The Republican journal., 1896-07-16

those same stars that were looking down
| upon me were shining as brightly over
my own home down in Maine, and the
home of her l left behind me; for to be
frank, l had lett such one who was as
often in mind as my own mot her. And
thought it may be that she is at this mo-
ment looking at the same stars whose
peculiar brightness is but the reflection
OF the luster of her eyes. And when a
moment later l saw what l thought was a
roguish twinkle in one of them l was sat
listed that was right and was happy and
went to sleep. The next day, July Sd, l
was early on my legs and what l saw and
| heard on that day remains as ii painted
before my eyes. No engagement took
place on our part OF the line, which was
the lett centre, during the whole fore
noon. -Four companies OF our regiment,
under command OF Capt. Foglel, were de-
ployed as brigade skir1nishels in front of
our division. At , O clock in the alter
noon the enemy opened upon our line a
most terrible ire from large plumber Of
guns, estimated at 100, aud continued it
| for one hour and forty minutes. Our
replied. None OF us, not even the oldest
soldiers, had ever seen or heard anything
! like il before. We knew the rebel Gen. Lee,
one OF the greatest OF soldiers, meant to
I i; ~
er, that this was to be one OF the most de-
cisive battles OF the war. But neither he
nor any one. thought of the suffering it
would cause. We lay flat on our faces
between these two lines OF artillery, with
two hundred guns firing, and two hun
bred shells exploding over our heads every
minute. We had nothing but to lay there
and reflect upon the contingencies OF be-
ing sent into eternity in the next minute.
Is it to be wondered at that every min
ute of those two hours seemed an age? l
thought then that if men who are clamor-
Gus for war could exchange places with ME
for five minutes their conversion would
be complete. 1t was positive relief
when the infantry OF the enemy adj
vanced upon rs with fifteen thousand
picked men, the flower OF the rebel army.
Gen. Hancock says OF this assault: lit
fell upon the I'd and Sd brigades of the I'd
Corps, and those were the troops, assisted
by small brigade of Vermont troops,
that really met the assault. No doubt
there were other troops that fired little,
but those were the troops, six small bri
gades, that withstood the shock of the
assault and repulsed it after terrible
contest at very close quarters, in which
our troops took about so or 40 stands of
colors and some 4 900 prisoners with great
loss to the enemy in killed and wounded.
l only know what l saw myself. When
the rebel infantry came within range we
up and at them. Though | could see men
falling thick and fast around me ] knew
our guns were making worse havoc in
their ranks. But still they moved on, de-
termined to conq ueI-bIave men every
JIM VI @iiSiii' va, W eiANS SolliS5 SiC'oiIS
our works few rods to right of us. Our
line rolled back to the point where we
lay much like the end OF a piece of birch
bark when one end is placed in the fire.
Then such a scene as followed, We were
all loading, and firing, and yelling, and
pushing towards the gap now filled with
eXultant rebels. Company, IegimeEtal
and brigade organization were lost, and
we were great crowd. We could load,
run to the front and fire, then others
would Jump in front of us and fire, and
the color bearers, always AT the front,
would toss their colors up and down to
show the enemy that we were not going
to give in and to encourage us on. got
cartridge in wrong end first and the
only man of my regiment | could see
fired OFF his hammer. He and kept to-
gether. The ground was covered with
arms Of every description and we had no
difficulty in supplying ourselves. And SO
| we kept on, and on, and the day was ours.
Many of the rebels fed, but thousands, |
had no idea at the time how many, were
captured. That ended the battle. Then
| was hungry. l had eaten nothing since
morning, and that was the last in my hav-
ersack and made but half meal. The
rebel dead were thickly strewn in our
midst. Their haversacks were full. One
poor fellow by my side was breathing in
faint utterances his last prayer to God to
care for his wife and children; noble to
the last, forgetting self and thinking only
of loved ones. l waited few minutes
until he was dead, and then l removed his
haversack and ca nteen and Toasted upon
some fresh biscuit and honey that found
there. 1t was not until late that the sur
vivors in our regiment had collected SO
that our returns could be made out and
our losses ascertained. Then we found
that of the 440 ofic ers and men who went
into battle Il officers and 22O men were
among the killed and wounded. That
night and part of the next day the rain
fell in torrents and we hadn't even one
| ch a1far font to prOta ri ne Tho novt dow