Passing by a small farm-house as the regiment approached Gettysburg, Maj. Morse observed a care-worn looking woman who ran forward to greet them, with her children in tow. Her manner changed, however, when she detected the blue uniforms beneath the dust of the road. "In a tone of great disgust she said, 'Why, I thought you were Rebs,' and without another word, turned her back on us and, seizing her children by the hands, trudged up the hill again, followed by considerable chaff from our men."
During the charge across Spangler's Meadow, five color-bearers fell in succession. Color Sgt., Levitt C. Durgin was struck before going halfway across. Corp. Rupert J. Sadler the caught the flag, but fell dead a moment afterwards. Corp. James Hobbs carried it until wounded, but before it could touch the ground the flag was seized by Pvt. Stephen A. Cody, who sprang onto a rock and "flaunted it almost in the face of the foe." This bit of bravado added his name to the list of fallen heroes. It was carried until the close of the battle by Pvt. James Murphy. Said Lt. Col. Morse, "The staff and flag were riddled with new bullet-holes, and the old color was more an object of veneration than ever."
While pinned down by enemy fire after falling back aross the meadow, Morse asked for a volunteer to deliver a message to Col. Colgrove. Pvt. Amos L. Madden accepted the mission. An impressed Morse watched the "cool nonchalance," of Madden as he jogged across the open field and somehow "passed safely through the rain of bullets, one of which struck is canteen, passing through on eside of it and denting the other." He was afterwards promoted to Corporal of the Coor Guard.
Adjutant John Fox subordinated his own grief over the death of his brother to ease that of the Mudge family. To the colonel's father he wrote, "I esteemed it a great privilege to be the first friend to receive his remains, and, with Colonel Morse, to perform those last offices which none but a friendly hand should undertake. Of his gallantry I need not speak,--it will be a house-hold word of every survivor of the regiment. My brother and Charley were classmates, and I hold it the sacred duty of my life to fight for the flag they died for, and to see that the cause for which they suffered is in the end triumphant over all its enemies. I hope that God may comfort and bless you and yours , even as I pray He may comfort my poor father and mother, and all who were friends of the loved and lost."
On the 5th of July, as the 2nd Massachusetts filed past the 12th Corps headquarters, General Slocum, who was standing outside the tent, removed his hat in honor of the regiment's bravery and loss.
Brothers John and Franklin Briggs of Sumner, ME, enlisted in Company A of the the 2nd Massachusetts on 7 August, 1962. Both were wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg--37 year old John in the knee and Franklin (29) in the shoulder. Franklin later transferred to the Invalid Corps, but John died of his wounds on 8 August, 1863.
Get your own Free Home Page