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[126] The Massachusetts troops actually involved in the attack were the 11th, 21st, 29th, 35th, 40th, 56th, 57th, 58th and 59th Infantry and the 5th Battery. Of these, the 59th suffered most in prisoners and the 57th in killed; but none of these sustained such heavy losses as fell upon some of the newly levied colored regiments of Ferrero's Division. Among the killed were Lieut. S. G. Berry (35th Mass.), Capts. George H. Howe and E. T. Dresser (57th Mass.), Lieut. Clement Granet (58th Mass.). Gen. W. F. Bartlett was again struck by a shot and was captured, but it proved to be only his wooden leg that was shattered, although this was not at first discovered by the sympathizing soldiers who undertook to bear him away. In the third battle of Deep Bottom, Va. (Aug. 14-18, 1864), the attacking brigade was led in the most gallant manner by Col. George N. Macy of the 20th Mass., who had returned that day from his Wilderness wounds, and had here two horses shot under him, being severely injured by the falling of one of these.1 There was heavy skirmishing and some alternate success and defeat. General Miles of Massachusetts finally succeeded General Barlow, who had never recovered from his terrible wounds at Antietam and Gettysburg, and had to resign the command of his division on the 18th, though he attempted a few days later, unsuccessfully, to resume it, and had to be carried from the field on a stretcher.2 At Deep Bottom the Confederates remained in possession of the field. The Massachusetts regiments sustaining casualties at this battle were the 11th, 19th, 20th, 24th, 28th Infantry, the 1st Cavalry and the 1st Heavy Artillery. Of these, the 24th lost most heavily (31 killed or mortally wounded). Among the officers killed were Maj. H. L. Patten3 (20th Mass.), Capt. Patrick Nolan (28th Mass.), Lieuts. William Thorne and Jesse S. Williams (24th Mass.).
1 Walker's 2d Corps, p. 573. Colonel Macy had also lost a hand at Gettysburg. General Barlow says in his report: ‘None of the troops that came under my eye that day behaved with their usual vigor and gallantry under fire. Had they done so, the almost undefended line of rifle-pits might easily have been carried. I desire, however, to commend the great gallantry and good behavior of Colonel Macy.... He did everything that a brave man and a soldier could do.’ (Official War Records, 87, p 248.)
2 This distinguished officer has often been claimed as a Massachusetts man, and certainly came very near being such. His mother was born in Massachusetts and had chiefly resided there, even after her marriage, though not just at the time of his birth; and the son had been almost wholly educated there.
3 Major Patten had been previously wounded at Nelson's Farm, Va., and twice at Gettysburg. He was brevetted lieutenant-colonel, colonel and brigadier-general some months after death. (See his memoir in Harvard Memorial Biographies, I, 443.) Good reports of the share of the 24th Mass. by Col. F. A. Osborn and Capt G W. Gardner will be found in Official War Records, 87, pp. 754-57. A general report by Colonel Pickett (25th Mass.) will be found at p. 809.
Boston, Wright & Potter, 1895-96.
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