Thus out of a total of one hundred and seventy-seven men, including all recruits actually mustered into the United States service (for it must be remembered that thirteen of the one hundred and sixteen men who were mustered by the state mustering officer at Randolph, and charged against the company on the rolls, were discharged at Washington to reduce the number to the legal requirement of one hundred and three officers and men), thirty-two, or more than eighteen per cent, died of wounds; while the killed and wounded taken together number seventy-seven, or forty-three and one-half per cent of the whole.
The record shows the severe and dangerous nature of the service performed by these men, and on it they may safely rest, certain that a grateful country will honor their memories, even as it does those of their comrades who fought in the ranks of other and larger organizations.
CONCLUSION.
"You can have ten descriptions of a battle, or plans of a campaign, sooner than one glimpse at the unthought of details of a soldier's life."
The history of Co. F is finished, and is far from satisfactory to the writer. Originally undertaken for the purpose of supplying the Hon. G. G. Benedict, State Military Historian, with material for such a brief record as he could afford room for in his history of the Vermont troops in the war of the rebellion, it has grown far beyond what was intended at the outset, and far beyond what would be proper for him to publish in such a work as he is charged with. It should have been undertaken by some other person than myself; by some one more intimately and longer acquainted with the company in the field: by some one whose personal recollection of the detail of its daily doings is more exact than mine can possibly be; for the history of so small a portion of a great army as a company is, should be a personal history of the men who composed it. The record of a company is mainly made up of the every day scenes and every day gossip about its company kitchen and its company street. With these matters the writer does not profess to be, or to have been, familiar.
The work has, therefore, become more of a description of campaigns and of battles, and more a history of the regiment to which it was attached, I fear, than of the company. Such as it is, however, its preparation has been a labor of love, and it is published with the earnest hope that it may serve at least to keep warm in the hearts of the survivors the memories of those who marched with them in 1861, and whose graves mark every battle field whereon the Army of the Potomac fought.
Wm. Y. W. R.
