Within the week of Frank's arrival, and when he was about setting out
for the West, I was surprised one morning, by Ally's appearance in my
office. Newbern had fallen, and he had made his way, with his mother,
into the Union lines, and, after a good deal of difficulty, had secured
a passage on a return transport to New York. I provided employment for
his mother, but Ally insisted on going into the war with Frank. He went
as his servant, but fought at his side at Lawrenceburgh, Dog Walk,
Chaplin Hills, and Frankfort, and in three of those engagements was
wounded. His bones now whiten the plains of Tennessee. Rosey he never
saw, and never forgave.
Frank was with the small body of regulars who, at Murfreesboro, on the
31st of December, checked the advance of Hardee's corps after McCook's
division had been driven from the field, and who saved the day. He was
wounded in the arm, early in the morning, but kept the field, and joined
in that heroic movement wherein fifteen hundred men marched through an
open field, and charged a body of ten thousand posted in a grove of
cedars. Six hundred and forty-six of the brave band were left on the
field. Frank was one of them. A Belgian ball pierced his side, and came
out at his back. He saw and recognized the man who gave him the wound,
and, raising himself on his elbow, fired a last shot. It did its work.
The rebel lies buried where Frank fell.
The telegram which informed me of this event, said: 'He is desperately
wounded, but may survive.
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