BY CAPTAIN J. N. FLINT
THIRTY-FIVE years have come and gone since that memorable Sabbath morn when the echoes of war died away on the heights of Appomattox, yet no adequate record has been prepared of the part sustained by our regiment in the gigantic war of the century. The volume of history and reminiscences, edited by Comrade Bowen, heroically, while in ill health and other disadvantages, is intended to meet that want. It will be eagerly read by the friends of the regiment, especially by the younger class, who will be gratified to know that their people of an elder generation did not fail in duty to their country in a great crisis. Those “old boys”who read this book will come back with a flood of memories of our matchless field and staff, each equal to any emergency.
They will recall the good offices of a capable physician, who personally ministered to the needs of the boys on every battlefield, of some company commander, trudging along a dusty road with a musket on either shoulder to relieve his worn-out men. They will recall how the pangs of hunger were forgotten in the glories of a battle won. To them will come the visions of comrades with bleeding feet making their way along with the brier-covered fields of the Peninsula or of many others lying by the roadside or sleeping in a nameless grave at Andersonville.
The regiment members were very proud of their organization and earned their title of being classed by the historian among the four hundred fighting regiments of the Civil war. Very many have dropped out of the ranks since 1865. Those who still survive realize full well that the sun is rapidly approaching the western horizon for them. May each of them at the final roll call be able to answer, as did good old Colonel Newcombe, “Adsum” (I am here).
San Francisco, Cal.
April 1900.