Mjr. General Adelbert Ames
The son of Rockland, Maine mariner Jessie and wife Martha Ames, young Adelbert graduated from the U. S. Military Academy at West Point in 1861.  His military preparation would soon to be tested as the 1st Battle of Bull Run signaled what was to come.   Here despite being severely wounded, to Brevet Major and he would be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.   The citation would read being severely wounded and refusing to leave the field until too weak to sit upon the caisson where he had been placed by men of his command. Promoted yet again, this time for meritorious service on the field at Malvern Hill on July 1, 1862,  a little more than a month later Ames accepted command as Colonel of the soon to be hard fought 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry.  After the battle of Chancellorsville, Col. Ames was promoted to Brigadier General and transferred into the U. S. Volunteers General Staff.   A young college professor, now Lt. Colonel, Joshua L. Chamberlain would assume command of the 20th Maine Regiment.  By the close of the American Civil War the coastal Maine mariner’s son, Adelbert Ames, would hold the rank of Bvt. Mjr. General and had participated in siege of Yorktown, and the battles of Gaines Mill, Malvern Hill, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Antietam, and Gettysburg where Ames’ battered division bore the brunt of the Confederate assault on East Cemetery Hill.  Ames participated in hand-to hand fighting here.   In the post war reconstruction period Ames was appointed temporary governor of Mississippi was elected United States Senator in 1870.  He then served as Brigadier- General of Volunteers throughout the Spanish American War.