For the Maine men arriving from the Army of the Potomac, the station meant hot food and coffee on a chilly morning from the attentive ladies of the Sanitary Commission who maintained a permanent facility to attend to military personnel in transit. Portland was not on a main troop transit route and the facility was small, but the people of Portland had turned the entire train station into a reception center for their heroes home to rest and recruit back their strength. Since midnight the trains had been arriving, not with a few Maine regiments but with Maine’s entire military contingent from the Army of the Potomac. Sharpe’s suggestion had started the ball rolling, and that ball had rolled right over Major General Meade’s loud protest to lose all his Maine regiments-3,241 men divided into one cavalry, ten infantry regiments, and three artillery batteries. Maine had taken 3,721 men into the battle of Gettysburg and lost 1,017. Since then hundreds of wounded and missing had returned to duty, but most of the regiments had been severely depleted even before Gettysburg. Had they been at full strength, the entire contingent would have numbered almost thirteen thousand men. It was an example of what wastage the Army had suffered in camp and in the field and of the failure to establish a regular replacement system.
Thus the story that they were returning home to recruit was entirely plausible. As a cover story, the public announcement had indicated only three regiments were returning. The governor had only been informed of the true extent of the troop movement the day before. The ladies of the Sanitary Commission had had to scramble, but when the trains began to arrive, they were ready with tables piled high with food and enough hot coffee to float a monitor.
The trains had begun to arrive strangely enough about two hours before the Royal Marines had climbed into their boats to fall upon Fort Gorges. The train ride from Northern Virginia had been hurried, almost nonstop, but the men took the discomfort in stride as every uninterrupted mile took them closer to home. They had not bothered to ask why two brigade staffs had been attached to them, so intent were they for home. The gunners had brought their complete batteries to include horses, guns, limbers, and caissons as well as their supply and maintenance wagons. The cavalry had brought their horses as well. That raised questions, but they had been told there would be major parades in Portland, Augusta, and Bangor, and the idea of showing off to the local girls had disarmed any further curiosity. What no one bothered to note were the medical and supply units because they occupied the rearmost trains. It was an efficient logistical exercise, an area in which the Union excelled. It was also a clever strategic deception plan in operation. That was something the Union was now just beginning to excel at under the shadowy hand of Brigadier General Sharpe.
Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, of Gettysburg reknown, had been instructed to accompany the Maine contingent and assume “administrative” control of five infantry regiments, including his old 20th Maine and a battery. The other five regiments and another battery had been similarly brigaded under another able Maine officer, Col. Ephraim Harper. Another battery and a cavalry regiment rounded out the Maine units. Chamberlain and Harper had been briefed on their mission before leaving Washington along with Brig. Gen. Neal Dow. Known as a temperance fanatic, “the Napoleon of Temperance” was a brave man withal. People had not forgotten the heavy hand with which he had put down the Portland Rum Riot of 1855 during his time as mayor. Chamberlain and Harper winced when Halleck explained that in case of war, Dow would assume command of the “Maine Division” with the mission of defending the state and cutting the New Brunswick Road to sever communications between Canada and the Maritimes. Nobody liked Dow, which is not necessarily a requirement for successful command, but his constant emphasis on temperance was bound to alienate the troops. The men were aware that Dow had ordered his own 13th Maine to sign the temperance pledge. It was not something Chamberlain would have tried with his own 20th Maine despite the men’s affection for him.
Since Little Round Top, Chamberlain had become something of a legend not only in the Army of the Potomac but also in Maine, where he was now the shining hero. That desperate bayonet charge downhill that had swept the 15th Alabama away had swept him up to glory. Command of a brigade had followed, and he was among those few identified for stars in the future. A gifted college professor who had abandoned the classroom for the camp to serve his country in this great struggle for freedom, he had truly found himself in the Army. Inside that mild-mannered bookworm was a fighting man whom other men rushed to follow. Campaigning had worked the softness of academe out of him and replaced it with a lean, almost leopard-like presence. The sun had bleached his blond hair even fairer, and his drooping mustache set off his long face with its penetrating blue eyes. He was the natural warrior with an innate sense of Mars’s three gifts of the art of war-”quick grasp, speed, and shock.”
Word had spread of the arrival of the troops, and thousands of townspeople had left their warm beds to greet friends and relatives. Hundreds of lanterns were bouncing through the fog that drifted up from the harbor to gather around the station whose own lights were struggling with the wet, floating gloom. Inside the station, the men were finishing their meals. Dow was conferring with Chamberlain and Harper when a familiar, whistling noise stopped every mouth. The shell crashed through the roof and exploded among the dining tables, scattering blue-clad bodies every which way and killing three Sanitation Commission ladies carrying coffee and doughnuts. More shells followed, turning the main hall into a shambles as the troops and civilians rushed for the exits, but they found no safety. More shells were falling into the crowd, which had turned into a terrified beast, screaming in fear.
With Fort Gorges fallen, British ships had crept slowly into the harbor, drawn by the dull glow of light at the railroad station. His Copperhead informant had told the squadron commander aboard the frigate HMS Bacchante that the glow was the railroad station on the edge of the city. The officer ordered his shell guns to fire on the center of the glow. HMS Diadem followed with its own broadside battery. Here was an economic target important to the ability of the Americans to make war, he thought, disregarding Admiral Milne’s instructions not to fire on coastal towns. For this he would be relieved, but not before his 8-inch shells piled the bodies of women and children up in the station and surrounding streets and gave the Americans an immortal battle cry-“Remember Maine!”
Temperance fanatic notwithstanding, Dow was quick witted and decisive in an emergency and ordered Harper to assemble and double-time his regiments to the docks to repel any possible landing. If they were close enough to bombard Union Station that meant they had bypassed or seized the harbor forts. He instructed Chamberlain to hold his regiments in reserve and ensure that the trains were speedily unloaded to support combat. The gunners and the cavalry did not wait to be told; these were veteran troops and were already unloading their equipment and horses. The infantry regiments were equally in hand as soon as they had evacuated the now burning wooden station house. The smoke from that inferno mixed with the thick fog to wrap the city in a blur. The men of Harper’s regiments moved easily through the streets of the city that was the hometown of many, their tread propelled by a deepening anger. Frightened night watchmen from the docks intercepted the columns and directed them to Smith’s Wharf, where hundreds of the “Peacemakers” from the 1/16th Foot from the Halifax garrison were hustling down the gangplanks from the Dromedary onto its broad surface with its double rail lines. Wolseley’s reconnaissance had picked the best landing spot. Light boat guns with their Royal Marine crews rolled down the gangways to clack with their iron wheels over the granite paving of the wharf. Boats from the bombarding ships carrying detachments of armed naval ratings clustered along the edge of the wharf, adding men in white and blue to the crimson mass moving down the wharf.