Mr. Collier, a young Englishman
27 March 2020
Just one of so many thousands of Antietam stories …
The few names that are given of the commissioned officers who suffered, tell only a fragment of the story. There were brave hearts in the ranks, as well as among the officers, who went to their death fearlessly, and over whose memories loving friends have not ceased to mourn.
Especially sorrowful was the death of Edmund Y. Collier, a private in the Seventy-Second [Pennsylvania Infantry]. Mr. Collier was a young Englishman of very respectable connections; who was visiting in this country when the Rebellion broke out. With warm sympathy for the Union, he enlisted as a private, and in this battle [of Antietam] fell mortally wounded; so near the enemy that his body was not recovered for hours afterwards.
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Quoted from Charles H Banes’ “History of the Philadelphia Brigade. Sixty-ninth, Seventy-first, Seventy-second, and One hundred and sixth Pennsylvania Volunteers” (1876).
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