Joseph K. F. Mansfield, Brigadier General of the U.S. Army / A Narrative of Events Connected with His Mortal Wounding at Antietam, Sharpsburg, Maryland, September 17, 1862

by John Mead Gould

WHY SO MANY ERRORS?

Why has there been so much difficulty in identifying the right locality?

There has been no difficulty, none whatever, among those who knew the facts. The errors have all come from the ignorant, the imaginative, and those who have poor memories.

It will be easy, especially for one standing on the ground while reading these pages, to see that very few except the 10th Maine would witness the event, as we were so nearly isolated and almost hidden. We made very little account at the time, of what is now considered an important event in the history of the battle. It then appeared to us as only one of the many tragedies in the great slaughter. Nothing was done at the time to mark the spot, and hardly a note of the event was recorded.