In the Bloody Railroad Cut at Gettysburg by Herdegen Lance J.;Beaudot William J. K.;

Author:Herdegen, Lance J.;Beaudot, William J. K.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / United States / Civil War Period (1850-1877)
ISBN: 4448913
Publisher: Savas Publishing
Published: 2015-07-19T00:00:00+00:00

Corporal Frank Wallar, his rifle-musket still warm in his hands, volunteered to join the skirmish line. Before he ran off with the others, he asked Dawes what he should do with the flag. “Give it to me,” Dawes said. The red, square flag was marked with the names “Manassas,” “Gaines Farm,” “Malvern Hill,” and “Seven Pines.” Nearby, Sergeant William Evans of Company H, who had been shot through the upper legs, was hobbling to the rear, using two muskets for crutches. “It is a rule in battle not to allow sound men to leave the ranks,” Dawes said; so he took the flag from its staff and tied it around Evan’s body under the coat, telling the wounded sergeant to “keep it safely against all hazards.”72 Evans joined the stream of wounded men making for Gettysburg. Adjutant Brooks also turned his bundle of captured swords over to another wounded man, keeping one, which he buckled on his belt. The swords were delivered to Surgeon A. W. Preston, but were lost when the Confederates captured the town later in the day. In later telling the story, Dawes added: “No discredit to the doctor is implied, as his hands were full of work with wounded men.”73

Just after the surrender, Corporal Kelly of Company B, responding to shouts from the right of the line “They are getting away!” ran down the unfinished railroad bed with several others to halt more Johnnies trying to flee from the east end of the cut. There were angry shouts and some pushing and shoving, then a rebel lieutenant fired his revolver at the Wisconsin men and was shot dead by John Killmartin of Company G. The captured soldiers, Kelly said, were finally turned over to some Union cavalry, and he and the others took their place in line as the regiment reformed north of the cut.

At that instant, a lone Confederate soldier jumped up and started to run up the ridge. “Jones [Enoch Jones of Portage] and I fired at him and he fell,” Kelly said, and the two Badgers chased up the slope, where they found the downed Johnny with a broken leg. Further on, Kelly said, there was a “56th Penn, boy shot through the body….” From near the railroad cut, Rufus Dawes yelled up to Kelly to take a “look around,” and the corporal did so, finding no more rebels:

I returned to the regiment and had just taken my place on the right of the Co. when two shots were fired from the old fence from which I had just returned. One shot struck Corporal [Charles W.] Mead [of Company G] on the head and killed him and the other went through the rim of my hat so close to my head that it almost burned a blister. Mead was the last one of the brave color guard who went into the fight.

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