It rained incessantly all night and there was no sleep. We sat by a miserable little fire all night. Sometimes I dozed and dreamed of being in the comfortable cabin of the Cossack, to wake with a start to find myself miserably cold and wet. So all passed the night. I don't know, but I think I suffered more than ever I did. Towards morning, perhaps between five and six, we all went over to the porch of the house, Shorkley, Beaver & I, and though it was crowded, I sat down & took a few winks of sleep. A few shots were fired, & every body ran. We got back to our company and found them quietly standing behind their stacks, ready to take arms. We took arms, dressed, & stood some time. The alarm passed. I formed the men according to their numbers; we could not do it last night. I divided them into platoons & sections, and we stood in the drizzling rain. The different regiments formed, some had lapped with us in the darkness of the night. There were perhaps two thousand men there. Our regiment came out with over 800 men, My company 73. The first Brigade started about seven o'clock. Reno, Burnside were about. Morris came across to us with a great big sword with a steel scabbard buckled on him. None of the officers had their horses. "You'll soon have orders to march are you ready". "Yes". We teased Morris about his big sword he could scarcely draw it & return it, it was so long. I saw Lt. Col Monteil cross the field to the house, the first time I had seen him since I sat as judge advocate
Saturday continued.About up past seven, we heard some shots and then a volley of musketry. Foster was driving in the pickets. Then bang went the artillery, then musketry, and so it kept up. We moved up - the head of our brigade had already entered the wood, and our regiment. still standing in the clear, when the first wounded man was carried along - then another and another - it was the most trying thing we had to endure. But the officers were all cool and calm, and every command was given in a clear voice, & it seemed to keep the courage up. We passed up a narrow road through the wood, just wide as a wagon track, like our mountain roads, thickets of low pines and bushes. It was just like the roads up around Rengler’s old mill. Then it was thick with wounded men carried and limping past us. Double quick - came to a mud puddle, we were dainty at the first & got around it, which broke us up a little, but the next one we dashed through. An occasional shell and bullet whistled, but we could see nothing but the regiment winding through the wood ahead - we turned off through the wood at a double quick, and got into another road - the battle we could hear, raged fiercely - every step we met wounded and dying and exhausted, and some to whom we strongly suspected of being prematurely exhausted. An officer came and told me to send word to my Col. to send a company of skirmishers out to the right. I thought of aids & officers giving orders without authority, but still determined to obey orders, and sent up Sergt Etwine with the order. The Col afterwards told me that some company at the head, relieved him of that, agreeing to deploy. We passed the hospital, which was so near that several men who carried the wounded there were killed. Zing goes a shell over our heads, and a piece struck a man lying down to rest & killed him. We came to a halt - our regiment had turned to the left by order, but could not get through. My company was just at the point where we had turned off the road. The Col sent word forward that he couldn't advance on the left. The Rhode Island regiment came through the woods and passed by the head of my co. up the road. I stood with the Col on a log at the fork of the roads when a volley of musketry passed over our heads, accompanied by a shell. We got down rather suddenly. Here, the bullets sang unpleasantly near. Orders came for us to leave so much of our Regt. as had passed the fork of the road and turn the rest to the right up the road. There, thinks I, I am to lead the column. Everything was so uncertain, we did not know where the enemy was, musketry sounded all over - all around - it was wood and brush & nobody to be seen - we soon saw things, however, with more than the eye of faith. Co D Second company ahead of me was turned off leaving two companies and Lt. Col Bell in the thicket on the left - Double quick up, up we go - balls, shell flying somewhere - I saw Gen Reno at the corner of the wood - John Morris, then our brass field pieces, then all our other regiments lying flat down then an opening two or three hundred yards broad, then the battery of the enemy, the belching fire and smoke, the pail report of rattle of balls all around and above us- wanging into the trees - here we came into a swamp up to our knees in mud & deeper - a poor fellow lie all doubled up beside a felled pine tree, we tramp on over him - we were in front of the enemies battery, in full view, crossing to gain their right - the swamp was tangled so that the regiment halted and we lay down right in front of the battery. The swamp was just like a pine swamp - I've been in both, and this was worse. Up again to run the gauntlet. We lay there for ten or twenty minutes flat on the ground. We gained the right and went plunging through the swamp up to our waists. Beaver was standing on a stump collecting the different companies - I never saw more than half a dozen of my company. I was standing on a stump looking ahead, when I saw Shorkley about ten yards ahead, plunging through, calling co. H. It bewildered me to see him there. I wondered how the rear of my company could have gotten there. Billy Allison, Brewer, Sergt Campbell & Charles Merrill were with me generally and others who appeared and disappeared I rushed ahead and found that Shorkley had but two or three with him. He had cut across and got ahead of our colors - we still dispute how it happened, he alleging that I followed the Rhode Island colors. That couldn't be, as the Rhode Islanders were still further to our right. However, Beaver appeared on a stump, and he was calling to co. H away to the right to come over to the capt - We were certainly ahead of our colors, for they came up afterwards, part of our company having followed it. Here we halted and got collected. The Rhode Islanders on our right parallel. Here we heard a cheer. The rear companies of our Regt were still in front of the battery. We all took it up and cheered when they told us our colors were planted on the enemy battery. Just before it, however, we saw a man in a tree making signals. One from our regiment stepped out without orders. The man disappeared. Charles Merrill was with me, though, and he kept on talking in his usual quiet way. He said he had been in Pine Swamp, but this was worse. He had been hardly able to do any service since he had been here, but he was one of the quietest, cheerful soldiers I ever saw & he walked along, waded rather, with his musket on his shoulder, canteen, and haversack just as if he were in the courtroom walking round the bar. We pushed on - the Rhode Island and ours got mixed. We came out on the right and the front of the battery. Here we had to wade through a pond up to our middle, but there was the battery. The right wing of our regiment, drawn up, was marching on. We had to stop to form, and it was nearly an hour before it formed. By this time, all the troops had left, and our battalion was ordered to remain at first to draw the guns, & then to stay in the battery. I chafed at this. However, while forming, I left the company to go to the battery. Here, I met Mr. Mallory & he shook hands with us, congratulating us on our safe delivery. I remember saluting him just as we left our bivouac ground in the morning as we marched fast to go to the wood, and his face said, "he might not see us again in life." We lost but two or three. I went on to the road on the left of the battery - just at the corner lay a dead man - and on the right just by the gun of the embrasure a handsome dark skinned man, black whiskers and mustache & hair I noticed his delicate hands and small feet - he lay on his back his eye staring wide open, handsome even in his miserable surroundings - half imbedded in mud - hands blackened with powder - no uniform - had a pea jacket, and fine underclothes - with "Seldon" written on his undershirt and waistband of his drawers I learned afterward he was Lt. Seldon, son of Dr Seldon of Norfolk - that Col. Shaw cautioned him against exposing himself - "Damn them they can't hit me" he scarcely said it when he fell pierced through below the eye. At the centre gun lay a mule still in harness, probably to draw off the gun - looked, very much, as if it had its throat cut - but Col Jordan of the Rebels said it was killed by a mine-ball. Farther over lay a muscular man, with large red whiskers - a ball had struck him in the back of the head, and his brain had oozed out into his hat until it was full. There were five or six dead men lying in the fort. A wall tent was pitched on the left. Two wounded rebel officers were lying there. Lt. Col. Patter who entered the fort from the left said that when a few of our men approached one of the them he cut at them with his sword, and on his asking him why, he did so, he said he had heard that we were ordered to give no quarter. If officers believed that, what should their men believe? We later learned that they thought so; I had been told so by their officers. The most disagreeable thing was to see that the dead had been all robbed - pockets turned inside out - buttons cut off for relics. I was attracted to look at Seldon again, & found his name had been cut out in both places. I walked around through the swamp & dead bodies were lying scattered around through it. We had dragged one of the cannon some distance when Burnside ordered them back, and the balance of our regiment was ordered to stay in the fort. Owing to the constant wet weather and exposure with no coffee or cooking utensils, all we had to eat was in our haversacks. Reno had ordered up whiskey. The officer in charge passed us, and wished Shawl to send a party in charge of a commissioned officer to bring some back to our men, as he would not deal it out until he reached head quarters Lt. Foster & I were sent with ten men & we followed up the grog for a couple of miles when we met Beaver Saturday 8th who was on with the advance, and had been sent back to order up the rest. I told him that we had been ordered to remain. He started back with us. We came to a crossroad, which he said was the road they went, but the officer in charge was perverse & went straight on - we followed him & Beaver left us. Up to the right was a house where Capt C. Jennings Wise lay mortally wounded with five wounds. A gentleman had picked up his gum blanket at the battle field & I saw his name on it. The road was strewed with knapsacks and other things thrown away. I met Gen. Foster on horseback - “Well,” says he, “boys, we have gained a great victory - they have just surrendered to me two or three thousand, and the island is ours.” We threw up our caps and yelled. We came to a field. An old man and a young man, Islanders, half-drunk, were explaining to us how they had been loyal all the time. Then we travelled on - everyone we met told us it was a couple of miles. We were dreadfully tired. We let the grog gang go, anxious to get some quarters as it was growing dark. Lost our road several times - at last, after dark, arrived in what seemed a little town, but was the enemy’s barracks. I stumbled into Col Upton, Mass., on the 25th and asked permission to sleep on the floor. I pulled off my boots. There was an inch of water in them, & we had travelled 7 or 8 miles since we left the battle ground, & I was rather sore. It was a grateful thing to lie on the cabin floor. Col Russel of the 10th Conn was killed in the battle from a concussion, it is supposed to be from a passing cannonball, as there was no mark on him. One near him said he just doubled himself together and fell dead. We passed him on our way to the battlefield. One of his men, carrying him, cried to us to give it to them; they had killed his Col. Capt Henry was killed too. He talked awhile, complaining of pain in his stomach, but there was nothing but a blue streak across his stomach. Lt. Col Monteil was also killed, he unnecessarily exposed himself, firing with his rifle in front of the battle, Frank Leslie’s artist was in close, behind a stump.