| He enlisted for three years or during the War in Co. I, 15th Mass. Volunteers, and served throughout the war. The first engagement in which he participated was the Battle of Ball's Bluff, Va., in October 1861. In that battle his brother William Franklyn Converse was captured, and afterward died in Libby Prison, Richmond, Va. In March 1862, the regiment with which Myla S. Converse was enlisted went to Harper's Ferry, Va; crossed the Potomac at Harper's Ferry, and went to Winchester, Va., with General Shields. After Gen. Stonewall Jackson was driven out of Winchester, his division, Gen. John Sedgwick in command, returned to Washington; took steamers at Washington, going down the Potomac to Fortress Monroe, Va. From Virginia they went to Yorktown where the division was assigned to the Second Army corps then commanded by Gen. E. V. Sumner. After the evacuation of Yorktown they went to West Point, Va., on the York River, by steamers, where they disembarked and had an engagement with the enemy. From there they took boat again and went to White House Landing where they disembarked, crossed the peninsula to the Chickahominy where they took part, together with the First Minnesota, in building the great Grape Vine Bridge on which General Sumner moved his corps across to the opposite side of the river to reinforce the left wing of the Colonel's army on the 31 May 1862, during the battle of Fair Oaks. In this engagement about four o'clock in the afternoon, the 15th Mass. arrived on the field and immediately became engaged. At about half past four Myla Seamens Converse was severely wounded in his right thigh, the thigh-bone being broken, and just as he was to be carried from the field he received another wound through the right hand. He was sent back with others of the wounded to White house landing where he took steamer for Philadelphia. He was in a hospital on Wood Street, near 22nd Street from about the 6th or 7th day of June, 1862, until the latter part of July, when he received a furlough and went home for thirty days. He reported to his company again for duty at Sharpesburg, Va., on the morning after the Battle of Antietam. From there they went with the Army of the Potomac to Falmouth, Va., where his regiment participated in the battle of Frederick City, Va., fought by General Burnside. |