Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-02-07
SCENES AT ANTIETAM.
Horrors of the Battlefield Described Years
After tho Sfruonlp

Horrors of the Battlefield Described Years
After the Struggle.
On the day after the battle of Antle-
tam, saws writer in the Lewiston Jour
nal, I passed over the field. l well re-
membered that while passing through
corn patch near a stone wall L noticed
young man of perhaps 30 years who did
not die suddenly. There was evidence of
a struggle, and the fragments of letters
living around showed that he had secret
he wished to die with him. But the
broken pieces of an old-fashioned
daguerrotype lying by his side gave me
curiosity TO learn his name. l tore open
the old frame that held the picture he de-
stroyed, and found written on the pink
paper inside the name of a young lady
living at Warrenton, South Carolina.
Only her name and address were written
in feminine hand. | took the paper
out and placed it in my pocketbook, and
the soldier was buried near by where he
lay. The next day I wrote the young
lady, enclosing the slip of paper and de-
scribing the body. The lady replied in
due season, giving the sad information of
her betrothai to the young man. 1t was
her photograph he had destroyed.
/ saw a rebel soldier who sat by rail
fence, with his gun pOinGing as though IN
the act of firing on the Yankees. On ex-
animation it was found that a bullet had
passed through his head, and his sitting
position showed that he had been shot
dead while III the act of firing. With a
touch of my foot his lifeless body fell
over. found his gun loaded and cooked
ready to fire.
noticed in a brick meeting house be-
Al. IS haI
soldier lying on his back on the floor of
the church wounded, with bullet Ill his
right hip, passing through the spine.
He was entirely helpless. The writer
knelt beside him and poured water from
his canteen on the wound. Grayback
was about Is years oId-a fine looking
young man. | asked him where he be-
longed-to what regiment. He said his
father was a clergyman in South Caro-
lima, and he was a member of Company
E, 8th South Carolina regiment of infan-
try. He said he had one sbrother in the
same company who was killed in the bat
tie of Slaughter Mountain, August 8, 1868
In an orchard enclosed by stone wall
/ found the body of Lieut.. Harlow P
Brown, Company l, 7th Maine regiment
son of the late Deacon David Brown OF
Bethel. Harlowe was a graduate of Bow
doin college in 1860, enlisted as lieuten
ant IN Company l, 7th Maine, in the win
ter of 1860. No Drawer boy went to war
He fell in an orchard. Under an apple
tree by his side the writer counted sever
others of his company lying within few
feet OF him cold in death. Capt. Robin
son of the Fourth Maine. battery, being
present, ordered the writer, assisted By
Charles B. Patterson of Augusta, to bury
Harlow under the apple tree on the spot
where he fell. A cavalry jacket was
thrown over his face and about two feet
of Maryland soil was his shroud. Two
weeks later his father and Rev. Mr.
Wheel wright, pastor of the Congregation
al church in Bethel, visited the spot anC
removed his remains to his home il
Bethel
The writer was a member of the 4tf
Maine battery, light artillery, and was il
position on hill overlooking the battle
field, guarding the Antietam bridge
which was taken few hours before BY
the 9th corpse, commanded by Gen. But
Ter. During the day of the battle l Wis
tied the field hospital, where the wounded
were being brought in thick and fast anG
laid on long table some 100 feet long
Surgeons were standing, smOking cigars
as if in ballroom, with saw by theil
side and in their hands 8 bloody knife
To the right and left were piles OF arms
and legs. The scene was anything but
pleasant one.