Our task was ended, our nine months more than full. Leaving behind us a name blotted by no stain of dishonor, and with a proud consciousness of having done honor to the noble State that gave us birth, having, in camp and on the battle-field, striven to do our duty by the government we had volunteered to serve, on Tuesday, the twenty-first day of July, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, we were paid off and discharged, and the old Forty-Fifth lived only in history.
We had seen every variety of service, life in barracks, in tents and in houses. Our losses in battle, twenty killed and seventy-one wounded, outnumbered that of all the other nine-month's regiments in the department taken together, while our loss from disease was very heavy. Our officers were worthy of their commands, and the men worthy of their commanders. Never, from the commencement of the war, was an officer sent from the State better fitted for the responsibilities of his position than our noble colonel, Charles R. Codman. Perfect in his drill, firm in his discipline, yet free from all severity; brave in the hour of danger, yet without rashness; loved, and respected, he was truly a model officer. In the coming years it will be the pride and boast of every member of the 45th Mass. that he served for such a country, in such a cause, from such a State, under such a commander, in such a regiment.
THE END
Transcriber's Notes
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
Hyphen added: battle[-]field (p. 114).
Hyphen removed: block[-]house (p. 55), night[-]fall (p. 7).
Both "earthwork" and "earth-work" appear and have not been changed.