Printed handbill meas. approx. 6.50 inches wide x 12.50 inches long with a headline that reads “NO! NEVER SURRENDER.” Under the heading in smaller text is the explanation for the piece. It reads “LAST WORDS OF THE REV. H. S. HOWELL, CHAPLAIN OF THE 90^TH P.V., WHO FELL IN FRONT OF COLLEGE CHURCH HOSPITAL, ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG. By A. B. BURRELL.”

The body of the piece is a song sung to the Air-“Napoleon’s Grave.” The song has six stanzas of eight lines each. Every stanza begins with “NO! Never surrender!” and then goes on to tell the story of the Chaplain standing by the wounded, his death and how he sleeps in a soldier’s grave. At the very bottom is printing information that reads “DELAWARE WATER GAP, AUTUMN, 1863.”

Chaplain Horatio Stockton Howell was born in Trenton, New Jersey and attended Lafayette College and Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He was ordained in 1846. In 1853 he was called to be a Presbyterian church in the small community of Delaware Water Gap. Here he not only served as a minister but he also taught school.

During the antebellum era, he developed into a devout Unionist and a staunch abolitionist. He experienced what he called the "wickedness" of slavery first-hand while stationed in Elkton, Maryland, convincing him that the institution "would reduce to the condition of brutes those whom God had created in his own image and for whom Christ had died." He was also influenced by the fiery anti-secession sermons of his mentor, Reverend James Wilson.

On March 13, 1862 he accepted the position of Chaplain in the 90^th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry.

On the 1^st Day of the Battle of Gettysburg Chaplain Howell went into the College Lutheran Church (now known as Christ Lutheran Church) at 44Chamburgsburg Street in Gettysburg. The building had been chosen for use as a hospital for those wounded in the fighting west of town. While Chaplain Howell visited the wounded the Union lines collapsed and retreated through the town. During the retreat Chaplain Howell left the hospital and what happened next is described by Sergeant Archibald Snow who walked out of the church behind the Chaplain:

"I had just had my wound dressed and was leaving through the front door just behind Chaplain Howell, at the same time when the advance skirmishers of the Confederates were coming up the street on a run. Howell, in addition to his shoulder straps & uniform, wore the straight dress sword prescribed in Army Regulations for chaplains... The first skirmisher arrived at the foot of the church steps just as the chaplain and I came out. Placing one foot on the first step the soldier called on the chaplain to surrender; but Howell, instead of throwing up his hands promptly and uttering the usual 'I surrender,' attempted some dignified explanation to the effect that he was a noncombatant and as such was exempt from capture, when a shot from the skirmisher's rifle ended the controversy... The man who fired the shot stood on the exact spot where the memorial tablet has since been erected, and Chaplain Howell, fell upon the landing at the top of the steps."

Chaplain Howell was 42 years old. His body was returned to New York where it was buried in Green Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

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