orable
opportunity of attacking. Anticipating the attack, my servant
(Andy Jackson), in his eager solicitude for my safety, kept by
horse near the tent, saddled, so I might, when it came, be assisted
on him, and escape. Gordon's men advanced far enough for their
bullets to pass through the hospital tents, but the hospital was
not taken.

General Shaler's brigade of the First Division, Sixth Corps, having
been placed on the extreme right of the Sixth, was the first to
give way; then, the enemy being well on the rear of the Second
Brigade as well as on its flank, and it being at the same time
attacked from the front, it also gave way in some confusion, but,
under its brave officers, Colonels Ball, Horn, and McClennan,
Lieutenant-Colonels Granger, Ebright, Binkley, and others, it was
soon assembled in good line in front of Gordon's advancing column,
where it did much to arrest it. Generals Seymour and Shaler being
separated from their brigades, while searching for them were both
captured.(10)

But somebody needed, and sought, a "_scapegoat_." There were only
three regiments in the Second Brigade--6th Maryland, 110th and 122d
Ohio, which had served under Milroy in the Shenandoah Valley in
1863. Somebody reported to the press, and probably to Grant, that
on the evening of the 6th of May troops that had fought there under
Milroy were on the extreme right of the army, and were the first
to give way. This was necessarily false, as these troops were not
then on the extreme right at all, and did not retire until the
force to their right had been broken and routed. General Grant to
Halleck, in an excusatory and exculpatory letter (May 7th), as to
the disaster on his right, said: "Milroy's old brigade was attacked
and gave way in great confusion, almost without resistance, carrying
good troops with them."(10) This statement may have been made to
tickle Halleck's ear, as he was known to hate Milroy and his friends,
but it was, nevertheless, untrue and grossly unjust. Of the three
regiments from the Shenandoah Valley, 494 (one third their number)
fell dead or wounded on that field, through inefficiency and blunders
of high officers who were never near enough to it to hear the fatal
thud or passing whiz of a rifle ball. Many others of these regiments
had fallen (nearby) on the heights of Orange Grove, the November
before. Grant, long after, acknowledged the injustice of his
statement.

After I had been wounded, thoug