Kitabı oku: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866», sayfa 3

The sun was down, and the first star began to show faintly above a strip of gray cloud in the west, when a voice, low and tender, called to her, "Come here, my child!" and looking up she saw Grandmother Walker sitting on her horse at the gate. She had in the saddle before her her youngest granddaughter, and on the bare back of the horse, behind her, a little grandson, both their young faces expressive of the sorrow at home. Jenny arose on the instant, betraying in every motion the interest and sympathy she felt, and was just stepping lightly from the porch to the ground, when a strong hand grasped her shoulder and turned her back. It was her father who had overtaken her. "Go into the house!" he said. "If the old woman has got any arrant at all, it's likely it's to your mother and me."

Nor was his heart melted in the least when he learned that his friend and neighbor was no more. He evinced surprise, and made some blunt and coarse inquiries, but that was the amount. "The widder is left purty destitute, I reckon," he said; and then he added, the Lord helped them that helped themselves, and we mustn't fly in the face of Providence. She had her son, strong and able-bodied; and of course he had no thoughts of encumbering himself with a family of his own,—young and poverty-struck as he was.

Mrs. Walker understood the insinuation; but her heart could not hold resentment just then. She must relieve her burdened soul by talking of "poor Johnny," even though it were to deaf ears. She must tell what a good boy he had been,—how kind to her and considerate of her, how manly, how generous, how self-forgetful. And then she must tell how hard he had worked, and how saving he had been in order to give his children a better chance in the world than he had had; and how, if he had lived another year, he would have paid off the mortgage, and been able to hold up his head amongst men.

After all the ploughing and sowing,—after all the preparation for the gathering in of the harvest,—it seemed very hard, she said, that Johnny must be called away, just as the shining ears began to appear. The circumstances of his death, too, seemed to her peculiarly afflictive. "We had all the doctors in the neighborhood," she said, "but none of them understood his case. At first they thought he had small-pox, and doctored him for that; and then they thought it was liver-complaint, and doctored him for that; and then it was bilious fever, and then it was typhus fever; and so it went on, and I really can't believe any of them understood anything about it. Their way seemed to be to do just what he didn't want done. In the first place, he was bled; and then he was blistered; and then he was bled again and blistered again, the fever all the time getting higher and higher; and when he wanted water, they said it would kill him, and gave him hot drinks till it seemed to me they would drive him mad; and sure enough, they did! The last word he ever said, to know what he was saying, was to ask me for a cup of cold water. I only wish I had given it to him; all the doctors in the world wouldn't prevent me now, if I only had him back. The fever seemed to be just devouring him: his tongue was as dry as sand, and his head as hot as fire. 'O mother!' says he, and there was such a look of beseeching in his eyes as I can never forget, 'may be I shall never want you to do anything more for me. Cold water! give me some cold water! If I don't have it, my senses will surely fly out of my head!' 'Yes, Johnny,' says I,—and I went and brought a tin bucketful, right out of the well, and set it on the table in his sight; for I thought it would do him good to see even more than he could drink; and then I brought a cup and dipped it up full. It was all dripping over, and he had raised himself on one elbow, and was leaning toward me, when the young doctor came in, and, stepping between us, took the cup out of my hand. All his strength seemed to go from poor Johnny at that, and he fell back on his pillow and never lifted his head any more. Still he kept begging in a feeble voice for the water. 'Just two or three drops,—just one drop!' he said. I couldn't bear it, and the doctor said I had better go out of the room, and so I did,—and the good Lord forgive me; for when I went back, after half an hour, he was clean crazy. He didn't know me, and he never knowed me any more."

"It's purty hard, Miss Walker," answered Mr. Bowen, "to accuse the doctors with the murder of your son. A purty hard charge, that, I call it! So John's dead! Well, I hope he is better off. Where are you goin' to bury him?"

And then Mrs. Walker said she didn't charge anybody with the murder of poor Johnny,—nobody meant to do him any harm, she knew that; but, after all, she wished she could only have had her own way with him from the first. And so she rode away,—her little bare-legged grandson, behind her, aggravating her distress by telling her that, when he got to be a man, he meant to do nothing all the days of his life but dig wells, and give water to whoever wanted it.

It is not worth while to dwell at length on the humiliations and privations to which Jenny was subjected,—the mention of one or two will indicate the nature of all. In the first place, the white heifer she had always called hers was sold, and the money tied up in a tow bag. Jenny would not want a cow for years to come. The piece of land that had always been known as "Jenny's Corner" was not thus denominated any more, and she was given to understand that it was only to be hers conditionally. There were obstacles put in the way of her going to meeting of a Sunday,—first one thing, then another; and, finally, the bureau was locked, and the best dress and brightest ribbon inside the drawers. The new side-saddle she had been promised was refused to her, unless she in turn would make a promise; and the long day's work was made to drag on into the night, lest she might find time to visit some neighbor, and lest that neighbor might be the Widow Walker. But what device of the enemy ever proved successful when matched against the simple sincerity of true love? It came about, in spite of all restraint and prohibition, that Jenny and Hobert met in their own times and ways; and so a year went by.

One night, late in the summer, when the katydids began to sing, Jenny waited longer than usual under the vine-covered beech that drooped its boughs low to the ground all round her,—now listening for the expected footstep, and now singing, very low, some little song to her heart, such as many a loving and trusting maiden had sung before her. What could keep Hobert? She knew it was not his will that kept him; and though her heart began to be heavy, she harbored therein no thought of reproach. By the movement of the shadow on the grass, she guessed that an hour beyond the one of appointment must have passed, when the far-away footfall set her so lately hushed pulses fluttering with delight. He was coming,—he was coming! And, no matter what had been wrong, all would be right now. She was holding wide the curtaining boughs long before he came near; and when they dropped, and her arms closed, it is not improbable that he was within them. It was the delight of meeting her that kept him still so long, Jenny thought; and she prattled lightly and gayly of this and of that, and, seeing that she won no answer, fell to tenderer tones, and imparted the little vexing secrets of her daily life, and the sweet hopes of her nightly dreams.

They were seated on a grassy knoll, the moonlight creeping tenderly about their feet, and the leaves of the drooping vines touching their heads like hands of pity, or of blessing. The water running over the pebbly bottom of the brook just made the silence sweet, and the evening dews shining on the red globes of the clover made the darkness lovely; but with all these enchantments of sight and sound about him,—nay, more, with the hand of Jenny, his own true-love, Jenny, folded in his,—Hobert was not happy.

"And so you think you love me!" he said at last, speaking so sadly, and clasping the hand he held with so faint a pressure, that Jenny would have been offended if she had not been the dear, trustful little creature she was.

There was, indeed, a slight reproach in her accent as she answered, "Think I love you, Hobert? No, I don't think anything about it,—I know."

"And I know I love you, Jenny," he replied. "I love you so well that I am going to leave you without asking you to marry me!"

For one moment Jenny was silent,—for one moment the world seemed unsteady beneath her,—then she stood up, and, taking the hand of her lover between her palms, gazed into his face with one long, earnest, steadfast gaze. "You have asked me already, Hobert," she said, "a thousand times, and I have consented as often. You may go away, but you will not leave me; for 'Whither thou goest I will go, where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried.'"

He drew her close to his bosom now, and kissed her with most passionate, but still saddest tenderness. "You know not, my darling," he said, "what you would sacrifice." Then he laid before her all her present advantages, all her bright prospects for the future,—her high chamber with its broad eastern windows, to be given up for the low dingy walls of a settler's cabin, her free girlhood for the hard struggles of a settler's wife! Sickness, perhaps,—certainly the lonesome nights and days of a home remote from neighbors, and the dreariness and hardship inseparable from the working out of better fortunes. But all these things, even though they should all come, were light in comparison with losing him!

Perhaps Hobert had desired and expected to hear her say this. At any rate, he did not insist on a reversal of her decision, as, with his arms about her, he proceeded to explain why he had come to her that night with so heavy a heart. The substance of all he related may be recapitulated in a few words. The land could not be paid for, and the homestead must be sold. He would not be selfish and forsake his mother, and his young brothers and sisters in their time of need. By careful management of the little that could be saved, he might buy in the West a better farm than that which was now to be given up; and there to build a cabin and plant a garden would be easy,—O, so easy!—with the smile of Jenny to light him home when the day's work was done.

In fact, the prospective hardships vanished away at the thought of her for his little housekeeper. It was such easy work for fancy to convert the work-days into holidays, and the thick wilderness into the shining village, where the schoolhouse stood open all the week, and the sweet bells called them to church of a Sunday; easy work for that deceitful elf to make the chimney-corner snug and warm, and to embellish it with his mother in her easy-chair. When they parted that night, each young heart was trembling with the sweetest secret it had ever held; and it was perhaps a fortnight thereafter that the same secret took wing, and flew wildly over the neighborhood.

John Walker's little farm was gone for good and all. The few sheep, and the cows, and the pig, and the fowls, together with the greater part of the household furniture, were scattered over the neighborhood; the smoke was gone from the chimney, and the windows were curtainless; and the grave of John, with a modest but decent headstone, and a rose-bush newly planted beside it, was left to the care of strangers. The last visits had been paid, and the last good-byes and good wishes exchanged; and the widow and her younger children were far on their journey,—Hobert remaining for a day or two to dispose of his smart young horse, as it was understood, and then follow on.

At this juncture, Mr. Bowen one morning opened the stair-door, as was his custom, soon after daybreak, and called harshly out, "Jinny! Jinny! its high time you was up!"

Five minutes having elapsed, and the young girl not having yet appeared, the call was repeated more harshly than before. "Come, Jinny, come! or I'll know what's the reason!"

She did not come; and five minutes more having passed, he mounted the stairs with a quick, resolute step, to know what was the reason. He came down faster, if possible, than he went up. "Mother, mother!" he cried, rushing toward Mrs. Bowen, who stood at the table sifting meal, his gray hair streaming wildly back, and his cheek blanched with amazement, "Jinny's run away!—run away, as sure as you're a livin' woman. Her piller hasn't been touched last night, and her chamber's desarted!"

And this was the secret that took wing and flew over the neighborhood.

THE RETREAT FROM LENOIR'S AND THE SIEGE OF KNOXVILLE

Late in October, 1863, the Ninth Army Corps went into camp at Lenoir's Station, twenty-five miles southwest of Knoxville, East Tennessee. Since April, the corps had campaigned in Kentucky, had participated in the siege of Vicksburg, had accompanied Sherman into the interior of Mississippi in his pursuit of Johnston, had returned to Kentucky, and then, in conjunction with the Twenty-third Army Corps, marching over the mountains into East Tennessee, in a brief but brilliant campaign under its old leader and favorite, Burnside, had delivered the loyal people of that region from the miseries of Rebel rule, and had placed them once more under the protection of the old flag. But all this had not been done without loss. Many of our brave comrades, who, through a storm of leaden hail, had crossed the bridge at Antietam, and had faced death in a hundred forms on the heights of Fredericksburg, had fallen on these widely separated battle-fields in the valley of the Mississippi. Many, overborne by fatigue and exposure, had laid down their wasted bodies by the roadside and in hospitals, and had gently breathed their young lives away. Many more, from time to time, had been rendered unfit for active service; and the corps, now a mere skeleton, numbered less than three thousand men present for duty. Never did men need rest more than they; and never was an order more welcome than that which now declared the campaign ended, and authorized the construction of winter quarters.

The Thirty-sixth Massachusetts Volunteers—then in the First Brigade, First Division, Ninth Corps—was under the command of Major Draper,—Lieutenant-Colonel Goodell having been severely wounded at the battle of Blue Springs, October 10. The place selected for the winter quarters of the regiment was a young oak grove, nearly a quarter of a mile east of the village. The camp was laid out with unusual care. In order to secure uniformity throughout the regiment, the size of the log-houses—they were to be ten feet by six—was announced in orders from regimental head-quarters. The work of construction was at once commenced. Unfortunately, we were so far from our base of supplies—Camp Nelson, Kentucky—that nearly all our transportation was required by the Commissary Department for the conveyance of its stores. Consequently, the Quartermaster's Department was poorly supplied; and the only axes which could be obtained were those which our pioneers and company cooks had brought with them for their own use. These, however, were pressed into the service; and their merry ringing, as the men cheerfully engaged in the work, could be heard from early morning till evening. Small oaks, four and five inches in diameter, were chiefly used in building these houses. The logs were laid one above another, to the height of four feet, intersecting at the corners of the houses like the rails of a Virginia fence. The interstices were filled with mud. Shelter-tents, buttoned together to the size required, formed the roof, and afforded ample protection from the weather, except in very heavy rains. Each house had its fireplace, table, and bunk. On the 13th of November the houses were nearly completed; and as we sat by our cheerful fires that evening, and looked forward to the leisure and quiet of the winter before us, we thought ourselves the happiest of soldiers. Writing home at that time, I said that, unless something unforeseen should happen, we expected to remain at Lenoir's during the winter.

That something unforeseen was at hand; and our pleasant dreams were destined to fade away like an unsubstantial pageant, leaving not a rack behind. At four o'clock on the morning of the 14th I was roused from sleep by loud knocks on the new-made door. In the order which followed, "Be ready to march at daybreak," I recognized the familiar, but unwelcome voice of the Sergeant-Major. Throwing aside my blankets, and leaving the Captain dreamily wondering what could be the occasion of so unexpected an order, I hurried to the quarters of the men of Company D, and repeated to the Orderly Sergeant the instructions just received. The camp was soon astir. Lights flashed here and there through the trees. "Pack up! pack up!" passed from lip to lip. "Shall we take everything?" Yes, everything. The shelter-tents were stripped from the houses, knapsacks and trunks were packed. The wagon for the officers' baggage came, was hurriedly loaded, and driven away. A hasty breakfast followed. Then, forming our line, we stacked arms, and awaited further orders.

The mystery was soon solved. Longstreet, having cut loose from Bragg's army, which still remained in the vicinity of Chattanooga, had, by a forced march, struck the Tennessee River at Hough's Ferry, a few miles below Loudon. Already he had thrown a pontoon across the river, and was crossing with his entire command, except the cavalry under Wheeler, which he had sent by way of Marysville, with orders to seize the heights on the south bank of the Holston, opposite Knoxville. The whole movement was the commencement of a series of blunders on the part of the Rebel commanders in this department, which resulted at length in the utter overthrow of the Rebel army of the Tennessee. General Grant saw at once the mistake which the enemy had made, and ordered General Burnside to fall back to Knoxville and intrench, promising reinforcements speedily. Knoxville was Longstreet's objective. It was the key of East Tennessee. Should it again fall into the enemy's hands, we would be obliged to retire to Cumberland Gap. Lenoir's did not lie in Longstreet's path. If we remained there, he would push his columns past our right, and get between us and Knoxville. It was evident that the place must be abandoned; and there was need of haste. The mills and factories in the village were accordingly destroyed, and the wagon-train started north.

The morning had opened heavily with clouds, and, as the day advanced, the rain came down in torrents. A little before noon, our division, then under the command of General Ferrero, moved out of the woods; but, instead of taking the road to Knoxville, as we had anticipated, the column marched down the Loudon road. We were to watch the enemy, and, by holding him in check, secure the safety of our trains and material, then on the way to Knoxville.

A few miles from Lenoir's, while we were halting for rest, General Burnside passed us on his way to the front. Under his slouched hat there was a sterner face than there was wont to be. There is trouble ahead, said the men; but the cheers which rose from regiment after regiment, as with his staff and battle-flag he swept past us, told the confidence which all felt in "Old Burnie."

Chapin's brigade of White's command (Twenty-third Army Corps) was in the advance; and about four o'clock his skirmishers met those of the enemy, and drove them back a mile and a half. We followed through mud and rain. The country became hilly as we advanced, and our artillery was moved with difficulty. At dark we were in front of the enemy's position, having marched nearly fourteen miles. The rain had now ceased. Halting, we formed our lines in thick woods, and stacked our arms,—weary and wet, and not in the happiest of moods.

During the evening a circular was received, notifying us of an intended attack on the enemy's lines at nine o'clock, p. m., by the troops of White's command; but, with the exception of an occasional shot, the night was a quiet one.

The next morning, the usual reveille was omitted; and, at daybreak, noiselessly our lines were formed, and we marched out of the woods into the road. But it was not an advance. During the night General Ferrero had received orders to fall back to Lenoir's. Such, however, was the state of the roads, that it was almost impossible to move our artillery. At one time our whole regiment was detailed to assist Roemer's battery. Near Loudon we passed the Second Division of our corps, which during the night had moved down from Lenoir's, in order to be within supporting distance. But the enemy did not seem disposed to press us. We reached Lenoir's about noon. Sigfried, with the Second Division, followed later in the day. Our brigade (Morrison's) was now drawn up in line of battle on the Kingston road, as it was thought that the enemy, by not pressing our rear, intended a movement from that direction. And such was the fact. The enemy advanced against our position on this road, about four o'clock, and drove in our pickets. The Eighth Michigan was at once deployed as skirmishers. The Thirty-sixth Massachusetts and Forty-fifth Pennsylvania at the same time moved forward to support the skirmishers, and formed their line of battle in the woods, on the left of the road. Just at dusk, the enemy made a dash, and pressed our skirmishers back nearly to our line, but did not seem inclined to advance any further.

A portion of the Ninth Corps, under Colonel Hartranft, and a body of mounted infantry, were now sent towards Knoxville, with orders to seize and hold the junction of the road from Lenoir's with the Knoxville and Kingston road, near the village of Campbell's Station. The distance was only eight miles, but the progress of the column was much retarded. Such was still the condition of the roads that the artillery could be moved only with the greatest difficulty. Colonel Biddle dismounted some of his men, and hitched their horses to the guns. In order to lighten the caissons, some of the ammunition was removed from the boxes and destroyed; but as little as possible, for who could say it would not be needed on the morrow? Throughout the long night, officers and men faltered not in their efforts to help forward the batteries. In the light of subsequent events, it will be seen that they could not have performed any more important service. Colonel Hartranft that night displayed the same spirit and energy which he infused into his gallant Pennsylvanians at Fort Steadman, in the last agonies of the Rebellion, when, rolling back the fiercest assaults of the enemy, he gained the first real success in the trenches at Petersburg, and won for himself the double star of a Major-General.

Meanwhile, Morrison's brigade remained on the Kingston road in front of Lenoir's. The enemy, anticipating an evacuation of the place, made an attack on our lines about ten o'clock, p. m.; but a few shots on our part were sufficient to satisfy him that we still held the ground. Additional pickets, however, were sent out to extend the line held by the Eighth Michigan. The Thirty-sixth Massachusetts and Forty-fifth Pennsylvania still remained in line of battle in the woods. Neither officers nor men slept that night. It was bitter cold, and the usual fires were denied us, lest they should betray our weakness to the enemy. The men were ordered to put their canteens and tin cups in their haversacks, and remain quietly in their places, ready for any movement at a moment's notice. It was a long, tedious, fearful night; what would the morrow bring? It was Sunday night. The day had brought us no rest,—only weariness and anxiety. No one could speak to his fellow; and in the thick darkness, through the long, long night, we lay on our arms, waiting for the morning. Ah, how many hearts there were among us, which, overleaping the boundaries of States, found their way to Pennsylvanian and New England homes,—how many, which, on the morrow, among the hills of East Tennessee, were to pour out their young blood even unto death!

At length the morning came. It was cloudy as the day before. White's division of the Twenty-third Corps was now on the road to Knoxville; and, besides our own brigade, only Humphrey's brigade of our division remained at Lenoir's. About daybreak, as silently as possible, we withdrew from our position on the Kingston road, and, falling back through the village of Lenoir's, moved towards Knoxville, Humphrey's brigade covering the retreat. Everything which we could not take with us was destroyed. Even our baggage and books, which, for the want of transportation, had not been removed, were committed to the flames. The enemy at once discovered our retreat, but did not press us till within a mile or two of the village of Campbell's Station. Humphrey, however, held him in check, and we moved on to the point where the road from Lenoir's unites with the road from Kingston to Knoxville. It was evidently Longstreet's intention to cut off our retreat at this place. For this reason he had not pressed us at Lenoir's, the afternoon previous, but had moved the main body of his army to our right. But the mounted infantry, which had been sent to this point during the night, were able to hold him in check, on the Kingston road, till Hartranft came up.

On reaching the junction of the roads, we advanced into an open field on our left, and at once formed our line of battle in rear of a rail fence, our right resting near the Kingston road. The Eighth Michigan was on our left. The Forty-fifth Pennsylvania was deployed as skirmishers. The rest of our troops were now withdrawing to a new position back of the village of Campbell's Station; and we were left to cover the movement. Unfurling our colors, we awaited the advance of the enemy. There was an occasional shot fired in our front, and to our right; but it was soon evident that the Rebels were moving to our left, in order to gain the cover of the woods. Moving off by the left flank, therefore, we took a second position in an adjoining field. Finding now the enemy moving rapidly through the woods, and threatening our rear, we executed a left half-wheel; and, advancing on the double-quick to the rail fence which ran along the edge of the woods, we opened a heavy fire. From this position the enemy endeavored to force us. His fire was well directed, but the fence afforded us a slight protection. Lieutenant Fairbank and a few of the men were here wounded. For a while, we held the enemy in check, but at length the skirmishers of the Forty-fifth Pennsylvania, who were watching our right, discovered a body of Rebel infantry pushing towards our rear from the Kingston road. Colonel Morrison, our brigade commander, at once ordered the Thirty-sixth Massachusetts and Eighth Michigan to face about, and establish a new line, in rear of the rail fence on the opposite side of the field. We advanced on the double-quick; and, reaching the fence, our men with a shout poured a volley into the Rebel line of battle, which not only checked its advance, but drove it back in confusion. Meanwhile, the enemy in our rear moved up to the edge of the woods, which we had just left, and now opened a brisk fire. We at once crossed the fence in order to place it between us and his fire, and were about to devote our attention again to him, when orders came for us to withdraw,—it being no longer necessary to hold the junction of the roads, for all our troops and wagons had now passed. The enemy, too, was closing in upon us, and his fire was the hottest. We moved off in good order; but our loss in killed and wounded was quite heavy, considering the length of time we were under fire.

Among the killed was Lieutenant P. Marion Holmes of Charlestown, Mass., of whom it might well be said,

 
"He died as fathers wish their sons to die."
 

Lieutenant Holmes had been wounded at the battle of Blue Springs a little more than a month before, and had made the march from Lenoir's that morning with great difficulty. But he would not leave his men. On his breast he wore the badge of the Bunker Hill Club, on which was engraved the familiar line from Horace, which Warren quoted just before the battle of Bunker Hill,—"Dulce et decorum est pro patriâ mori." In the death of Lieutenant Holmes, the Thirty-sixth Massachusetts offered its costliest sacrifice. Frank, courteous, manly, brave, he had won all hearts, and his sudden removal from our companionship at that moment will ever remind us of the great price with which that morning's success was bought.

The enemy now manœuvred to cut us off from the road, and pressed us so hard that we were obliged to oblique to the left. Moving on the double-quick, receiving an occasional volley, and barely escaping capture, we at length emerged from the woods on the outskirts of the little village of Campbell's Station. We were soon under cover of our artillery, which General Potter, under the direction of General Burnside, had placed in position on high ground just beyond the village. This village is situated between two low ranges of hills, which are nearly a mile apart. Across the intervening space, our infantry was drawn up in a single line of battle, Ferrero's division of the Ninth Corps held the right, White's division of the Twenty-third Corps held the centre, and Hartranft's division of the Ninth Corps held the left. Benjamin's, Buckley's, Getting's, and Van Schlein's batteries were on the right of the road. Roemer's battery was on the left. The Thirty-sixth Massachusetts supported Roemer.

The enemy, meanwhile, had disposed his forces for an attack on our position. At noon he came out of the woods, just beyond the village, in two lines of battle, with a line of skirmishers in front. The whole field was open to our view. Benjamin and Roemer opened fire at once; and so accurate was their range, that the Rebel lines were immediately broken, and they fell back into the woods in confusion. The enemy, under cover of the woods on the slope of the ridge, now advanced against our right. Christ's brigade, of our division, at once changed front. Buckley executed the same movement with his battery, and, by a well-directed fire, checked the enemy's progress in that direction. The enemy next manœuvred to turn our left. Falling back, however, to a stronger position in our rear, we established a new line about four o'clock in the afternoon. This was done under a heavy fire from the enemy's batteries. Ferrero was now on the right of the road. Morrison's brigade was placed in rear of a rail fence, at the foot of the ridge on which Benjamin's battery had been planted. The enemy did not seem inclined to attack us in front, but pushed along the ridge, on our left, aiming to strike Hartranft in flank and rear. He was discovered in this attempt; and, just as he was moving over ground recently cleared, Roemer, changing front at the same time with Hartranft, opened his three-inch guns on the Rebel line, and drove it back in disorder, followed by the skirmishers. Longstreet, foiled in all these attempts to force us from our position, now withdrew beyond the range of our guns, and made no further demonstrations that day. Our troops were justly proud of their success; for, with a force not exceeding five thousand men, they had held in check, for an entire day, three times their own number,—the flower of Lee's army. Our loss in the Ninth Corps was twenty-six killed, one hundred and sixty-six wounded, and fifty-seven missing. Of these, the Thirty-sixth Massachusetts lost one officer and three enlisted men killed, three officers and fourteen enlisted men wounded, and three enlisted men missing.