now the rebel lines are within
rifle range. Volley after volley is poured into them, and their ranks
melt before the terrible fire. In our front they falter; but toward the
right they see a chance for victory. They will swing around our flank,
and crush us as they did but an hour before. With exultant yells, their
left comes sweeping on, wheeling to envelop our right. But now there
bursts from the underbrush a blast as if from the pit, crashing,
tearing, grinding, enfilading their lines, leaving in its track a swath
of dead and dying. This is decisive, and the battle is won.

Over a hundred dead were counted in front of the Eleventh and the few
Bucktails on their right. One man was struck with a charge of grape, or
by a bursting shell, and his body from the knees to the neck was crushed
and torn into an indistinguishable mass.

John Stanley, who was wounded in this action, was a brave, noble boy.
Looking along the company line, with its veterans of so many battles,
the remnant of a hundred as brave men as ever followed a battle flag,
you would not have guessed that this boyish face could be the calmest in
the hour of trial. During that month of battles, he was always in his
place, without bravado, but with unflinching courage, doing his duty. I
saw him at the woods, as they were taking him from the field. His pale
face was as calm as ever. He never returned to us, nor did I learn the
result of his wounds.

The next morning the Reserves were withdrawn from the front. Their term
of service had expired. The veterans and recruits were reorganized,
forming the One Hundred and Ninetieth and One Hundred and Ninety-first
Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. The others started on their homeward
march.

Of Company D, fourteen men returned--five non-commissioned officers and
nine privates. Eleven had re-enlisted. Thirty-five were dead, of whom
twenty-three had been killed in battle or mortally wounded; and six were
prisoners in the hands of the enemy, of whom two died.

Of the eleven veterans, only seven were present, the others being
wounded or prisoners. By the close of the war, forty of the original one
hundred and one had died in the service. During the first three years,
twenty-four were discharged for wounds or sickness. Such is the record
of these heroic men. Mingled feelings of joy and sadness were in the
hearts of all, as good-byes were spoken, and they marched away. The
war-worn veterans, who now turned their footsteps