“All killed but six.”
“It will be sad news for Berlin.”
“Yes; and it will be a wonder if any of us escape if we don't get out of the Wilderness pretty soon.”
“It will indeed.”
“Good-by.”
“Good-by, Rube. I'll write home if I get a chance.” I got the chance the day that we started on Sheridan's raid—May 8. I wrote the news just as I had received it. There was mourning all over the town when that letter reached Berlin. The news from the front was contradicted, however, soon after by letters from several of the boys who had been included in the list of casualties I had sent home. It seems that a part of the One hundred and twenty-fifth was sent on picket duty to the left, and a charge had been made by the men not included in the detail. Lieut.-Col. A. B. Myer and thirty-four men out of one hundred and four who made the charge were killed. Somehow the report had been started that all the rest of the regiment had been killed or wounded or taken prisoners. I was rejoiced to learn when I next met the One hundred and twenty-fifth, after Sheridan's raid, that the report of the casualties in Company B sent home in my letter after the Battle of the Wilderness was exaggerated.
I find in the roster of B Company as given in the history of the One hundred and twenty-fifth New York Volunteers by Chaplain Ezra D. Simons of that regiment, that none of B Company was killed in the Wilderness, and only five were wounded.
But B Company did not escape so luckily in the battle of Spottsylvania, following close on the heels of the Wilderness. Several were killed outright and a number wounded. The company lost twenty-four men, killed and died, during its service—a number far above the average of companies throughout the army. The One hundred and twenty-fifth made a splendid record.
I was always glad to run across the regiment at the front, and to compare notes with the Berlin boys in Company B.