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CIVIL WAR SOLDIER’S STENCIL OF ELIJAH M. GRANT 27th MAINE: THE MEDAL OF HONOR REGIMENT!

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Elijah Milton Grant did two tours of service during the war: first in the 27^th Maine and then in the 6^th Mass, where records transpose his first and middle name, carrying him as Milton E. Grant, but the 1890 veteran census makes clear it is the same man. This stencil comes from his first service and remains in excellent condition, reading, “E.M. GRANT / Co A. 27 R. Me V.”

Grant was born in Saco, York County, Maine in 1842. The 1850 and 1860 census picks him up there on the family farm. He mustered into Co. A of the 27^th Maine as a private on Sept. 30, 1862, at Portland. The regiment was raised for a nine-months term of duty, left the state on October 20, arrived in Washington Oct. 22, and served in the Military District of Washington and the Department of Washington, DC, as part of the 22^nd Army Corps. They were posted on picket duty on Arlington Heights until Dec. 12, when they relieved the Vermont Brigade south of Hunting Creek and took over a picket line 8-miles long, reaching from near Mount Vernon to the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, a line they manned until March 24, 1863, moving to Chantilly to do similar duty. They had returned to Arlington Heights on June 25 in preparation for muster out, when Lee’s invasion of the north during the Gettysburg Campaign was announced, and Secretary of War Stanton wrote to the commanding officer to ask the men to remain in service during the emergency and defend the Capital. Roughly 300 did so. When Stanton was informed, he told the Colonel that those volunteering to remain would be awarded Congressional Medals of Honor.

These men were released from service immediately after Lee’s defeat at Gettysburg was announced and returned to Maine on July 6, mustering out with the rest of the regiment on July 17. Needless to say, when it became clear the promise of the medals would be fulfilled there rather more applicants than qualified candidates. The Colonel apparently compiled a list of 299 officers and men. A regimental history thought 312 had volunteered to stay and qualified. In any case, Congress finally resolved the whole issue in 1917 by rescinding all the awards, and Grant’s name appeared on neither list, so he apparently had more pressing business at home.

Grant did, however, enlist again, this time in Co. C of the 6^th Massachusetts, a volunteer militia regiment that had twice before mobilized for periods of active service, and was doing so again, for 100-days service. Grant signed up with them in Lowell, Mass, or at least claimed residence there, and we also find him living there in 1880. He enlisted on July 8, 1864, and on July 16 mustered in as a corporal, likely due to his previous service. They shipped out for Washington and were first posted on Arlington Heights, familiar ground to Grant, behind Fort. C.F. Smith. In August they were transferred to guard duty at the Prisoner of War camp at Fort Delaware until October 19 when they headed home, mustering out on October 27 at Readville, Mass.

Grant lived after the war Grant seems to have worked as an engineer in Massachusetts and in New Hampshire, where he died in 1893, but was interred back in York County, Maine.

Civil War items don’t get much more personal than a soldier’s stencil. These were commercial products marketed to soldiers and to their friends and family as a considerate parting gift for a new recruit. These were made by punching the soldier’s information through a thin sheet of brass or white metal that was then folded over a sturdier metal frame and usually came supplied with a small bottle of black ink and a small brush with which to apply it. The novelty likely wore off pretty quickly as the number of personal items subject to marking rapidly diminished, but it must have provided some satisfaction at least at first as a statement of individuality and personal identity even in the army.   [sr] [ph:L]

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