It was an early summer afternoon in a town along the banks of the Androscoggin River.

“A storm of applause” went up from the crowd, who listened to the returning soldier who had lost his right arm in battle a few weeks earlier. It was obvious that the injury was causing the soldier considerable pain, but he managed to keep the audience “spellbound as he portrayed the condition of the army and the wants of our country.”

Events like this are held to salute hometown heroes throughout Maine, and they take place often in the days between Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. The speech above took place on July 15, 1862, in Bethel as Maj. Gen. Oliver Otis Howard addressed three militia companies and many townspeople.

Howard, who was born in Leeds in 1830, was in his home state for about three months of recuperation before he returned to duty in the Civil War, according to an account of the event in the Oxford Democrat.

The details of this Androscoggin County native’s remarkable life are often condensed to a few sentences. They describe a Civil War commander and Indian War fighter, as well as founder of Howard University in Washington, D.C., which was nonsectarian and open to people of both sexes and all races.

He was much more.

Howard died in 1909 after a life of early adventure and later dedication to negotiation and diplomacy. He worked tirelessly, but never achieved full success, in solving the same problems that plague society today: religion, education, labor, diplomacy, the role of the military, government policy, and especially race.

A graduate of Bowdoin College in 1850, Howard went to the U.S. Military Academy and served in the Seminole War before becoming a mathematics instructor at West Point. He resigned in 1861 to become a colonel in the Maine Volunteer Regiment. He rose to the rank of major general, participating in battles at Antietam, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg.

During the Peninsular Campaign of 1862 at Fair Oaks, he had two horses shot out from under him and suffered two wounds that cost him his arm. Howard later served in Tennessee and with Sherman in his March to the Sea and the Carolina Campaign.

Because he once considered becoming a minister, he earned the nickname “The Christian General.”

After the war, he commanded troops in the West, conducting a famous campaign against Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce tribe. His use of force was reluctant, but he considered it necessary.

The drama of Howard’s life has not been lost on Hollywood. James Whitmore portrayed General Howard in the 1975 television film, “I Will Fight No More Forever,” about the Nez Perce campaign and the surrender of Chief Joseph in 1877. Howard also was a minor character in the 1950 James Stewart film, “Broken Arrow.”

Howard’s principles are summed up in the man’s own words: “I never could detect the shadow of a reason why the color of the skin should impair the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Dave Sargent is a freelance writer and an Auburn native. You can e-mail him at [email protected].