necessity of learning immediately something of the day. No staff officer was left with me. I was the only mounted person present. I determined to go back to the ridge, where I might see the field or communicate with others. Explaining this to the nearest field officer, Major Gray, One hundred and ninth Pennsylvania, and saying to him that I would return in a moment and give some new orders, I directed my course to the point of the ridge where it was supposed the division headquarters were. While walking my horse in the dense corn, where the ground was heavy, my bridle was seized, and I perceived that I was in the midst of enemies before otherwise discovering any person to be there. The time was about 7.45-about the time that the battery ceased firing. The fact is, the right of my advanced second line was already turned by troops that were noiselessly occupying the corn field, they being held in check by my first line, which had rallied in the road, and by the steadiness of the other, as exemplified in the evenness of its fire.

The subsequent fortunes of this brigade-which one might now anticipate, so completely do they follow from what has been related-is gathered as follows from the reports of commanders: The One hundred and ninth Pennsylvania (the right wing of the advance line), finding itself turned by the right, retired around the left of the field of battle to the woods first mentioned in this report, the One hundred and second New York (left wing, same line) conforming to and accompanying it. No troops were then in position to support the line where it stood. The battery had been withdrawn a short time before to where the Culpeper road issues from the wood above mentioned, and my first line had followed, covering it.

The conduct of the brigade, considering its advanced position and severe combat, was highly creditable to it. This will be fully appreciated by the table of casualties appended, showing a loss of 33 per cent. of the number for duty. The first battalion (Eighth and Twelfth U. S. Infantry) was detached throughout the day and was deployed as skirmishers in front of the division, where it rendered efficient and gallant service.

The battery (Fourth Maine) was in action four hours and a quarter, gallantly and efficiently served. I beg leave to mention the names of the commanders of the troops. The first battalion was commanded by Captain Thomas G. Pitcher, U. S. Army; the second by Major W. M. Walker, One hundred and eleventh Pennsylvania Volunteers; the third by Colonel D. P. De Witt, Third Maryland Volunteers; the fourth by Colonel H. J. Stainrook, One hundred and ninth Pennsylvania Volunteers; the fifth by Major Joseph C. Lane, One hundred and second New York Volunteers. The battery was commanded by Captain O'Neil W. Robinson, Fourth Maine Battery. These officers conducted their commands throughout the day, excepting Captain Pitcher, who was relieved near the close of the day, being disabled by wounds. His command devolved upon Captain T. M. Anderson, U. S. Army.

The third battalion took the impression that it received the fire of the fourth, but the care with which this was guarded against, and the fact of the third suffering least of any force in the brigade, satisfy me that it was not so.

Captain Robinson reports First Sergt. H. C. Haynes, of the Fourth Maine Battery, as commanding efficiently one of the guns.

Captain Anderson, in the report of the first battalion, distinguishes by name Captain Quimby, Lieutenants Noble, Perkins, and Fisher, and Sergeants Higgins, Lathrop, and O'Connor, of the Eighth, and Sergeants