Today in History:

800 Series I Volume XI-I Serial 12 - Peninsular Campaign Part I

Page 800 THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN, VA. Chapter XXIII.

earnest and fired with a determination to succeed or die. The enemy were driven from the field in the greatest confusion and seeming consternation, leaving it strewn with their dead, and their wounded mingling their groans with those of our own. A considerable number of prisoners were captured, among them several of rank.

From 5 o'clock until 7.30 o'clock p.m. my brigade was engaged giving and receiving as severe a fire of musketry as ever was witnessed or heard, perhaps, by the oldest officers of the army, the severest and longest continued part of which was met by the Eighty-second and Thirty-fourth New York Volunteers and Fifteenth Massachusetts, as the lists of their killed and wounded indicate. The First Minnesota, being detached and operating on my right, was under a severe fire, which they received and returned with great coolness and gallantry, for the particulars of which and the good conduct of its officers and men I refer to Colonel Sully's report, herewith respectfully submitted. The rest of the brigade being continually under my own eye, it affords me great pleasure to speak of the gallant conduct of all the field officers of this brigade, and I am also gratified to learn from them of the unusual coolness and good conduct of all the line officers, without exception. The obedience of the men and their unbounded ardor to meet the enemy give the highest assurance to the country that they are to be depended upon in every trying emergency.

It gives me equal pleasure to commend to your favorable consideration Captain Hebard, my assistant adjutant-general; Lieutenant Raquet, aide-de-camp; Captain Brown, acting assistant commissary of subsistence, and Mr. Sproat, volunteers aide-de-camp, upon my staff. They bore my orders to every part of the line, frequently exposing their lives to the most imminent peril. At the beginning of the engagement Dr. Hand, my brigade surgeon, was on the field, exposing himself to danger, keeping close to the brigade, ready to give his professional attention to the first that should fall. While engaged in his duties he received a slight wound. The assiduous attention to the wounded of Drs. Hand, Sherman, Morton, Bates, Haven, Lewis, and Robinson, of the brigade, merits the highest commendation. The conduct of both officers and men of my brigade and the splendid bayonet charge made by them, having been witnessed by the general commanding the corps, and also by the general commanding the division, relieves me from the necessity of making this report more in detail.

After the enemy had been driven from their position the brigade advanced into the woods and occupied during the night the ground previously held by the enemy till daylight, when they pressed after on and took position, the left resting near the railroad and the right reaching toward the Chickahominy. This engagement having ended at dark, left us in complete possession of the field, with quite a number of prisoners and small-arms, while the ground was strewn with their killed, wounded, and dying, showing the fearful havoc our infantry and artillery had made among them. By your orders my command slept upon their arms until 3 o'clock next morning, when they were in line ready to meet or advance upon the enemy.

About 7.30 a.m. Sunday, the 1st day of June, the enemy advanced in greatly increased numbers, having been largely re-enforced during the evening and night, and opened fire upon the line upon the left, composed chiefly of General Richardson's division. I was ordered then to leave the First Minnesota in position upon our right, the Fifteenth Massachusetts upon our right front, and take two other regiments to the assistance of Richardson's division. I moved the Eighty-second and


Page 800 THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN, VA. Chapter XXIII.