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

During the night Lieut. Dodge asked for more men as pickets and a detail from Company H, under command of Lieut. Hale, was sent out, completing the line along the shore. It was a terrible night for those on picket. The wounded on the Virginia side of the river, cut off from all help, could plainly be heard crying for water and begging that a boat be sent over to them. Now and then one could be heard as he waded out into the water, and, with strong and steady strokes, breasted the current. Little by little his strokes became weaker, then less steady, then mere splashes, in the frantic endeavor to hold out. Then a gurgling sound, a cry for help, and all was still again. All this passed under the senses of willing comrades, powerless to give aid. Now and then, one who was more successful would creep, cold, benumbed and almost dead, up the bank.

At about midnight a volley was fired from the top of the bluff at a number of fugitives who were trying to swim the. river,—an unnecessary cruelty, akin only to barbarism.

During the night of October 21, the regiment held possession of Harrison's Island, camping in a cornfield, and assisted in rescuing men who managed to swim the river after the repulse, and in collecting, caring for and transporting to the Maryland shore the dead, dying and wounded on the island. Morning found the work effectually accomplished and at an hour before daybreak Lieut. Col. Devereux, by direction of Col. Hinks, disposed the Nineteenth Regiment, two companies of the Twentieth, which had joined it during the night, a portion of the ‘Tammany’ regiment and two pieces of Col. Vaughn's Rhode Island Battery in the best position for defence of the island, as an attack was expected at dawn and Col. Hinks had received orders to hold it at all hazards. By dawn a heavy rain, which had threatened all night, set in, and perhaps it was due to this that no attack was made on the island by the enemy.

During the night, Lieut. Dodge, in making the round of his pickets had heard a voice from the Virginia shore, calling: ‘Send over an officer under a flag of truce to look after your dead and wounded.’