SEVENTH REGIMENT INFANTRY. 275

7. The movement, if undertaken, should be personally and closely watched by
the general who ordered it, and his staff, and praiseworthy efforts of individuals
should be noticed and suitably acknowledged.

8. Any color sergeant who does his duty and survives should be made a com-
missioned officer at once. In fact, such should be the understood rule as to every
engagement where the casualties amount to ten per cent, or over.

Subsequent History.

The several actions which have thus been partially and imperfectly described, from
the fifth to the eighth of May, 1864, inclusive, were typical of the whole Virginia cam-
paign of 1864 and 1865, during which the Seventh Maryland shared the fortunes and
losses of the Maryland brigade—a story already sufficiently told by Camper and Kirkley,
in their "Historical Record of the First Maryland Veteran Infantry."

To this it is only necessary to add that the command of the Seventh Regiment
devolved upon Major Mobley, until the return of Lieutenant-Colonel Bennett, upon his
recovery from his wound in July, 1864. Colonel Bennett was again wounded in action,
April 1, 1865, at the battle of Five Forks, and thereupon Major Mobley continued in com-
mand until the muster out; was wounded at Weldon Railroad, 18th of August, 1864, and
was brevetted Colonel "for faithful and gallant service." The strength of the regiment
having been reduced below the regulation standard, the vacant colonelcy was never filled.

The story of this long and bloody campaign is one of constant marching and fighting,
and yet there is hardly an important event of all those later experiences which does not
find its counterpart in some incident of the battles in the Wilderness, the forced night
march out of it, the protracted combat with retreating cavalry, or the assault upon the
works at Spotsylvania.

Dark days of disaster were relieved by occasional flashes of victory, as at the battle
of Weldon Railroad on 21st of August, 1864, and of Five Forks, on the 1st of April, 1865.
And finally, with many sad memories of fallen comrades, the few fortunate survivors
had the proud satisfaction of participating in the crowning glory of Appomattox.

Whatever well-meant but costly mistakes may have swelled the "butcher's bill" of
this sanguinary campaign, they were all eclipsed by the dazzling surrender of Lee, and
the peerless magnanimity of Grant, that did him even greater honor than his magnificent
success.

There can be claimed for the Seventh Maryland one distinction, that although acci-
dental, is unique. It so happened that this regiment was to furnish the last man wounded
in the Army of the Potomac. His name is Robert N. Weller, Corporal, Company E (Fred-
erick County). He was struck by a piece of shell, fired by the First North Carolina bat-
tery, on the 9th of April, 1865, just before the surrender, at Appomattox Court House,
Virginia. (C. and K., 1st Md. Infantry, p. 203.)

This incident will recall to mind that the first blood to be shed in the Civil War was
that of Maryland, mingled with the blood of Massachusetts, in the streets of Baltimore,
on the 19th of April, 1861; and that the last blood spilled in the Revolution was that of
an officer of the Maryland Line, Captain William Wilmot, killed in a skirmish on John's
Island, S. C., November 14, 1782.