About noon, July 12th, word was brought in to the headquarters room by a corporal in charge of the guard stationed at a house on Canal Street, corner of Magazine Street, occupied by the regimental quartermaster, quartermaster-sergeant and commissary-sergeant, that Quartermaster-Sergeant Foster had committed suicide a few minutes before. The news was hardly credited, but an immediate visit to his room, in which the sad event happened, proved it to be a fact. Foster lay upon the floor near the centre of the room, not far from a bureau, feet towards the door, dressed in his flannel shirt, pants and socks, just as he fell; a small pool of blood upon the floor near his head, a small bullet wound in the centre of his forehead, encircled by a small black-and-blue ring, and a pistol upon the floor by his side. Sergeant Foster had not been in good health for some time, and latterly shown great despondency. The reason was not known. His sickness was nothing more than came from extreme debility, and was not dangerous. For a few days previous he had given some evidence of not being exactly in his right mind, but there was nothing exhibited to lead any one to think him not capable of taking care of himself. He occupied a room with acting Quartermaster-Sergeant Hodsdon, both men sleeping in the same bed.
That morning Hodsdon thought Foster spoke and acted queer, without exciting any suspicion however, and when obliged to go out on business Hodsdon, contrary to his usual custom, laid his belt, containing a holster and pistol, upon the bureau, intending to be back in a moment and then wear it. He left the room, leaving Foster upon the bed, and had barely closed the door when he heard the report of a pistol and immediately opened the door again, to see Foster lying upon the floor as described. He never spoke, dying in a few moments.
His effects were taken in charge by the chaplain and sent to his parents, then residing in Dorchester, Massachusetts, from which place Foster enlisted. From a partial examination of his knapsack, where a few letters were found, it was thought the sad act was caused by unwelcome news from home.
The weather being hot, by orders of the commanding general all bodies had to be buried the same day that death occurred. Quartermaster-Sergeant Foster was buried in Greenwood Cemetery, at dusk, on the twelfth, escorted to the cemetery by a proper detail becoming to his rank, under command of Sergeant-Major Bosson, and the customary volleys fired over his grave. The burial party started at half-past three in the afternoon, and reported back to quarters at nine o’clock same evening.
Corporal Alonzo I. Hodsdon was made quartermaster-sergeant, July 13th, vice Foster, deceased.
Special-duty details in July were few:
July 18th—Private William A. Clark, Company B, was placed on duty as a wagoner.
July 23d—Private Leavitt Bates, Company A, was made clerk at regimental headquarters in place of Clark K. Denny, returned to duty with Company F.
July 25th—Private Lewis Buffum, Company B, to be a locomotive engineer on the Opelousas and Great Western Railroad.