At about 11 o'clock, as I recollect, three companies of the Seventeenth were sent out as skirmishers, and as volunteers had been called for, the regular division formation was broken. Shortly after the regiment was ordered to the left and deployed in column of divisions as reserve to our brigade. This formation, you will remember, was especially awkward, owing to the absence of the companies skirmishing; and to this fact was due, in my opinion, the temporary confusion which followed the order to deploy and advance. Several companies missed their usual places in line and rushed hastily up the hill to close the break.

At this time our gallant Fowler, who, during the vigorous shelling which preceded our advance, had jokingly cried, "Dodge the big ones, boys," rode to the front, where he was soon joined by General Ames and staff, and after a brief glance at the numbers of the enemy, ordered us to fall back. It was about this time that the regiment suffered its heaviest loss for the first day.

Our colors, which were on the top of the knoll, apparently attracting the special fire of the rebs.

Captain Moore fell in the advance and if my memory serves me, it was here that Quien, who then took his place in command of Company C, was shot in the hand.

My duties as sergeant-major took me from right to left, constantly conveying orders and endeavoring to prevent the fleeing members of some Pennsylvania regiments, who justified their flight by saying, "Our time ish out," from breaking through the line, and though many of our best men fell, one after the other, while holding our colors aloft, I failed to get their names and company. As we turned to fall back, Colonel Fowler, who had just been left by General Ames, brought in rear of the regiment, and as he, with Adjutant Chatfield and myself, started slowly down the slope, we saw slowly following, the advance line of the rebel skirmishers. A light battery on the ridge was shelling us and making things quite lively. We had not gone far when to our horror we saw Colonel Fowler falling from his saddle. As his horse galloped away, Chatfield, who had just had his light sabre cut in two by a ball, hastily dismounted. Poor Fowler was dead. It seemed to us that the hole in his head could hardly have been made by a fragment of a shell which had just burst above us, as it looked round and clearly mared. However, this was no time for speculation, so calling back one of our regiment, Company E, whose name I cannot recall, we endeavored to lift his corpse upon the adjutant's horse, but we found it impossible to do so, as his weight was beyond our strength, and after several attempts we reluctantly left him.

At this time the rebel line had advanced within hailing distance, and the requests we received to surrender were more vigorous than polite. Chatfield mounting his horse escaped by a close shave to our right. Our friend of Company E was captured before he left that field while I scaling a fence in front of us tore across the next field towards the stone wall of the poorhouse.

On the way there I saw trotting along with the American colors on his shoulder, Jimmy Hayes, of Company F, who just about this time received a shot through his leg which floored him. I ran over to raise him but found him too badly hurt. A comrade from Company C, I think, ran up at the same time, and in view of the fact that he carried a musket and I had none, agreed with me that I had better take the flag, and so taking up the old colors as I had at Chancellorsville, I continued my trot towards the shelter of the poorhouse.

Inside the walls of the barnyard we found General Ames and staff. We waited for orders, which soon came in the shape of several shells bursting over our heads, a piece of one striking the staff of our colors and making us start back through the town. I recall a futile attempt to dislodge some skirmishers from a lumberyard, under direction of General Hines, and a halt for a few minutes in support of a single Napoleon, hauled by a rope through the street, but have no recollection of when the small remnant of our regiment was reformed on Cemetery Hill and assigned to its first position in line to the right of the road and overlooking the town. I recall the visit of General Howard in the morning, who found our brigade a trifle out of line, and jumping his horse over the stone fence led us forward to the next fence under a hot fire from sharpshooters. I recall also the trip Theodore Brotherton, of Company F, and I think Batchelder, of Company D, and myself across the hill for a box of ammunition and the return with it, and can still hear the thud of the ball which nearly passed through poor Batchelder's body, and left him, as we thought, dead in the grass; and remember plainly the dangerous but well performed duty of the detail sent to carry him to the rear. But the fatigue and excitement of the day seem ever present as I try to fill in the details of the night's alternations of rest and alarm. Nor can I now remember to whom the American colors were given.

July 2^nd. The day was varied only, I think, by the sharpshooters who from different locations endeavored to pick off anyone bold enough to show a head above the stone fence, except by an artillery duel between Battery I, First New York, and rebel battery across the valley.

During the afternoon a column of rebel infantry came out of the woods on our right and defiled through the fields far in our front, and just before dark came gradually up in line to the wall, behind which we lay, and, although finally repulsed, broke through the line to the left of us, and left some of their dead among the guns on the hill behind. It was during this charge that Lieutenant-Colonel Allen was wounded, and that Captain Burr captured the rebel color bearer and "got hunk", as he said, for Chancellorsville, where he was captured.

It seems to me that it was on this day that our brigade commander, Major Harris, of the Seventy-fifth Ohio, was reinforced by a brigade from the second corps, commanded by a Maine colonel, and I recall the feeling of intense satisfaction I felt when those full regiments quietly filed in behind our lines and layed down out of range.

The poor colonel in command got a crack in the shoulder early next morning, the 3^rd, and, though anxious to stay, finally went to the rear.

July 3^rd. This day seems like a dream to me, and beyond the terrible cannonading and charge which followed it, I recall but little, and in common with most others in the regiment, I fancy spent most of the day trying to sleep, in spite of the roar of the guns. During these days we lost quite a number of sharpshooters and on the skirmish line, which Captain Kellogg commanded.

I recall also the speech you made Company F, after you were shot, and the vigorous English you used on that occasion, though I doubt if you recollect much of it.

We were withdrawn about 10 p.m. of the second day further back to rest. We rested until 4 p.m. of the third day, when we were placed in line a few rods to the right. We held this position, returning the fire of the sharpshooters as best we could. I remember Major Brady saying, "For God's sake, can't you keep those fellows quiet?"

I remember two incidents that made a strong impression on us all. The enemy were firing on us from the houses of the town. Out of one house came two shots in quick succession. We returned the fire, but soon after learned we had killed a young woman in that house, while she was kneading bread. The other incident was this: A boy came to me and said, "Lieutenant, I have lost my regiment, and I want to join your company for the present, and if I fight well and do my duty will you give me a good report to my Captain?" I replied, "Certainly I will, my boy." Now away to our right was a rebel sharpshooter, hidden behind a pile of fence rails, who had kept one of our guns silent for some time, shooting every man that tried to load it. I said to the boy, "Perhaps you can get that chap," explaining to him the situation. The sharpshooter shot at a cannoneer, the boy shot at him, but in a moment, as it were, a shot came back between the second and third rails of the fence we were behind and struck him in or near the heart. I was standing just behind him; if it had not struck him it would have certainly got me. He had nothing about him to show who he was, except he was an Indiana boy. Soon after I was ordered to the right with Companies C and D. While we were marching on the hillside, I was at the head in a captain's place, and the orderly of Company D was at my side. He dropped dead. Soon after the whole regiment was to the right behind a stone wall, where brush had grown up by it. We had not been there long before we saw the rebs coming through a peach orchard in a field of wheat. The battery in our rear was giving them a warm reception with grape and canister, firing over our heads. I remember the lead wadding from one shot killed one of our men, which demoralized us worse than the enemy in front. On came the enemy, into the meadow in our front. We, the 1^st brigade, the 1^st division, 11^th army corps, sent them our compliments from our Enfield rifles and [missing]...to my command, for the coolness we displayed. Only about half a dozen of the enemy broke through, but the dead in front were in heaps. We had two men in Company C, one, George Woods, the other, William Curtis, from Newtown, who were particularly noticeable for coolness. It proved that we had been fighting the La. Tigers. While the Tigers were coming across the meadows George and Bill were sitting down behind the stone wall, and you would have supposed they were shooting at a target. I saw George shoot, taking a dead rest, and heard him say, "He won't come any further, will he, Bill?" Then Bill shot, and said, "I got that fellow, George." And they kept it up that way, perfectly oblivious to danger themselves. Corporal George Scott, who was acting orderly, had it hand to hand with the enemy as they charged the fence. He shot a fellow and took a captain prisoner.

We were kept in line there all night, and in the gray of the morning of the 4^th, I was detailed to command the skirmish line of twenty men from the Seventeenth, and ten men from the 107^th O.V.I., with a second lieutenant from the 107^th. We deployed just to the right of the turn and advanced slowly, and wondered why the enemy did not fire at us. We went and found the flag was waved by one of the Seventy-fifth Ohio surgeons. The enemy had evacuated.