renewed the attack on the enemy and drove him some distance. My division was directed to threaten the enemy's right and rear, which it proceeded to do under a heavy fire of artillery from the ridge to the left of the pike. Generals Seymour and Jackson led their brigades in advance, but notwithstanding all the steadiness and courage shown by the men they were compelled to fall back before the heavy fire of artillery and musketry which met them both on the front and left flank, and the division resumed its original position. King's division engaged the enemy along the pike on our right, and the action was continued with it until dark by Meade's brigade.

On the morning of the 30th I was directed to take post with my division on the left of the pike near the Henry house, and ordered by Major-General Pope to form my division in column by company at full distance, with the whole of my artillery on the left; that I would be the pivot in the attack which Porter's corps was to make on the enemy's right, then supposed to be on the pike and in retreat. Having formed my division in the position indicated and opened with my rifled batteries to drive the enemy from the first ridge, the skirmishers advanced and the attack by Porter's corps commenced. When the skirmishers arrived in the thick woods opposite Groveton, I found the resistance so great that another regiment was deployed to support them, and finally a second; in all, three regiments.

The advanced skirmishers were the First Rifles, Colonel McNeil, and the First Infantry, Colonel Roberts, supported by the Seventh Infantry, Lieutenant-Colonel Henderson. The Sixth Regiment, Colonel Sinclair, was thrown through the woods on our left flank. Becoming convinced that the enemy were not in retreat but were posted in force on our left flank. I pushed through the skirmishers to the edge of the woods on the left, gaining sight of the open ground beyond, and advancing myself into the open ground, I found a line of skirmishers of the enemy nearly parallel to the line of skirmishers covering my left flank, with cavalry formed behind them, perfectly stationary, evidently masking a column of the enemy formed for attack on my left flank when our line should be sufficiently advanced. The skirmishers opened fire upon me, and I was obliged to run the gauntlet of a heavy fire to gain the rear of my division, losing one of my orderlies, who had followed me through the woods. I immediately communicated this to the commanding general of the corps, who came upon the ground, and directed me to form my division to resist this attack, the dispositions for which were rapidly completed. Other troops were to be sent to my support, when the commanding general, observing the attack of Porter to have been repulsed, ordered me with my division across the field to the rear of Porter, to form a line behind which the troops might be rallied. I immediately started my division in the direction indicated, but before the rear of my column had left the position the threatened attack by the enemy's right began to be felt, and the rear brigade, under Colonel Anderson, with three batteries of artillery, were obliged to form on the ground on which they found themselves to oppose it. Passing across the field to the right with Meade's and Seymour's brigades and Ransoms' battery, my course was diverted by the difficult nature of the ground, and the retreating masses of the broken columns among troops of Heintzelman's corps, already formed by which much time was lost and confusion created, which allowed the enemy to sweep up with his right so far as almost to cut us off from the pike, leaving nothing but the rear brigade and the three batteries of artillery of my division and scattered troops of other commands to resist the advance of the enemy upon our left. It was here