ed only
a few paces further when the Major himself fell to the earth a corpse.
Prodigies of valor were here performed on both sides. History will ask
in vain for braver soldiers than those who here fought and fell. But of
the demoniac fury of both parties one at a distance can form no idea.

"Even the wounded, despairing of succor, collecting their last energies
of life, plunged their knives into the bosoms of foemen who lay near
them still breathing.

"The success of Gen. Hill enabled other generals to once more lead their
disorganized troops back to the fight, and the contest was renewed along
the whole line, and kept up until deep into the night; for everything
depended upon our keeping the enemy at bay, counting too, upon their
exhaustion at last, until fresh troops could arrive to reinforce us. At
length, about half past ten in the evening, the divisions of Magruder,
Wise and Holmes, came up and deployed to the front of our army."

As I have suggested, the foregoing quotation is a somewhat florid
account of desperate, prolonged fighting.

The following account of the 61st's fight at Glendale is taken from the
_Portland Daily Press_. It is the narration of a leading actor in the
battle, and was given at the annual meeting of the Maine Commandery of
the Loyal Legion held at Riverton, May 3d, 1899.

"This paper will deal chiefly with my personal experiences as subaltern
and Captain in the Sixty-first N. Y. Volunteers during the first and
last days of June, 1862, in the Peninsular Campaign, Virginia.

"Omitting the narrative of the regiment's participation in the battles
of Fair Oaks, Peach Orchard, Savage Station and White Oak Swamp, we come
to the battle in which the writer received the wound which crippled him
for life.

"As we drew near to the battlefield of Glendale, we came to a place
which tried the courage of us all. I shall never forget that scene. The
road ran through an open field which was dotted here and there with dead
and wounded men. There were all the grim tokens of the rear of a
desperate battle, straggling men, cannon without horses and with broken
carriages, battle smoke in the air, and the sound of a gun which was out
of sight in front accompanied by the howl of grape shot. We halted here
a few moments to give the stragglers time to come up, and to give all a
chance to breathe after our exhausting march. Besides the men that were
lying around us wounded, others were coming out of the woods i