,
and left me to reach home, nearly dead, after about twenty-four days, by
the way of Libby prison.

"The Sixty-first New York left about one-third of their number dead or
wounded on that field, including six out of its nine officers, of whom
three lost one leg each, and one of them died in Libby prison. Only a
month of fighting and its numbers were reduced from 432 to about 150.

"Dropping now the personal narrative, let us in the briefest sketch,
follow that plucky little regiment under its peerless commanders.

"See them the very next day at Malvern Hill, again enduring the pounding
of artillery until nearly night, and again in open field engaging the
enemy under cover of the woods until they had fired 90 rounds per man
and were all ready to charge with bayonets if required.

"See them at Antietam, with the ranks replenished from the hospital and
recruiting offices, under the cool and skilful leading of their colonel,
getting advantage of a whole rebel brigade where there was a deep cut in
the road, and, after slaughtering many of them, actually capturing about
three hundred prisoners, more than they themselves numbered. There they
lost their intrepid colonel, Barlow, by a desperate wound and subsequent
promotion.

"But he was succeeded by a soldier equally brave and gallant, Lieut.
Colonel Nelson A. Miles, who in the battle of Fredericksburg led them to
the useless slaughter at the foot of Marye's Heights, until a bloody
wound in his neck spared the regiment a desperate attempt to get a
little nearer than other regiments to the invincible lines of the enemy.

"See them at Chancellorsville, with Miles again leading in a brilliant
fight on the skirmish line.

"See the devoted little company in the Wheat Field at Gettysburg, hardly
a company all told now--only 93--baring their breasts to the storm of
Confederate bullets and leaving 62 of their number, two-thirds, among
the killed and wounded.

"Nearly a year later, after 600 recruits had made it nearly a new
regiment, see it keeping up its old reputation for hard fighting in the
Wilderness campaign, losing 36 at Corbin's Bridge and 13 at Po River,
and then at the famous Bloody Angle at Spottsylvania, having a place of
honor and peril in one of the two leading brigades which scaled the
rebel works and took between three and four thousand prisoners. Then see
them at Cold Harbor sacrificing 22 of their number in a bloody repulse
in that useless slaughter.

"In