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.

It was perhaps three o'clock on the afternoon of June 30, 1862, when, moving through the woods a short distance in the rear of the cross roads, we found upon our left a little acre of partially cleared land, falling off from the road to the wood; and here the forge and battery wagon and spare horses were left, while the guns and caissons moved to the front. Here, a part of the time under a cross-fire, these teams remained until night. Occasionally a wounded man was brought into this nook, and occasionally a horse with his leg broken and dangling would hobble into their midst, and, strange to say, commence to crop the herbage.

Our company had scarcely emerged from the woods before an attack was made upon the centre of the Federal line. It is the Pennsylvania Reserves that are engaged yonder. Off the road, across the field, as it was bidden, our command moved in battery and came into position and action at this juncture, as part of the artillery contingent of the centre. The battle now raged with fury. Evidently the most desperate attempt is being made by the enemy to turn McCall's left, and at the same time there are furious assaults upon the Union batteries in the centre, and on the right. Our guns are having a baptism of fire; we seem to be exposed to the steady fire of artillery in our front, whose shots fly now by, now over, the heads of our gunners; there is a rattling hail of shot between us and the opposing battery. Now is work in earnest; officers and men seem instinctively to feel that their company is an element of the forlorn hope that has been extended to the centre of the Federal line, and seem to be animated with the spirit of devotion to duty. Calmly and quickly passed the orders from chiefs of sections to sergeants, and from sergeants to gunners.

There falls a cannoneer in the sixth detachment; the wheel of the piece, in recoiling, several times jostles roughly his dead body lying prone behind it. It was stalwart Dan Cheney. It is said, ‘Tom Daly is hit.’ Now nearer the guns are moved, and if possible more rapidly discharged. So, incessantly through the afternoon was the command engaged; now moving forward as