Note: This is the cake shown on my appearance on CBS Mornings, September 16, 2021
Robert H. Clark was one of the two-thirds of Civil War fatalities who died not from the violence on the battlefield, but of disease. The Canada-born Union soldier enlisted in the 7th Maine Infantry in August 1862 at the age of 23. He left behind his wife Mary Ann and one-year-old baby Henry Gilbert, and headed for Maryland. The Maine 7th took part in the Maryland Campaign and a battle at South Mountain, before fighting at Antietam, a significant and bloody turning point in the war.
Constant campaigning had cost the regiment the loss of many men. They returned to Portland, Maine through January of 1863 before reporting to Northern Virginia for more fighting, including the Union victory at the Second Battle of Fredericksburg. In June, the company would pass through Maryland on their way to the fateful battle at Gettysburg. As it happened, Robert H. Clark would never make it to Pennsylvania.
Sources differ on whether the young man had contracted typhoid or died from sunstroke. According to Lt. Colonel Selden Connor, men “fell out by scores… by the heat, dust and exertion” on the trip, some dying in the road.
Clark made it to a hotel in Westminster Maryland, where he was tended to by Mary Bostwick Shellman, a 14-year old who routinely volunteered with the care, feeding and entertainment of residents of the town almshouse. That day, the dutiful girl was caring for soldiers at the City Hotel, which was inundated with infirm soldiers passing through town between battles. She fanned Clark for hours, but it was in vain. Young Mary Shellman watched as Robert Clark died. She would never forget the experience.
Collections of the Bangor Historical Society