A correspondent of the Boston Post, relates the following referring to the recent accidental death of Col. Wynkoop:
    Col. Wynkoop, of Pennsylvania, led into the field in Mexico a regiment second in point of discipline to no regiment of volunteers, except, perhaps, Breckinridge's Kentuckians.--He was distinguished in many engagements; he captured General Valencia and staff; and at the close of the war he returned with laurels. He is now dead. The circumstances are familiar. With his wife, who is an invalid, he was visiting the interior of Pennsylvania for recreation and change of scene. The country is wild and sparsely settled. One morning he went out with his servant to shoot game for his wife. In handing [sic] the gun, the servant by accident discharged it; the contents took effect in his leg, severing the artery, and he lived but a few minutes. This has been told before.
    An absurd superstition prevails among the ignorant inhabitants of the region, against touching a dead body before an inquest(?) had sat upon it. The servant had been sent at once for aid to some distance, and in vain did Mrs. Wynkoop endeavor to induce--by supplications, by promises, by offers of money, the stultified neighbors to shelter and care for her husband's body. It was a dark night. He still lay where he fell; and there in that howling wilderness, with the calamity of midnight, gathering on his garments did that delicate woman, as frail as the wild flowers around her, that folded their petals together in that wearied solitude, sit alone on the chilly turf, supporting on her knee the head of her husband; and there remained, keeping her lonely vigil until the breaking of the day dawn, alone with her dead and with her bleeding heart.
    If the incident be a sad one, it becomes a season set apart to lessons and pledges of affection.

Source:

Unknown, "A Devoted Wife," Democratic Watchman, Bellefonte, Centre County, Pa., Thursday, 4 March, 1858, Page 1.