all the men would have turned to the left which would have brought their backs to the enemy, as the enemy was on our right or west side. To have formed the line of battle we would have had to have faced by the rear rank, and while that did not make much difference in merely forming the line, only so far as the file closers were concerned, any subsequent manoeuvers from that formation would become exceedingly complicated; and I doubt whether any of the regiments of the First Brigade at that time could have successfully performed those manoeuvers. These were some of the difficulties which the Upton's tactics subsequently adopted, aimed to obviate and did so.

General Kearney was the idol and hero of our brigade from the time we first saw him. He and all his staff were well known to every man and officer of us; and when Captain Moore of Kearney's staff came riding down the road waving his hat and calling out that General Kearney had lost a battery, and wanted the Jersey Brigade to help him get it back, it seemed to me that the whole brigade heard him because I am sure that no orders were given to do that which occurred, and I had barely time to scramble on my horse and join in the rushing throng. General Taylor called to me as I passed him: "Keep ahead of them and keep them from going too far. The enemy's line is in the woods right in front of our guns." Captain Moore, who was talking to him, had probably told him this. The guns that had been captured were not more than three hundred yards from us, a little advanced to the west of the road. I had noticed that they were not gone when I passed along on my ride to General Slocum's but the melee was so confused that I have not and never had a very clear idea of it. When I got to where the guns were the road was somewhat sunken and as the bank was so steep that I could not ride my horse up, I jumped off and scrambled up. There were a good many men among the guns before I got there, and the guns were being re-captured. But I do know that when I passed near a gun, a sergeant of the First Regiment, whose name was either Hollins or Hollister, had a Rebel prisoner by the neck. The man, though captured, had not surrendered, and as I passed him in carrying out the order which I had, to stop the men from going beyond the guns, he thrust at our sergeant with his bayonet, missed him, and gave me a prod, the scar of which I carry to this day. Though it did not disable me then or now, as it was on the inside of the thigh. I passed the order to halt to several of the officers of our brigade. It is my impression that there were lots of Kearney's men from his own division who were there almost instantly; but I do not think they were there when we first came up.

I expected that we would receive a withering volley from the woods which were only across a small field in which the General had told me the enemy would be. For some blessed reason that volley never came; and in a few minutes our men were re-called to the road and continued our march, and towards night fall we went into line of battle along the side of the road not more than twenty yards from the road side. On the west side our skirmishers were thrown out perhaps fifty yards more and we engaged with the Rebel skirmishers until dark. There was a good deal of artillery firing along the roads which intersected the road on which we were marching; but most of the shots went through the tree tops and only a few of our men were injured. The line we were holding and which we held there from dark until twelve o'clock that night was the gap in the line into which the enemy had charged and captured Major General McCall and a large part of his division.

About nine o'clock that night I, having been constantly engaged under General Taylor's orders, in passing along our skirmisher line and getting reports from the officers, came up to where the General was in a fence corner, and found him utterly exhausted. Neither he nor I had had any nourishment, except a cup of coffee for breakfast, since the night before and that coffee had been given to us by some of the men of our headquarters. The wagon with all our rations was with the train and we did not see it for thirty-six hours afterwards.

I said to him: "General, the brigade is very much mixed up and ought to be straightened out." He said: "Very well, sir, go straighten it out." And so I went, but I had not gone more than twenty steps before I came to the conclusion that that was too much of a contract for a young man of my age, so I went to Colonel Torbert of the First Regiment and stated the case, just what the General had said, and that I believed that General Taylor was entirely exhausted, and that the job was too big for me. He said: "Never mind, sonny, I will fix it up for you." So we went together and Colonel Torbert arranged the brigade that night. Some of the companies of the Second were mixed up with the Third, and some of the Third were mixed up with the First until we straightened them out. The men were lying down, some of them asleep, all of them cross, and it was no easy job to shift them around, but we finally got it done about eleven o'clock. I got back to my old colored man, James Huggs, who had a blanket for me in the same fence corner where the General was, and I had about two hours' sound sleep. A little before one o'clock an aid of General Slocum's gave us marching orders. We found an entire brigade in the road ready to take our places, and passing through them to the road we continued our march in column going somewhere, we did not know where, but headed, we all knew, towards the James River on the way from Richmond. This last fact was heartbreaking to the men, for from the moment that we landed at West Point in May our faces had been towards the Rebel Capitol. Although the battle of Gaines' Mills had been lost just the day after we were much nearer Richmond than we were now and it was only the night of the battle of Charles City crossroads that our men realized that we were retreating. We marched until about seven o'clock in the morning and then the brigade was given about three hours' rest along the road. The General and I had some coffee which the men of the Provost Guard gave us and I went down into my old Company C, of the Third Regiment, and got from Richard Poole, a private in that company, who was a painter in Burlington, three hard tack, and after he had given them to me, just one-half of all he had, I searched in my pocket and found the silver ten cent piece, that was the last thing I had. Richard refused to accept this in exchange for the hard tack, but I finally pressed it upon him as a souvenir, and he showed it to me many times afterwards. About twelve o'clock the brigade was assembled and marched along the road towards Malvern Hill which we did not then know by that name or any other name, but it was a high and commanding position and we saw a great many of our batteries already in position upon it, and very readily came to the conclusion that our army was going to make a stand there. I think the Jersey Brigade was at that time in the rear guard, and the reason I think so is because after our brigade passed through the pickets which were at the edge of the hill nothing came behind us but some cavalry, and I have a good reason to remember that. Within about a half a mile of the hill on the left hand side of the road was a fine farm and near the fence were two fine cherry trees full of cherries. As we passed along, the General and myself being in the rear of the brigade, he said: "I would like to have some of those very much." So I immediately said: "I will get you some." I got over the fence and climbed up a tree dropping my sword and belt in the clover at the foot of the tree as I went up, I broke off a good many branches and proceeded to fill myself as quickly as possible. A scouting party of