History & local legend
Sergeant Jeremiah Gage of Mississippi’s University Greys was mortally wounded before his company took part in the July 3, 1863 assault at Gettysburg. A shell struck him while the regiment waited west of Seminary Ridge. Knowing he was dying, he asked to write to his mother, Patience W. S. Gage, before accepting the surgeon’s offer to relieve his pain.
The surviving letter tells her not to expect his body to come home and sends a final message to Mary Wendel, the woman he had hoped to marry. The attending surgeon’s account says Gage pressed the paper against his wound before surrendering it. The manuscript retains its bloodstain.
The University Greys suffered casualties among every man engaged that day, including those killed, wounded or captured. Gage’s burial place has never been identified.
Sources
- University of Mississippi Libraries, original July 3, 1863 letter from Jeremiah Gage to Patience W. S. Gage, manuscript scan and transcript
- Deb Novotny, Association of Licensed Battlefield Guides, Battlefield Dispatch, March 2017, pages 3 and 8, including circumstances of Gage’s wound and unidentified grave
- North Mississippi Herald, Starke Miller’s 2017 reading of the attending doctor’s account at the Yalobusha County Historical Society
- Stone Sentinels, inscriptions for the 11th Mississippi’s positions before and after the assault
