Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Harvard Memorial Biographies

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[150] front on the centre company as around a pivot, the left wing falling back and the right wing advancing. The manoeuvre was executed with the skill and promptness with which this regiment went through all manoeuvres, and in a few short minutes the Second was in line fronting the foe. The readiness of thought which suggested this rather unusual movement, and the skill with which it was consummated, have often since been spoken of by military men in terms of the highest praise. The regiment next threw up a slight defence of earthworks along their front, behind which they anxiously awaited the dawn. Soon after daybreak came the rather unexpected command for the line to advance and reoccupy their position of the day before. The attempt seemed fatal and without a prospect of success in face of the outnumbering ranks in the shelter of the woods. But Colonel Mudge was too good a soldier ever to question the merits of an order from a superior, and too thoroughly fearless ever to undertake in such a case a calculation of odds. Straightway he gave the brief order, ‘Rise up,—over the breastworks,—forward, double-quick!’ And up rose the men, at the word of their dauntless commander. Without stopping even to fix their bayonets, they sprang over their earthworks with him. He led them boldly and rapidly over the marsh straight into the jaws of the line of woods whence poured the thick, fast volleys of hostile bullets. The regiment's impetuous charge carried all before it, and they found themselves in their old lines. But Colonel Mudge did not see this triumph; in the middle of the marshy field a fatal ball struck him just below the throat, in the midst of a network of large arteries, and he fell, and died almost instantly.

In considering Colonel Mudge's character, it may be truly said that he was born for a military career. Before the outbreak of the war he had shown many excellent and most lovable traits, and was a young man of many friends and fine promise; but he never seemed fairly to have discovered his peculiar sphere in life or the pursuit for which Nature had fitted him, until he found himself in the uniform of a soldier on the high road to an active campaign. I have