behind AotW

Corporal Franklin Gardner [15th Mass Infantry] was one of the ‘color guard,’ and at the battle of Antietam, Sept. 17th, took up the colors from the third color bearer, who had been shot dead at his side. He received three balls; the first passed through a limb, the second through his thigh, the third in his stomach. Regardless of these wounds he managed to keep the flag waving until the next guard took it. From Wednesday morning, Sept. 17th, until Friday morning of the same week, he lay within the enemy’s lines …

He died of his wounds in Washington, DC on 6 October 1862.

___________

The quote above and his picture are from William A. Emerson’s Leominster: Historical and Picturesque (1888).