author
Henry S. (Henry Sweetser) Burrage
1837–1926
A Civil War veteran who became one of Maine’s best-known historians, he wrote with the energy of a reporter and the patience of a researcher. His work moves from Baptist history to colonial Maine and Lincoln-era America, making the past feel close at hand.
1 Audiobook
History of the Thirty-sixth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers. 1862-1865
by Henry S. (Henry Sweetser) Burrage, William H. (William Henry) Hodgkins, Edmund W. Noyes, S. Alonzo Ranlett, Alonzo A. White
About the author
Born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, in 1837, Henry Sweetser Burrage studied at Brown University and then at Newton Theological Seminary before leaving school to serve in the 36th Massachusetts Volunteers during the Civil War. He rose from private to brevet major, was wounded at Cold Harbor, and was captured during the war before eventually returning to his studies.
After the war, Burrage entered the Baptist ministry and served as pastor of the First Baptist Church in Waterville, Maine. He went on to spend decades as editor of Zion’s Advocate, a major Baptist weekly in Maine, while also building a reputation as an author and historian.
Burrage became especially admired for his writing on Baptist life and on Maine’s colonial and regional history. In 1907 he was appointed Maine’s first State Historian, a role he held until his death in 1926. His books reflect a wide range of interests, from church history and hymn writers to Gettysburg, Lincoln, and the early history of Maine.