A. J. Bennett, private , First Massachusetts Light Battery, The story of the First Massachusetts Light Battery , attached to the Sixth Army Corps : glance at events in the armies of the Potomac and Shenandoah, from the summer of 1861 to the autumn of 1864.

Breakfast had now been sent us from the landing. Later, firing was resumed at intervals. We occasionally saw ambulances coming from the direction of the wood, with their burdens. Sometimes a wounded soldier appeared, supported by two comrades; this practice, we fancy, was not long suffered to obtain. We retained our position till night. This was the first time our guns had been pointed at the enemy, and though he was invisible to us, never having reached our line, the innermost one, our company did all that it was commanded to do. The Federal loss in this affair is said to have been 200.

We encamped May 7, 1862, in a meadow four or five miles northwest of our position, on the day of the engagement, and relatively farther up the Pamunkey. On the following day, officers and men were gladdened by the sight, in camp, of Massachusetts soldiers of other commands, which had now reached this vicinity; for example, some officers and men of the Eighteenth and Twenty-second Volunteers. No doubt much correspondence, detailing the past incidents of their campaign, was indulged in by the privates, and perhaps by the officers. To-day we received notice of the organization of the Sixth Army Corps. We were now about thirty-five miles east of Richmond. Our next movement was to Brick House Landing, upon the Pamunkey.

The boys were in excellent health and spirits; the cheeks of most of them were ruddy and bronzed; their countenances bespoke hope and confidence. Undoubtedly they seemed capable of making more fatiguing marches, and of enduring greater hardships than had yet been required of them. For though a majority of the command were boys in years, we question if there were, as a whole, a hardier body of soldiers in the First Division of the Sixth Army Corps. The hopefulness and the general contentment grew out of a nearly universal confidence in our commander and his lieutenants.

The boys will remember the somewhat exciting sport, incident to pig-hunting and slaying in the reedy, sedgy, muddy marsh, along the Pamunkey, at the rear of Brick House,—unfortunate porkers, victims first of surprise, then of assault, and finally of the frying-pan or the camp-kettle.