and Sykes, and the reserve artillery, under command
of General Porter; and the Sixth provisional corps, consisting of
Franklin's division of the First and Smith's of the Fourth corps.
General W. B. Franklin was assigned to the command of the corps.

Franklin's division, now the First division, Sixth corps, under command
of H. W. Slocum, had been ordered away from the First corps, to join the
army of the Potomac, while we were at Yorktown; and its recent
exhibition of gallantry at West Point, had already established for it a
reputation for valor. The regiments composing this division were, the
First, Second, Third and Fourth New Jersey; regiments trained to the
service by the knightly soldier and ardent patriot, Philip S. Kearney,
now under command of Colonel Taylor, and afterwards so long and so ably
led by General Torbert; the Sixteenth and Twenty-seventh New York, Fifth
Maine and Ninety-Sixth Pennsylvania; General Slocum's own brigade, now
commanded by Colonel Bartlett; and Newton's brigade: the Eighteenth,
Thirty-first and Thirty-second New York, and Ninety-fifth Pennsylvania.

The history of the Second division, General Smith's, we have already
traced. The bravery and extraordinary endurance of each of its brigades
had been exhibited too often to be questioned.

With such splendid materials for a corps, a brilliant history of great
achievements was to be anticipated, and nobly has it wrought out for
itself such a history.

No other body of troops has ever made for itself so proud a record. No
corps, either in our own army or any other, ever met the enemy so
frequently in general battle, and never were more glorious deeds
accomplished by troops than were done by these. Never in the course of
all their campaigns were either of these two divisions put to rout, and
in almost all its encounters the corps held the field as victors.

We were now encamped on the old Custis place; at present owned by
General Fitzhugh Lee, of the rebel cavalry service. On every side of us
were immense fields of wheat, which, but for the presence of armies,
promised an abundant harvest. Day after day passed, in quiet repose, and
the Sabbath found us still waiting on the banks of the Pamunkey. It was
marvelous that such silence could exist where a hundred thousand men
were crowded together, yet almost absolute stillness reigned throughout
the vast camp during the whole of this pleasant Sabbath. Save that here
and there the notes of Old Hun