ey the order. General Kimball saw
the whole thing, and again called me to him and, with an oath, commanded
me to repeat the order to him at the muzzle of my revolver, and shoot
him if he did not immediately obey. Said General Kimball: "Get those
cowards out of there or shoot them." My task was a most disagreeable
one, but I must deliver my orders, and did so, but was saved the duty of
shooting by the other officers of the regiment bravely rallying their
men and pushing them forward to the firing-line, where they did good
work. What became of that skulking colonel, I do not know.

The air was now thick with smoke from the muskets, which not only
obscured our vision of the enemy, but made breathing difficult and most
uncomfortable. The day was excessively hot, and no air stirring, we were
forced to breathe this powder smoke, impregnated with saltpetre, which
burned the coating of nose, throat, and eyes almost like fire.

Captain Abbott, commanding Company G, from Mauch Chunk, a brave and
splendid officer, was early carried to the rear, a ball having nearly
carried away his under jaw. He afterwards told me that his first
sensation of this awful wound was his mouth full of blood, teeth, and
splintered bones, which he spat out on the ground, and then found that
unless he got immediate help he would bleed to death in a few minutes.
Fortunately he found Assistant Surgeon Hoover, who had been assigned to
us just from his college graduation, who, under the shelter of a
hay-stack, with no anaesthetic, performed an operation which Dr. Gross,
of Philadelphia, afterwards said had been but once before successfully
performed in the history of surgery, and saved his life. Lieutenant
Anson C. Cranmer, Company C, was killed, and the ground was soon strewn
with the dead and wounded. Soon our men began to call for more
ammunition, and we officers were kept busy taking from the dead and
wounded and distributing to the living. Each man had eighty rounds when
we began the fight. One man near me rose a moment, when a missile struck
his gun about midway, and actually capsized him. He pulled himself
together, and, finding he was only a little bruised, picked up another
gun, with which the ground was now strewn, and went at it again.

Directly, a lull in the enemy's firing occurred, and we had an
opportunity to look over the hill a little more carefully at their
lines. Their first line in the sunken road seemed to be all dead or
wounded, and se