"Only 9 were left standing:" Company H, 15th Massachusetts in the West Woods

On September 25, 1862 The Worcester Daily Spy published news of the battle of Antietam and included this report from Whitinsville, Massachusetts.

"Whitinsville. This village has suffered severely by the loss of its volunteers, all of whom were connected with the 15th regiment. The killed, so far as heard from, are seven, as follows: Orlando Batcheller, Arthur W. Andrews, Henry W. Ainsworth, James B. Fletcher, Isaac Marshall, Andrew Addison, George N. Smith. The following are heard from as wounded: James S. Flannegan, Edwin Smith, Eben Prest, Charles H. Plimpton, Ira Partin. The intelligence has cast a deep gloom over the village. -- PWD."⁠[1]

Eight days before, the 15th Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry had entered the West Woods with 606 officers and men under the command of Lt. Col. John W. Kimball. As they emerged from the West Woods soon found themselves “hotly engaged” with what was left of the divisions of J. R. Jones, Ewell and Hood, and a portion of D. H. Hill's division who were “well covered by the nature of the ground, field of grain, hay-stacks, buildings, and a thick orchard” that was the Alfred Poffenberger farmstead. For twenty to thirty minutes both sides exchanged volleys—and both stood firm. As the Fifteenth’s left wing pushed into the farmstead “under a most terrific infantry fire” to “not more than 15 yards” away when brigades from McLaw’s and Walker’s Divisions fell on their left and rear, “pouring in a deadly cross-fire” and forcing the regiment from the field. The cost to the regiment was high: twelve officers were killed or wounded and 336 enlisted men were killed, wounded, and missing. Of these casualties, twelve were from the small village of Whitinsville. This is their story.⁠ [2]

Whitin Machine Works, 1879
National Park Service

Whitinsville straddles the Mumford River Valley in south central Massachusetts. It shares the valley with other nearby small villages—East Douglas, Linwood, and Uxbridge—all of whom depended on the river to drive the small mills and factories that dotted the early 19th century New England landscape. As the number of the river-powered mills grew, machinists, carpenters, clerks began to fill the boarding houses and mill cottages. At first, most migrants to the Mumford valley were from the farms and villages of eastern Massachusetts but the late 1840s saw an influx of Irish, Dutch, and German workers. Of the mill villages along the Mumford, Whitinsville was one of the largest and most prosperous. [3]

Whitinsville’s rising importance during the first half of the 19th Century was fueled by the ambitions and fortunes of two families—the Fletchers and the Whitins. It is to these two families that the lives of many of the Whitinsville volunteers connect—either by birth or by commerce. [⁠4]

By the 1780s, the Fletchers had established themselves as Whitinsville’s leading family. Col. James Fletcher owned most of the land around the town and operated a prosperous forge established by his grandfather. The family’s growing business required a steady influx of apprentices, journeymen, and master machinists, clerks, and other skilled and unskilled labor. One of those who arrived to find work in Fletcher’s forge was Revolutionary War veteran from nearby Uxbridge, Paul C. Whitin.⁠ [5]

Starting out as an apprentice, Whitin’s talents quickly advanced his fortunes. His abilities must have pleased James Fletcher because he allowed him to marry, in 1793, Fletcher’s daughter Elizabeth. By 1815, the Whitin and Fletcher family fortunes combined in the Whitin & Fletcher Cotton Mill.⁠ At the same time, James Fletcher brought his two brothers Samuel and Ezra into the firm. The partnership lasted until 1826 when Whitin bought the Fletchers out and brought his sons (and James Fletcher's grandchildren) Paul Jr. and John Crane Whitin into the business. Renamed Paul Whitin & Sons, the firm added a state-of-the-art factory that employed power looms and new spinning technologies to weave cotton textiles. This factory was followed by two more, so that by the outbreak of war in April 1861, Whitin & Sons, ran three cotton manufacturing factories which also made them the biggest employer in the river valley.⁠ [6]

In July 1861, Company H of the Fifteenth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry was formed from boys and men from Whitinsville and surrounding farms and villages of Northbridge township. Those enlisting that month included the great-grandsons of Col. James Fletcher and the descendants of Paul Whitin as well as numerous machinists and mill workers many of whom worked in the mills and factories of Paul Whitin & Sons. Their common bond was Whitinsville but their greater one was to the brothers, cousins, fathers and sons who filled the ranks of these two companies. ⁠[7]

Lt. Samuel J. Fletcher
Courtesy, Worcester Historical
Museum

First Lt. Samuel Judson Fletcher commanded the sixty-two men in the Whitinsville company; he was related to three. His brothers George and James and his cousin Edward Chapin had all joined Company H on July 12, 1861. Of the four, Sam and Edward Chapin had gone on to college—Sam graduated Brown in 1857 and Edward had left Harvard to join his cousins. On joining the company, each listed their occupation: Sam, civil engineer; Edward, student; George, mechanic; and James, clerk.⁠ [8]

The Fletcher brothers parents were Ephrahim S. Fletcher (1805-1868) and Margaret Ann Chapin (1808-1897) and their grandfather was Whitinsville founder Col. James Fletcher.⁠[9] Edward Fletcher Chapin’s mother was Margaret Fletcher (1807-1887) the sister of Ephraim S. Fletcher, and aunt to the Fletcher brothers. He was also descended from Paul Whitin, Jr. [10]

For Sam Fletcher, the day began with mail call.

“…Before going into battle our mail came My Brother George received Harpers Weekly_He folded it several times and put it in his blouse pocket a bullet struck the pocket and pierced the paper. He sent it home and it was found that this bullet passed through 64 thicknesses of the paper thus saving his life: this was where we lost the most men in a battle we were fighting not more than half an hour: my company had 62 when we went into battle and when I ordered them back only 9 were left standing: as I gave the order my brother James fell shot through the head. I caught him as he fell but he was dead. The Rebels were within 3 rods as we fell back. George and my Cousin Edward Chapin who left Harvard College to go as a recruit were of the 9."[11]

With the 15th vacating the West Woods there was little that Sam or others could do to recover their dead and wounded but wait. Sam continues...

"The Rebels held the ground for a day or two and then I had charge of the party to bury the dead of our regiment I had orders to be as quick as I could[.] I had a long grave[.] [T]he Soil was very hard the men brought the bodies and I helped place them in the grave laid them two deep and buried 43[.]"⁠[12]

Others from Whitinsville were searching for friends and family too. Roland Bowen in Company H describes his search for his friend Private Henry Ainsworth. 13

Locher Cabin, west side

“Now when I heard [Henry Ainsworth] was dead, which was 10 or 11 oc on Friday the 19th, I went righ[t] over to the battle field to find his body so that I could bury it in a separate grave. I looked over a number of hundreds of bodies but I could not find Henry any where. So I went down to the front of the wood, and here I found a burying party from the 15th under a Lieut[tenant] from Co. H. [14] I asked him if he had go the body of Henry Ainsworth. Yes said he and have just covered the corpes {sic} over. Said I. I am sorry. I wished to see it and bury it separately. But I was too late, he was buried. Perhaps you don’t know how we bury the dead. Let me tell you about this particular trench and that will suffice for the whole."

"The trench in which Henry is buried is situated near a log cabin just out side the garden fence. I believe it is on the West side.[⁠15] The trench was 25 feet long, 6 feet wide and about 3 feet deep. The corpes [corpses] were buried by Co., that is the members of each Co. Are put together. Co. H was buried first in the uper {sic} end of the trench next {to} the woods."

James S. Fletcher and
George F. Fletcher

"They are laid in two tiers, one [on] top of the other. The bottom tier was laid in, then straw laid over the head and feet, then the top tier laid on them and covered with dirt about 18 inches deep. Henry is the 3rd corpes from the upper end of the top tier next to the woods."

"Mr. Ainsworth, this is not the way we bury folks at home. I am sorry, but it was too late to have it different. Then there is a board put up at each end of the trench with the simple inscription. ‘15th Mass. Buried here.’ There is 39 men in the trench with Henry. There is others of our Regmt buried near by. Some of our men had their clothes taken off by the rebels. Henry did not have anything taken but shoes and what was in his pockets.”⁠ [16]

⁠While George Fletcher's luck held this day, it ran out the following July at Gettysburg where he was killed. His cousin, Edward Fletcher Chapin, severely wounded there, died the following month in Baltimore. Of the four Fletcher family members at Antietam, only Sam survived the war. Sam returned to the West Woods some time later "and took up the body and sent it home to Witensville.” He would return once more to the Woods, "with the regiment in Sept 1900 and we dedicated a monument there." [17]

To be continued...

=========

Sources

Note: The Roster and Genealogy Project of the 15th Massachusetts Online maintained by Susan L. Harnwell provided much of the biographical information in this entry. This remarkable and unique online collection of individual histories, many with photographs, of the 15th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War, 1861-1864 is a valuable resource for any student of the Civil War. You can find it at http://www.nextech.de/ma15mvi/ma15mvi-p/index.htm. 

I would also like to thank Sherry Fletcher for her correspondence and for kindly forwarding Fletcher family information including photographs, correspondence, and a copy of Samuel J. Fletcher's manuscript account of his life with the 15th.


Thanks also goes out to the Worcester Historical Museum, Worcester Massachusetts for their permission to post Samuel Fletcher's photograph on this blog site. 

1 The Worcester Daily Spy, September 25, 1862 (Volume 17, Number 230), retrieved from The Roster and Genealogy Project of the 15th Massachusetts Online maintained by Susan L. Harnwell (hereafter 15th Massachusetts Online), entry for Henry Ainsworth, http://www.nextech.de/ma15mvi/ma15mvi-p/index.htm. 

<sup>2 Andrew Elmer Ford, The Story of the Fifteenth regiment Massachusetts volunteer infantry in the Civil War, 1861-1864 (W.J. Coulter, Courant Office, 1898), pp. 194-95; Lt. Col. John W. Kimball, "Report on the actions of The 15th Mass. during Battle of Antietam: Headquarters. 15th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers, Camp near Sharpsburg, September 20, 1862” (OR). The final figures were 330 casualties—75 killed and 255 wounded and, of these, 43 would eventually succumb to their wounds.

3 In 1835, the village of South Northbridge was renamed Whitinsville. Don Gosselin's Blackstone Daily website at http://www.blackstonedaily.com/whitinintro.htm; National Park Service, Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor at http://www.nps.gov/blac/planyourvisit/upload/whitinsville.pdf

4 National Park Service, Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor at http://www.nps.gov/blac/planyourvisit/upload/whitinsville.pdf

5 Col. James Fletcher's father was Samuel Fletcher, whose grandfather had established a forge in South Northbridge in the late 1700s. Steven D. Ittel, The Ancestors of Alexandra Carter Lundgren (n.p. 2006), pp. 48-49; Henry Chapin, Address delivered at the Unitarian Church, in Uxbridge, Mass, in 1864. (Worcester, MA. Press of Charles Hamilton, 1881), pp. 81-82; Library of Congress, American Memory Project (online) entry for Whitinsville; http://www.blackstonedaily.com/whitinintro.htm.

6  Retrieved from Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor at http://www.nps.gov/blac/planyourvisit/upload/whitinsville.pdf

7 Brothers Samuel J. Fletcher, James B. Fletcher, George Fergo Fletcher along with their cousin Edward Chapin and their brother-in-law George Davison enlisted in Company H of the 15th Massachusetts Volunteers. The Fletcher brothers were the great grandchildren of James Fletcher. Edward Chapin’s great aunt was married to Paul Whitin, Jr. Samuel Chapin Ancestors and Descendants (online), maintained by Deanne Driscoll at wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/.

8 15th Massachusetts Online; Henry S. Burrage, Civil War Record of Brown University (Providence, R.I., 1920), p. 23; Ancestry Online. Historical Data Systems, comp., U.S. Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2009. Original data: Data compiled by Historical Data Systems of Kingston, MA] and citing Massachusetts Soldiers, Sailors and Marines in the Civil War Massachusetts GAR: Journal of the Annual Encampment. 

9 15th Massachusetts Online.

10 Paul Whiten, Jr. brought another prominent Whitinsville family into the Fletcher/Whiten nexus by marrying Sarah Richardson Chapin. And Samuel Fletcher's (b. 1779) son, Ephrahim (1805-1868) contributed to the three-family alliance by marrying Margaret A. Chapin (1808-1897). Margaret gave birth to three sons and a daughter Samuel J. Fletcher (1831-1924), James B. Fletcher (d. 1862), George Fergo Fletcher (d. 1863), and Abby E. Fletcher who eventually married George Davison. 15th Massachusetts Online, entry for Henry Ainsworth, http://www.nextech.de/ma15mvi/ma15mvi-p/index.htm; Steven D. Ittel, The Ancestors of Alexandra Carter Lundgren (n.p. 2006), p. 40.

11 Manuscript of reminiscences by Samuel Fletcher.

12 Manuscript of reminiscences by Samuel Fletcher.

13 Henry W. Ainsworth (1838-1862). Elam Waldo Ainsworth, blacksmith, b. 11 Aug 1810, d. 24 Feb 1864 and mother Candace Allen b. 3 Jan 1800, d. 6 Jun 1861. When he enlisted in Company H, he listed himself as a clerk. The 1860 Census shows him living in a large boarding house run by the Burgess family. Rank at Antietam, private. His brother Samuel A. Ainsworth joined the First Massachusetts Sharpshooters. At the time of his enlistment he listed himself as a gunsmith. 15th Massachusetts Online</sup>

14 This was Lt. Samuel Fletcher. In another letter, Bowen writes: "“The Lt. has a brother buried there. He says he thinks he shall remove his remains another winter, …”⁠ Roland Bowen to Carrie Ainsworth, (no date, no place) and published and published in From Ball’s Bluff to Gettysburg…And Beyond: The Civil War Letters of Private Roland E. Bowen, 15th Massachusetts Infantry, 1861-1864. Gregory A. Coco, editor. (Gettysburg, Pa: Thomas Publications, 1994),  pp. 128-29.

15 Walter Gale, a 15th Massachusetts officer reported that the dead of the 15th “were buried in a small garden-spot, quite near the scene of action. It is known as Lucca Place, and is about one mile from the village of Sharpsburg. Any one in the neighborhood will point out the location, -- the exact spot is marked by a headboard, -- and the proprietor has promised that this, together with those near it, shall be preserved.” The "Lucca Place" is the Locher Cabin. Walter Gale to Mary Ann Allen, September 24, 1862 and published at 15th Massachusetts Online.

16 Roland Bowen to Elam Waldo Ainsworth, Bolivar Heights, Va, September 28, 1862 and published in From Ball’s Bluff to Gettysburg…And Beyond: The Civil War Letters of Private Roland E. Bowen, 15th Massachusetts Infantry, 1861-1864. Gregory A. Coco, editor. (Gettysburg, Pa: Thomas Publications, 1994), pp. 124-28 [hereafter Coco]; identification of Mary Derby from 15th Massachusetts Online.


17 Manuscript of reminiscences by Samuel Fletcher.

Images

Image of Samuel J. Fletcher published with permission of the Worcester Historical Museum, Worcester Massachusetts. Image of James Fletcher's gravestone provided by Sherry Fletcher. All other images retrieved from National Park Service Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor at http://www.nps.gov/blac/planyourvisit/upload/whitinsville.pdf

Notes on the Missing

Pennsylvania State Archives card for David Carter,
72nd Pennsylvania (see below)

In an earlier post I listed six members of the 72nd Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment who went missing in the West Woods on September 17. I reported on William Butler and made another report on Charles C. Cooper at a later post. On Friday I visited the National Archives to  continue the search for the missing from the 72nd Pennsylvania. I was able to retrieve the records of each of the six but found nothing more than what had been previously known--that on September 17 all went missing in the West Woods. While searching, however, the records revealed the fate on a seventh member of the 72nd who went missing that day and shed light on the whereabouts of another who went missing at a later engagement. Here is the report.

William H. Butler was 20 years old when he enlisted as a Private in Company B on August 10, 1861 in Philadelphia. The Company Muster Roll for September and October 1862 shows him “Missing since battle of Antietam, Sept. 17, 1862. Due Sutler $4.00.” U.S. National Archives, Washington (Hereafter: NARA) Record Group 94 (Adjutant General’s Office), Civil War (Union) Compiled Military Service Records, Box 35022 (Bonefon to Byrnes).

Charles C. Cooper was 22 years old when he enlisted as a Private in Company E on August 10, 1861 in Philadelphia. The Company Muster Roll for September and October 1862 shows him “Wounded at the Battle of Antietam, Md. September 17, 1862.” He was carried in subsequent Company Muster Rolls as “absent, wounded” until January and February 1864 when the clerk entered “Supposed dead. Nothing heard from since battle of Antietam, Sept. 17, 1862.” NARA Record Group 94 (Adjutant General’s Office), Civil War (Union) Compiled Military Service Records, Box 35024 (Coady to Crossin). As reported on an earlier post, both Butler and Cooper disappear from their family census records after the 1860 enumeration.

Listed but not reported in earlier posts are the following missing.

John H. Cornwall was 21 years old when he enlisted as a Private in Company C on August 10, 1861 in Philadelphia. The Company Muster Roll for September and October 1862 shows him “Missing since battle of Antietam, Sept. 17/62” and he is “dropped” from the roll on the March and April 1863 report. NARA Record Group 94 (Adjutant General’s Office), Civil War (Union) Compiled Military Service Records, Box 35024 (Coady to Crossin).

Joseph Henry was 25 years old when he enlisted as a Private in Company F on August 10, 1861 in Philadelphia. The Company Muster Roll for September and October 1862 shows him “Missing since battle of Antietam, Sept. 17.” He is carried on the rolls until the Company Muster Out Roll of August 24, 1864 and there is listed as “Wounded & Missing in Action since Sept. 17, 1862.” NARA Record Group 94 (Adjutant General’s Office), Civil War (Union) Compiled Military Service Records, Box 35030 (Harringan to Himes).”

John J. McCanna was 21 years old when he enlisted as a Private in Company D on August 10, 1861 in Philadelphia. The Company Muster Roll for September and October 1862 shows him “Missing since battle of Antietam, Sept. 17 1862.” The Company Muster Roll for November and December 1862 shows him as “Wounded at Antietam…” but no other mention is made of his condition other than “missing” until he is “Dropped” from the roll in March & April reports. NARA Record Group 94 (Adjutant General’s Office), Civil War (Union) Compiled Military Service Records, Box 35035 (Martin to McGrittigan).

Theodore Pike was 22 years old when he enlisted as a Private in Company D on August 10, 1861 in Philadelphia. The Company Muster Roll for September and October 1862 shows him “Missing since battle of Antietam, Sept. 17/62.” The roll for March / April 1863 shows that he owed the Sutler $6.00. NNARA Record Group 94 (Adjutant General’s Office), Civil War (Union) Compiled Military Service Records, Box 35038 (O’Brien to Potts).


David Baxter was 31 years old when he mustered in a Camp Lyon, Philadelphia, Pa on August 10, 1861. Although the muster-out roll dated August 24, 1864 and filed in Philadelphia states that he was “Wounded and Missing in Action since Sept. 17, 1862” a “Record of Death and Internment” in his papers at NARA show that he died on September 30, 1862 of tetanus at the U.S. Army General Hospital Number 5 in Frederick Maryland. He was buried there at grave number 101, Area M. A clerk, Thomas W. Dalton, noted on his “Casualty Sheet” that upon death he had “No effects.” NARA Record Group 94 (Adjutant General’s Office), Civil War (Union) Compiled Military Service Records, Box 35021 (Baldwin to Boland).

The following entry is for Ferdinand Beideman who was at Antietam with the 72nd Pennsylvania but did not go missing until nearly two years later. I am including him in this list because most published sources still carry him as missing.

Pennsylvania State Archives card for
Ferdinand Beideman, 72nd Pennsylvania

Ferdinand Beideman was 21 years old when he enlisted with the 72nd Pennsylvania, Company F, in Philadelphia. He stood 5 foot 8 and 3/4 inches, was dark complexioned with black eyes and black hair. He listed his occupation as a lumberman. He was with Company F as it fought near the Dunkard Church. He continued with the regiment until he went missing on May 8, 1864 at the Potomac River, Virginia. Most records, including the Pennsylvania State Archives card catalog show him as missing after that date. In fact, he was taken prisoner of war at Spottsylvania Courthouse on May 10, 1864 and confined at Andersonville, Ga. to an unknown date. On December, 11, 1864 he is paroled at Charleston, S.C. and sent to Camp Parole, Maryland on December 17, 1864. By 1878 he has moved to Maryland, where on October 17, 1878 he applied for invalid pension benefits. On December 28, 1894 his wife Susan E. Beideman applied for widow's benefits.  NARA Record Group 94 (Adjutant General’s Office), Civil War (Union) Compiled Military Service Records, Memorandum from Prisoner of War Records, Army of the U.S. Certificate of Disability for Discharge, Box 35021 (Baldwin to Boland); Civil War Pension Index: General Index to Pension Files, 1861-1934 Record for Ferdinand Beideman (retrieved from ancestry.com).
 

Memorials

At Antietam, ninety-six monuments dot the battlefield landscape from the edge of the North woods to south of the Burnside Bridge. Most are to Union regiments; five are to Confederate. Individuals are remembered in ten monuments and mortuary cannons mark where six commanders--three from each side--fell.

In the West Woods are other monuments not marked on official maps. A cairn of rocks stacked atop one another; odd constructions of sticks bound with vine hanging from branches; flags and flowers placed to accompany iron War Department tablets. The most elaborate of these unofficial memorials is a collection of objects--a plastic flower, an owl, a dove, and an angel. Who put this here? Why?

Cicero tells us that "the life of the dead consists in being present in the minds of the living." These monuments and memorials constructed by states, regiments, and individuals are calling us to remember those who stood in these fields--from places such as Worcester, Massachusetts and Cleveland County, North Carolina. Present in the minds of the living, they are with us still.

Historically Appropriate Transportation Returns to Antietam

Forget the car, here's a new old way of getting around the battlefield. I snapped this couple on Sunday touring the field in a reproduction Amish buggy (complete with padded seats and disc brakes).

Although the engine is only 1 HP,  this six-seater cruises nicely over all the roads including the Sunken Lane. Gardner would be envious.

Hourly tours are available at the Visitor's Center Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and on Monday through Thursday by appointment. To make arrangements, call 1-304-876-1307. This conveyance is National Park Service approved.

Relic Hunters Strike the West Woods

While wandering the West Woods earlier this month, I noticed a number of three to five inch deep holes that had been freshly dug.

We are used to our ground hogs burrowing deep holes throughout the field but these had a different look to them. I took a photo and then reported it to Rangers.

It turns out that relic hunters had visited the ground in the night sometime during the first week of October and dug over 40 holes in the West Woods.

There is a lot of junk in the ground (the Woods was an active farmstead until fairly recently) and I can only hope that what they found were nails, horse shoes, and other metallic debris from the late nineteenth century to today. But I know they didn't and for that we are all the poorer for it.

Mary Grove Locher Cabin Rising

Interior hearth of the 1840s addition.

Thanks to the efforts of K.C. Kirkman and his Division of Cultural Resources crew, the Mary Grove Locher Cabin is rising once again.

This historic structure--actually two structures--constitute the center of the West Woods fighting the morning of September 17.

Original log structure, ca. 1760 looking south.
The 1840s addition is to the right.

For more on the cabin's history, see entry here on April 27, 2009. A new book on Sharpsburg farmsteads has also come out and volunteer and battlefield guide Jim Rosebrock has posted a review of it on his site South from the North Woods.

One of the chapters is devoted to the Locher Cabin and contains some important new information on what took place there that will have historians reconsidering at least part of the West Woods narrative.

For now, I am posting photos of the work being done to the structures and will update them from time to time. 

Looking north. The second story will be added in the
coming months.

"For this our son and brother was dead and is alive again:" Oliver Wendell Holmes' Hunt for the Captain, Part 4

Sometime between 9 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. on the morning of September 17, Captain Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. advanced to the West Woods with his regiment, the 20th Massachusetts. As they neared the western edge of the Woods, they closed up to a bayonet's length between the 15th Massachusetts and the 82nd New York, Gorman's Brigade, who were busily engaged with what was left of the Confederate left then situated in and around the Alfred Poffenberger farmstead. Sixty-eight years later, Holmes remembered the moment: "Sumner who was an old cavalry officer I believe shoved our second line (I am talking of lines not ranks), a quasi reserve, up so close to the front line that we could have touched them with our bayonets, and we got hit about as much as they did, but of course could do nothing." [1]

Holmes and his men were in this position for only a few minutes when Confederate brigades, "broke through on our left we were surrounded with the front. Whereas had we been a little further back they would have got a volley." What, to then, had been an orderly advance, turned for many in the 20th Massachusetts, a disorderly retreat.[2]

Illustration 1.
Holmes drew the trajectory of the bullet
through his neck in a letter to his
father on September 22, 1862.

As Holmes made his way to safety, a bullet sliced through his neck. "When I was hit, we were getting it all around and I remember chuckling to myself as I was leaving the field, to remember that Harper's Weekly was flamboyant on my first wound at Ball's Bluff--about Massachusetts hit in the breast, etc. I though to myself this time I am hit in the back, and bolting as fast as I can--and it's all right--but not so good for the newspapers."[3] "Usual luck," he wrote his parents the day after the battle, "[The] ball entered at the rear passing straight through the central seam of coat & waistcoat collar coming out towa[rd] the front on the left hand side--yet it don't seem to have smashed my spine or I suppose I should be dead or paralysed or something--It's more than 24 h'rs & I have remained pretty cocky, only of course feverish at times--& some sharp burning pain in left shoulder Pen [3a] & I singular to say are the hardest hit officers [--] he I think will lose his left arm--bone smashed above elbow--We lay together for a while in a little house[4] on the field and were one time within the enemies lines, heard their orders &c (there were all round us) but they fell back & we escaped. Only one doct Haven the Surgeon of the 15. Mass[5] has yet looked--he glanced hastily yesterday & said it wasn't fatal--I shall try to get home as soon as poss. but have no plans yet." [6]

Somehow Holmes made his way to the Nicodemus farmhouse about 300 yards north of where he was wounded. Norwood Penrose Hallowell, Holmes' close friend and a fellow officer of the 20th Massachusetts, picks up the narrative. "Before long I gained the little farmhouse marked on the maps as the Nicodemus House. The yard was full of wounded men, and the floor of the parlor, where I lay down, was well covered with them. Among others, Captain O. W. Holmes, Jr., walked in, the back of his neck clipped by a bullet. "[7]


The Nicodemus farmhouse was soon overrun by Confederates (probably from Paul Semmes' brigade) in pursuit of remnants of Sedgwick's men. Hallowell recalled that "The first Confederate to make his appearance put his head through the window and said: 'Yankees?'" "Yes," came the reply from the farmhouse occupants. "'Wounded?' 'Yes.' 'Would you like some water?' A wounded man always wants some water. He off with his canteen, threw it into the room, and then resumed his place in the skirmish line and his work of shooting retreating Yankees. In about fifteen minutes that good-hearted fellow came back to the window all out of breath, saying, 'Hurry up there! Hand me my canteen! I am on the double-quick myself now!' Some one twirled the canteen to him, and away he went." Hallowell and his comrades were for "some fifteen or twenty minutes only we were within the rebel lines."  Sometime during his stay at the Nicodemus house, Holmes fearful that he would lose consciousness, scribbled on a scrap of paper "I am Capt O W Holmes son of Oliver Wendell Holmes MD Boston. 20th Mass Capt" [8] Late that afternoon ambulances carried Holmes, Hallowell and others to Keedysville.[9]

In Keedysville, William LeDuc, Dana's brigade quartermaster, took charge of the wounded streaming from the field. One of those was Holmes. Le Duc recounted years later that "a surgeon, who had looked at his wound and found that the ball had entered his neck, shook his head when I urged him to give attention to Holmes, and said his duty was to try to save those who had a chance of recovery--that Holmes had none. Then I said: 'Tell me what to do for him.' [The surgeon replied] 'Wash off the blood, plug up the wound with lint, and give him this pill of opium'--handing me a little brown pill--'and have him keep quiet."[10]

Illustration 2.
William LeDuc

"I put my arm around him, and got him into the first vacant house (that is, not occupied by soldiers) I came to, and told the woman of the house to bring down the softest bed she had, as there was no bed on the lower floor, and I thought it better for him be be on the ground floor; and when she objected to bringing down any of her feather beds, I told her I would take the place for a hospital, and turn the family out; this threat was sufficient, and the good feather bed was made ready on the floor, and I washed and bandaged the wound, and gave the pill, and left him in care of the family." [11]

"While fixing him up, and washing the wound, I noticed that the ball had struck the middle seam of his coat squarely, and was amazed at his escape from instant death, but as he seemed cheerful, and amused himself with jokes, saying: 'Shot in the neck (Army slang for being drunk)--disgraceful for a temperance man!' and: 'I'm glad it's not a case for amputation, for I don't think you'd be equal to it, Le Duc,' and: 'Say, Le Duc, do you think it will be good for a ninety-day leave?' I thought possibly the surgeon was wrong, and that the boy's vitality might carry him through. So, in making up my telegram to send to his father, Doctor Holmes--lecturer on anatomy in Harvard Medical School--I ran it over mentally in several ways, and finally decided on: 'Captain wounded, shot though the neck, thought to be not mortal' and sent it to Doctor Holmes, Boston."[12]

On Saturday, September 20th, Holmes traveled to Hagerstown on a milk cart (See previous post, Part III). That afternoon, Mrs. Howard Kennedy took her children to the front gate of her house to hear a military band pass by. Years later, one of those children recounted what happened next. 

Illustration 3.

"[We] were at the gate and waved to the soldiers. My mother noticed a young officer across the way, evidently wounded, as he had a bandage around his throat and was walking very languidly. He and his companion sat down to rest. My mother sent my brother, who was about fourteen years old, to ask him if she could do anything for him. He came over to thank her; said he had been wounded by a bullet which had gone through his neck, and that he was suffering greatly at times; that he had gone to the railway station to inquire about trains, as he wanted to go to his home in Boston as soon as he was strong enough to travel. [13]


At this time there was no Union hospital in the town and he was in wretched quarters, with little care and attention. My mother asked him to come to our home until he was able to travel. He accepted the invitation and introduced himself as Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Of course we recognized him as the son of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes."[14]

"He was a delightful guest, and the whole family enjoyed his stay with us. My young cousin from Philadelphia—a very brilliant young woman[15]—sang and played and entertained him, and helped to divert his mind when he suffered from his wound. He said it hurt him to write, so she offered to write for him. He dictated in Latin, a letter to his father; but she understood Latin as well as he did, as she confessed when she cautioned him that he was becoming a little too personal concerning herself in moods and tenses." [16]

My mother was a good nurse and dressed his wound every day, and it began to heal very quickly. He begged to be allowed to read after he retired, and one night swung a gas jet against a door and set the door on fire. He was so absorbed in his book that the smell of the burning paint penetrated through the house before he was aware of what he had done. The scar on the door was allowed to remain untouched for many years. [17]

The Captain was gaining in strength every day. He was enjoying himself and was evidently loath to leave; but Doctor Holmes had heard from Philadelphia that the Captain was at our house and it was my mother who insisted, in reply to a telegram from Harrisburg, on sending the following, which
ended Dr. Holmes' "Hunt": Captain Holmes still here. Leaves seven tomorrow for Harrisburg. Is doing well. (signed) Mrs. Howard Kennedy." [18]

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. watched the train slide into the Harrisburg station. Climbing aboard, there "in the first car, on the fourth seat to the right, I saw my Captain... even my first-born, whom I had sought through many cities." The simple exchange "How are you, Boy?" was met with "How are you, Dad?"[19] 

On Monday evening, September 29, eleven days after the start of his journey, Dr. Holmes was able to shelter his son once more. I "lay him in his own bed, and let him sleep off his aches and weariness. So comes down another night over this household, unbroken by any messenger of evil tidings,--a night of peaceful rest and grateful thoughts; for this our son and brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found."[20]

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Notes

1. Oliver Wendell Holmes to Frederick Pollock, June 28, 1930, Holmes-Pollock Letters: The Correspondence of Mr. Justice Holmes and Sir Frederick Pollock. Volume II. Edited by Mark DeWolfe Howe, (Cambridge Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1941), pp. 269-270 (hereafter, Holmes-Pollock Letters).

Pollock replied to Holmes's June 28th letter on July 17, 1930 and wrote: "And so you were nearly killed at Antietam because your superior had never learnt the use of supports: even the old Roman disciplines of the wars as preached by Capt. Fluellen might have taught him better. Certainly a considerable interval was prescribed and observed in our infantry drill of the 1870's. A supporting battalion was normally, I think , in open column of companies ready to deploy as might be needful and if all went well finally to deploy to the front and reinforce the attacking line." On July 27, Holmes sent Pollock a "post-script" to a letter written the day before. "Let me protect the reputation of my Superior at Antietam, our corps commander General Sumner, an experienced old soldier who I don't doubt knew as well as anyone the use of supports. That he was wrong in shoving us up onto the first line I can't doubt. Whether being an old cavalry man he thought he could slam right through the other line or what I don't know. It may have been hot-headedness, but it can't have been ignorance--except ignorance that I find it hard to believe that some of the higher powers weren't responsible for, viz. that Longstreet's corps was on the other side of a little hill, ready to walk into our rear as it did." Pollock to Holmes, July 17, 1930 and Holmes to Pollock, July 27 and July 30, 1930, Holmes-Pollock Letters, pp. 271, 273.

2. Holmes to Pollock, June 28, 1930, Holmes-Pollock Letters, p. 269-70. With Sedgwick's Division stretched on an arc running from the Dunkard Church to the south to 200 yards northwest of the Locher cabin, regimental experience of the action in the West Woods varied. The 72nd Pennsylvania on the division's extreme left was quickly overrun and broken while the First Minnesota on the division's far right undertook an more orderly withdrawal. For the 20th Massachusetts experience, see further, Richard F. Miller, Harvard's Civil War: A History of the Twentieth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry (Hanover, NH, University Press of New England, 2005), pp. 154-180.

3. Holmes to Pollock, June 28, 1930, Holmes-Pollock Letters, p. 269-70

3a. Norwood Penrose Hallowell.

4. The "little house" was the Nicodemus farmhouse, approximately 800 yards north of where the 20th Massachusetts was positioned in the West Woods.

5. This was Dr. Samuel Haven, 15th Massachusetts.

6. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. to Parents, September 18, in Mark De Wolfe Howe (ed.), Touched With Fire: Civil War Letters and Diary of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., 1861-1864 (New York: Fordham University Press, 2000), pp. 64-65.

7. Norwood P. Hallowell, Selected Letters and Papers of N.P. Hallowell, (Peterborough, N.H., The Richard R. Smith Co., Inc., [1897]), p. 17 (Hereafter, Hallowell).


8. Illustration. OWH Jr. at Nicodemus.  Holmes Collection, Harvard Law School Library. Years later, Holmes would add a note to the scrap "I wrote the above when I was lying in a little house on the field of Antietam which was for a while within the Enemy's lines, as I thought I might faint & so be unable to tell who I was."

9. Hallowell, pp. 17-18.

10. Alice Sumner Le Duc, "The Man Who Rescued 'The Captain,'" The Atlantic Monthly, August 1947, p.  80.  In 1910, Le Duc in a memoir to Holmes in which Holmes is referred to as "him," recalled this episode as: "When I was doing my level best to dress the wound and fix him up safe for the night or until a surgeon could take him in hand. 'I'm devilish glad it ain't a case for amputation LeDuc for I haven't much confidence in your skill as surgeon.' Mark De Wolfe Howe (ed.), Touched With Fire: Civil War Letters and Diary of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., 1861-1864 (New York: Fordham University Press, 2000), p. 66, note 1). In Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.'s account, he noted that "The bullet had gone smoothly through, dodging everything but a few nervous branches, which would come right in time and leave him as well as ever. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Soundings from the Atlantic (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1864), p. 111 [Hereafter, Soundings].

In 1910 Le Duc wrote holmes of the events of that day at Keedysville "[We were at the house] where I exercised my clumsy surgery and where the mistress of the mansion when I ordered her to bring down her bigest [sic] & best feather bed and place it on the floor for this wounded officer objected in Pennsylvania idiom 'Nah I dinks not I prings mine fetter bet on dem floor,' I puts im on der petshtet'--'No that won't do I want it here where is plenty of fresh air.' 'Nah!' -- 'Well then I'll have to turn you all out and take your place for a hospital.' So the feather bed came, and the boy was washed as to wound and face and given an opium pill prescribed by old Doherty I think--and left in care of the dutchwoman and her children, no man was seen." Mark De Wolfe Howe (ed.), Touched With Fire: Civil War Letters and Diary of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., 1861-1864, (New York: Fordham University Press, 2000), p. 66, note 1). 

Alice Le Duc explained the source of the Le Duc memoir in the preface to The Atlantic Monthly article. She wrote: "Recent examination of our family papers brought to light some correspondence between my father, General William Gates Le Duc, and the Holmses, both father and son. ... From the unpublished volume of recollections that my father has left to his family I extract his brief account of what he was able to do for Captain Holmes, whom he found unattended just after the battle of Antietam, September 17, 1862. Alice Sumner Le Duc, "The Man Who Rescued 'The Captain,'" The Atlantic Monthly, August 1947, p. 80.

Le Duc's original manuscript, however, is in the Huntington Library. A copy of the Huntington manuscript is at the U.S. Department of Agriculture Library, Greenbelt, Maryland.

11. Le Duc, Op. Cit., p. 80



12. Le Duc, Op. Cit., p. 80.



13. Anna Howell Kennedy Findlay, "Where 'The Captain' Was Found," Maryland Historical Magazine, Vol 33 (June, 1938), No. 2, pp. 117-18 (Hereafter, Findlay).

14. Findlay, p. 118.

15. This was Ellen Jones. Findlay writes: "The head of the house was my mother, Mrs. Howard Kennedy, my father having died in 1855. Others of the family at the house at the time were my two brothers, Howard, aged sixteen, and Frank, aged fourteen, and I, a small girl of ten. A sister of my mother's, Mrs. Campbell, who was also a widow, was with us, with her two sons, Ben aged fourteen, and Hamilton, aged nine. At the time of the invasion, a cousin, Ellen Jones, from Philadelphia, a very brilliant and attractive young girl, was visiting us, and my first cousin, Benjamin Howell Griswold, whose mother's house was nearby, was constantly at our home during the Captain's 'visit.'" Findlay, pp. 114-115.

In OWH, Sr.'s account, he described how his son came into the Howard household: "The Captain had gone to Hagerstown, intending to take the cars at once for Philadelphia, as his three friends actually did, and as I took it for granted he certainly would. But as he walked languidly along, some ladies saw him across the street, and seeing, were moved with pit, and pitying, spoke such soft words that he was tempted to accept their invitation and rest awhile beneath their hospitable roof. The mansion was old, as the dwellings of gentlefolks should be; the ladies were some of them young, and all were full of kindness; there were gentle cares, and unasked luxuries, and pleasant talk, and music-sprinklings from the piano, with a sweet voice to keep them company." Soundings, pp. 110-11.

16. The original letter is in the Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Digital Collection, Harvard Law School Library, Oliver Wendell Holmes to Parents, Sept 22, 1862; Findlay, p. 118. 

17. Findlay, p. 118. Toward the end of Holmes' life, Anna Findlay saw Judge Holmes in Washington. On meeting him once again, she wrote: "I could not feel that his boyish spirit had changed very much. I recall that in one of his letters to my mother he referred to himself as the "erstwhile soldier boy," and I think he was still just that in spirit." Findlay, p. 124.

18. Findlay, p. 119.

19. Holmes, Soundings, pp. 106-107.

20. Holmes, Soundings, p. 123.

Illustrations

1. Detail from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. September 22, 1862. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Digital Collection, Harvard Law School Library. Civil War Letters and Telegrams. Folder 18-11. OWH to parents 1861-1864, seq. 184-188.
At http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/8620153?n=186.

2. Detail of William LeDuc about 1862. The Dakota County Historical Society.

3. The house of Mrs. Howard Kennedy, Hagerstown, Maryland. The house has since been torn down and the lot is now a parking lot.