Waitt, Ernest Linden, History of the Nineteenth regiment, Massachusetts volunteer infantry , 1861-1865

‘ [184] the Federals might break through our lines. After the third charge he said to me “General, they are massing very heavily and will break your line, I am afraid.” “General, I replied, if you put every man now on the other side of the Potomac on that field to approach me over the same line, and give me plenty of ammunition, I will kill them all before they reach my line.” ’

Lieut. Wm. L. Palmer was seriously wounded and was being carried to the rear by two of his men when a recruit dashed past at a lively pace. The lieutenant grabbed him and struck him over the shoulders with the flat of his sword, calling him a coward. The man replied: ‘I know I'm a coward, and a damned coward’ and, breaking away from the Lieutenant's weak grasp, ran down the street, amid a shower of bullets, disappearing among the crowd at the bridge. He had been at the very front in the fight but had become suddenly panic-stricken and fled.

At the battle of Gettysburg, a few months later, this man was in the front line on the second day and on the third day, despite the fact that he had a premonition that he was to be killed, he moved bravely forward with his company to meet the advancing foe and fell—a hero.

On the morning following the engagement at Marye's Heights, the regiment received orders to take position in the rear where it remained until Monday at 7 P. M., when it advanced to the next line. A detail was then made of one commissioned officer and 25 men for a fatigue party. After having been gone an hour, they returned and orders came to re-cross the river and cover the retreat of the army. The regiment reached Falmouth after midnight. Private Joseph Seaver, of Co. B, was killed while crossing the bridge in the darkness.

It had been claimed by some that the Twentieth Massachusetts regiment took part on the crossing of the Rappahannock, to Fredericksburg, in the open pontoon boats. It is certain that some few men of the Twentieth did get into the boats with the Nineteenth, but the Twentieth as a body, followed the Nineteenth in the boats, after the Nineteenth with the Seventh Michigan, had landed and driven the enemy back.