Besides these unsatisfactory official reports, we have the following authentic accounts, that have been made public from time to time, and should have furnished the world with the truth. I noticed that the newspapers of the day had little to say about the event; accordingly, a few weeks after the battle I wrote an account and forwarded it to my father, who sent it to the Hon. Benjamin Douglas, a prominent citizen of Middletown, Conn.—Mansfield’s home. Mr. Douglas acknowledged the receipt, and showed his appreciation when we were publishing our regimental history,[18] by furnishing gratis the portraits of the general. This letter was published in the Portland, Me., papers.
The regimental history, published in 1871, has a very minute account of the event. About 700 copies of it were sold.
The report for 1862 of the Adjutant General of Maine also has a narrative of the battle, embraced in the report of Col. Beal, who returned to duty before the end of the year. (Page 74, main report.)
GENERALS AND STAFF DID NOT WITNESS.
A singular phase in this case is the fact that none of Gen. Mansfield’s subordinate commanders excepting Gen. Crawford, and none of Mansfield’s staff, witnessed the wounding. In the three days he was our commander none of us saw a staff officer with him. It was only a vague memory of a lost and forgotten general order, and the reference to “Captain Dyer” in the General’s memorial volume,[19] that suggested the possibility there was a staff. In 1890 to ’94 I made a special and persistent effort to learn who his staff were; also who was the orderly and who the colored servant that we saw with him. The orderly and servant we have not found. After much writing I learned that Samuel M. Mansfield,[20] a son of the General, had been appointed an Aide but had not been able to join his father. Maj. Clarence H. Dyer, at that time Captain and A. A. G., had accompanied the General from Washington and was on duty with him till his death.
Furthermore, Gen. James W. Forsyth, then a Captain, (familiarly known as “Toney”) was temporarily assigned as aide-de-camp to Mansfield by Gen. McClellan, at whose head quarters Forsyth was then serving. These two were “present”; but Gen. Mansfield kept them flying so constantly that none of us recognized them as his staff.
There are also shadowy hints from various sources that a Lieutenant of cavalry, name and regiment not stated, lost his opportunity for a day of glory by too frequent sips of what was known as “commissary.”
Gen. Forsyth writes (1891) that he was sent by Mansfield to “bring up the divisions of the corps” and that he “was not with Gen. Mansfield when he received his death wound.”
Maj. Dyer writes (1891):