By the summer of 1862 the United States was at a crossroads. Rebel forces had stymied
the army's grand strategy of dividing the Confederacy and bringing the seceded states back
into the Union. With the federal army advances along the one-thousand-mile front halted
in Virginia and in the Mississippi River Valley, President Abraham Lincoln was working on
a radical plan in Washington, D.C. to change the course of the war and reaffirm his people's
confidence in the nation's hallowed cause. Back in Rockland, Maine, Benjamin Dean
was slowly recovering from the severe wounds he had received during the Confederate
charge at Malvern Hill near the James River in Virginia. As he prepared to rejoin the
Fourth Maine Regiment later that summer, an unexpected offer to join a new Maine Regiment
presented itself. Benjamin's decision to accept the new assignment would soon reunite
him with his former college professor and help change the fortunes of the war in favor
of the Union.
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