301

battery sustained an irreparable loss, and the service a gallant, brave and faithful
officer. Sergeant Langley and all but four of his men remained upon the Queen,
and were lost in the general destruction of the vessel. Captain Fuller jumped
off the Queen and was picked up by the men of one of the enemy's boats. The
Lizzie Simmons escaped capture.

The losses of the Third Maryland in this disastrous affair were :

Killed in the action or drowned in their endeavor to escape from the burning
Queen : Lieutenant William Thompson Patten, Sergeant Edward H. Langley,
Corporal Michael O'Connell, Privates Richard Tyson, J. Chafin, J. J. McKissick,
Thomas Bowler, Edward Kenn and Joseph Edgar.

Captain Latrobe left the service on the 1st of March, 1863, and Lieutenant
Claiborne succeeded to the Captaincy. On the 17th of March Orderly Sergeant
William L. Ritter was elected to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resignation
of Holmes Erwin, Junior Second Lieutenant. On the 21st of March Lieutenant
Ritter was promoted to Senior Second Lieutenant, and Lieutenant Patten to
Junior First; at the same time Sergeant Thomas D. Giles was elected Junior
Second Lieutenant to fill the vacancy caused by Lieutenant Ritter's promotion.

The battery remained encamped at Jett's plantation until Grant crossed his
army at Grand Gulf, when it accompanied Pemberton's army to meet him at
Baker's Creek, and was engaged in the battle fought there. On the 18th of May
it returned with the army to Vicksburg. Private Henry Stewart was captured
by the enemy in this engagement, and died afterwards at Fort Delaware.

During the siege of Vicksburg several men of the battery were wounded. Two
were killed — Captain Claiborne and Private John Cosson. Captain Claiborne
was struck by a piece of shell, on the 22d of June, and fell without uttering a
word. He was a fine officer, and a braver one never drew blade in any cause. In
him the South lost a generous, gallant and magnanimous man. He was a native
of Mississippi, a grandson of General F. L. Claiborne, of Natchez, well known
among the early settlers of Alabama, and a cousin of Ferdinand C. Latrobe,
Ex-Mayor of Baltimore.

Lieutenant Rowan, on the 30th of June, was promoted to the Captaincy. At
the same time Lieutenant Ritter was made Senior First Lieutenant, Lieutenant
Giles was made Senior Second Lieutenant, and Sergeant J. W. Doncaster was
elected Junior Second Lieutenant. When, on the 4th of July, Vicksburg fell, three
officers and seventy men of the Third Maryland battery fell into the enemy's
hands. Five of their guns, one hundred and thirty horses and mules, and all the
appliances of a six-gun battery were also surrendered.

Only one gun, under the command of Lieutenant Ritter, remained. To trace
its history it will be necessary to return to a point three months previous to the
fall of Vicksburg. when, on the 2d of April. Lieutenant Ritter was ordered to the