Melvin Tibbetts, 15th Maine Infantry

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Melvin Tibbetts: 15th Maine Infantry

Melvan Tibbetts

1843-1927

Private, Company H
15th Regiment
Maine Volunteer Infantry

Accompanied by his daughter Elsie, Melvan attended the Grand Reunion at Gettysburg in July 1913. Elsie then wrote an absolutely delightful book about the trip. The 15th Regiment did not fight at Gettysburg, so Melvan was not entitled to go on the special train at State expense. But so many veterans like Melvan, as well as family members were determined to go anyway, that a second train was organized and chartered at private expense. Eventually 452 Gettysburg participants traveled on the special train, followed by the second train bearing 102 family members and veterans who did not fight at Gettysburg. These folks had to pay for their own accomodations as they were not allowed to camp on the field.

Some old soldiers had difficulty proving they had actually fought at the battle, and the authorities had to turn to ex-officers, or other survivers of the regiments involved to establish some kind of proof - which wasn't always forthcoming. "He warn't within a mile of thet battel!" wrote one disgusted member of the 20th Maine of another fellow who tried to claim he'd been there.

You'll be glad to know that the man in charge of all this was none other than General Joshua L. Chamberlain, who at the age of 85 served as the Chairman of the Maine Gettysburg Reunion Commission. It was the last great undertaking of his life, and he threw himself into it. Six weeks before the Reunion he made his last trip to Gettysburg to see that all was well with the arrangements for the Maine delegation. He wanted badly to attend the Reunion, of course; but his health was rapidly failing and his doctor forbade him to make the trip.

The participating veterans were encamped in tents along the Emmitsburg Road - the ground of Pickett's Charge, actually. Hundreds of volunteers including boy scouts, national guardsmen and Red Cross workers looked after the elderly boys in blue and gray. Here is what "the boys" ate for breakfast, dinner and supper on July 2:

Breakfast: applesauce, fried eggs, bacon, hashbrown potatoes, fresh bread, hard bread, butter, salt, pepper, sugar and vinegar!

Dinner: Roast mutton, boiled potatoes, string beans, fresh bread, hard bread, bread pudding, salt, pepper, etc. and vinegar!

Supper: Beef stew, fried potatoes, peas, fresh bread, hard bread and salt, pepper, etc. and vinegar!

Some of us can remember old timers putting vinegar on everything. Can you?

Elsie was touched by the many occasions when she saw the old men in blue and grey embrace each other, not posing for cameras, but in genuine comradeship.

Everybody was talking about the veteran from Pennsylvania who, having been forbidden to go by his doctor and family, had escaped by climbing out a window at his home and had somehow gotten to the reunion by himself, and was now hiding "incognito" in the Pennsylvania camp lest his family catch up with him. "So strongly did the bugles of Gettysburg call", said Elsie.

She was not touched by the inhabitants of Gettysburg itself where, she said "every description of vendor that enlivens a circus ground was in evidence." She added that the place was "a town of about four thousand inhabitants whose chief occupations seem to be keeping boarding houses and livery stables and selling souvenirs!"

But the occasion was a great success. Only one Maine veteran died during the encampment, while the rest of the delegation got back to Maine safe, sound and exhausted.

Sources for this yarn: Gettysburg 1913 Reunion records in the Maine State Archives, From Maine to Gettysburg 1863-1913 by Elsie D. Tibbetts, Bangor, 1913

This page was last on March 30, 2000.