Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 7.
Frank Moore, Ed.

And there was a Quartermaster-Sergeant — William S. Bean — who, like Captain Espy, chose the field of danger rather than the post of safety. He might have remained in the rear, and the breath of censure could not have touched him; but he was right where the bullets flew thickest and fastest, and did the work almost of a general in encouraging the bold and animating the timid. He was a genuine hero.

Captain Wells, of the One Hundred and Thirteenth Ohio, and Lieutenant-Colonel Kinman, of the One Hundred and Fifteenth Illinois, were two of the best men, and bravest soldiers, who yielded up their lives on the twentieth, on their country's altar.

And the scores of privates, corporals, and sergeants, men of families, who had left all — wife, children, home — for their country — from a pure sense of duty; young men, who left college walls, and the merchant's desk, and the plough and the anvil, all because their country called them, to face death on a battle-field; darling sons, the hope and stay of widowed mothers, whose early death will break more than one sorrowing heart — what of these? Alas! too many such there are — as brave, as heroic, as truly martyrs as ever died in the cause of Humanity — to mention here by name. Would you know them? Read the list of the killed!

We will not, in our sorrow for the heroes dead, forget the surviving brave. These, thanks to a merciful Providence, are even more numerous than the dead. Among the many who did well, General Steedman, and Major Smith and Captain Moe, of his staff, merit special praise. And General Whittaker and Colonel Mitchell, and their staff-officers, and the regimental commanders, are most highly honored by the soldiers, for they were brave and unflinching leaders.

Let me refer to two men in humbler positions. One is Lieutenant C. W. Earle, commanding the color company of the Ninety-sixth. He stood by the colors throughout the fight, and, though all but two of the color-guard were killed and wounded, and the colors were cut to pieces by the bullets and grape and canister that pierced its folds, he faltered not one instant. He is a Second Lieutenant, and but a boy; yet few full-grown men, in much more exalted positions, excelled him in cool, cheerful courage.

The other is Captain Clason, of the One Hundred and Twenty-first Ohio, who, with the little remnant of the regiment, fought so stubbornly and unyieldingly to the very last, preserving their colors and keeping them afloat proudly in the face of the enemy, until the last shot was fired.

And Colonel Le Fevre, who led his Twenty-second Michigan on a bayonet-charge, after they had expended all their ammunition, should not be forgotten when the roll of honor is made out.

But time and space would fail to name every man who flinched not from his duty on that memorable day. The Eighty-fourth Indiana, the Fortieth, Ninety-eighth, and Eighty-ninth Ohio, and the Seventy-eighth Illinois-all of Steedman's division — has each its list of heroes.

Enough that, at that critical hour, the reserve failed not. And it could have done more had it been necessary, for Colonel McCook's brigade was not engaged. As to our division, it has confidence in its officers, while they are proud of their men; and it is now ready to test its metal again with a rebel foe. It is with not a little of pride that I can write of such a division, and its fight on the twentieth, parva pars fui.