This text is part of:
[76]
Surgeon Doherty of Sedgwick's Division, and, later, on the field, were thanked by General McClellan.
At noon the regiment was moved to the front, immediately behind the pickets, on the site of the camp from which the rebels had been driven on Sunday.
Before night it began to rain and there the regiment lay in line of battle all night, the water covering most of the ground, with muskets loaded and capped, ready for the enemy should they come out of the woods.
There were numerous shots fired by the pickets during the night and this kept everyone under an intense nervous strain.
At three o'clock in the morning the regiment was called to attention and remained standing until daylight, when arms were stacked and they were allowed to move around a little and prepare breakfast of coffee, hardtack and raw pork.
In front was an open space, in the further edge of which, about 2000 feet away, was the picket line.
In front of the pickets were dense woods filled with an undergrowth which made it impossible to see 50 feet in advance.
At the left was the York railroad which ran through the forest.
Up this road the men could see a mile or more.
About half a mile away, a breastwork of logs and bushes was built across it, and behind this were the rebel pickets.
While stationed at this point, the rebel pickets and skirmishers would advance every few hours and the whole Union line would fall in, expecting to see a line of battle come out of the woods.
Here the shelter tents were brought up and the men made themselves as comfortable as possible.
All about the position were the shallow graves of those who had been killed in battle.
The air was heavy with noisome odors from the hundreds of decomposing bodies half-buried in the immediate vicinity, and it was little wonder that sickness and deaths increased to an alarming extent.
As a result of the night surprise of Casey's men by the enemy, none of the men were allowed to take off their equipments even while they slept.
Their muskets were always by their side while sleeping and stacked in front of the tent during the day. At three o'clock every morning the regiment was
Salem Press. Co., Salem, Ma., 1906.
Tufts University. provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.