January 10, 1862 – The Burnside Expedition
Annapolis, Monday Evening, Jan. 6, 1862.
To day the embarkation of the troops has been going forward. Several sad accidents have occurred, resulting in the death of several men, one of whom belonged to the Massachusetts twenty-third. While that regiment was waiting to embark, several members of Company C went to a saloon. Here Thomas Butler of that company was accidentally shot dead by one of his comrades named William Beecher, who was playfully going through the manual exercise with a gun not his own.