Garrity loved a strenuous life and wanted something doing all the time if it was nothing more than tossing the colonel’s darkey up in a blanket or tipping over the cart of a pie peddler.
He could play cards behind the breastworks with the shells screeching over his head or joke a comrade on the firing line.
In this connection I am reminded of an incident at the opening of the second Bull Run battle. The regiment was in line of battle nearly two hours in the morning without firing a shot. The artillery on both sides were pounding away at each other, and the strain on the men’s nerves was something intense. A certain lieutenant who had incurred the dislike of his men by his pompousness in camp duties thought that before going into battle he would make peace with the boys, so he walked along in front of the company and said: “Now, my men, we are about to meet the enemy for the first time and it is more than likely that some of us will never see the sun rise again. In my position it has become my duty on various occasions to criticise and reprove, but I hope you will understand that I meant it for your good. I can assure you, that I have a warm place in my heart for every one of you, and if any man in the ranks feels the least ill will towards me I beg of him to put it away out of his heart as we stand here facing our foes.
“I have a further request to make and that is, if I fall in this fight, and it is possible for you to do so, that you will have my body embalmed and sent home.”
There was not a response for a minute or two and then Garrity spoke up: “The boys don’t mind forgivin’ you, leftenant, but if I may be pardoned the observation, the facilities for embalming the dead on a battlefield are devilish poor.”
That same lieutenant covered the distance between Bull Run bridge and the outposts near Alexandria before taps were sounded that night, and being a large man, he stripped for the race and those who saw him at the finish claimed that a shirt, trousers and a pair of socks were all that were left of his former showy uniform and equipment.
His name? Well, the boys of the regiment who read this will know and it does not matter to the rest whether it was Smith, Jones or Brown.
Gen. Lee surrendered his army to Gen. Grant the 9th day of April, 1865. There was skirmishing right up to the last minute, notwithstanding the fact that negotiations were in progress for 24 hours, but the last hotly contested battle that occurred between the forces was on the afternoon of the 7th, when the second corps of the army of the Potomac came in contact with the bulk of Lee’s army on the old Lynchburg stage road.
They were intrenched on the crest of a long slope of open ground and Gen. Miles’ division was ordered to attack. The old first division of the second corps had been in the habit of sweeping things when they went for the enemy, but in this last fight they were repulsed by the desperate confederates, who, though they were weary and nearly famished, fought with the desperation of a hunted animal brought to bay.
It was in this encounter that the subject of this sketch received the wound that nearly cost him his life.