A letter from Lewis Reed 12 Mass. Inf.

This is the first let­ter I will post, for no spe­cific rea­son.  Car­man used let­ters like this to fine-tune his man­u­script, although he was mostly inter­ested in the loca­tions of reg­i­ments more than the per­sonal expe­ri­ences of the sol­diers.  There are hun­dreds, thou­sands, of let­ters like this one,  some good, some less use­ful, in the files.  This one struck me due to the per­sonal account of the writer.  Car­man ignored it, but I find it compelling. 

Lewis Reed

Rock­land Mass.
April 13, 1894

Dear Sir,

Yours April 12 at hand. In answer to your let­ter I shall not attempt to write the his­tory of the 12th Regt. for oth­ers have done that already and as you write that you have heard from George Kim­ball I feel more like not writ­ing at all. I think Kim­ball is bet­ter posted on mat­ters per­tain­ing to the part of 12th Regt. took in the bat­tle of Anti­etam than any man in the Regt. I do not remem­ber that exact posi­tion of Co. “A” in line, Kimball’s Co, Com­pany “G” my Co, was on the left of Color Co. “I”.
An account of the Regt. form­ing on the evening of Sept. 16, 1862 near Pof­fen­burger house and advanc­ing to posi­tion near the east end of what is called the East wood. I pre­sume you are famil­iar with all the par­tic­u­lars so I will not write about it in detail. Only say that at dark we were there and at the time. I was a Cor­po­ral, act­ing Sergeant. I was present and on duty with my com­pany. We lay on our arms dur­ing the night skir­mish­ing going on directly in front. We advanced very early on the 17th not later than 6 a.m. I think in a south west­erly direc­tion through a corn field the enemy was directly in our front. We fol­lowed our skir­mishes, two Co from our Regt, for a short dis­tance. When our skir­mishes rejoined the Regt I think Thompson’s Bat­tery fol­lowed close in our rear. We were under heavy fire from the start. We advanced a short dis­tance and come to a low wall with an old fence on top. I do not know just how far from our line of bat­tle at the start. I hope to find the line of that old wall some time. We were los­ing men about this time from a rebel Bat­tery on our right. We advanced beyond the wall to open field, corn cut down at that time, in plain sight of a high fence and a rebel line of bat­tle in the act of advanc­ing beyond the fences toward us. We were under very heavy fire mus­kets and can­non ball, and men falling very fast. Being in the posi­tion of a Serg. I did not fire but once. The rebels did not get beyond the fence. My com­rades were falling. I saw Capt E P. Reed as he was wounded in the hand. My friend and tent mate, Benj Cur­tis, fell never to rise again. I saw the Roulett build­ing [sic: Mumma]burning also the dunker church on my right front. I also noticed heavy fight­ing on my right 10th Maine, 2nd Mass and thou­sands of oth­ers Our Lt. Cush­ing, while going to take com­mand of a Co on our left was killed.

 It prob­a­bly was not many min­utes after my com­rade Cur­tis fell before I found myself on the ground with a strange feel­ing cov­er­ing my whole body. I did not seem to be suf­fer­ing much and I remem­ber some­one attempted to help me up and then left me after­wards I learned it was Nat Phillips of our Co. I do not know how long I laid in that con­di­tion. I was wounded on the right side of my neck just above my col­lar bone. My right arm was use­less. With my left hand I found my shirt and blouse filled with blood and I sup­posed it was my last day on earth. I had the usual feel­ings of home and friends and thou­sands of thoughts ran through my mind at once. After a while the thoughts came to me to try and get up and away from the sad scenes about me. With my left hand I loosed my car­tridge out and knap­sack and all that would bur­den me and with other things I left a can­teen full of water and it hap­pened I did not suf­fer much for the want of water but I have thought since that under like cir­cum­stances I would not leave my can­teen again. I hope it helped some poor fel­low out of suf­fer­ing. After many attempts I got on my knees and tried to get on my feet but not yet. I was obliged to wait a while. I have no idea of time, all I know is after many tri­als I got back to the wall and got through a pair of bars into the woods. How many time I fell get­ting this I do not know but I fainted many times. Once into the woods I got help, I hope you or some­one may some­time show me about where this pair of bars was in the wall. Later Capt Hast­ings George Hay­den and Edwin Lewis of Co “H,” 12th Regt. Rear guard, took charge of me and car­ried me to a straw stack and a sur­geon dressed my wound. At the time I was so weak that I could not stand.

After my wound was slightly dressed the Rebel shells were com­ing so thick and fast all the wounded with me were car­ried to the rear in ambu­lance. I do not know who owned the farm barn that I was first car­ried too later towards night I was car­ried to the White House so called. From the White House after two or three days all the wounded belong­ing to the 12th Regt. were car­ried to Mid­dlekoff farm and we filled the house and barn my place in the barn cel­lar on straw. I remained there about ten days and then sent to Alexan­dria Va. Most all in my Co. were either killed or wounded. I will give you the address for some and their expe­ri­ences I sup­pose will be dif­fer­ent from mine and when you get them together I should like to read theirs.
Maj. E.P Reed North Abing­ton, Mass
Capt. Moses N. Arnold No “ “
Justin Meserve “ “
John Hut­ter “ “
Henry Daw­son Rock­land “
Nat Phillips “ “
Fran­cis N. Poole “ “
Chas. N. Hast­ings So. Wey­mouth “
Benj. F. Cook Glouces­ter “
I am very much inter­ested in the Anti­etam Bat­tle­field. I have vis­ited the field three times since the 17th Sept 1862 and intend to go once more some­time per­haps when the state marks the Regt. lines for mon­u­ments. I find East Woods has been cut in such a man­ner that I think it would be hard to make the place look right with­out all Regt’l. have rep­re­sen­ta­tives and all meet together on that spot. Please inform me what Regt you were in and how you are so much inter­ested in the Bat­tle­field of Antietam.

Very Truly Yours,
Lewis Reed

Lewis Reed — Corpl –Res. East Abing­ton; stitcher; 19, enl. April 29, 1861; must. June 26, 1861, wounded Sept 17, 1867 at Anti­etam, disch. for pro­mo­tion. Oct 17, 1863.   com­mis­sioned 2d lieut; July 9,1863; mus­tered in Nov 26,1863; com­mis­sioned 1^stlieut Feb 4, 1864; mus­tered March 26,1864; com­mis­sioned. Cap­tain, Jun 19,1865 must. July 17 1865, must.-out Aug 20, 1865 as Cap­tain of Co “K” 54 Mass Inf. 

Lewis Reed started out in com­pany G of the 12^th Mass­a­chu­setts infantry as a Corp’l. He fin­ished his mil­i­tary career as a Cap­tain of the 54^th Mass­a­chu­setts Infantry Co “K”  in Aug. 20,1865. He was wounded at the bat­tle of Anti­etam and that’s when he was dis­charged for pro­mo­tion to the 54^th Mass­a­chu­setts Infantry. After the bat­tle of Anti­etam he was sent to the Fred­er­ick hos­pi­tal, but there was no record of what hap­pened while he was there.  Mass­a­chu­setts Adju­tant Gen­eral Reports.