FICTION - Historical

THE TWENTIETH MAINE

In Search of Honor Book IV

by Russell A. Dole
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By the summer of 1862 the United States was at a crossroads. Rebel forces had stymied the army’s grand strategy of dividing the Confederacy and bringing the seceded states back into the Union. With the federal army advances along the one-thousand-mile front halted in Virginia and in the Mississippi River Valley, President Abraham Lincoln was working on a radical plan in Washington, D.C. to change the course of the war and reaffirm his people’s confidence in the nation’s hallowed cause. Back in Rockland, Maine, Benjamin Dean was slowly recovering from the severe wounds he had received during the Confederate charge at Malvern Hill near the James River in Virginia. As he prepared to rejoin the Fourth Maine Regiment later that summer, an unexpected offer to join a new Maine Regiment presented itself. Benjamin’s decision to accept the new assignment would soon reunite him with his former college professor and help change the fortunes of the war in favor of the Union.
 



 
     The author is a retired history teacher from Rockland, Maine,  where he, his wife Darcy, son Ben, and daughter Carrie lived for several years. He and his wife currently reside in South Portland.