GDG- to welcome us Yanks with bloody hands

[Dennis Lawrence]

 From the archives of the GDG

s:

Oration by Capt. J. V. Pierce at the dedication of the monument, July 1, 
1888 (N.Y. at Gettysburg pp. 992-993)

Closer pressed the enemy. A regiment the Fifty-fifth North Carolina was 
pressing far to our right and rear, and came over to the south side of the 
rail fence. The colors drooped to the front. An officer in front of the 
centre corrected the alignment as if passing in review.

... Wadsworth seeing our peril ordered his adjutant general, Capt. T. E. 
Ellsworth, to ride in and withdraw us. With his coal-black hair pressing 
his horse's mane, he came through the leaden hail like a whirlwind across 
the old railroad cut and up the hill to Major Harney, who gave the command, 
" In retreat, march!"

As I started with my men to the rear I found Edwin Aylesworth mortally 
wounded, who begged me not to leave him. I stopped, and with Sergt. Peter 
Shuttz, assisted him to his feet, and tried to carry him; but I could not, 
and had to lay him down. His piteous appeal, "Don't leave me, boys," has 
rung in my ears and lived in my memory these five and twenty years.

Sergeant Shuttz was killed soon after near Oak Ridge. The time spent in 
assisting Aylesworth delayed me, so I was among the last to leave the field.

Finding the enemy so close upon us and the way open - the route we came in 
by - I followed several of my men into the railroad cut. A squad of 
Confederates were at the west end of the cut, behind some rails, and as we 
struck the bottom of that railroad cut, they saluted us with all their 
guns, and each one loaded with a bullet. I did not stay to dispute 
possession, for they evideintly intended " to welcome us Yanks with bloody 
hands to hospitable graves," and I climbed up the rocky face of the cut, on 
the south side, and made my way with many of our men across the meadow 
between the railroad cut and the Chambersburg Pike, crossed the pike into a 
small peach orchard, and I overtook the colors in the hands of Sergt. 
William A. Wyburn.

Just as I joined him he received a shot, and fell on the colors as if dead. 
I tried to remove the colors, but he held to them with true Irish grit. I 
commanded him to let go, and to my surprise he answered, "Hold on, I will 
be up in a minute," rolled over and staggered to his feet and carried them 
all through the fight, and was commissioned for his courage.

... one of my favorite stories.

Terry Moyer