The Officers of the 17th New York Veteran Volunteers in June 1865 at Alexandria, Virginia. (USMHI)

"Our major had put up a temporary shelter in the safest point he could find, and one morning invited our colonel to breakfast, telling him as an inducement that he could offer him some butter, which was almost an unknown article in the army at that time. Just as they seated themselves at the table, a ten pound shot came through the roof of their quarters, and cut off one corner of the table. Major Martin did what any ordinary man would do under the circumstances - he turned a back somersault off his camp stool and hugged the ground close, thinking it was a shell and would likely explode. Not so with Col. Grower. He coolly laid down his knife and fork, folded his hands, and leaning back on his stool, with an air of offended dignity remarked, "Major Martin, that is any great way to treat a man when invited to breakfast." - 1st Sergeant William B. Westervelt, Company K

"...a good soldier, a strict disciplinarian, but not blessed with an angelic temper. A characteristic of his, well known throughout the regiment, was a decided lack of patience." - Private Edward K. Wightman, Company B, 9th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment

"The Captain of Co. B., Barnett, is especially reserved. He is a dark, average sized man with a heavy countenance ornamented with a big black moustache." - Private Edward K. Wightman, Company B, 9th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment, ca. 1863

"...Soon the cannon shot began to come over the breastworks into our camp. One of them, a solid twelve pounder, came over and passed through one of the tents of an adjoining company, then struck the ground in our company street, and with a rebound passed through a tent striking a cartridge box, the pieces of which flew in all directions, knocking out the eye of one of our company, and giving another a bad scalp wound. The next tent it struck was occupied by a private named Hill, who lay on his back sleeping soundly. The shot struck him just back of his ears and carried away the whole back of his head. I was standing within about twelve feet of him, and happened to be looking right at him the moment he was struck, and don't think he moved the slightest muscle. I dropped my frying pan, that contained the dinner I was about to cook, and stepped by his side. There he lay, with his hands crossed above his breast, his eyes closed, his features unmarred-as calm as they were a moment before while he was peacefully sleeping. But on raising him from his blanket, we found the whole back of his head and his entire brain carried away. We rolled him in his blanket, and as the sun went down that night we laid him in his grave at the foot of a large pine, which, as the Southern breezes blow, will sing his requiem long after those who performed those last sad offices are crumbling in the dust." - 1st Sergeant William B. Westervelt.

"...Private Jordan stepped right into the tracks that I had created, and before he could strike a blow received a Sharpshooters bullet just above the left temple, making a wound from which the brain protruded. I sent him to the rear to the Surgeon, and, strange as it may seem, he lived nearly three days even after losing a part of his brain, and with the bullet in his head." - 1st Sergeant William B. Westervelt

"...The next to catch it was a German boy named White, who was struck in the lower part of the abdomen, giving him a severe and painful wound from which he never recovered." - 1st Sergeant W.B. Westervelt.