This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
[27] paces, to avoid being placed between the fire of advancing foes and retreating friends, but in good order and without breaking their ranks. Not long after this Colonel Webster was shot through the body. Lieutenant Haviland was near him when he fell, and with two men went with him to the rear. They had gone but a few paces when one of the men was shot, and the other, seeing the enemy close upon him, sought safety in flight. Colonel Webster was perfectly helpless, and Lieutenant Haviland, still suffering from an injury received from his horse having fallen upon him at Cedar Mountain, could do no more than find a place of shelter for the dying man under a bush in a little hollow. No one could be found to carry him away, and messages sent for a surgeon proved ineffectual. Colonel Webster desired his friend to leave him, but Lieutenant Haviland was determined to save him if possible; at any rate, not to desert him. Within a short time, a body of Rebel troops came upon them and took them prisoners. They would not carry away Colonel Webster from the spot where he lay, nor yet allow Lieutenant Haviland to remain with him. The officer in command promised to send an ambulance for him, but his pledge was not redeemed.1 He died on the spot where he was left, and we can only hope that his suffering was not long or severe. His body was recovered and sent home by the generous and courageous efforts of Lieutenant Arthur Dehon, as is told in the memoir of that promising officer and most amiable young man. His funeral services were held at the church on Church Green, Boston, on Tuesday, September 9, 1862. The building was filled with a large body of mourning and sympathizing friends, who listened with deep feeling to the well-chosen words of the officiating clergyman, the Rev. Chandler Robbins, and the solemn and appropriate music of the choir. At the close of the services his body was taken to
1 Since the publication of the first edition I have learned through Captain Pritchard of Petersburg, who was serving in one of the Virginia regiments, that this statement is not correct. An ambulance was sent, after some unavoidable delay, but Colonel Webster breathed his last at the moment they were raising him in order to place him in it.
Sever and Francis, 1866.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.