attery smoke, puffing up from the distant
field of blood, and drifting up to the clouds. At these sights and
sounds, the men looked more serious than before and were more silent,
but they marched faster, and straggled less. At about five o'clock P. M.,
as we were riding along at the head of the column, we met an ambulance,
accompanied by two or three mounted officers--we knew them to be staff
officers of Gen. Reynolds--their faces told plainly enough what load the
vehicle carried--it was the dead body of Gen. Reynolds. Very early in the
action, while seeing personally to the formation of his lines under fire,
he was shot through the head by a musket or rifle bullet, and killed
almost instantly. His death at this time affected us much, for he was one
of the _soldier_ Generals of the army, a man whose soul was in his
country's work, which he did with a soldier's high honor and fidelity.

I remember seeing him often at the first battle of Fredericksburg--he
then commanded the First Corps--and while Meade's and Gibbon's Divisions
were assaulting the enemy's works, he was the very beau ideal of the
gallant general. Mounted upon a superb black horse, with his head thrown
back and his great black eyes flashing fire, he was every where upon the
field, seeing all things and giving commands in person. He died as many
a friend, and many a foe to the country have died in this war.

Just as the dusk of evening fell, from Gen. Meade, the Second Corps had
orders to halt, where the head of the column then was, and to go into
position for the night. The Second Division (Gibbon's) was accordingly
put in position, upon the left of the (Taneytown) road, its left near
the South-eastern base of "Round Top"--of which mountain more anon--and
the right near the road; the Third Division was posted upon the right of
the road, abreast of the Second; and the first Division in the rear of
these two--all facing towards Gettysburg.

Arms were stacked, and the men lay down to sleep, alas! many of them
their last but the great final sleep upon the earth.

Late in the afternoon as we came near the field, from some slightly
wounded men we met, and occasional stragglers from the scene of
operations in front, we got many rumors, and much disjointed information
of battle, of lakes of blood, of rout and panic and undescribable
disaster, from all of which the narrators were just fortunate enough to
have barely escaped, the sole survivors. These stragglers ar