United States or Bahrain ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Remounting my own fiery courser, I bade the Colonel a temporary farewell, and proceeded in the direction of Meade's and Reynold's brigades. The drum and fife were now beating reveillé, and volunteers in various stages of undress were limping to roll-call. Some wore one shoe, and others appeared shivering in their linen.
The Fifth Division contained four brigades: the First, commanded by Colonel McDowell, of the Sixth Iowa, was made of the Sixth Iowa, Forty-sixth Ohio, and the Fortieth Illinois; the Second, commanded by Colonel Stuart, of the Fifty-fifth Illinois, was made of the Fifty-fifth Illinois and the Fifty-fourth and Seventy-first Ohio; the Third, commanded by Colonel Hildebrand, of the Seventy-seventh Ohio, contained the Fifty-third, Fifty-seventh, and Seventy-seventh Ohio; the Fourth, commanded by Colonel Buckland, of the Seventy-second Ohio, contained the Forty-eighth, Seventieth, and Seventy-second Ohio.
The brigades of British and Indian troops that had been sent forward to make a frontal attack on the Turkish position now embarked on the miscellaneous flotilla of boats on the river to pursue the retreating foe.
In this situation of affairs a very singular occurrence presented, viz., that neither Lieutenant-colonel Littlefield, nor any other of his grade, in the two entire brigades of Massachusetts troops composing the garrison of West Point, from which the lines were to be relieved, was competent, in the general's estimation, to give security to the army above and the lines of those below; and, in consequence, he was compelled to call Colonel Burr from his station at Haverstraw to the more important command of the lines in Westchester, in which measure, unprecedented as it was, the officers acquiesced without a murmur, from a conviction of its expediency.
A great shout arose from thousands of excited men standing near. Regiments and brigades started as with one impulse to rush across the river and pursue the flying enemy. The 200th Ind. was one of these. No one heard any orders from the officers.
With less than two regiments in hand, and with the certainty of the enemy's great superiority, there was nothing for it but to take the best position we could and await Scammon's arrival. Toward evening Scammon arrived with his brigade, reporting that Heth's force had followed his retiring movement as far as French's, and confirming the information that four brigades of the enemy were before us.
Recent rains had unloosed the springs on the mountain side and set them chattering so loudly that I must have reined up at least a score of times before I detected the tramp of the brigades in the darkness below me. Of the cavalry, though I rode on listening for at least another two miles, I could hear no sound.
He himself, with one of these brigades, reduced to four hundred men, ascended the steep and woody heights on his right, with the hope of passing through Wittgenstein's army in the darkness, of escaping him, and rejoining Victor; or, at all events, of getting round by the sources of the Berezina.
They had been garrisoning Plymouth, N. C., an important seaport on the Roanoke River. Three small gunboats assisted them in their duty. The Rebels constructed a powerful iron clad called the "Albemarle," at a point further up the Roanoke, and on the afternoon of the 17th, with her and three brigades of infantry, made an attack upon the post.
He censures freely the conduct of the brigadiers, who gave, he says, no orders whatever to their brigades. About two hundred wagons, with a great part of the baggage, military stores, small arms, and all the artillery, fell into the hands of the conqueror. The loss of men could never be accurately ascertained, as no returns were received from the militia.
Word Of The Day