This text is part of:
‘ [143] see waver,’ he said. ‘Of course,’ he adds, ‘it was necessary for me to be moving from point to point, and it was necessary to go over the logs to do so. I was hit three times,—first by a ball which ricochetted and bruised the calf of my right leg; next, by a ball which grazed my face just under the right side of my mouth; and again by one that grazed a shoulder-blade.’ The phrase ‘of course’ modestly apologizes for constant activity, not only in directing his own men, but in going to and fro to encourage the whole shattered line,—services that won the commendations of his brigade commander, and of Colonel Dwight, commanding the First Excelsior, which fought gallantly side by side with the Third. And the ball which ‘grazed’ his face proved to be a buckshot, that inflicted a severe wound, and remained in his jaw till his death. While the Major was thus engaged, his brother, a Second Lieutenant,—a stripling fresh from Cambridge,—escaped from the hospital, was toiling with a wounded leg after his regiment, also hotly engaged. Coming up to the scene of action, this boy gathered a couple of hundred stragglers, planted them by a battery, and defended it in the teeth of the enemy till Kearney and succor arrived. Again the regiment was engaged at Fair Oaks, and through the seven days battles, till the close of the campaign at Malvern Hill. The Major had long since won the love and respect of his men; and his conduct in the campaign led his commanding officers to describe him as possessed of courage of a high order, of coolness and equanimity that never failed, and of a clearness of judgment that under the most trying and confused circumstances remained unshaken. As it seemed as if the Army of the Potomac was about to enjoy a rest from its labors, the Major, at the request of his Colonel, was sent to Dunkirk to recruit the depleted ranks of the regiment. When at home he was offered the command of a new regiment then forming, but declined it, preferring, at sacrifice of rank, to remain with those who, through danger and hardship shared in common, had learned mutual respect and trust. He was also unwilling to give aid to the disastrous
Sever and Francis, 1866.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
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.