[371]
time upon his face in the water.
The road was piled crosswise with wounded and slain.
Marks of shot far up the trees were evidence of the wildness of part of the Rebel fire, which alone saved the regiment from utter annihilation.
According to the stories of deserters, and (since the cessation of hostilities) of participants in the battle, the men were all buried on the side of the stream farthest from the intrenchments, and the officers, or at least Captain Crane, who was a Freemason, in separate graves on higher ground, still farther from the water.
Upon search we found the trench in which the men had been interred.
A narrow drain at the side of the road had apparently been widened, and the bodies thrown in and covered with a foot or so of mould.
The earth seemed as if freshly turned, but was sunken from the effects of rain and drainage.
We could find no other place of burial, nor indeed could we hope for success in our search unless aided by one of the burial party, for the weeds had grown up in the woods and at the wayside, all the ranker for their baptism of blood.
Colonel Hartwell (Fifty-fifth Massachusetts) thus describes these two officers .of his regiment, who died together, and whose memoirs here appear in close proximity.
They fell by the side of “men of African descent,” brave and true as steel, who knew well the worth to their cause of earnest and educated gentlemen like Crane and Boynton.
Crane obtained the position in the regiment for his classmate and near friend Boynton.
All through the fatiguing siege of Wagner and the incessant labors and difficulties of the regiment in the Department of the South, these two men were always at work, and always so cheerfully and so efficiently that I became greatly attached to them, and mourn their loss to the regiment and to the service.
They were alike in being particularly refined and gentlemanly in their manners and tastes, and in doing everything with great care and precision.
I remember how clean and well-dressed they looked on the day of the action, and how calmly and intelligently they behaved.
