Lincoln's Soldiers Monument

This granite soldier has stood watch over Lincoln, Maine, since the Fourth of July, eighteen eighty-seven. It was raised to honor the men of this town who served in the Civil War, and many of their names are carved into the stone. What makes it unusual is its inscription.

Many monuments built later softened the war's meaning, but Lincoln's plainly declares that the conflict destroyed slavery, alongside preserving the Union and maintaining the Constitution. Maine sent some seventy thousand soldiers to the Union army, a staggering share for so small a state, and towns across it answered the war's end by raising sentinels like this one. The monument stands on Military Road, which despite its name has nothing to do with the Civil War.

It was an old route built to link the Penobscot valley with Houlton, far to the north near the Canadian border.