[37]
reported to Major-General John E. Wool, New York city, commanding the Department of the East, which comprised all the New England states with New York and New Jersey.
I reported on January 1, 1863.
To my surprise and gratification I received immediately an appointment as personal aide-de-camp upon the; staff of Major General Wool, and remained there until the expiration of the service of the Tenth Maine Volunteers, when I was mustered out and came home in June, 1863.
Although offered many positions in the service between June, 1863, and January, 1864, I felt that I had ‘had enough of it,’ and remained at home.
But the old spirit was upon me, and I again enlisted as a private soldier in the Twenty-eighth Massachusetts Volunteers in the early spring of 1864, and was commissioned first lieutenant March 18, 1864.
We started for the front about March 23, 1864, and found the Twenty-eighth Massachusetts at Stevensburg Plains, Va. Here I was mustered into the United States service and assigned to Company B, Captain Charles H. Smith, of Worcester.
For some extra service while out on picket line seven miles to the front, I was highly complimented by General Thomas A. Smythe of the Second Brigade, First Division, (General F. C. Barlow) Second Corps (Major-General W. S. Hancock), and I was ordered to go back to camp and report to General Smythe in person, which I did, and received an appointment upon the brigade staff.
This was only ten or fifteen days after reaching the army.
On May 3, 1864, we started to cross the Rappahannock river, and then commenced the campaign of that year.
We were constantly engaged in and about ‘the Wilderness’ May 3, 4, 5, and 6.
On May 4, I was struck in the head by a bullet which tore the scalp, and rendered me unconscious.
I was taken to the rear to the field hospital, where the surgeon shaved my head and took six stitches in the wound.
After dark I could not feel contented and sneaked out of the hospital tent, walked three miles, and reported for duty at brigade-headquarters with my head in bandages.
We continued our famous left flank movements, and had engagements
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