hough there was practically no picket firing. Later on
the two lines were posted in full view of each other, and by agreement
under a "flag of truce" all picket firing was strictly forbidden.
Thereafter, although forbidden, there was more or less conversation
carried on between the two lines.

CHAPTER XII

LOST COLORS RECOVERED

In addition to our heavy loss of men at Fredericksburg was the loss of
our colors, the stand whose staff had been shot away in my hand as
described in a former chapter.

It can be well understood that we felt very keenly the loss of our flag,
although we knew that it had been most honorably lost. It was known to
have been brought off the field in the night by Corporal William I. D.
Parks, Company H, one of the color-guard, who was mortally wounded, and
left by him in a church used as a temporary hospital. Corporal Parks was
removed to a hospital at Washington, where he died shortly afterwards,
and the colors mysteriously disappeared. The act of this color-bearer in
crawling off the field with his colors, wounded as he was to the death,
was a deed of heroism that has few parallels. We made every effort to
find the flag, but without success, and had concluded that it must have
been left in Fredericksburg, and so fallen into the hands of the enemy,
when a couple of weeks after the battle, on returning from a ride down
to Falmouth, I noticed a regiment of our troops having dress parade. I
rode near them, and my attention was at once attracted to the fact that
they paraded three stands of colors, a most unusual circumstance. My
suspicion was at once aroused that here were our lost colors. Riding
closer, my joy was great on recognizing our number and letters on their
bullet-and shell-tattered folds, "132 P. V." Anger immediately succeeded
my joy as I saw that our precious colors were being paraded as a sort of
trophy. This flag, under whose folds so many of our brave men had
fallen, and which had been so heroically rescued from the field,
exhibited to the army and the world as a trophy of the battle by another
regiment! It was, in effect, a public proclamation of our cowardice and
dishonor and of their prowess in possessing what we had failed to hold
and guard, our sacred colors. It stung me to the quick. I do not
remember ever to have been more beside myself with anger. It was with
difficulty that I contained myself until their ceremony was over, when I
rode up to the colonel, in the pres