ANTIETAM
received a severe bruise from a spent ball. Of our 300 privates, we lost 194 in killed and wounded. The Twenty-Seventh Indiana on our left, had lost about half of its men; the Second Massachusetts on the right, had suffered in about the same proportion.
In my Company, of the thirty men whom I took into the field, two had been killed, two mortally wounded, and sixteen so severely hurt, that they were ordered to the hospital. Of all that Company, only one had escaped without the mark of a bullet upon his person or his clothes. Every one of our color-guard, composed of a corporal from each company, had been shot down before the battle was over. As its bearers fell, the flag had been passed along the line until it had come into the hands of one of my privates, Joseph Collins, who carried it the remainder of the day. The color-bearers of the enemy had been even more unfortunate. On our charge into the corn-field, our men picked up several of their banners that had fallen with their bearers.
When night at length put a merciful end to the battle, all along the line, both thoroughly-worn-
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