December 1, 1875, General Plaisted resigned the office of Attorney-General to take his seat as Mem- ber of Congress, to which he had been elected from the Fourth District. During the Forty fourth Con- gress he served on the Committees of Public Build- ings and Grounds, Expenditures of the Treasury Department, Enrolled Bills, Special Committee on Ventilation of the House, in conjunction with a Sci- entific Commission, at the head of which was Pro- fessor Henry of the Smithsonian, and on Proctor Knott's special committee on " The Whiskey Frauds." His work on the Whiskey Frauds Inves- tigation was most laborious and protracted, taking him from the floor of the House most of the first session. The public revenues had been defrauded of hundreds of thousands of dollars by the Whiskey Ring, a gigantic conspiracy composed of distillers and government officials. It was sought to impli- cate President Grant directly and through members of his official family, notably his Private Secretary, Colonel Babcock. It was a great scandal. Bris- tow, Grant's Secretary of the Treasury, was in the investigation running for the Presidency, as a " reformer " -" as a reformer of my Administra- tion !" General Grant remarked with a grim smile. It was industriously given out that Bristow was handicapped in the investigation by Grant's hostil- ity to it, in order to save himself and friends. Spies were put upon Grant and his official family, and his every act and word was distorted and per- verted. General Plaisted felt the responsibility of Grant's defence, as the only Republican member of the sub-committee conducting the investigation ; but he doubted not the President's entire inno- cence, and proceeded upon that assumption. He said to the President that there were two ways of conducting the defence - one technical, objecting to everything not clearly admissible ; the other, to let in everything without objection, and then answer it. General Grant responded instantly and with energy : "Object to nothing; they can't touch me." So the evidence to implicate Grant and his close friends poured in, under the management of Bluford Wilson, Bristow's Solicitor of the Treasury, all through the winter, spring and summer months. After the evidence for the prosecution was all in,
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General Plaisted occupied only two weeks with his evidence. He showed that the very first move to unearth the frauds and bring the guilty to jus- tice was made by Grant, and without fear or favor ; that the letter written him by his friend Filley at St. Louis, alleging Colonel Babcock's complicity, General Grant turned over to Bristow with the famous endorsement, " Let no guilty man escape !" The New York Herald said editorially : "A few more days of the Plaisted evidence and there will be nothing left of Bluford Wilson." Grant's vindi- cation was complete. The majority members of the full committee acknowledged it ; for they made no report, and could not be induced to make one. General Plaisted therefore had no minority report to make and defend on the floor of the House. General Grant and his real friends expressed their appreciation of General Plaisted's work in the Com- mittee, but the swiftest recognition of his services in behalf of General Grant came from office-seekers who appealed to him for letters of recommendation to the President. His reply to all was : " I shall never ask a favor of General Grant for myself or anyone else ;" and he never did. He was subse- quently tendered by the Attorney-General the Chief- Justiceship of Washington and Wyoming and Asso- ciate-Justiceship of Dakota, all of which he declined, being unwilling to leave Maine. At the second session of the Forty-fourth Congress, General Plaisted voted against the Electoral Commission Bill - the " eight to seven " - on the ground that the power to count the electoral vote was safer in the undivided responsibility of one man - the Vice-President - where he believed the Constitution placed it. But the Electoral Bill having become a law, a supreme obligation, he thought, rested upon Congress to proceed in the count in accordance with its provisions, that a result might be reached whose declaration by the Vice-President would be accepted as the voice of the law. During the tur- bulent scenes in the House attending the " count " under the Electoral Bill, a resolution was introduced declaring that whereas there was no election of President by the people, it was the sense of the House that Samuel J. Tilden was duly elected President of the United States. Speaker Randall ruled that the resolution could be received as an in- dependent proposition by unanimous consent, and he hoped no objection would be made. General Garfield, the Republican leader, said : "That's all right ! that's all right !" This was startling ; but when Fernando Wood, the leader ci thirty or forty Dem-
ocrats acting with the Republicans, rose and said : " I should like to vote for that resolution as an inde- pendent proposition," the situation became alarming. General Plaisted interposed his persistent objection. Garfield and Foster of Ohio begged him to withdraw it, as it might injure Hayes. "Never ; it is disorderly and revolutionary," he said. " But we can vote it down," they replied. " Impossible, with Wood favor- ing it." The formal declaration of Mr. Tilden's elec- tion by the popular branch of Congress being thus defeated by " objection," saved Mr. Tilden from a fearful temptation and the country from a fearful dis- sension. General Plaisted left the Republican party in 1879. In 18So he was unanimously nominated for Governor by the opposition, and was elected for two years, receiving 73,770 votes to 73,544 for the Republican candidate - the largest vote ever thrown in the state. He was the Democratic candi- date for United States Senator in 1883 and in 1889. Since July 1883 he has been Editor of The New Age, Augusta, Maine ; but only nominally since 1891, his health requiring him to spend his winters in the South. General Plaisted has published a " Digest of the Maine Reports " -" Plaisted and Apple- ton's " - upon which he was engaged for three years ; "The Trial of Wagner ;" "The Lowell Trial;" and has prepared for publication the "Genealogy of the Plaisted Family," his " War Diary," and "The True Story of Seven Pines or Fair Oaks." Among his public addresses may be mentioned his oration at Waterville in 1867, at the laying of the corner stone of Memorial Hall, Colby University ; his address at the dedication of Memorial Hall, Bowdoin College, in 1882; his Address of Welcome to the War Veterans of Maine at their reunion in Deering's Oaks, Portland, in 1882 ; and his Fort Sumter address, April 15, 1895, on the thirtieth anniversary of the restoration of the flag to Sumter. The most finished of these was perhaps his memorial oration at Waterville ; it was highly commended, a no less scholarly critic than Senator Hoar of Massachusetts remarking of it to- Senator Frye : " If it were bound up with Webster's speeches it would not be deemed out of place." General Plaisted was married September 21, 1858, to Sarah J. Mason, daughter of Chase P. Mason of Waterville, Maine. They had three sons : Harold Mason, a graduate of the Maine State College in ISSI and of the Stevens Institute of Technology in 1882, and now a patent solicitor in St. Louis ; Frederick William, a graduate of St. Johnsbury (Vermont) Academy, and since 1885
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one of the editors and proprietors of The New Age, Augusta, Maine ; and Ralph Parker Plaisted, a graduate of Bowdoin College in 1894. Mrs. Plaisted (lied October 25, 1875, and on September 27, ISSI, the General was married to Mabel True Hill, daughter of Hon. Francis W. Hill of Exeter, Maine ; they have one child : Gertrude Hill Plaisted.
PULSIFER, AUGUSTUS MOSES, Treasurer of the Little Androscoggin Waterpower Company and oi the Barker Cotton Mill, Auburn, was born in Sulli- van, Hancock county, Maine, June 15, 1834, son of Dr. Moses Rust and Mary Strout (Dunn) Pulsifer. He is descended in the sixth generation from John Pulsifer of Gloucester, Massachusetts, through David (2) of Gloucester ; David (3) of Gloucester, Massa- chusetts, and Poland, Maine; Jonathan (4) of Gloucester, Massachusetts, and Poland, Maine ; and Dr. Moses Rust Pulsifer (5) of Minot and Ellsworth, Maine. He received his early education at Hebron (Maine) Academy, the Maine Wesleyan Seminary at Kent's Hill and Waterville ( Maine) Academy, and after attending Waterville College (now Colby University) one year, entered Bowdoin College, from which institution he graduated in 1858. Following graduation he taught in the public schools of Maine, Massachusetts and New Hamp- shire, and was Principal of the Lewiston Falls Academy in Auburn, Maine, in 1858-9. He read law with Messrs. Record, Walton & Luce in Auburn, was admitted to the Androscoggin County Bar in September 1860, and entered upon practice in Auburn, where he has since resided. From 1870 to 1873 Mr. Pulsifer was County Attorney of Andros- coggin county. He has also served as Chairman of the School Board of Auburn, and as President of the Common Council. He is President of the Auburn Board of Water Commissioners, organized in 1895 ; was one of the projectors of the Auburn Aqueduct Company, and was largely interested in the building of Roak Block in Auburn. Mr. Puliter has been exceedingly active in business matters, and in the promotion of various corporate and public enterprises. In 1870 he organized the I ittle Androscoggin Waterpower Company, and has ever since served as its Treasurer. This corporation own, and operates the Barker Cotton Mill in Auburn, of which Mr. Pulsifer is Treasurer and M : ging Director. He was one of the founders of the Auburn Public Library, and a Trustee from
its foundation ; was one of the incorporators of the Auburn Young Men's Christian Association ; also one of the founders of the Sixth Street Congrega- tional Church ot Auburn, of which he is a member ; and has ever been a leader in temperance work. He is a member of the Maine Historical Society, the Maine Genealogical Society, and the Home Market Club of Boston. In politics he has been always a Republican .. He was married July 2, 1863, to Harriet Chase, daughter of Hon. George W. Chase of Auburn. They have seven children : Jeanie Deane, now at the head of the Art Depart- ment of Ohio Wesleyan University ; James Augus-
AUGUSTUS M. PULSIFER.
tus, attorney-at-law in Auburn; Tappan Chase, medical student at Columbia College, New York ; Mary Helen, student at Mount Holyoke ( Massa- chusetts) College ; Chase, in the class of 1897 at Bowdoin College ; Nathan, student at Bates College, and Harriet Chase Pulsifer, of the Auburn High School.
ROGERS, JOHN CONWAY, M. D., Pembroke, was born in Speirrin, County Tyrone, Ireland, March 26, 1835, son of Patrick and Mary (Conway ) Rogers, and came to this country with his parents in 1836. His mother was a grand-niece of Major-General Conway of Revolutionary renown. He received his
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early education in the common schools of Perry, Washington county, Maine, afterwards attending Washington Academy at East Machias, Maine, and North Yarmouth (Maine) Academy, taught school while fitting for college, and entered Waterville
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J. C. ROGERS.
College (now Colby University) in 1859. He commenced the study of medicine in 1861, and after taking a year's course in Bowdoin, graduated at Harvard in the class of 1864. Immediately after graduation he entered the Army as Assistant Surgeon, and remained in the service until the close of the war. In June 1865 he commenced the practice of medicine in Brooklyn, New York, but in 1866 removed to Pembroke, where he has since practiced. Dr. Rogers worked his own way while getting an education, and pushed forward into active life entirely unaided. He has served in various town offices in Pembroke, was First Selectman from 1877 to 1880, member of the Superintending School Committee for many years, and has been Supervisor of Schools since 1892. In 1891-2 he was a State Senator from Washington county. He is a member of the Harvard Medical Alumni Association, and of Post I. C. Campbell, Grand Army of the Republic, of which he has been Surgeon for most of the time since its organization in 1872. Dr. Rogers is also the author of various well-known poems, some of which have been printed in "Poets of Maine,"
" Poets of America" and "Gems of Poetry," the latter with biographical sketches. In politics he was a Democrat up to 1879, and since has been an active Republican. He was married in 1859 to Rebecca Mahar, of Pembroke; they have five children : Albion Q., George B., Horace M., John C., Jr., and Mary K. Rogers. Dr. Rogers has fitted his sons for college ; Albion, the elder, gradu- ated from Bowdoin in the class of 1881, and John, the fourth son, entered Bowdoin in 1895.
SMITH, HENRY HERBERT, M. D., Machias, was born in Machias, January 9, 1855, son of William Otis and Susan C. (Hoyt) Smith. He is descended from Reverend John Smith, who came from England to Barnstable, Massachusetts, in 1630, afterwards removed to Sandwich, Massachusetts, was Pastor of the Sandwich Church for many years, and died- there in 1710. Thomas Smith, son of the foregoing,
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