Lieutenant Colonel Charles Chandler was mortally wounded leading the 57th Massachusetts in a charge against Major General A.P. Hill’s entrenched line at the North Anna River on May 24, 1864. After his death a memorial book was published with a series of letters written by various people (link). It detailed his service record as follows “Colonel Chandler was appointed a second lieutenant in the First Massachusetts Regiment in May, 1861, and was made first lieutenant in March, 1862. He served with his regiment at the first battle of Bull Run, and through the Peninsular campaign. In August of that year he was made captain in the Thirty-fourth, and a few months ago was commissioned as lieutenant colonel of the Fifty-seventh (Veterans), of which he was in command at the time of his death. No particulars of his death have been received; but we learn that the report comes in a manner which leads his friends to believe it authentic.”
It goes on to state ”We have already announced the death of Lieutenant-Colonel Chandler, of the Massachusetts Fifty-seventh Regiment, on the 24th ultimo, near Hanover Court-House. His family from the first supposed him to have died on the field; but there have been many contradictory rumors since that time, which left his fate in a painful uncertainty. A letter has just been received, however, which confirms the first intelligence, and makes it certain that this brave and excellent young man fell mortally wounded in the sharp encounter on the North Anna, on the same day when the First Regiment, with which he left Boston three years before, had a public reception here.” The letter referred to above was from Captain A. Manning Wright of the 57th NY of the II Corps, 1st Division, 3rd Brigade. It detailed some of the details of Lt. Colonel Chandler’s death. It is printed in the book and shown below.
Another letter in the volume from Assistant Surgeon I. C. McKee in Washington, D.C. told a similar story.
The next letter is from Massachusetts Governor John Andrew.
So far I have been unable to determine if any of Charles’ personal effects were returned to the family or if his body was recovered. Captain Wright, the letter writer, would die at Petersburg of wounds received in action on July 2, 1864, less than 6 weeks later. Colonel Merry B. Harris who brought the wounded Lt. Colonel Chandler back to Confederate lines and was with him when he died was shot in the head by a sharpshooter in late June of 1864. He was taken home to Columbus, Kentucky on a furlough but died from complications of his wound on August 30, 1865.
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