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own body and his own frail life between his friend and the enemy.
Major Savage and Captain Henry S. Russell were captured together; the former, lingering for a few weeks, died at Charlottesville, but the latter I rejoice to number as among the survivors of the officers of the Second.1
Flesh and blood could stand no longer; the last attack had been made, and now we, too, were driven the last from the field.
While Colonel Andrews was endeavoring to rally his regiment, his horse received two balls, one in the shoulder and one in the neck, the effect of which, the Colonel says, was “to send him plunging among the branches and undergrowth and to bewilder his rider.”
My own horse, when that fire came, shook for a moment with terror, then bore me, despite my will, through the underbrush and woods to the left of the line of my brigade.
It was about half-past 6 o'clock in the evening, when, in company of from thirty to fifty men (principally of the Wisconsin and Indiana regiments) whom I had rallied, I found myself out of the timber on its edge, at the foot of the hill up which we had scrambled, and not three hundred yards from the fatal field.
The horror with which at first I contemplated the possibility that these were all that
1 Nowhere can I find more fitting words to apply to this knightly act than those used by the aged father of Major Savage, under date of August 20, 1862, in reply to my letter of sympathy. “Much satisfaction,” he says, “is derived by a parent from the proof of sympathy with the misfortunes of a child expressed by his nearest companions; and it will seldom happen that more affectionate regard is shown by his fellow-officers to any one than my only son gained from those of your original regiment. Such evidence weighs more than is always furnished abundantly for mere courage, because bravery belongs to most of our race, and the want of it is a disgrace; but the overflow of genial sentiment is not an indispensable requisite of the most valued and honorable servant of the public, and in proportion to its rarity should be admired as a heavenly grace.”
James R. Osgood and Company, 1883.
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