that day at that point, to claim for them what fortune gave them an opportunity to do and what their arms accomplished. While the attack was general and was repulsed along the whole line, still, the tremendous effort of the rebel chief was against the point which happened to be occupied by the Second and Third Brigades of the Second Division, Second Corps. It was fully repulsed in front of the Third Brigade, which then fell upon the partially successful enemy on the line of the Second Brigade, and, with the assistance before mentioned, drove him back, finishing the day there and completing the destruction of his splendid division and many of its supports. The attack was afterward renewed upon the left of the line, near Round Top, but without the vigor and desperation that characterized the previous effort. In claiming for my brigade and a few other troops the turning point of the battle of July 3, I do not forget how liable inferior commanders are to regard only what takes place in their own front, or how extended a view it must require to judge of the relative importance of different points of the line of battle. The decision of the rebel commander was upon that point; the concentration of artillery fire was upon that point; the din of battle developed in a column of attack upon that point; the greatest effort and greatest carnage was at that point; and the victory was at that point. No other inducement than the desire to do justice to troops who so nobly and at so dear a rate accomplished such a result, though their presence was primarily a matter of chance, would make me place myself in a position to defend an assertion generally do difficult to establish.

Very respectfully,

NORMAN J. HALL,

Colonel, Commanding Brigade.

Captain A. H. EMBLER,

Actg. Asst. Adjt. General, Second Div., Second Corps.

NEW YORK,

August 3, 1863.

COLONEL: I observed some time since in a printed official paper naming the flags captured at Gettysburg, Pa, on the 3rd of July, that the Department was not in possession of information regarding who captured several of them. I think it my duty to furnish you the necessary information, as far as concerns my own command. I attached labels to each one of the flags below named, but they were probably lost in transportation. Battle-flag of Fourteenth Virginia Infantry, captured by Corpl. J. H. De Castro, Nineteenth Massachusetts Volunteers; Twenty-second North Carolina, by Private Michael McDonough, Forty-second New York Volunteers; Nineteenth Virginia, by Corpl. B. F. Falls, Nineteenth Massachusetts Volunteers; Eighteenth Virginia, by Second Lieutenant C. E. Hunt, Fifty-ninth New York Volunteers; Forty-eighth Georgia, by Sergt, James Wiley, Fifty-ninth New York Volunteers; Fifty-seventh Virginia Infantry, by Private B. H. Jellison, Nineteenth Massachusetts Volunteers; one flag, designation unknown, captured by Private John Robinson, Company I, Nineteenth Massachusetts Volunteers; also one captured by Private William Dunning, Seventh Michigan Volunteers. These last two I have not the information to enable me to describe at present. For the others,