You will not find his name in the index of Lincoln at Gettysburg. He was not a famous man nor someone that I knew personally. He was one of the Union soldiers that I purposefully did not name in my address at Gettysburg, but it is "altogether fitting and proper" that I do so here, because this brave man was one of the thousands of men who gave "the last full measure of devotion" on that battlefield.
Erasmus E. Bassett and his brother Richard (Dick) were from Barrington, NY, a town not far from Ithaca. They enlisted in Company B of the 126th New York Volunteer Infantry on August 4, 1862. Their father gave Erasmus a diary while he was home on leave at Christmas time that year. That dairy is now a part of the archives in the Division of Rare & Manuscript Collections in Kroch Library at Cornell. Pictured here is page 76 of that diary. The entries (with added annotations) read:
Tuesday, June 30, 1863
Send Dick $5.00. Pitch tents in woods near Unionville. Boys all come in*. Go to house & wash & eat. Muster. March on 1 mile and camp. Buy wool hat for $2.00 at Unionville. March 1 mile
*The long hard march of the 29th left many stragglers along the way. This day of only marching 1 mile allowed stragglers to catch up.
Wednesday, July 1, 1863
Leave camp at 7. Go to Taneytown 6 ½ miles. Ordered back 3 miles then march within 5 miles of Gettysburg and stop for the night, been fighting at Gettysburg
Thursday, July 2, 1863
Start towards Gettysburg at 4 A.M. Arrive near town at 6 ¾ A.M. Form line of battle. 39th NY go out skirmishing, lose several...
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12 O’Clock at night I find my Brother Erasmus lying dead where I took this from his pocket.
R. A. Bassett**
**Captain Richard Allen Bassett, brother to Erasmus E. Bassett referred to many times in this diary as “Dick” wrote home of the incident, “I thought of George [another brother who had died at Antietam] and then think of Rapsy [Erasmus] falling so near him. I could not help weeping.”
Richard marked his brother's battlefield grave and later Erasmus's body was sent home for reburial in Barrington. See The Bassett Boys Go to War for a more detailed account of the Bassett brothers at Gettysburg.
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