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Chapter 19: at Bolivar Heights.
The day after the
battle of Antietam was one of inactivity and rest.
There was some artillery firing but no one in the Nineteenth Massachusetts was hurt.
During the day a party came out from the enemy's line in front, under a flag of truce, and were met by officers of the regiment.
Arrangements were made by them to bury the dead between the lines and the enemy asked that a party be sent inside their lines to care for Union wounded and bury the dead.
Such a detail was furnished.
Inside their line
Jacob Hazen of Company C was found mortally wounded, and he died before the detail got through its labors.
On September 19 the regiment marched 16 miles to Bolivar Heights, fording the
Potomac at
Harper's Ferry, at the same place it had crossed in the spring.
Here on September 22, the command went into camp on the same ground where it had stopped in the previous march and from which it had started to join the army of the Potomac, not one foot nearer
Richmond for all the hard marches and desperate fighting.
It was not an encouraging thought.
The tents were pitched on the side of the hill.
Maryland Heights towered grandly on one side, while
Loudon sheltered the other side and the front was covered by
Bolivar.
The position was like a triangle, the sides being the various Heights, while the openings made by the
Potomac and the
Shenandoah formed the angles.
The work of recuperating the Nineteenth commenced at once.
It was rumored that the regiment was going home to recruit, but those who still took stock in camp stories were doomed to disappointment, as on Oct. 9 a large number of recruits
