This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
Chapter
8
: battles of
Chancellorsville
,
Thoroughfare Gap
and
Gettysburg
.--wounded at
Gettysburg
and ordered home.
Chapter
9
: regiment ordered home.--receptions.--my
first
call upon
Governor
Andrew
.--return to the front.
[46]
when the war should end. Now I must write to my old mother that one of the three who had bade her good-by in β61 would never return.
This was war, terrible war!
As I was kneeling by his side, hearing his last words, a woman's voice said, βIs he your brother?β
I explained to her the fact that I was in command of my company and could not stay with him, but could not bear to have him die alone.
With tears streaming down her motherly face she promised me she would not leave him, but would see him buried and would send me word where he was laid,--which promise she faithfully kept.
The name of this good woman was Mrs. Mary Lee of Philadelphia, Pa. She had a son in Baxter's Fire Zouaves, who was with her that day. Several years ago, when Post 2, G. A. R., of Philadelphia, was in Boston, I saw that one of the old battle-flags was the Fire Zouaves, and was carried by Sergeant Lee.
He proved to be the son I had met that sad day at Antietam; a few months later I visited his mother in Philadelphia, who was working just the same for the soldiers as she had done during the war.
While my brother lay wounded on the field inside the rebel lines an officer of the 8th South Carolina came along, and seeing 19 on his cap asked to what regiment he belonged.
Being informed that it was the 19th Massachusetts, he said he had a brother in that regiment named Daniel W. Spofford.
My brother told him that his brother was wounded in the battle, and might be on the field.
He searched for him but did not find him, as he was able to go to the rear before we changed front.
Returning, he had my brother carried to the haystack where I found him, and rendered all the assistance possible.
The name of the South Carolina
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.