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Battery K
It had borne on the rolls 208 men, and had lost 2 men killed in action, 1 man died of wounds, and 1 officer and 12 men of disease.
" There is a cap in the closet, old, tattered, and blue—
Of very slight value it may be to you;
But a crown, jewel studded, could not buy it to-day,
With its letters of honor, brave Co. K.
" The head that it sheltered needs shelter no more;
Dead heroes make holy the trifles they wore;
So, like chaplet of honor, of laurel and bay,
Seems the cap of the soldier, marked ' Co. K. '
Bright eyes have looked calmly its visor beneath,
O'er the work of the Reaper, Grim Harvester Death!
Let the muster-roll, meagre, so mournfully say,
How foremost in danger went Co. K.
' Whose footsteps unbroken came up to the town,
Where rampart and bastion looked threateningly down!
Who, closing up breaches, still kept on their way,
Till guns, downward pointed, faced Co.K.
Who faltered, or shivered? Who shunned battle stroke?
Whose fire was uncertain? Whose battle line broke?
Go ask it of History, years from to-day,
And the record shall tell you, not Co. K.
" Though my darling is sleeping to-day with the dead,
And daisies and clover bloom over his head,
I smile through my tears as I lay it away—
The battle-worn cap, lettered ' Co. K.
Artillery Civil War
Page 4
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