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endurance, good nature and gentlemanly deportment.
Probaby no commander was more loved when living or sincerely mourned when dead by his men than was Capt. Geo. W. Bachelder.
Colonel Devereux says of him: ‘What a noble life went out in his country's cause when he died.
Small in stature, but how grand a man!
He was beloved not only by the men of his own company, but by everyone in the regiment.’
The command of Company C then devolved upon Second Lieut. Edgar M. Newcomb, who was soon promoted to be First Lieutenant for his bravery in this action.
Capt. Henry A. Hale, Lieut. Albert Thorndike, Lieut. John P. Reynolds, Jr. and Lieut. Elisha A. Hinks were wounded.
At an early part of the fight Lieut. Reynolds was wounded in the ankle and was ordered to the rear by Lieut. Col. Devereux.
He hobbled back to his company, however, and stayed long enough to receive another wound, this time in the elbow of his sword arm. Col. Devereux said later, jokingly, that ‘it served him just right for disobeying his commander,’ but complimented him at the time in his official report.
Capt. Hale received a very peculiar wound.
A minie ball carried away all his front teeth and a piece of his tongue, making a painful and disabling wound.
Sergt. McGinnis, who had received a bullet wound in the breast, saw Capt. Hale as he sat in the temporary hospital his lips swelled so that he could hardly open them and his face puffed out, trying to drink some tea. Thinking to ‘cheer the boys up a bit,’ he said to the wounded officer, ‘Oh, Captain, how I'd just like to kiss you now.’
The poor captain could not laugh as it hurt his lips to move them, and could only splutter in his pain.
Sergt. McGinnis then lay upon the operating table and had his bullet removed without taking anaesthetics.
John Barry of Company C was severely wounded in the face by a minie ball, which completely destroyed one half of the upper jaw and took off a piece of his nose.
First Lieut. Albert Thorndike received a peculiar wound.
A ball went through his abdomen, passing in through one vest pocket and out at the other.
It struck his watch chain, which split the ball, and the part which passed through him carried
Salem Press. Co., Salem, Ma., 1906.
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