History of Swansea, Massachusetts, 1667-1917; - citizen hylbom blog

96 History of Swansea
all was offered, in defense of the Union. Some languished and
died in hospitals or Southern prisons.
"When can their glory fade?"
Write down, so that your children of coming time may
read, the story of their sacrifices, who perished of diseases
consequent upon the experiences of camp and field. Such
Swansea men were Daniel Tompkins, Frank R. Chase,
Stephen Collins, William H. Hamhn, Martin L. Miller,
Charles H. Eddy, Josephus T. Peck, Joseph Whalen, Captain
Edwin K. Sherman, all of whom by death in hospital made a
soldier's greatest sacrifice.
Look at the roll of the slain: Andrew S. Lawton, a leg
shattered at the battle of WiUiamsburg early in the Peninsula
campaign, and dying within a few hours. Joseph T. Bosworth
of a Rhode Island battery, killed on the bloody field of
Antietam by an exploding shell. Oliver R. Walton slain when
the war was far advanced, at the battle of Winchester in the
Shenandoah, after nearly three years service. Edward G.
West, like Lawton, a member of the Bristol county regiment
raised by Gen. Couch, which followed the varying fortunes of
the Army of the Potomac and shared its experience of battle
and of blood. Early in the victorious but costly campaign in
the Wilderness, West paid the price of his patriotism by a
soldier's death. Mark the heroism, the valor, the Christian
resignation of Alfred G. Gardner, of Battery B. of Rhode
Island, who at the battle of Gettysburg fell beside his gun,
with his arm and shoulder torn away. With the other he took
from his pocket his Testament and other articles and said,
"Give them to my wife and tell her that I died happy," and
with the words of the soldier's battle hymn, "Glory, glory
hallelujah," on his lips, his soul went marching on—a striking
illustration of the spirit which breathes in the immortal words
of Horace,
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.
Who can forget the deeds of such men? Let their names
be written on the enduring granite of the memorial shaft or
tablet, on the page of the historic record, and on the hearts of
their grateful countrymen. And let all who, on the blood-red
field offered their bodies a target to the enemy's assault, whose
deeds of daring and self-devotion we cannot here recite, be
also held worthy of our undying gratitude.
A sketch like this can at best do but scant justice to a
history such as that of which Swansea can boast. The deeds
of these two and a half centuries deserve elaborate record.