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Epilogue “At His Country’s Call” Sometime during the last week of June 1864 a detachment of Union soldiers buried First Sergeant Ambrose Henry Hayward’s remains inside the newly established Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Chattanooga. An Ohio soldier who likely oversaw Hayward’s burial described the earnest and dedicated work of the mass interment: “Every pain and especial care is taken in the burial of the poor fallen soldier at this place. His grave is marked with his name, regiment, company, where killed, or when and where wounded or sickened, and died. And it should be a consolation to the relatives of the dead here to know that no trouble will be occasioned in finding the grave of the father, brother, son, or husband of those who have fallen and are buried on this spot.” By early July, burial crews had laid to rest over 4,000 Union soldiers—casualties from the Chattanooga and Atlanta campaigns. The Ohio gravedigger reflected, “The National Soldiers’ Cemetery here is from eighty to one hundred acres of beautiful[,] rolling land situated high and commanding a beautiful view of Lookout Mountain , Mission[ary] Ridge, Chattanooga Valley, and all the magnificent scenery therewith. . . . [W]hen it is finished, the friends of the poor[,] fallen soldiers may rest assured that their bodies lie in one of the most beautiful and magnificent spots to be seen in our country. . . . [N]ow buried here are soldiers from every Northern state. It is truly a national cemetery.”1 To this day, Hayward’s body remains at Chattanooga National Cemetery buried alongside 12,800 other Union soldiers who died during the war. His burial place is currently marked as Plot E, grave number 11428, and his headstone incorrectly reads “A. J. Hayward.” While gravediggers busily committed Hayward’s remains to the National Cemetery, his comrades in the 28th Pennsylvania battled on. The volunteers from the regiment who did not reenlist in December 1863 mustered out in late July 1864. The remaining soldiers of the 28th Pennsylvania —a mix of veterans, recruits, draftees, and substitutes—experienced thirteen additional months of arduous service, lasting until the end of the war. These soldiers fought with Sherman’s armies for the rest of the Atlanta 238 Epilogue Campaign. On September 2, after four months of continuous combat and siege warfare, Atlanta finally fell to Union forces. The Confederate Army of Tennessee, now under Major General John Bell Hood, abandoned its entrenchments and eventually withdrew to Alabama. Briefly, Sherman’s weary soldiers became an army of occupation, but the feisty Union general soon ordered all of Atlanta’s citizens to evacuate the city, as he feared the strains of war could no longer allow the Gate City to sustain community life. After seventy-four days of much-needed rest, the 28th Pennsylvania struck tents again, and along with 60,000 men in two of Sherman’s armies—now redesignated the Army of Georgia and the Army of the Tennessee—it participated in the renowned March to the Sea. The 28th Pennsylvania became a part of the Army of Georgia, and after a grueling campaign, described by one veteran as a “bold undertaking . . . of such stupendous magnitude, and encircled with . . . many . . . tremendous obstacles,” it reached Savannah on December 10. After a ten-day siege at that place, it aided in the city’s capture.2 The well-used veterans wintered in Savannah, and on January 19, 1865, the 28th Pennsylvania followed the rest of Sherman’s command across the Savannah River, contributing to a destructive war in the Carolinas . By late April 1865 the regiment reached Raleigh, North Carolina, and went into camp there, the last state capitol to fall to Union forces. The war finally came to an end for the 28th Pennsylvania on April 26, when General Joseph Johnston surrendered his decimated army to General Sherman at nearby Durham Station. The 28th Pennsylvania then returned to Washington, where it participated in the “Grand Review,” and its survivors mustered out at the national capitol on July 18. The regiment’s wartime service had taken it through twelve states, and it had lost 284 men through combat or disease. One historian noted, “Their soiled, torn, and tattered flags, carried triumphantly through so many bloody battle-fields, attesting to the unfailing courage of them who bore them, have received a hallowed place in the archives of the Commonwealth, whilst the brave and noble soldiers who fought beneath and around them, have returned to peaceful pursuits of life...

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