17th Maine Volunteer Infantry


The 17th Regiment Maine Volunteer Infantry was a three-year volunteer infantry regiment from southern Maine that served primarily with the Army of the Potomac in the eastern theater of the American Civil War.

Service

Organized at Camp King, Cape Elizabeth, Maine, it was mustered in for three years' service on August 18, 1862, and was mustered out on June 10, 1865. Recruits still liable to serve were transferred to 1st Maine Volunteer Heavy Artillery Regiment. The regiment was one of five raised in answer to the July 2, 1862, call by Lincoln for 300,000 volunteers for three years. The state of Maine's quota was 9,609.
The regiment was recruited in southern Maine from Androscoggin, Cumberland, Franklin, and York counties. As recruits entered training camp, the regiment quickly fleshed out to ten companies, A through K. Upon muster into federal service, each recruit received a federal bounty of $27.00.

Detailed Service

1862

The 17th Maine was an 1862, Army of the Potomac, three-year regiment, that greatly increased the number of men under arms in the federal army. As with many of these volunteers, initially, there were not enough Model 1861 Springfield Rifles to go around so they were instead issued imported British Pattern 1853 rifles. These were the standard rifle for the British army having performed well in the Crimean War. The Enfield was a was a.577 calibre Minié-type muzzle-loading rifled musket. It was used by both armies and was the second most widely used infantry weapon in the Union forces.
At Gettysburg, on the evening of July 3, General Birney wanted to standardize the weapons in his division. That evening, he had the 17th and other Enfield-equipped units in his command exchange their arms for the standard muzzle-loading rifled musket of the Union Army, the Springfield Model 1861 Rifled Musket. It fired a.58 inch Minie Ball. and came with a square socket bayonet. They would carry their Springfields until their end of service.

Casualties and total strength

The 17th Maine enrolled 1,371 men during its existence. It lost 12 officers and 116 enlisted men killed in action or died of wounds received in battle and an additional 4 officers and 159 enlisted men died of disease. 31 men died in Confederate prisons. Total fatalities for the regiment were 370.

See Also

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