The forces taken into action on each side were of nearly equal numbers. The losses of both armies were large, particularly in officers.

CASUALTIES IN REGIMENTS RAISED IN WHOLE OR IN PART IN NORTHERN

Major John E. Kelley, Ninety-sixth New York, was killed two days before the battle while in charge of the picket line.

The Ninety-second, the Ninety-sixth and the Ninetyeighth New York regiments were in Casey's division, and suffered their proportion of the thirty per cent. of the casualties sustained by the brigades of which they were a part. This record shows where they stood in a battle which was sadly misrepresented in the early reports; but later ones gave them the credit to which they were worthily entitled. The Sixteenth was on the north side of the Chickahominy and unable to take part in the battle, but was deeply interested, as we knew that many of our Northern New York boys were receiving their baptism of fire, and a most severe

one.

General Slocum ordered a reconnaissance to be made on June 1st, and it fell to Company B of the Sixteenth to lead; Company D was ordered to the bank of the river to protect the members of Company B, but was not ordered to cross. The planks and stringers had been removed from the bridge; one of the planks, eighteen inches wide and thirty-two feet long, was found and placed on the northern bank, and

Captain Tapley, with Mathew Nesbit, John F. Parker, and Frank Parody waded the stream, and held the western end on their shoulders, the plank being too short by three or four feet to reach the other side. Over this narrow plank Alexander Noble, followed by other members of the company, gained the south side. The crossing, under the circumstances, was a daring act.

June 2nd was one of the days always welcomed by every soldier, pay day. After receiving his pay, settling with the sutler, and balancing his accounts with his associates, the little that is left causes him to rise to a higher position of self importance and really enhances the value of his services. as a unit in the army. Prompt and regular pay to a soldier should be regarded as next in importance to regular rations and ready ammunition. On this day, General McClellan issued his order complimenting the army on their past services, expressing his confidence in their future efforts and the hope that "they would meet and crush the enemy in the very centre of the rebellion." On June 12th and 13th, McCall's division joined the army and was attached to the Fifth Corps.

The following extract is from a letter from Lieutenant A. M. Barney to his sister:

...

"CAMP SIXTEENTH NEW YORK, NEAR NEW BRIDGE, "VIRGINIA, June 13, 1862. "I send you a photograph of Major Joel J. Seaver, of the Sixteenth, he is a splendid fellow and all like him socially. . . . Put the photograph in my album, I shall try to send you more, especially of our colonel. He has just presented to each member of the regiment a nice straw hat, with a ribbon round it, on which is printed the number of the regiment in gilt letters and figures. The officers' hats are bound with black, the others have no binding. He has given to the regiment rubber and woolen blankets,

leggings, hats, flags, and new instruments for the regimental band, all costing about five thousand dollars. His wife is here with the Sanitary Commission and takes care of the sick and wounded of the Sixteenth, and sends oranges, lemons, wines, and other useful articles in large quantities to the sick. The colonel has given one thousand dollars to the Sanitary Commission. You can judge of the good qualities of the man and his amiable wife. Every man loves them with lasting devotion. They are about twenty-five years of age. We are in our old camp, five miles from Richmond. Captain Osborn's battery is encamped six miles from us. It is a good one and did splendid work at Williamsburg. Lieutenant George B. Winslow called on us yesterday."

There are many references to Osborn's Battery D, First New York Light Artillery in the letters, written by members of Companies D and G of the Sixteenth, which have been placed at my disposal. The interest felt by the members of those three companies in each other's welfare, and the success of the organizations to which they severally belonged, were due to the fact that most of the officers and many members of these companies had been fellow students in the Gouverneur Wesleyan Seminary, before the opening of the war, and the friendships there formed were strong and of an enduring character. The "splendid work at Williamsburg," referred to by Lieutenant Barney, is worth recalling here, for it recounts an act of sturdy valor which was without parallel in our campaign, and which has been surpassed in no other.

I quote from General Joseph Hooker's report1 of the operations of his division, the Second of the Third Army Corps, in the battle of Williamsburg, Virginia, May 5, 1862:

I W. R. Vol. XI. Pt. 1. page 464.

"Under my chief of artillery, Webber's battery (H, First United States Artillery) was thrown forward in advance of the felled timber, and brought into action in a cleared field on the right of the road and distant from Fort Magruder about seven hundred yards. No sooner had it emerged from the forest on its way to its position, than four guns from Fort Magruder opened on it, and after it was still farther up the road it received the fire from two additional guns from a redoubt on the left. However, it was pushed on, and before it was brought into action two officers and two privates had been shot down, and before a single piece of the battery had been discharged its cannoneers had been driven from it, despite the skill and activity of my sharpshooters in picking off the rebel gunners. Volunteers were now called for by my gallant chief of artillery, Major Wainwright, to man the battery now in position, when the officers and men of Osborn's battery sprang forward and, in the time I am writing, had those pieces well at work."

Battery D, First New York Light Artillery, was recruited in western St. Lawrence and in Jefferson counties, and received its baptism of fire under the circumstances recorded by General Hooker. That the officers and men of the battery should have responded so promptly to a call for volunteers to serve the guns of a regular battery, which had been abandoned by its own gunners, is merely one proof of their steadiness and devotion to duty, raised to the highest plane of heroic action.

Slocum's division, on June 18th, crossed Woodbury's Bridge to the south side of the Chickahominy, and the Sixteenth encamped on Garnett's farm, between the river and Fair Oaks Station, so close to the enemy's camps that their roll calls could be heard by our members. While here, the regiment furnished daily details to build roads and fortifications; twice it was called out for battle, but the alarms passed and no orders came for an advance.

CHAPTER XI

F

THE BATTLE OF GAINES'S MILL

ROM June 18th, the Second, the Third, the Fourth and the Sixth Corps were stationed on the south side of the Chickahominy. The Fifth Corps, with the greater part of the cavalry and the siege guns placed in important positions, held the line from Meadow Bridge to the Pamunkey. The Secretary of War's order of the 18th of May was still in force, "to extend your right wing to the north of Richmond." The expectation that General McDowell, with his army of forty thousand men, would join McClellan was, by reason of delay, changed to doubt until the receipt of the Secretary's dispatch of June 26th:

"Arrangements are being made as rapidly as possible to send you five thousand men as fast as they can be brought from Manassas to Alexandria and embarked, which can be done sooner than to wait for transportation at Fredericksburg. They will be followed by more, if needed. McDowell, Banks, and Fremont's forces will be consolidated as the Army of Virginia, and will operate promptly in your aid by land."

This dispatch ended all expectation as to the arrival of McDowell's forces. The change in the plans of the Secretary of War was possibly brought about by the operations of the Confederates, as disclosed by the following extract from Dabney's Life of General Thomas J. Jackson, C. S. A.1: "As soon as the news of Jackson's victory [at Port Republic]

I Vol. II., page 168.