George W. Bartlett August 16, 1862 George Bartlett’s first brush
with combat left him excited and impressed. Chaplain to the 14th
Maine Infantry Regiment, Bartlett, from Augusta, accompanied the
regiment to Baton Rouge in the summer of 1862, and endured with
them the boredom of military camp life, waiting for action. "One
who has not experienced it can hardly conceive of the tedium and
weariness of being with an army and nothing to do, -- the
difficulty of keeping up the spirits and discipline of the men,"
Bartlett writes to Governor Israel Washburn after the August 5
battle of Baton Rouge. The 14th Maine was in the middle of the
battle and suffered the greatest number of casualties – a tenth
of the regiment was either killed, wounded, captured, or missing
by the end of the day. Nevertheless, Bartlett writes
enthusiastically of the regiment’s first brush with combat. "The
fact is, Governor, there never have been many neater little
battles than that of the 14th, Baton Rouge, and the fun of it
was, not a man of