“As his life slowly drained away, his final words were said to be ‘Mother, mother, mother.’”
“Saving the Flag", by artist Don Troiani. Colonel Harrison Jeffords is mortally wounded attempting to save the 4th Michigan's colors -- colors he swore to defend with his life.
During the second day at Gettysburg, fighting in The Wheatfield, the regiment’s color-bearer dropped their colors — Jeffords rushed to retrieve them. He is said to have shot a Confederate soldier who had seized the flag and even grasped the banner himself. In the ensuing melee, Jeffords received a gunshot wound to the thigh and was bayonetted by a Confederate soldier in the left abdomen, mortally wounding the 28-year-old officer. Other soldiers of the 4th Michigan rushed to his aid and carried both the colors and their fallen commander out of The Wheatfield. As his life slowly drained away, his final words were said to be "Mother, mother, mother." He died at 4 AM the next day, July 3, 1863. Jeffords became the highest commissioned officer in the Civil War to die of a bayonet wound.
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