[533] field of battle and resigned as senator, volunteering in the service of his native State as a private. By virtue of his noble qualities of heart, his unwavering courage, his mental attainments and loyalty to the cause he espoused, he became a lieutenant-colonel of the Twentieth regiment, and was afterward promoted to the colonelcy of the Twenty-second regiment. A member of his family was informed by the late Lewis M. Ayer, of Anderson, S. C., a member of the Confederate congress, that Colonel Dantzler was commissioned a brigadier-general just before his death, but that his commission did not reach him. Colonel Dantzler fell near Petersburg, Va., June 2, 1864, in a charge on the breastworks of the enemy, in the thirty-ninth year of his age. His body fell into the hands of the foe, but was returned under a flag of truce. As a tribute to the magnanimity of a generous foe, it is well to mention that all the belongings of Colonel Dantzler were returned, the only act committed after he fell being the cutting off of the stars from his coat; his gold watch was sent to his family. The death of Colonel Dantzler is mentioned several times in the official records of the war, as in the following from Gen. B. F. Butler, dated June 2, 1864:
I forward for the information of the war department an extract of a letter dated Charleston, May 6 1864, taken from the dead body of Col. O. M. Dantzler, Twenty-second South Carolina regiment, who was killed in an attack upon our lines this morning, and whose body is in our hands: ‘No news. All very quiet here. We are very shorthanded now. The Twentieth was positively ordered, and was ready to go, but the order was countermanded, and it is now the only infantry left nearer Charleston than Savannah. If we are allowed to remain quiet, all this is well enough; but if we should be attacked by any of the approaches to the city, I fear the consequences. The contingency is too gloomy to think about.’Soon after the death of Colonel Dantzler the following notice appeared in a Charleston, S. C., daily paper:
Our worst fears have been realized. The gallant colonel, lately assigned to the Twenty-second South Carolina volunteers, has fallen on the first occasion he found for exhibiting his daring and soldierly determination in his new field and command. Olin M. Dantzler, as a citizen and soldier and officer, would have done honor to any community or people. The duties of citizenship, without ostentation or vanity, or display of self, were his guiding principles and purposes of action in peace and in war.
