. We were not disturbed till daylight, when we
could see that the retreat movement was still in progress.

Finally we took our turn in the march. We had not gone far when one of
the men came to me and said that our flag was back where we had rested
after the fight, and he asked if he had better go back for it. I said to
him, "By all means get the flag!" He did as requested, and that same
bunting waved on a good many hard fought fields afterward. I do not
know, but presume that this flag was finally replaced by another. It
was, even then, much delapidated, and at Antietam it was mercilessly
pierced and torn. The road we finally reached, for Harrison's Landing
soon entered a narrow place between two bluffs. Two or three columns
were using the road and when they came to this sort of gorge it became
almost a jam. I remember hearing a few guns fired at this time, and the
effect on the men was to cause them to crowd faster to the rear. At the
time it came to my mind with painful force, "If the rebels should attack
us with a brave, fresh division, they would stampede us." From what I
have since read, I think each army considered itself whipped and was
glad to get into a place of safety!

At all events, we were not further molested in our march to Harrison's
Landing. We reached the place about noon and went into camp. The James
River, from ten miles below Richmond down to Bermuda Hundred, is about
as tortuous as a river ever runs. At that point it widens out, a
distance of from one to two miles; much of that space is, of course,
shallow water.

The next day the enemy run down a battery or two, on the south side of
the river, and gave us a lively shelling. Our division general,
Richardson, wanted to change the location of some of us, and became very
impatient at the slow movements of the men. He roared out: "_Make haste,
men! make haste! every minute is an hour!_" and the men hustled at a
livelier gait.

Richardson steadily grew in the esteem of his men. The story had got
noised about that while we lay in camp just before Fair Oaks, a loafer
about his headquarters addressed insulting language to a woman who was
employed in doing certain domestic work and who followed up the army.
The general heard the vile talk of the fellow from his tent. He hastily
made his appearance, and, in words expressed his disapproval of such
conduct, and, in acts he kicked the offender a number of times with such
power as to raise him at every kick