ll stomach and in more ways than one with a
"better stomach for a fight."

I regret that it is impossible to give a complete list of casualties in
the brigade. In the appendix to this volume may be found a roll of honor
of all those who were either killed or died of wounds received in
battle.

[Illustration: MELVIN BREWER]

Of the officers, Lieutenant Colonel Melvin Brewer was mortally wounded.
The bullet which killed him coming from the stone house in which the
confederates had taken refuge. Colonel Brewer went out in the First, of
which regiment he had risen to be a major. With that rank he was
assigned to command the Seventh and only in the previous June had been
promoted to lieutenant colonel. He was an officer modest as he was
brave; cool and reliable on all occasions. Lieutenant Albert T. Jackson,
of the First, killed early in the action, was a young officer of much
promise. Captain William O. North of the Fifth, who lost his life in the
melee near Winchester, was also a most excellent officer. Captain A.S.
Matthews, of the First was wounded. The casualties on the whole were not
so numerous as in some other less historic engagements, most of them
befalling in the attacks on infantry, early and late in the day.
Breckinridge's infantry seems to have fired low when resisting the
mounted cavalry, for the havoc among horses was very great. I find by my
official report made to the adjutant general at the time, that seven
officers in the Sixth alone had their horses shot, and there is no
reason to suppose that this record exceeded that of the other regiments.

For the next three days, the brigade was in front of infantry at
Fisher's Hill, so close to their lines as to draw their fire and keep
them in their intrenchments.

On the 22nd, Torbert was sent to Milford in the Luray Valley, taking
Wilson's and Merritt's divisions. His orders were to break through one
of the passes in the Massanutten mountains and come out in rear of
Early's army when Crook's flanking movement on the other side would have
driven the confederates out of the strong position at Fisher's Hill.
Crook's attack was completely successful and Early was soon "whirling up
the valley" again. Torbert made a fiasco of it. He allowed Wickham, who
succeeded Fitzhugh Lee after the latter was wounded, with, at most, two
small brigades, to hold him at bay and withdrew without making any fight
to speak of. I remember very well how the Michigan brigade lay in a