GDG- a close an desperate struggle

[Dennis Lawrence]

 From the archives of the GDG

Esteemed member SYLVIA SHERMAN

"I was guard at 1st Corps headquarters at the battle. I woke Gen. John. F. 
Reynolds up at 3 O'clock the morning he was killed."

Thomas A. Dascomb
Co. C 16th Maine  Esteemed member SYLVIA SHERMAN

Greetings again: extract from a letter by another participant, to the 
Adjutant General of Maine:

"I was a member of the 16th Maine and was a member of the 1st Corps who 
fought the first day's battle, and the 16th Maine was really sacrificed to 
hold the position while the rest of the army fell back and fortified 
Cemetery Heights. The whole regiment except about twenty were captured, 
including Colonel Tilden and others. We held the position so long that they 
fairly flanked us or in other words surrounded us, and in order to save our 
flag we tore it up into pieces and distributed it among our boys who were 
captured."

2nd Lieutenant George Bisbee
Co. C, 16th Maine

Ps. The family still has the piece of flag that George carried with him all 
through Libby and Danville Prisons. So do many other families who are 16th 
Maine descendants.  Esteemed member SYLVIA SHERMAN

More Greetings!

Hurrah for the light artillery! Here's James Hall, 2 ME Batt, to the 
Adjutant General of Maine:

"We again bore the brunt of the battle at Gettysburg. On the first of July 
and the first of the fight, I was the advance battery of the Army of the 
Potomac and was engaged for more than an hour before any battery came to 
our assistance, and you may well know we got badly hurt. 36 horses and 22 
nen in about one hour and a half - my loss in men was many of them slightly 
wounded and several taken prisoner so close was the action. We are so 
reduced in horses that we were obliged to drag two guns off by hand. The 
boys fought like the devil - never better. You may judge when I tell you 
that many of our horses were not shot but bayonetted that it was a close an 
desperate struggle for our guns."

Captain James Hall
2nd Maine Battery