Chapter 5: life at camp Benton.
On returning to the camp at Poolesville, on October 24 the second day after the battle of Ball's Bluff, it was found that the wound of Gen. Lander and the capture of Col. Lee left Col. Hinks in command of the First Brigade. The Nineteenth Regiment was sent no more on picket duty at the river and the real drill and discipline, under Lieut. Col. Devereux, who was left in command, was again begun. The hard work resulted in rapid improvement in the regiment, as is evidenced by the following letter:At this time there were six Harvard men in the regiment,— Maj. Henry Jackson Howe, '59; Asst. Surg. Josiah Newell Willard, '57; Capt. George Wellington Batchelder, '59; Sergt. Maj. Edgar Marshall Newcomb,‘60; First Lieut. John Hodges,. Jr., ‘61 and Charles Brooks Brown, '56. It was not an infrequent
