nced against that
corps from the front. The confusion became every moment greater.
Daylight was just merging from night, the thick mists hung like an
impenetrable veil over the field, and the men of the Nineteenth corps
were unable to tell whence came all this storm of missiles; but,
trailing their guns in the direction from which the shells seemed to
come, the gunners worked their pieces at random. A general stampede was
commenced. The men of the Eighth corps were mostly fugitives; and those
who strove to keep in line were forced back. Both the fugitives and the
disordered line of battle, were rushing through the camps of the
Nineteenth corps. The officers of that corps were, with shouts and wild
gesticulations, striving to collect their disordered commands, but with
little success. Riderless horses were galloping here and there, cows,
with which the army was well supplied, were bellowing, mules were
braying, bullets whistling and shells howling. The Eighth corps having
left the way clear, the rebels came down upon the Nineteenth, which gave
way and was doubled upon the Sixth corps, but although thrown into
confusion it was not in the panic with which the Eighth corps yielded
the ground.

It was at this critical moment that the warning was given to the Sixth
corps. General Wright being in command of the army, the corps was in
charge of General Ricketts. He at once faced the corps to the rear, and
moved it over the plain in face of the advancing hosts of the enemy.
General Ricketts was wounded very early in the engagement of the corps,
and the command fell upon General Getty.

The Second division held the left of the new line, the First the center,
and the Third the right. Bidwell's brigade was the left brigade of the
Second division, the Vermonters held the center, and Warner's First
brigade the right. The Second division was posted in the edge of an open
oak grove. General Grant, of the Vermont brigade, was in charge.

We now awaited the onset of the victorious columns, which were driving
the shattered and disorganized fragments of the Eighth and Nineteenth
corps, beaten and discouraged, wildly through our well formed ranks to
the rear.

The hope of the nation now rested with those heroes of many bloody
fields. Now that peerless band of veterans, the wearers of the Greek
cross, whose fame was already among the choicest treasures of American
history, was to show to the country and the world, an exhibition of
valor