house door. On the way from
the field to the hospital he wandered in mind at times, crying out,
"Captain Weaver how is that line? Has the attack succeeded?" etc. When
he had been resuscitated for a pause he said: "Doctor, I am done for."
His last words were: "Straighten the line!" And he died peacefully. He
was a cousin of Major Winthrop, the author of "Cecil Dreeme." He was
twenty-seven years of age. I had talked with him before going into
action, as he sat at the side of General Ayres, and was permitted by the
guard of honor to uncover his face and look upon it. He was pale and
beautiful, marble rather than corpse, and the uniform cut away from his
bosom showed how white and fresh was the body, so pulseless now.

General Griffin said to me: "This victory is not worth Winthrop's life."

Winthrop went into the service as a simple color-bearer. He died a
brevet brigadier.

At seven o'clock the Rebels came to the conclusion that they were
outflanked and whipped. They had been so busily engaged that they were a
long time finding out how desperate were their circumstances; but now,
wearied with persistent assaults in front, they fell back to the left,
only to see four close lines of battle waiting to drive them across the
field, decimated. At the right the horsemen charged them in their vain
attempt to fight "out," and in the rear straggling foot and cavalry
began also to assemble; slant fire, cross fire, and direct fire, by file
and volley rolled in perpetually, cutting down their bravest officers
and strewing the fields with bleeding men; groans resounded in the
intervals of exploding powder, and to add to their terror and despair,
their own artillery, captured from them, threw into their own ranks,
from its old position, ungrateful grape and canister, enfilading their
breastworks, whizzing and plunging by air line and ricochet, and at last
bodies of cavalry fairly mounted their intrenchments, and charged down
the parapet, slashing and trampling them, and producing inexplicable
confusion. They had no commanders, at least no orders, and looked in
vain for some guiding hand to lead them out of a toil into which they
had fallen so bravely and so blindly. A few more volleys, a new and
irresistible charge, a shrill and warning command to die or surrender,
and, with a sullen and tearful impulse, five thousand muskets are flung
upon the ground, and five thousand hot, exhausted, and impotent men are
Sheridan's prisoners of war.