crossed the railroad, cut
by a high bridge, and saw below the depot, at Savage's, now the
head-quarters of General Heintzelman. Above, in full view, were the
commands at Peach Orchard and Fairoaks, and to the south, a few furlongs
distant, the Williamsburg and Richmond turnpike ran, parallel with the
railway, toward the field of Seven Pines. The latter site, was simply
the junction of the turnpike with a roundabout way to Richmond, called
the "Nine Mile Road," and Fairoaks was the junction of the diverging
road with the railroad. Toward the latter I proceeded, and soon came to
the Irish brigade, located on both sides of the way, at Peach Orchard.

They occupied the site of the most desperate fighting.

A small farm hollowed in the swampy thicket and wood, was here divided
by the track, and a little farm-house, with a barn, granary, and a
couple of cabins, lay on the left side. In a hut to the right General
Thomas Francis Meagher made his head-quarters, and a little beyond, in
the edges of the swamp timber, lay his four regiments, under arms.

A guard admonished me, in curt, lithe speech, that my horse must come no
further; for the brigade held the advance post, and I was even now
within easy musket range of the imperceptible enemy. An Irish boy
volunteered to hold the rein, while I paid my respects to the Commander.
I encountered him on the threshold of the hut, and he welcomed me in the
richest and most musical of brogues. Large, corpulent, and powerful of
body; plump and ruddy--or as some would say, bloated--of face; with
resolute mouth and heavy animal jaws; expressive nose, and piercing
blue-eyes; brown hair, mustache, and eyebrows; a fair forehead, and
short sinewy neck, a man of apparently thirty years of age, stood in the
doorway, smoking a cigar, and trotting his sword fretfully in the
scabbard. He wore the regulation blue cap, but trimmed plentifully with
gold lace, and his sleeves were slashed in the same manner. A star
glistened in his oblong shoulder-bar; a delicate gold cord seamed his
breeches from his Hessian boots to his red tasselled sword-sash; a
seal-ring shone from the hand with which he grasped his gauntlets, and
his spurs were set upon small aristocratic feet.

A tolerable physiognomist would have resolved his temperament to an
intense sanguine. He was fitfully impulsive, as all his movements
attested, and liable to fluctuations of peevishness, melancholy, and
enthusiasm. This was "Meagher of th