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derous, it is a demoralizing, agency. The segregated line advanced with considerable celerity through the woods, the Rebel line being forced back in confusion. A single Union brigade had been hurled, like a thunderbolt, against two of the finest Southern divisions. The ground was won; but it could not be held alone, by a line so terribly cut to pieces. Several prisoners were here taken by the Fourteenth ; and many of the men fought like demons, Sergt. Coombs of C being conspicuous. The officers attempted to re-form the men, straighten the line, and halt it; but the men did not stop, pressing on through the woods, and down the slope into the opening beyond. There were so few who reached this advanced and extremely perilous position that the advance was stopped; and the charge, which had extended for a mile and a hundred yards, there terminated. The little handful of men remained there for about five minutes, firing rapidly at the enemy; H. H. Howe, of F, being the most advanced man of the Fourteenth who was observed by the writer. Again the Rebel fire grew brisk. Webster, true as steel, was fatally wounded. Fiske, universally beloved, fell just before the retreat. The men waited for orders. One came to retreat; but, when the men started to fall back, other officers endeavored to hold them up to the work.

Capt. Ira Berry was cool, determined, and conspicuous, in the very front. He was badly wounded, and was captured by the enemy. While advancing through the second woods, he was a full rod ahead of his company. Observing the left of the regiment breaking up, and confusion spreading on the right, and not hearing the order to retreat, he turned and commanded: "Company H, stand fast!"—and Company H stood as steady as on dress-parade. Lieut. Holmes then communicated to the captain the order to retreat: it was given, and back the company went at a lively gait.

Lieut. Sargent fought like a tiger, with perfect recklessness. He seemed to take no account of Rebel bullets. Hurrying from point to point, he did his best to maintain the ground. He was one of the last to retreat, was severely wounded, and taken prisoner.

When the war began Capt. Berry was a member of the GulfCity Guards, of Mobile, Ala.; and, when that organization entered the Rebel service, he declined to go. He was, however, for several months under Confederate pay in Mobile Harbor. As soon as practicable he came North. It was a remarkable coincidence that his old company should be the one to capture him. One of his former comrades rolled him over, supposing him dead, to unbuckle and appropriate his sword. When the captain found strength to rise, he was taken to the rear by his Mobile companions, who, happily, did not recognize him. When he reached the heights occupied by the Rebels in their last position, he found himself with Lieut. Sargent; and they planned to escape from their guards. It was decided that Capt. Berry should faint; which he did, apparently, and Lieut. Sargent ministered to him. The impatient guards waited through one fainting spell, but could not stand a second; and went on, leaving the prisoners, who were still in the Rebel line, and persistently prevented from going to the rear by a cordon of provost-guards, set to stop the timid Johnnies from running away.

Twice a Rebel soldier tried to get the lieutenant's rubber blanket, once firing a shot which was evidently intended to finish him. The shot took effect, but it went through Capt. Berry's arm. The second attempt was a success, the lieutenant being jerked to the ground, and his blanket taken. Soon afterward Lieut. Sargent made a dash, and ran-into captivity; while Capt. Berry presently coaxed a mere boy among the provost-guard to take him, as a prisoner, to the rear. This boy had been a prisoner, and had received kind treatment from Union soldiers: so that, when a Rebel cavalryman came up and proposed to rob the captain of his jacket by force, the faithful young guard plainly informed him that he would get a bullet through him if he persisted in robbing his prisoner. The mounted Rebel hero desisted.

Capt. Berry was taken to the Taylor House Rebel Hospital in Winchester, and, watching his opportunity, lay down between two wounded Rebels in the operating-room. Before long the Rebel surgeons put on their coats in a hurry; there

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was a surging through the town: the Johnnies were out and the Yanks were in; and, after the strange vicissitudes of an eventful day, the wounded captain was among his friends, and under the old flag.

The first brigade was cut to pieces; it had melted away. There were three reasons for this great disaster which led almost to irretrievable defeat. The first has already been delineated. The second is found in the break which began on the right of the Sixth Corps, extending to the left of the Nineteenth, enabling a portion of Rodes's division to turn the flank of the latter. The third and unsavory reason for the repulse of the first line of Grover's division was that the second line entirely failed to support it. It will be remembered that the right of the second line was held by the fourth brigade, made up mostly of Indiana troops unsurpassed for-yelling. This brigade was handled in a most incompetent manner. It advanced through the first woods, found the first line was engaged in a fierce conflict, fired one volley, turned, and ran. They hardly got under fire at all. This brigade had been transferred from the Thirteenth Corps, in Louisiana; and certainly it failed grossly in the moment of need. The Ninth Conn., an Irish regiment, was detached from the first brigade to act as a flanking force, and should have silenced Fitz Lee's battery. It got lost (?) so safely, in the woods to the right of the line, that not a man was hit during the day; and it remained there until the battle was over. That regiment never rejoined the brigade until the army was in Harrisonburg, and then it was ordered to march in the rear.

It was fatally hot for the Fourteenth as it emerged from the woods on its retreat over the open field. Just at the edge of the woods Orderly-Sergt. Felch fell. Our accomplished and heroic Col. Gardiner was last seen marching to the rear slowly, with sword lying across his left arm, calling upon his men to halt. He was shot about one-third of the way back from the second woods, while rallying his men. The charge and repulse of the first brigade is described by the Rebel commander, and is