from The Worcester Spy, October 8, 1862 , (Volume 91 # 41), 
The Gallant Fifteenth

We are allowed to make the following extract from a letter written by an officer of Gen. Couch’s staff to his friends in this vicinity:---

Gen. Devens is greatly affected by the fate of his gallant regiment. What a magnificent history it has. Its colors have waved in eight battles, its officers and soldiers have fallen about them by the hundreds, and the name of the Massachusetts fifteenth will be forevermore historic, grandly memorable, so long as suffering and courage are applauded. this regiment lost 350 men at Balls Bluff; 308 men fell killed and wounded, I am told at Sharpsburg: and it has been in six other battles.

I had the pleasure of seeing this regiment in the fight at Fair Oaks, and shaking hands with my old friends, even when the rebels were charging close upon our batteries. Lieut. Col. Kimball is one of the bravest, kindest, truest men God ever made in his own image. He is well worthy to lead the fifteenth; I have no terms for the high respect in which I hold him, brave as a Spartan in battle, or the Indian at the stake,---kind, with a warm active benevolence, courteous, with a home bred workman's courtesy that shows a delicacy of spirit, and truth of taste not surpassed in the drawing room, firm, prompt, able, he is one of nature’s real noblemen., an officer of which the old commonwealth must be proud.

Poor Lieut. Spurr of the 15th is probably mortally wounded. He was a brave gentleman, the only son of his mother, and she a widow. Oh, how this war is sinking into the maternal heart! Terrible is the baptism we are baptized with, a baptism of blood; dreary enough for us, painful enough for all the instincts of our natures, but oh, how much more terrible to those who are bereaved, the mothers and wives. We can meet dangers with courage and contempt, but alas for our homes. Endurance is a higher form of courage than daring: it is easy enough to be brave for ones self, but dear me, it is a sad thing at home. Poor Spurr got not half as bad a wound that fated by as his mother. He was in the path of glory, honor, duty,, hers lonely, sorrow. Oh it touches me to think of it.

 

 

15th Massachusetts VI