Chapter IV
- Colonel Franchott succeeded by Colonel Upton -- Upton's previous service and character -- forward movement under McClellan -- Upton's discipline -- Burnside Succeeds McClellan -- reorganization by Burnside
I was very glad when we left the vicinity of the battle of Antietam, for its horrors sickened me. We moved away and in the distance of a few miles in the direction we took, no appearances of battle were present. The country took on a peaceable look. We reached our destination in the neighborhood of Bakersville, also near Dam No. 4 on the Potomac River, along the bluff bank of which we picketed in our turn with the other regiments of our Brigade.
The encampment at Bakersville was protracted until the last day of October. During this period several important events occurred. First, the seeds of disease which had been sown in the bodies of officers and men by the overwork and exposure of the previous campaign began to bear fruit. No shelter tents had yet been provided for the men, and no hospital tents for the sick. Shacks and pens made of rails, and covered with straw and brush was all the shelter they had been able to obtain, and though such protection availed to ward off the heat of the sun, it utterly failed when rain came. Sickness increased, and death began to take its toll. The death of the first man in camp is thus described by the Adjutant's Clerk of the regiment, Charles W. Dean, in a letter to the Oneonta Herald, dated October 2d: “A man by the name of Helon Pearsons died last night of typhoid fever. He now lies back of the hospital tent covered with a blanket under the protection of a guard. The pioneers have made a board box and he is to be buried after battalion drill.” Later he wrote, “The ”
