Waitt, Ernest Linden, History of the Nineteenth regiment, Massachusetts volunteer infantry , 1861-1865

‘ [246] awe of the responsibility resting on these two regiments during that conflict. They were advanced before I could anticipate what use could be made of them and halted just at the spot, as it proved, where they could hurl, with full effect, right against the front of Pickett's column which had actually pierced our lines and gained its objective point. They were the only troops in prompt striking distance. They were under full command and perfect order, sent forward to the performance of a specific purpose. Their arrival steadied Hall's and Harrow's swaying line; enabled Webb to rally his command once more; made effective Stannard's throwing out perpendicularly to the line, on the left, and Hayes' rush from the right; formed a cul-de-sac, and held the enemy in the jaws of a vise whose resistless pressure must inevitably crush. If they had not been just there, who will say what might have happened.?’

The four rebel colors taken were all captured during the hand to hand fighting. Corporal Joseph H. DeCastro, of Co. I, and Private John Robinson, Co. I, Sergt. Benjamin H. Jellison, Co. C, and Private Benjamin Falls, of Co. A, each got one.

Benjamin Falls captured his flag at the stone wall, taking it from the rebel color bearer's hands. When he reached the wall, he saw the flag flying above it, and, supposing it to have been left there, he took hold of it, but it could not be moved. Looking over the wall, he saw that a rebel soldier still had hold of it. Falls raised his musket on which was the bayonet, and, holding it like a spear over the Johnnie, said ‘Hut, Tut! Let alone of that or I'll run ye through.’ He captured the flag and the ‘Johnnie too.’

The flag of the Fourteenth Virginia regiment was captured by Sergt. Benjamin H. Jellison, of Co. C, and, in addition, he succeeded in capturing a squad of prisoners, bringing them in with the captured flag. This flag was handed to Second Lieut. Joseph Snelling.

After the charge had been repulsed, Gen. Alexander Hayes was seen, riding up and down, waving a captured flag. It was claimed by one of the Nineteenth Massachusetts that he had captured it and that the general forgot to return it after borrowing it.