Pvt. Thomas Higgin's account as told by a Reb of the 2nd Texas
From "Deeds of Valor, How America's Civil War Heroes Won the CMOH."
“After a most terrific cannonading of two hours, during which the very earth rocked and pulsated like a thing of life, the head of the charging column appeared above the brow of the hill, about 100 yards in front of the breastworks, and, as line after line of blue came in sight over the hill, it presented the grandest spectacle the eye of the soldier could ever behold. The Texans were prepared to meet it however, for in addition to our Springfield rifles, each man was provided with five additional smoothbore muskets, charged with buck and ball.
When the first line was within fifty yards of the works, the order to fire ran along the trenches, and was responded to as from one gun. As fast as practiced hands could gather them up, one after another, the muskets were brought to bear. The blue lines vanished among fearful slaughter. There was a cessation in the firing. And behold through the pall of smoke which enshrouded the field, a Union flag could be seen approaching.
As the smoke was slightly lifted by the gentle May breeze, one lone soldier advanced bravely bearing the flag toward the breastworks. At least 100 men took deliberate aim at him, and fired at point blank range, but he never faltered. Stumbling over the bodies of his fallen comrades, he continued to advance. Suddenly, as if one impulse, every Confederate soldier within sight of the Union color bearer seemed to be seized with the idea that the man ought not to be shot down like a dog. A hundred men dropped their guns at the same time; each of them seized his nearest neighbor by the arm and yelled to him: ‘Don’t shoot at that man again’ He is too brave to be killed that way,’ when he instantly discovered that his neighbor was yelling the same thing at him. As soon as they all understood one another, a hundred old hats and caps went into the air, their wearers yelling at the top of their voices: ‘Come on you brave Yank, come on!’
He did come and was taken by the hand and pulled over the breast works, and when it was discovered he was not even scratched, a hundred Texans wrung their hands and congratulated him upon his miraculous escape from death. That man’s name was Thomas J. Higgins, color bearer of the Ninety-ninth Illinois”
From "Deeds of Valor, How America's Civil War Heroes Won the CMOH."
The story starts as the 1st Del. approches the Rebs at the sunken road at the battle of Antetam.
Lt. Tanner picks up the story in his own words from this point.
“Our colonel dashed in front with the ringing order: ‘Charge! And charge we did into that leaden hail.
Within less than five minutes 286 out of 635, and eight of ten company commanders, lay wounded or dead
on that bloody slope. The colonel’s horse had been struck by four bullets; the lieutenant-colonel was wounded
and his horse killed, our dearly loved colors were lying within twenty yards of the frowning lines of muskets,
surrounded by the lifeless bodies of nine heroes, who died while trying to plant them in that road of death.
Those of us who were yet living got back to the edge of the cornfield, and opened such as fire, that, though
the enemy charged five times to gain possession of the flag, they were driven back each time with terrible slaughter.
We had become desperately enraged, thinking, not of life, but how to regain the broad stripes of bunting under which
we had marched, bivouacked, suffered and seen our comrades killed. To lose what we had sworn to defend with our
blood would have been, in our minds, a disgrace, and every man of the First Delaware was ready to perish, rather than
allow the colors to fall into the hands of the enemy. Two hundred rifles guarded the Stars and Strips an, if they not to be
recovered by us, the foe should not have them, while a single member of the regiment remained alive.
Charge after charge was made, and with the gallant Fifth Maryland, forming on our left, aided in the defense. The fire
from our lines directed to the center of that dense mass of Confederates, was appalling. Over thirteen hundred noble
dead were covered with earth in that sunken road by the burying party on the following day.
When the Maryland boys joined us, Captain Rickets, of Company C, our regiment, called for volunteers to save the
colors, and more than thirty brave fellows responded. It seemed as they had just but started, when as least twenty,
including the gallant office, were killed and those that would have rushed forward, were forced back by the withering fire.
Maddened, and more desperate then ever, I called for the men to make another effort, and before we marched fifty
yards only a scattering few remained able to get back to the friendly corn, in which we sought refuge from the tempest
of death.
Then Major Thomas A. Smyth (afterward major-General, and killed on the day General Lee surrendered) said he would
concentrate twenty-five picked men, whose fire would be directed over the colors.
“Do it’, I cried, ‘and I will get there!’
There were hundreds of brave men yet alive on that awful field, and, at my call for assistance, twenty sprang toward me.
While covering the short distance, it seemed as if a million bees were singing in the air. The shouts and yells from the other
side sounded like menaces and threats. But I reached the goal, had caught up the staff which was already splintered by
shot, and the colors pierced with many a hole, and stained here and there with the lifeblood of our comrades, when a
bullet shattered my arm. Luckily my legs were still serviceable, and, seizing the bunting with my left hand, I made the
best eighty-yard time on record, receiving two more wounds.
The colors were landed safely among the men of our regiment just as a large body of Confederate infantry poured in on
our flank, compelling us to face in a different direction. We had the flags, however, and the remainder of the First Delaware
held them against all comers.”
