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.