.NDE.MTE3NDM
[2]
3 miles at double-quick, thro' mud & water
knee-deep. Just as we came within
range, Col. Riley halted us to catch
breath, & made a brief speech saying that
"they
it[struck-through] were probably the last words he
should say to us, but that any man
who did not want to go in, might go
back." Not a man, I believe, refused to go
in," and we dashed up the road through
an opening in the breast-work, and took
a position where rebels, concealed by rifle-
pits, logs, & brush-wood, had a fine cross-
-fire at us from both sides of the road,
agreeably varied by the shell, shot, &
grape from the redoubts & Fort Ma-
gruder. I give a sketch of our position below
[Sketch]
[3]
A – A is the road up which we came ,
B – B, breastwork, a mile & a half long,
C, C, rifle-pits, fifty or sixty in number,
altogether, D, D, strong, ditched redoubts
E, E, Fort Magruder. F, F, positions a-
mong the thickly matted brush and logs,
occupied by Companies, D, I, A, H, & C
and by the 38th N. Y. The rebels were as
thick as bees in this brushwood, on both
sides of the road, and the position of
their dead the next day showed that
they had driven Hooker's Division at
least 300 yards away from the long breast
work, at the time when Kearney came
up.
During the most of the fight, I was in
the neighborhood of the left-hand F,[underscored] & was
sandwiched between two dead men of the 38th,
part of the time. &[struck-through] Another lay behind me,
and within a circuit of ten yards, perhaps
fifty dead bodies could have been gathered,
besides scores of dead artillery horses, while
guns, knapsacks haversacks, canteens, & every
