Hiram D. Sears was 20 years old when he enlisted in Co. D of the 10th Maine Infantry on October 4, 1861. A lumberman, he enrolled at Fort Kent, Maine in Aroostook County. Sears served with the 10th Maine at the battles of Cedar Mountain and Antietam, the latter fought on his 21st birthday. The 10th Maine mustered out in May 1863, but the men of Company A & D had signed three-year enlistments obligating them to serve an additional year. Those men formed the 10th Maine Battalion. The Battalion served as 12th Corps commanding officer General Henry Slocum’s headquarters’ guard. Sears would be present at the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg while serving with the battalion. At the expiration of his enlistment, Sears mustered into the 29th Maine Infantry, serving with them during the Red River Campaign in Louisiana and the Shenandoah Valley Campaign in 1864. After the surrender of the Confederacy, Sears and the 29th Maine were assigned to the Eastern Military District of South Carolina where they served as the army of occupation until June 1866. Sears passed away in 1910 and is buried in Cambridge, Somerset County, Maine.
