Maxim, Charles M., b. 1842
Rank:	Private, Corporal (1862 October 4), Sergeant 1863 December 2), 1st Lieutenant (1865 June 23; not mustered)
Regiment:	23rd Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. Co. E (1861-1865)
Service:	1861 December 4-1865 June 25

Background note:

Born in New Castle, Pa., on August 17, 1842, Charles Maxim was working as a farmer in South Middleboro, Mass., at the time of his enlistment in the 23rd Massachusetts Infantry. After mustering in to the service on December 4, 1861, Maxim's regiment served for almost two years in the invasion and occupation of North Carolina before being ordered to Virginia. As part of Heckman's famous Star Brigade (1st Brigade, 2nd Division, 18th Corps), the 23rd was thrown into the particularly bloody battles at Drewry's Bluff and Cold Harbor, before settling into the trenches before Petersburg for the long siege. They remained in the Petersburg-Richmond front until almost the end of the war, when they returned to North Carolina in pursuit of the remnants of the Confederate Army, participating in their last engagement at Wise's Fork.

It would be safe to view Maxim as an ideologically motivated soldier -- more so as time passed -- but he was motivated on his own, distinctive terms. An incisive critic of the antiwar faction at home, Maxim was not averse to criticizing the pro-war faction, particularly that part of the pro-war faction that viewed the war as a crusade to end slavery. After hearing the abolitionist George B. Cheever speak, he wrote to his family, "I don't think you will accuse me of copperhead proclivities, still I begin to think there are men at the north so fanatical and blood thirsty that they would not hesitate to sacrifice a great many good white men just to give freedom to one slave with a mind incapable of appreciating the advantages of a life of freedom" (1864 July 15). Obviously, Maxim was disinclined to view African-Americans as the intellectual, social, or moral equals, and he became harshly critical of the "Colored" regiments that he believed broke under fire during the Battle of the Crater at Petersburg. The failure he attributed both to what he believed was the innate inferiority of African American troops, but equally to self-serving generals trying advance themselves on the broken backs of their (white) troops. "It is much easier to stay at home and discuss the merits of the different Generals," he wrote bitterly, "than to make reputations for them in the field" (1864 July 31)

After mustering out of the service on June 25, 1865, Maxim moved to his uncle's in Chicago and in about 1868, to Kenosha, Wisc. In that year, now a staunch Republican, he had established himself again as a farmer, raising hops and potatoes.

Scope and contents:

The value of the Charles Maxim Papers lies in the light it sheds on the attitudes of a Union soldier in the trenches during the last year of the war and the earliest period of Reconstruction in the South. An outstanding reporter of political views -- both his and his fellow soldiers' -- Maxim is at his best in discussing the morale and motivations of soldiers and the formal and informal politics during the election years of 1864 and 1868. Not inclined to extremes in his politics, he plied a middle road between the abolitionists and racial equality persons on one side and the much-despised copperheads on the other, yet never foregoing his strong Unionist principles. Even the postwar letters continue the thread of opposition to Democratic copperheadism.

Few letters in the Maxim Papers contain discussions of military activities in the limited sense, though two letters include interesting discussions of the Battle of the Crater and what Maxim perceived as the failure of African-American soldiers under fire. More generally, several other letters, however, include discussions of generalship, morale, and soldiery, and the palpable increase in his resolve as the war winds down in the late spring, 1865, makes an interesting case study.

Finally, two letters from Maxim's friend and fellow veteran, J.C. Bolles, are worth special mention. In the first (July 17, 1869) Bolles describes his new homestead in Ottawa County, Kans., and the absurd fear on the parts of whites of Indian attack. The second letter (1870 June 1) includes an emotional reflection upon their service during the war, sparked by a Memorial Day celebration by members of the Grand Army of Republic.

Reference:

Emmerton, James A. A Record of the Twenty-Third Regiment, Mass. Vol. Infantry (Boston, 1886). Maxim's biography appears on p. 303; that of James C. Bolles on p. 262; photograph of Maxim, p. 190.

M-1687
Recat. 10/97 rsc

Link to subject index to the Charles M. Maxim Papers

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