On 15 July 1863, Billy Laird, a private in the 17th Maine Regiment, was executed by firing squad at Fort Preble after being charged with desertion. President Abraham Lincoln pardoned Laird but the telegraph message never got through due to the fact the telegraph wires in New York City which relayed the message from Washington, D.C. to Maine were cut during the July 1863 draft riots. Laird was the only Maine soldier in the Civil War to be executed for desertion.