Biography of Levi Greenleaf
Grandfather Levi G. Small volunteered for Civil War duty on 26 Dec 1863. He was present for duty on all Company roll calls with three exceptions. Once in January 1864 when he missed a raid because of sickness and twice in July-August 1864 when he was a patient at McDougall U.S.A. General Hospital, Fort Schuyler NY (July) and later at Brattleboro VT U.S.A. General Hospital (Aug).
Levi G. was mustered out of the Army on 1 Aug 1865 with his Company in Petersburg VA. One of the problems that faced his widow Hattie after his death centered on his age. Vol II of The Libby Family in America, page 305 [11-7-1-10-1-7-3] states that Levi G. lied about his age at enlistment. I doubt that since the 1850 & 1860 Federal Census for Casco ME place his birth as 1845. He gives his age as 18 when he enlisted in 1863 and as 67 when he made out his Declaration for Pension 31 May 1912 – 6 months prior to his death. The 1880 & 1890 Federal Censuses for Gray ME, his Company Muster Roll and Death Certificate all place his year of birth as 1867. I think he perhaps tried to get out of some duty by convincing his sergeant he was younger than he claimed at enlistment. Needless to say, when Hattie was asked to submit a valid document of her husband’s birth in order to get her pension in 1913, she could not. All she could provide were his discharge papers and stated: “I have not been able to find anything in the Municipal or Family Records as to his date and place of birth.
Levi G. succeeded in getting a small pension for catarrh, rheumatism, and heart disease after recruiting some of his war buddies and friends to go to bat for him in 1888 and 1893. They were George D. Russell of Poland ME (46), Fred B. Nichols of Casco ME (43), Arad E.Ggilbert of Leeds ME (47), Roscoe B. Hall [Pharmacist] of Gray ME (53), George R. Winslow [Family Friend] of Webbs Mills ME (71), and Orin B. Spiller [Family Friend] of Webbs Mills ME (48).
Levi G. married Lunetta (Nettie) Winslow in 1867, Poland ME. Then about 1870 he settled in Gray ME for the rest of his life. Nettie gave him ten children before she died on 25 Mar 1886 of “consumption.” Secondly, he married Hattie E. Libby on 8 Sep 1887 in Lewiston ME with Rev. Carter E. Cates officiating. Six of her six children made it to adulthood. Levi G. was 55 years of age when his 5th child with Hattie was born in 1897 – Wendell Greenleaf! Hattie faced yet another problem in getting child support for her 6th child – Edith Carro, when the doctor submitted the wrong father’s name in filing his report with the Gray ME Town Clerk. He had always heard Levi G. spoken of as “Green” Small, so he wrote “Greenland” Small on Edith’s Birth Record. The good doctor corrected his mistake!
Fernald D. Sawyer, the Trial Justice for Gray ME, assisted Hattie in getting an increased pension stipend of $40.00 in 1939 when she turned 75. Maine Senator Frederick Hale also got into the act. Grandfather’s Levi Small’s probated will in 1913 after his death on 31 Dec 1912 showed that he died with real and personal assets of some $12,000 (over$289,258 in 2015 dollars.
In his book The History of the First Maine Cavalry, 1861-1865, c1887, Edward P. Tobie include General Order No. 10, dated HQS Army of the Potomac, March 7, 1865, and named 29 battles, in which the 1st ME Cav took part, to be included upon the colors of the regiment. Another seven engagement took place after the order, but they are all included below:
The regiment was mustered out of the Army on 1 Aug 1865. “On August second, the command started for home on the steamer “Cossack,” from City Point. After various vexatious delays [the captain of steamer evidently not daring to run his boat after dark], the steamer reached Portland on the afternoon of August 8th. After a tiresome passage on an old, worn-out boat, which it was rumored by the underwriters, who examined her after the regiment disembarked decided would not have floated another hour. The next day the command proceeded to Augusta. It was not until the thirteenth that rolls were signed and the men paid off and the First Maine cavalry existed only in its grand and glorious history – a history of which every member, every citizen of the state, may well be proud.[2]
Gen. Joshua L. Chamberlain, in an address to the regiment at the reunion at Pittsfield ME, 1880, said: “I spoke of Appomattox. I cannot but refer to it again. I was so favored as to see you in several engagements. Brandy Station was one which I shall never forget. But how can any human words speak the emotions that still swell in my heart when I remember that morning of the ninth of April, 1865, when having myself received a message from Gen. Sheridan to break off with my brigade from the column and come to his support.
I double quicked three miles to that field, and saw you there. As I said just now, in that magnificent scene, holding your own – almost holding your own at any rate – surging like the very waves of the ocean before the old Stonewall Jackson Corps of infantry at Appomattox Court House – where, from midnight, I think, or nearly so, until eight o’clock in the morning, the cavalry, single-handedly, without any infantry supporting them, had held at bay that most magnificent army of the rebellion, the Army of Northern Virginia. I submit, comrades, that that was a scene and feat which history never saw before nor since. I say, without fear of contradiction, that it was the cavalry, and it was the First Maine Cavalry, which had the post of honor in that crowning and consummating scene, without which we should not have been able to stop Lee. He would have got somehow or other, I doubt not, to Lynchburg, had it not been for your magnificent speed and strength which held him there at bay.”[3]
