Dr. Jack Ballard will be holding two reading and book signing sessions in the Shiretown. The first will be Monday, Sept. 17 at 5:30 p.m. at Cary Library and the other is Tuesday, Sept. 18 at 6:30 p.m. at the American Legion Chester L. Briggs Post 47.
At the legion, organizers will serve refreshments and all veterans of the American Legion and VFW Posts of Aroostook are invited.
Also, the Aroostook County Historical and Art Museum will receive a framed, matted 19th century (Civil War era) photograph of the 20th Maine Band. Ballard has been asked to be at the presentation with curator Kay Bell. The photograph is a valuable sister piece to the Houlton museum’s Andersonville prison lithograph, since for Houlton, the Merriam brothers, Henry Clay and Louis, represent the Houlton members of the 20th Maine.
Henry Clay Merriam went on to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor and Louis Merriam actually survived Andersonville. After being transferred out of Andersonville, Louis escaped from a Confederate POW prison and by the end of the war, he had made his way back north as far as Wilmington, N.C. Like his brother, Louis went on to a lifetime military career.
Ballard is the author of “Commander and Builder of Western Forts: The Life and Times of Major General Henry C. Merriam.”
During his 38-year career as a military officer, Henry Clay Merriam received the Medal of Honor for his service in the Civil War, rose to prominence in the Western army, and exerted significant influence on the American West by establishing military forts, protecting rail lines, and maintaining an uneasy peace between settlers and Indians. Historian Ballard’s new study of Merriam’s life and career sheds light on the experience of the Western fort builders, whose impact on the U. S. westward expansion, though less dramatic, was just as lasting in importance as that of Indian fighters such as Custer and Sheridan.
Henry C. Merriam was born in Houlton in 1837. Merriam’s life offers, as well, a more detailed understanding of the harsh times faced by officers and their families – especially the grit and determination required of wives in the isolated Western forts. His lengthy period in command of black troops also provides a study in leadership and important understandings about the conditions under which African-Americans served on the Western frontier. Merriam served on the Rio Grande to the Pacific Northwest and commanded notable forts such as Fort Spokane, Fort Laramie, Fort Logan, and Fort Vancouver.
Ballard, a career U.S. Air Force officer and a former history instructor at the Air Force Academy, has written five books including “Commander and Builder of Western Forts: The Life and Times of Major General Henry C. Merriam,” “Fort Logan, The Great War Exploits of Capt. Field E. Kindley,” and “The Shock of Peace: Military and Economic Demobilization following World War II.”
The Merriam and Kindley books were published by Texas A & M University Press. He holds degrees from the University of Arkansas, University of Southern California (MA), and UCLA (Ph D). Following Air Force retirement, he worked for the Martin Marietta Corporation (Lockheed Martin) for 12 years. He is an adjunct instructor at History Colorado Museum and serves on the Board of Directors of Friends of Historic Fort Logan and Historic Littleton, Inc. At one time, he was president of the Littleton Public Schools Board of Education and currently lives in Centennial, Colo.
