Nesbitt Memorial Library Journal, Volume 9, Number 2, May 1999 Page: 91
[57] p. : ports. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Reminiscences of the Old Brigade
nia, small-pox and measles, only leaves us forty-
five of our 108, but some are only wounded,
and some are prisoners. We'll get them back.
But forty-five of our boys would have been
enough for those fellows. They thought they
had us, they had no idea that any of us would
ever get through that pass, and the idea was to
leave none to tell the tale sick or wounded.
It seems to me that leaving our train with-
out a heavy guard was a terrible blunder, at
Val Verde although we were harder pressed
than we have been any time to-day, yet a heavy
guard was continually kept with the train. To-
day we have won a hard fought battle, and yet
we are whipped, crushed and defeated. Here
we are between two armies, one double ours
and the other four times our number, 1,600
miles from home, not a wagon, not a dust of
flour, not a pound of meat, and yet those men
are ministering to their sick and wounded and
collecting their dead as if nothing was the mat-
ter, and around their camp fire they crack their
jokes just as merrily as they did when on the
Salado. But Fred Trimble, of the 2nd, has just
whispered to me, confidentially, that we were
in a hell of a fix, and I believe he is right. Our
loss in the two days fighting in killed, wounded
and missing is 192, many of these are prison-
ers. Nothing to eat, but we had breakfast this
morning, we'll feast on the recollection of that.
On that night a severe snow storm arose and
snow fell to the depth of a foot, and several of
our wounded froze to death; yet blame us not
for that, all that we could do to save them we
did. We took off our coats and piled them upon
them; we built the best fires we could build for
them; we rubbed their limbs and bodies but all
to no avail, they died in spite of all that we
could do.
On the 29th we collected and buried our
dead, and to-day, some of the boys found a
few sheep, the smallest things of the sheep kind
we ever saw, but we eat them broiled on the
coals without salt or bread, there were notenough of them for fifty men but we made them
supply the whole six hundred.
On the 30th, we marched to Santa Fe, ar-
riving there in the night, where we got break-
fast on the morning of April 1st, having fasted
and frozen frozen and fasted from the morning
of the 28th.
On the second some coffins were made and
a detail sent back to Glorietta after the bodies
of Maj. Raguet and Maj. Shropshire, they
brought Raguet back and buried him in Santa
Fe and since the war his family went up and
removed his body to his own home, and I am
told that when they moved his body it was so
well preserved that his features were recogniz-
able. The coffin made for Maj. Shropshire was
too short and he still sleeps at Glorietta where
he fell. And now reader, we will close this chap-
ter with others statement of the battle.
Chapter XVIII
Battle of Glorietta
from Petticolas' Note Book
[omitted]
Chapter XIX
Three Privates Account
of the Battle of Glorietta
... We found Pyron camped at Johnson's
ranch, and companies A, and C, of the 5th,
badly cut up by the fight yesterday. Poor Sam
Terrel, of company A, of the 5th, yesterday,
was shot in the stomach and captured by the
enemy, yet so determinded was he that the en-
emy should not know that he was wounded or
suffering, he stuffed pieces of his shirt into the
hole to stop the blood, and he died without their
knowing he was wounded.
Everything was quite, no enemy in sight.
Pyron and Shropshire made a draw fight with
them yesterday. To-day we threw up some
works and prepared to defend ourselves, ex-91
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Nesbitt Memorial Library. Nesbitt Memorial Library Journal, Volume 9, Number 2, May 1999, periodical, May 1999; Columbus, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth151406/m1/43/?q=nesbitt%20memorial%20library%20journal: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Nesbitt Memorial Library.