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Company D brings the American Civil War to life through the eyes of citizen-soldiers. One Regiment. One Company. Countless stories of courage, sacrifice, and betrayal—exposing the human toll of a war that transformed the United States.
February 19, 1864. Brunswick, Maine.
There was no train station in Bath yet, so the soldiers disembarked here, ten miles from home. The sky was high and blue, and the sun smoldered like silver, bright but without warmth. A frigid wind swept across the snow-covered town. The temperature had dropped to ten degrees below the night before. It was cold back in Virginia, but not like this.
As the five soldiers stepped onto the platform, they were greeted by an affectionate group of family and friends.
They were young. They had traveled a week, sleeping on the trains and eating from their rations of hard tack and salted pork to save money. They had gotten at least one hot meal in New York.
They were young—one of them didn’t have any facial hair yet—but they were already veterans of the Third Maine Infantry Regiment. Survivors of the battles of Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, and Fair Oaks. The furlough home was a reward for re-enlisting. All of them had joined for another three years, and when the Third Maine’s charter ended in June, they would be transferred to the Seventeenth Maine.
But for now, they were home. Or close to home, anyway.
First was Corporal George Barton Jr. of Company A. Twenty-one. Born in Danvers, Massachusetts, and raised in Bath. The only child of George and Margaret, an Irish immigrant.
Second was Corporal Isaac Douglass of Company E. Twenty years old. Home to see his widowed mother, two brothers, sister, and grandmother.
Then Private Henry J. Roach of Company E. Only eighteen, who needed the permission of his parents, Franklin and Maria, to volunteer.
And from Company D: Sergeant David Ring, 19. And Corporal Jeremiah Wakefield, 22. Part of the young guns of Company D.
David was the youngest sergeant in the regiment, and after Gettysburg, the colonel called Jeremiah one of the bravest men in the Third Maine.
They were both driven, mature for their ages. Determined. Unafraid. Both their fathers had been mariners. Both drowned when they were children. They knew loss early. And they’d learned that toughness counted—especially in war.
David planned to visit his older brother, his only remaining family.
Jeremiah still had his mother, Mercy, his older sister, Jane, and his stepfather, Moses Glass. Jeremiah had joined Company D with Moses, but the war had taken its toll on his stepfather; but at least he was alive and safe.
Jeremiah and David laughed, clapped each other on the back, and promised to return to the regiment together after their furlough ended. With home so close and family eager to see them, David and Jeremiah couldn’t have predicted that in less than three months, everything would change.
That both of them would be shot on the battlefield.
And that only one of them would make it out alive.
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Greetings, and welcome back to Company D, the history podcast that digs into the personal side of the American Civil War.
At Company D, we’ll leave the battle tactics and military debates to others. We’re not about grand strategies or what happened in the Senate chambers or the White House.
We seek something more cherished—something more human. We share the stories of the everyday soldier—tales of grief and longing, stories of betrayal and bravery. We focus on the carpenters, the farmhands, and the fishermen who exchanged their lobster traps for rifles and marched off to war.
And not just any soldiers. We’ve chosen to follow the men of Company D of the Third Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment. These are the soldiers from mid-coast Maine and the city of Bath.
Why Company D? Because it’s personal. My great-great-grandfather—Charles F. Snell—volunteered with Company D at the age of eighteen. Charles was from Dedham, Massachusetts, but he was visiting his older brother in Bath when the war broke out. He enlisted—and kept a diary. That diary became the inspirational spark of this podcast.
I’m your host, George F. Snell III.
In today’s episode, we meet Jeremiah Wakefield and David O. Ring—fatherless boys from Bath who were among the Young Guns of Company D. Two soldiers who rose into the ranks of the Company D leadership despite their young ages. Jeremiah and David shared many similarities, and it’s not difficult to imagine that they became close friends during the war.
Unfortunately, that friendship would be a short one. It came to a crossroads during the fierce fighting of May 1864, which started with the Battle of the Wilderness and ended at the Battle of Spotsylvania.
One of their lives would end abruptly—cut down in the prime of his life. And the other would end up leaving Bath—and Maine—needing distance to start his life all over again.
But before the smoke and chaos of northern Virginia…before a bullet would change everything…they faced their first heartbreak: the deaths of their fathers.
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CHAPTER ONE: STORMY SEAS
The Bunker Hill was in trouble. Gale force winds. Lashing rain. Lightning flashed across the churning ocean—flickering across raging waves.
It’s January 6, 1846. Off the coast of Florida, near Key West.
The schooner Bunker Hill lurched and pitched as the storm engulfed it. The trading vessel was from Maine, returning from Nassau in the Bahamas. Its hold was likely filled with dyewood, sisal, salt barrels, and tropical fruits. They were heading toward the coast of Florida, caught unaware by the sudden squall.
Captain Freeman, this was probably 46-year-old Benjamin Freeman, a master mariner out of Sullivan, Maine, 115 miles northeast of Bath, who was in charge of the vessel. He probably had a crew of six, which was standard for a trading schooner like Bunker Hill: a first mate, four sailors, and a cook.
But the storm made it all hands on deck, even the cook.
The first mate was John Wakefield. John had been with Captain Freeman for many years; he had even named his firstborn son Freeman. Although the boy died five years earlier at just three years old, a loss still ached in John’s heart.
Back home in Gardiner, Maine, John had a wife, Mercy, and two children, Jeremiah and Jane. Jeremiah was now his oldest, only four years old. They lived in a house John owned on property given to him by his father, and he was hoping to return soon.
But first, he had to navigate them out of the storm. John was likely at the helm of the Bunker Hill—trying to position the schooner’s bow into the waves, but the ship was struggling—its hold heavy with cargo.
Drenched by rain and seawater, Captain Freeman barked orders at the crew to reef the sails. The storm was getting worse.
Then it happened—a rogue wave? A slip on the soaked deck? No one would ever know.
But somehow, John Wakefield lost his balance and was pitched overboard. One moment, he was on the deck of Bunker Hill, and the next, he was engulfed in churning ocean water.
He tried to swim, tried to reach the surface, but it was madness around him. Fury and madness. Did he think of Mercy and his two children as he struggled? Did his mind turn to the rolling pastures of his father’s nearby farm?
Then, he was gone.
It took several weeks for word of her husband’s death to finally reach Mercy back in Gardiner. The news was grim. Her husband for the last eleven years, John Wakefield, was lost at sea. Three words that every wife of a sailor dreaded receiving.
She was a widow now. And Jeremiah and his baby sister were fatherless.
Twelve years later. June 12, 1858. Off the coast of Massachusetts, near Minot’s Ledge, Cohasset.
The schooner St. Mary was caught in rough seas. The wind whistled, fluttering the sails.
The St. Mary was out of Bath, Maine, sailing for Boston Harbor. The Captain was 52-year-old David Ring III—a veteran seaman. Back home, Captain Ring had a wife, Mary, and two sons, George and David.
The seas were sharp, but nothing unusual. Captain Ring moved forward to lower the sail when, midship, the boom suddenly released, swinging across the ship. It struck him on the head and shoulders. The blow threw him overboard.
Just like that—and Captain Ring was floundering in the high seas.
The crew managed to swing the ship around, anchor her, and launch a dinghy for rescue. But it was too late. By the time they pulled Captain David Ring out of the cold bay waters, he was already dead. His body was taken to the dead house in Boston, and his family in Bath was notified.
Mary was left a widow at the age of 58, a staggering blow. She was left in the hands of her two sons, the oldest, George, 23, and her youngest, David, 16.
David, like Jeremiah, had joined an exclusive club—one that no one wanted to belong to—the children of drowned seamen.
CHAPTER TWO: GROWING UP FAST
Jeremiah Wakefield’s mother, Mercy, inherited her husband’s house in Gardiner, Maine. Her father-in-law owned the second-largest farm in the nearby town of West Gardiner. His property was worth more than $32,000 in 1852—well over $2 million in today’s money. Jeremiah’s grandfather was among the earliest settlers in Gardiner, having attended its very first town meeting in 1803.
Gardiner was a city of about 5,000 people on the Kennebec River, about 30 miles upriver from Bath. West Gardiner abutted the city, but was smaller and more rural, with about 1,000 residents. Mercy’s homestead was surrounded by pastures and farms owned by her late husband’s relatives—brothers, cousins, and uncles.
Yet, Mercy must have been lonely and struggled as a widow to raise her children alone.
Enter Moses Glass.
Moses Glass was 10 years younger than Mercy. He stood just shy of five feet seven. Dark hair and blue eyes. His skin was dark, sun-kissed from working outside at the shipyards along the Kennebec River in Bath. He was a ship joiner by trade.
Moses was born in Woolwich on October 26, 1820. He was the eighth of 11 children born to farmers John and Sarah (Bolden) Glass. It’s unclear how Moses and Mercy met, but the two families weren’t unfamiliar with each other. Glasses and Wakefields had married in the past, so perhaps they met through relatives.
It isn’t hard to envision the young Moses falling for the lonely widow raising a pair of blond-haired young children.
They married in Mercy’s hometown of Bowdoinham on October 28, 1849. Moses was 29, and Mercy was 38. Moses moved into Mercy’s house in Gardiner. He continued to work as a ship’s carpenter and became the stepfather to 10-year-old Jeremiah and 5-year-old Jane.
They didn’t stay long in Gardiner—the city was a good distance from the ocean and not an easy place to secure work in the shipping industry. The family relocated to Bath and grew their small family by one, adding a son, Melvin O. Glass. For a time, Jeremiah even adopted Moses’s surname and went by the name Jeremiah Glass.
It was different at the Ring household. David Ring’s mother, Mary, was 58 years old when she became a widow. She had married late in life—and was too old to marry again. It was going to be up to her sons, George and David, to keep the family fed and sheltered.
George worked in a textile mill in Bath, operating carding machines for spinning wool and cotton into yarn. David went to the sea—just like his father. He became a fisherman—and by the age of 16, he was manning vessels out of Bath.
Shortly before the war broke out, Moses and Jeremiah worked in the shipyards in Bath while Mercy kept house and raised Melvin, and Jane attended school.
David worked on the fishing boats, and his brother worked at a textile factory. Their mother kept their home in order.
It wasn’t a glamorous life, but it was stable and steady.
And safe.
Until it wasn’t.
CHAPTER THREE: YANKEE DOODLE DANDIES
April 12, 1861. The Confederate Attack on Fort Sumter in South Carolina.
The newspapers in Maine fed the flames:
“The War Begun by the act of South Carolina! Bombardment of Fort Sumter!” trumpeted the Kennebec Journal in Augusta. “
“Civil War!!” the Ellsworth American declared.
“A United North!” the Lewiston Sun-Journal announced. “There seems to be a unanimous feeling in all parts of the North in favor of supporting the government in defending the flag of our nation.”
President Abraham Lincoln called for raising an army of 75,000 volunteers in order to quash the Rebellion.
Among the early volunteers were David Ring, Jeremiah Wakefield, and Jeremiah’s stepfather, Moses Glass. They all enlisted as privates with Company D of the Third Maine. David was only 17 when he enlisted and would have needed his mother’s permission to join. Maybe he asked Mary for her blessing. Or maybe he didn’t. Either way, he was soon in uniform and listed as being 18 years old. Jeremiah was 19, and Moses was 40.
They weren’t alone. The Wakefields, it seemed, treated the enlistment like a family calling. Jeremiah’s uncle, 51-year-old Hiram, lied about his age, telling recruits he was 45 to avoid being too old, and joined Company E. Cousins joined regiments across the state, from the First Maine Cavalry to the Fourteenth Infantry.
There is one existing photograph of David, probably taken during that brief furlough home in February 1864—the same visit where he and Jeremiah parted with a laugh and a handshake.
David stands by a column wearing a blue jacket, a single button fastened at the top, sergeant chevrons on his sleeves. His hands are large with thick fingers, a working man’s hands, probably rough and calloused from his years of mending fishing nets and hauling lobster traps.
He's lean-faced with a strong jaw, thick lips, and a low brow that shades a pair of intense, determined blue eyes. He’s clean-shaven, maybe because, at 19, he’s not yet old enough to grow a beard or a mustache. His light brown hair is neatly combed with a part to the right. He looks like a young Lee Marvin.
It was a whirlwind enlistment, the fervor spreading like wildfire across Bath and Maine and all through the north.
But there was an underlying cockiness, too. A near-unanimous assurance that the North would crush the rebellion, and the war would be over in a few weeks—maybe a few months at the most. Certainly, the men from Maine would be home for Christmas dinner. So why not lie about your age or join when your best years were already behind you?
As the Ellsworth American bellowed in a headline shortly before the first major battle of the war: “We will make no compromise with Treason and no surrender to Rebellion!”
However, within weeks, that confidence would be shattered on a Virginia battlefield known as Bull Run—a surprising defeat for the Union and a sign that the war would be a prolonged one.
CHAPTER FOUR: NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Uncle Hiram died of pneumonia after Christmas. He had been laid up in the regimental hospital in Alexandria, Virginia, for several days before passing away on January 11, 1862, less than three months after he officially volunteered for the Third Maine.
Hiram left his wife, Lillie, a widow with four children at home under the age of 14, including a four-year-old daughter. Lillie had difficulty collecting a widow’s pension because the minister who married her and Hiram had forgotten to file their marriage certificate with the city of Gardiner. Eventually, after months of haggling with the U.S. Pension Bureau, Lillie was found to be Hiram’s legal wife and received her pension.
Moses also struggled with the physical exertion of being a soldier. While training at Augusta in late May, Moses was already showing signs of physical strain. By the time the Third Maine was officially mustered into federal service on June 4, 1861, Moses was transferred to the Invalid Corps, which was renamed the Veteran Reserve Corps in 1864. The VRC was for soldiers unfit for front-line duty but not disabled enough to be discharged. More than 60,000 Union soldiers served with the Invalid Corps.
The Invalid Corps was divided into two battalions. The First Battalion was for soldiers whose disabilities allowed them to perform moderate work, including patrol duties and guarding prisoners. The Second Battalion was for men with serious disabilities—many had lost limbs or were recovering from serious illnesses. The Second Battalion was assigned duties such as cooking, nursing, or clerical work. Moses was assigned to Company 16 of the Second Battalion.
He must have been sick indeed.
Being sent to the Invalids would have been embarrassing for Moses. Many considered the Invalids to be an “asylum for shirks”—a place for cowardly soldiers to avoid combat and a refuge for the lazy to get light work and full pay. Regular infantrymen often looked down on the Invalid soldiers.
Yet even with the lighter duties, Moses struggled with his health. During the summer of 1863, he was hospitalized frequently, and by September 1, 1863, he was discharged and sent home. He returned to Bath thin, weary, and too sick to work. The war hadn’t killed him—but it hadn’t spared him either. His health was so bad that he applied for an invalid pension from the U.S. government.
As evident by the fate of Moses and Uncle Hiram, the infantry was hard on older volunteers. Though men over 40 were allowed to enlist, they were more likely to be discharged early due to fatigue, injury, or illness, and their mortality rates, especially from disease, were significantly higher than those of younger soldiers.
But where Moses and Hiram floundered, the teenagers Jeremiah Wakefield and David Ring thrived.
CHAPTER FIVE: TOUGH AS NAILS
Jeremiah was shot in the leg at the Battle of Gettysburg. The wound was serious enough to require hospitalization for several weeks.
On August 15, Jeremiah and Corporal Henry H. Shaw, who suffered a severe wound to his left shoulder, were transferred to Newark Hospital in New Jersey. Jeremiah would spend weeks healing, the puckered bullet scar on his leg a constant reminder of how close he’d come.
Gettysburg solidified the Third Maine’s reputation as one of the grittiest and battle-hardened regiments in the Union Army. It also signified the rise of the young guns in Company D. In the aftermath of Gettysburg, the young guns climbed into the ranks of the company leadership.
While hospitalized, Jeremiah was promoted to Corporal—along with two other privates: Archibald Campbell, 30, from Nova Scotia, and another one of the young guns, Charles Snell, from Dedham, Massachusetts. Charles was only 18 when he volunteered.
Corporal Shaw, who was 20 when he enlisted, was promoted to Sergeant, along with David.
David Ring was 19, the youngest sergeant in the entire regiment.
But not every young gun survived Gettysburg.
Jeremiah returned to the Third Maine in the fall of 1863, around the time President Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address on November 19. Lincoln’s speech, one of the greatest in U.S. presidential history, was part of the dedication of a national cemetery at the Gettysburg battlefield.
Joseph A. Roach, like David, a fisherman from Bath before the war and another one of Company D’s young guns, was buried there. Joseph had been shot multiple times in the leg at Pitzer Woods and taken prisoner.
Joseph was part of a prisoner exchange two weeks later. But by then, it was too late. His wounds had festered, and he died on July 11. He was buried in Grave No. 15 in Section B of Gettysburg National Cemetery three days after his death. He was 23 years old.
A month after the Gettysburg Address, Jeremiah and David re-enlisted for another three years. They were recruited as Veteran Volunteers under General Order No. 191, an initiative from the War Department to encourage experienced soldiers to reenlist through bonuses and furloughs.
On January 5, 1864, David and Jeremiah were discharged from service and re-sworn in on the same day under new three-year terms. Other Veteran Volunteers in Company D included Sergeant Henry H. Shaw, Private Charles Getchell, and Private George Bliss. A month later, Sergeant Albion Kennerson and Private Joseph McIntire also became Veteran Volunteers.
They each received a cash bounty of $300, equivalent to more than a year and a half of their regular monthly pay of $13. Additionally, they were granted a 30-day furlough.
It was on their 30-day furlough that Jeremiah and David traveled back to Bath together with three other Veteran Volunteers from the Third Maine. One of the soldiers on that trip was Henry J. Roach of Company E, the cousin of Joseph Roach.
Their fallen Company D young gun, buried at the new national cemetery in Gettysburg.
It was on that furlough—while Jeremiah and David stood in the bitter cold at the Brunswick Depot—that they had only three months left before everything changed for them.
That in May, one of them would be shot and wounded, and the other would fall on the battlefield—never to rise.
Just like Joseph Roach.
CHAPTER SIX: HELLSCAPE
On May 17, 1864, the Daily Sentinel and Times in Bath listed the dead and wounded from the Third Maine from the Battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania.
Lieutenant Colonel Edwin Burt, 38, of Augusta. Killed.
Captain Alfred S. Merrill, 39, of Bath. Killed.
Color Corporal Jeremiah Wakefield, 24, of Bath. Killed.
Sergeant David Ring, 20, of Bath. Killed.
Both of the young guns, reported killed in combat. One can only imagine the shock experienced by David’s brother George, Jeremiah’s mother, Mercy, and his stepfather, Moses.
Let’s back up to May 6. The Wilderness region of Spotsylvania, Virginia.
A dense, tangled second-growth forest with near-unpassable underbrush, scrub oak, pine, and thorny vines. It was a jumbled mess, a jungle.
In some spots, visibility was limited to less than 30 feet. The forest was dry, a powder keg baking under a sun that lifted temperatures into the 80s. During the battle, musket fire and artillery ignited wildfires that filled the Wilderness with choking, suffocating smoke that made it difficult to breathe.
It was the opposite of what David Ring experienced as a fisherman out on the ocean. There, he could see all the way to the horizon. It was open and fresh, exhilarating, not like this claustrophobic nightmare.
The day before, on May 5, the Third Maine had been in reserve when ordered forward to prevent a rout of the Fortieth New York Regiment. As the Fortieth, confused and disoriented in the woods, retreated, the Third ran by them and repelled a Confederate assault. A brutal fight in close combat.
Now, on the next day-, despite their exhaustion, Jeremiah and David were rousted at 5 a.m. with the rest of Company D.
The Third was ordered to the front of the Second Corps line. Their experience and reputation for grit were needed to stabilize the division. They met the Rebels in the bleak snarl of Wilderness forest. The woods caused problems with logistics; they lost their way among the smoke and trees. They were forced to retreat to a Union breastworks.
Late in the afternoon, the woods burning with wildfires, the Rebels attacked again. The Confederates broke through the Union front line, but the Third Maine and the rest of the division held at the breastworks. The Rebels charged again and again and were stopped each time.
But the cost was dire. Private John Haley of Company I of the Seventeenth Maine, which fought side-by-side with the Third, watched as the Union soldiers in front of him melted under a withering fire by the Rebels. His company lost 20 men.
One of Haley’s comrades had a bullet slice across the top of his head, cutting away his hair like it had been shaved with a razor.
The cost to the Third was just as brutal. On that day, they lost Lieutenant Colonel Edwin Burt.
And Sergeant David Ring.
Dead at 20.
CHAPTER SEVEN: AFTERMATH
The report in the Daily Sentinel and Times had been mistaken. Jeremiah was not killed. He was shot through the hand on the morning of May 12 at Bloody Angle, during the Battle of Spotsylvania.
On June 2, the newspaper set the record straight: “Corporal Jeremiah Wakefield of this city was wounded, but he has resumed his place in the ranks as Color Bearer. Colonel Lakeman states he is as brave a man as there is in the regiment.”
But the newspaper had been right about David Ring. He was shot and killed at Wilderness on May 6.
While recovering at the hospital, Jeremiah was promoted to sergeant on June 4.
The Third Maine disbanded at the end of June. Jeremiah and Sergeant Albion K. Kennerson were both assigned to Company K of the Seventeenth Maine. Jeremiah’s paperwork said he was transferred, but he was still at the hospital. Jeremiah didn’t physically join the Seventeenth until late June or early July.
By that time, Sgt. Kennerson had already been seriously wounded. We told Albion’s tragic story in Episode Three.
Jeremiah fought with the Seventeenth for a year until the regiment’s charter expired on June 4, 1865, and it was disbanded. Jeremiah still had two years left on his re-enlistment. He transferred to Company K of the First Maine Heavy Artillery Regiment.
The war ended on April 9, 1865. He mustered out of service on September 11 at Fort Baker in Washington, D.C.
For Jeremiah, the war was finally over.
CHAPTER EIGHT: UNDER THE PINES
September 2, 1885. Revere, Massachusetts.
A bright indigo sky and a salty breeze swept over Point of the Pines, a parkland along the coast.
Across an open field, hundreds of white canvas tents spread out in neat rows, like mushrooms blooming after a summer rain. They rustled gently in the breeze. This marked the beginning of a special reunion for the Grand Army of the Republic.
More than 20 years had passed since the end of the American Civil War, but on this day, the veterans who fought for the Union were back together, older and grayer but with the same iron glint in their eyes. This was no ordinary reunion, but a jubilee for one of the most powerful brotherhoods in America. It’s hard to grasp now, but the Grand Army of the Republic—known as G.A.R.—was one of the largest and most influential organizations in the United States from the late 19th to the early 20th centuries.
On this sun-splashed day in 1885, Jeremiah Wakefield, now 44 years old, was the commander of Boston Post #7 of the G.A.R. He was married with two children and a construction foreman for a house-building company.
Jeremiah was older than the sergeants he reported to when he first joined Company D. William Higgins was 43, as was Otis Williams, and Moses Crafts was 40.
He wasn’t a young gun anymore. But he hadn’t lost his fire.
When Charles Fellows, a G.A.R. adjutant from Chelsea, scolded Post #7 for showing up late, and ordered them to the back of the dress parade, Jeremiah wasn’t having it.
A shouting match erupted. Tempers flared. Voices rose.
Then Jeremiah gave the order—forward march—and with their drummer beating time, all 200 members of Post #7 turned and marched off the field entirely. Critics pounced. Newspapers wagged fingers. That wasn’t the behavior expected at a reunion.
But back at Post #7’s campsite, Jeremiah’s men gave him three cheers.
Jeremiah stood tall among them—basking in the loyalty of his comrades who knew what it meant to stand your ground. Because some things—like dignity and honor—aren’t given.
They’re earned.
But even as the cheers of his men lifted his spirits, maybe Jeremiah’s thoughts turned back to the war—to his friends and fellow young guns who didn’t make home: Henry Roach and David Ring.
Especially David Ring.
Maybe he thought about that cold day on the train platform in Brunswick. The two newly anointed Veteran Volunteers, who shook hands before they parted. If he had known then what he knew now, maybe he wouldn’t have given David a handshake. But instead wrapped his arms around his friend and gave him a long hug.
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Thank you for listening to this episode of Company D. We hope you enjoyed hearing the story about Jeremiah Wakefield and David Ring.
Please visit our website, where you can find more information about David and Jeremiah, including a photograph of David. We’d love to hear from you, and comments are always welcome.
I’m your host, George F. Snell III. See you next time.
And remember, if you are truly civil, if you can avoid a war.