Penobscot-Piscataquis-Hancock Counties
34
Dover’s Colonel Calvin Douty by Paul Emerson
C
alvin Sanger Douty resided in the quiet village of Dover, the shiretown of Piscataquis County. In April of 1861, after the firing on Fort Sumter, President Lincoln made his call for 300,000 men. Calvin S. Douty had passed the fifty-year mark in his life. He was enjoying the modest competency acquired by the honorable toil of his earlier years. He had an excellent reputation among his fellow citizens and had just been elected High Sheriff of his county for the third time. He was just beginning to serve his first year in that term. Being a patriotic and honest citizen, the sense of duty was calling him to serve his country in its time of peril.
Civil War hero The pleadings of his wife, Emily, and not wishing to leave his children, restrained him for a time. But with the disaster at the 1st Bull Run, which extinguished the thoughts of a speedy resolution to the outbreak, he notified the state authorities of his readiness to resign his office and serve as a soldier in the war of the Union. On the 24th of October, 1861, he was commissioned Major of the First Regiment Maine Cavalry and devoted himself with his accustomed energy to the cause for which he was well-qualified to command. In November the regiment went into camp at Augusta, and the Major familiarized himself and his men
with the tactics and drill of the Cavalry service. On December 22nd, 1861, his youngest boy, age 15 months, fell a victim to diphtheria, and eight days later his nine-year-old son died of the same disease. Of the six children who had blessed his happy home, all but one had passed away. On the 20th of March, 1862, Major Douty left Augusta in command of a detachment of 400 men. Their destination was Harpers Ferry, and they were acting as a guard to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. On the 9th of May, he received a commission as Lieutenant Colonel of the Regiment. The next day his command was ordered to join General Banks at Strasburg, Virginia.
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