ier field. Men went about their work in a silence
stronger than words.

On this day 21 officers and 182 men were killed, 72 officers and
1,245 men were wounded, 6 officers and 180 men missing; besides
these, 13 were reported as killed, 84 as wounded, and 2 as missing
without distinguishing between officers and men, thus making a
total of 216 killed, 1,401 wounded, 188 missing--in all, 1,805.
Among the wounded many had received mortal hurts, while of the
missing, as in the first assault, many must now be set down as
killed.

Paine, as we have seen, fell seriously hurt while in the very act
of leading his division to the assault. Nine days earlier he had
received his well-earned commission as brigadier-general. He was
taken to New Orleans, and there nine days later, at the Hotel de
Dieu Hospital, after vain efforts to save the limb, the surgeons
performed amputation of the thigh. A few days after the surrender,
in order to avoid the increasing dangers of the climate, Paine was
sent to his home in Wisconsin on the captured steamer _Starlight_,
the first boat that ascended the river. Thus the Nineteenth Corps
lost one of its bravest and most promising commanders, one who had
earned the affection of his men, not less through respect for his
character than by his unfailing sympathy and care in all situations,
and who was commended to the confidence and esteem of his associates
and superiors by talent and devotion of the first order joined to
every quality that stamps a man among men.

The fiery Holcomb, wounded in the assault of the 27th, yet refusing
to leave his duty to another, fell early on this fatal morning at
the head of his regiment and brigade, in the first moment of the
final charge of Weitzel's men. This was another serious loss, for
Holcomb had that disposition that may, for want of a better term,
be described as the fighting character. All soldiers know it and
respect it, and every wise general, seeing it anywhere among his
officers, shuts his eyes to many a blemish and pardons many a fault
that would be severely visited in another; yet in Holcomb there
was nothing to overlook or forgive. As he was the most prominent
and the most earnest of the few officers of the line that to the
last remained eager for the fatal assault, so he was among the
earliest and noblest of its victims.

Mortally wounded at the head of Weitzel's brigade fell Colonel
Elisha B. Smith, of the 114th New York. Barely recovered