the distance between us;
directly, I discovered a ditch in front of me. It looked very wide. My
shoes were loaded with Virginia mud; could I jump it? I realized that
everything depended on that jump, and I made a great effort. I struck the
farther edge just far enough on to balance over, picked myself up and
started off up the other slope. Glancing back, I saw the Johnny who had
chased me ordering some of our boys out of the ditch; they had made the
fatal error of trying to secrete themselves in that ditch. I kept on going
to the rear, until I reached the part of the field from which we started
on that last advance with General Kearney; then I began to hunt around to
find the boys.

General Kearney went in with us as we advanced into and through the
cornfield; he rode along beside the colonel. When we got to within about
four rods of the fence, the colonel was sure he saw soldiers move behind
the fence and said to Kearney, "There is a Rebel line of battle behind
that fence." "No, there isn't," said Kearney and spurred his horse forward
to get a nearer view. As he got to within a rod and a half or two rods of
the fence, the Johnnies opened fire and General Kearney was one of the
first to be killed at that time.

When I began to hunt about for the boys, Billy Morrow was one of the first
I run across. We soon found others and then the colors. Billy and I then
thought of one of our friends, a fellow by the name of Bradish, a Company
E man, who was hit in the wood. Billy had seen him at about the same time
I did as we came out of the wood, and believing we were near the place,
we started out to see if we could find him. Bradish had been one of the
nine who had played ball at Newport News, and we were both very fond of
him. We thought he was badly wounded and wondered if we could not find him
and do something for him. It took but a few minutes to find the place.
Then began the lone search. The last I saw of Bradish was as we neared the
edge of the wood coming out. He was hobbling along trying to keep up with
us. I did not know where he was hit, but I thought in the thigh or about
the hip, for one of his legs seemed quite powerless. There were a number
of dead men lying about but we were unprepared to believe our comrade was
dead, but when we examined the dead men we found Bradish was one of them.
We found a place under a great pine tree; we dug a shallow grave and
buried him near the place where he fell. We put a stone at eac