Pioneer history of Ingham County, compiled and arranged by Mrs. Franc L. Adams, secretary of the Ingham County pioneer and historical society.

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PIONEER HISTORY OF INGIIAM COUNTY

borrow a gun from a sick comrade and by the time I got in line
with my company business was beginning to pick up with them.
"I had hardly been in line two minutes before Charley Foster,
the colorbearer, staggered and fell as did a dozen others shot dead.
That was the last I saw or knew. The ground on which we were
fighting was low and covered with brush and fallen trees. Behind
one of the stumps some comrade dragged me until they had time
after the battle to pick up the dead and the wounded. My left
arm was shot through and through and the bones broken and a
ball had passed under my left eye through the bridge of my nose
and then back of my right eye which it has entirely destroyed
the sight of. The bullet was never taken from my head and
bothers me a great deal now at times.
"Well, I lay behind the stump unconscious until someone came
along and piled me on a brush pile near a railroad track where it
was higher and out of the mud and so that I could be found by
the 'sexton.' Here on the brush pile I came to life Sunday night,
so that I could hear voices. One of them said, using the endearing term according to custom, 'Is the dead? Wonder
whose old carcass that is?' Someone said, 'He breathes,' and
then they hurried on, as there was no time for anyone to 'fool
away' making investigations.
"So I lay in the hot sun exposed to mosquito bites, my throat
aching for a drink of water, and blind. My head was swollen as
large as a pail and my broken arm curled under me while the
maggots began their feast of the dead, as they always did in the
South shortly after finding a body.
"Finally 'Steve' Longyear, an army friend, came along and discovering who I was, washed out my mouth with some 'cold' water
from the swamp and straightened me around until he could send
someone to care for me. The water revived me and I began to
feel the process of resurrection, but consciousness did not last,
and when I came to life a second time, on Wednesday, I was at
Fortress Monroe.
"At the fort I received what little attention they could spare
me, for they worked on those who were livelier first, as every surgeon was worked to death and saved his time on the one who
looked as if he could be patched up for service.
"Then I became unconscious again and when I came out of