Capt. Mark Haggard’s Death in Battle
To the Editor of The [London] Times:
Sir: In various papers throughout England has appeared a letter, or part of a letter, written by Private C. Derry of the Second Battalion, Welsh Regiment. It concerns the fall of my much-loved nephew, Capt. Mark Haggard, of the same regiment, on Sept. 13 in the battle of the Aisne.
Since this letter has been published and, vivid, pathetic, and pride-inspiring as it is, does not tell all the tale, I have been requested, on behalf of Mark’s mother, young widow, and other members of our family, to give the rest of it as it was collected by them from the lips of Lieut. Somerset, who lay wounded by him when he died. Therefore I send this supplementary account to you in the hope that the other journals which have printed the first part of the story will copy it from your columns.
It seems that after he had given the order to fix bayonets, as told by Private Derry, my nephew charged the German Maxims at the head of his company, he and his soldier servant outrunning the other men. Arrived at the Maxim in front of him, with the rifle which he was using as Derry describes, he shot and killed
[Illustration: GERHART HAUPTMANN
See Page 175]
[Illustration: LUDWIG FULDA.
See Page 180 ]
the three soldiers who were serving it, and then was seen “fighting and laying out” the Germans with the butt end of his empty gun, “laughing” as he did so, until he fell mortally wounded in the body and was carried away by his servant.
His patient and heroic end is told by Private Derry, and I imagine that the exhortation to “Stick it, Welsh!” which from time to time he uttered in his agony, will not soon be forgotten in his regiment. Of that end we who mourn him can only say in the simple words of Derry’s letter, that he “died as he had lived—an officer and a gentleman.”


