o'clock on the morning of the Third, I was awakened by Gen.
Gibbon's pulling me by the foot and saying: "Come, don't you hear that?"
I sprang up to my feet. Where was I? A moment and my dead senses and
memory were alive again, and the sound of brisk firing of musketry to
the front and right of the Second Corps, and over at the extreme right
of our line, where we heard it last in the night, brought all back to
my memory. We surely were on the field of battle, and there were
palpable evidences to my reason that to-day was to be another of blood.
Oh! for a moment the thought of it was sickening to every sense and
feeling! But the motion of my horse as I galloped over the crest a few
minutes later, and the serene splendor of the morning now breaking
through rifted clouds and spreading over the landscape, soon reassured
me. Come day of battle! Up Rebel hosts, and thunder with your arms! We
are all ready to do and to die for the Republic!

I found a sharp skirmish going on in front of the right of the Second
Corps, between our outposts and those of the enemy, but save this--and
none of the enemy but his outposts were in sight--all was quiet in that
part of the field. On the extreme right of the line the sound of
musketry was quite heavy; and this I learned was brought on by the
attack of the Second Division, Twelfth Corps, Gen. Geary, upon the enemy
in order to drive him out of our works which he had sneaked into
yesterday, as I have mentioned. The attack was made at the earliest
moment in the morning when it was light enough to discern objects to
fire at. The enemy could not use the works, but was confronting Geary in
woods, and had the cover of many rocks and trees, so the fight was an
irregular one, now breaking out and swelling to a vigorous fight, now
subsiding to a few scattering shots; and so it continued by turns until
the morning was well advanced, when the enemy was finally wholly
repulsed and driven from the pits, and the right of our line was again
re-established in the place it first occupied. The heaviest losses the
Twelfth Corps sustained in all the battle, occurred during this attack,
and they were here quite severe. I heard Gen. Meade express
dissatisfaction at Gen. Geary for making this attack, as a thing not
ordered and not necessary, as the works of ours were of no intrinsic
importance, and had not been captured from us by a fight, and Geary's
position was just as good as they, where he was during the nigh