Isaac O. Best, History of the 121st New York State Infantry

[68] with white canvas knapsacks, which I remember distinctly, were strengthened by the picket reserve having deployed, and moved forward to them, and they immediately moved forward more boldly and pressed back the Rebels who were then sheltered by the woods. In our front the skirmish fire became steady and well sustained, and the tone of the Rebel bullets indicated that they were not a great way off. In a few moments the Jerseymen disappeared in the woods, and we moved up to the rail fence running along the woods. This we quickly, by orders, took down and laid flat. Glancing back I saw a regiment coming up in line of battle, the officer riding at its right being the Colonel of the 96th Penn. I judged it was that regiment. To the right I could see very little. Behind us there were no troops coming up, but General Bartlett and staff were a little way off. Captain Wilson, who was General Bartlett's A. A. General, and who for some reason had been nicknamed “The Spook,” rode up to the right of our regiment on a gallop, which was his usual custom, and almost instantly we moved into the wood, which seemed to be mostly second growth and thickly grown up with underbrush of the oak variety. I can remember now a strange sort of quiet in the ranks. I had no idea, nor do I think any one near me had any premonition of any impending calamity. I was the extreme left man in the ranks of the regiment. Joe Rounds, I think, was the sergeant on the left of the company. We moved at an ordinary step forward into the woods perhaps seventy yards, with no sound except a growl from Eli Casler because some one had held a bush as he passed and let it fly back into his face.

The firing seemed to be coming to us, and reaching the distance I have named we came nearly