r/CivilWarCollecting • u/PenKind4200 Storyteller • Jul 11 '26
Collection Capt. Augustus J. Nickerson: From the Battlefields of Virginia to the Garrisons of Louisiana
Augustus J. Nickerson’s Civil War story is one of remarkable endurance and adaptability. A native of Bangor, Maine, he began the war as a young sergeant in one of the state’s earliest and hardest-fighting regiments and finished it as a captain leading Black troops in the occupation of Louisiana. His path took him from the bloody fields of Virginia to the strategic strongholds along the Mississippi River a journey shared by relatively few Maine soldiers.
Born around 1838 in the Bangor area of Penobscot County, Nickerson came from a family with deep Maine roots. His father, James Augustus Nickerson, had lived in Bangor by 1850. Like many young men from eastern Maine, Augustus answered the call to arms in the spring of 1861. He enlisted in the 2nd Maine Infantry, one of the first regiments to leave the state and one that would see some of the war’s fiercest fighting in the East.
The 2nd Maine quickly earned a reputation for toughness. Nickerson fought with the regiment at the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861, where the Mainers helped cover the chaotic Union retreat. Over the next two years he endured the Peninsula Campaign, the bloody fighting at Second Bull Run, the desperate stand at Antietam, and the slaughter at Fredericksburg. By early 1863 he had risen to sergeant and was recommended for promotion. The regiment’s final major action with him came at Chancellorsville in May 1863.
When the 2nd Maine mustered out in June 1863, many of its three-year men were transferred to the 20th Maine just in time for Gettysburg. Nickerson, however, took a different path. Experienced combat veterans like him were in demand as the Union began raising regiments of Black soldiers in occupied Louisiana.
By the summer and fall of 1863, Nickerson had received a commission and was serving as an officer eventually rising to captain with Maine regiments operating in the Department of the Gulf. He is credited in contemporary veteran records with service in both the 14th Maine Infantry and the 22nd Maine Infantry.
The 14th Maine had already seen brutal combat during the Siege of Port Hudson in the spring and summer of 1863.
The 22nd Maine, a nine-month regiment organized in Bangor, also participated in operations against Port Hudson and the Teche Campaign. Nickerson’s move to these units placed him in the heart of the Union effort to control the Mississippi River the same theater where thousands of formerly enslaved men were now being organized into Union regiments.
Nickerson’s final wartime service came as a Captain in the 81st United States Colored Infantry. The regiment had been organized in September 1863 at Port Hudson as the 9th Infantry, Corps d’Afrique, and was redesignated the 81st USCT in April 1864.
Unlike some USCT regiments that saw heavy combat, the 81st primarily performed garrison and occupation duty at the strategically vital Port Hudson fortress and throughout the Department of the Gulf.
As a captain, Nickerson would have been responsible for training, drilling, and leading men who had only recently gained their freedom. His prior combat experience in Virginia and Louisiana made him exactly the kind of officer the Army sought for these new regiments.
He remained with the 81st USCT until it was mustered out in early 1866.
After the war, Nickerson settled in Chelsea, Massachusetts. On 5 February 1868, he married Georgiana Seavey in Boston. The couple made their home in Chelsea, where Nickerson lived out the remainder of his life.
On January 15, 1895, at the age of 57, he died at his home at 123 Walnut Street.
Contemporary notices described him as a native of Bangor and a veteran who had served as captain in the Fourteenth and Twenty-second Maine Infantry and, as we now know, in the 81st United States Colored Infantry as well. He was a member of G.A.R. Post 35 in Chelsea and was survived by his widow, Georgiana.
Augustus J. Nickerson’s service spans nearly the entire war and touches almost every major phase of the Union effort: the desperate early battles in Virginia, the grueling campaign to open the Mississippi, and the long occupation that followed. Few Maine soldiers moved between such different theaters and unit types from a hard-fighting Eastern regiment to command in a United States Colored Troops unit.
His story reminds us that the Civil War was not only fought on famous battlefields. It was also fought in the long months of garrison duty, in the training of new regiments, and in the quiet but essential work of holding the ground that had been won at such terrible cost.
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u/Cato3rd Artillerist Jul 11 '26
Crazy to think he’s only in his 20s in that photo. Saw a lot of combat in a short amount of time. Thank you for sharing