"From The Crossroads: As Good As Gould" Topic

"During the East Woods fighting early in the Battle of Antietam, the 10th Maine Infantry found itself hotly engaged with Confederates concealed within the woods. Looking to his right at one point, Lieutenant John Mead Gould, the regiment's adjutant, happened to notice several mounted men on a nearby knoll, including his corps commander, Maj. Gen. Joseph King Fenno Mansfield, who was frantically motioning at the 10th to cease firing. "As this was the very last thing we proposed to do," Gould recalled, "the few who saw him did not understand what his motions meant, and so no attention was paid to him." In response, the 58-year-old Mansfield, accompanied by a single orderly, galloped in their direction, shouting that they were firing on their own men. But when he reached the regiment's left flank, an officer and a sergeant in Company C raced up to inform him that he was mistaken and pointed at several soldiers, clearly Confederate, now only about 20 yards away. Mansfield had no time to react. Within moments, he had been shot through the lungs.

Gould was the first to reach the general, and with the assistance of three comrades carried him to the rear. Soldiers from the 125th Pennsylvania lent help, and also provided a blanket, as Mansfield was transported back along the Smoketown Road to a woodlot where Gould had located an ambulance and two medical officers. Mansfield was loaded on the ambulance and taken to the George Line Farm, about a mile to the north, but would die of his wounds the following morning…"
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