rated with water, which oozed up like the liquid out of a full
sponge when stepped upon.

[Illustration: GEN. F. M. DRAKE.]

The teamsters were contrary, and would not move until the road was in a
decent condition. They had light wagons, and a little effort on their
part would have enabled us to cross over into the Saline bottom that
night, when the after-events would have been avoided. But the road was
in a bad condition, and it was Sunday afternoon; so we lay there.

Everyone in camp felt a foreboding of evil to come, and when we arose on
Monday morning it was with a feeling of keen apprehension and distrust.

We crossed at will, my company being at the head of the second regiment.

On reaching the solid ground beyond the bog we were met by an aid,
coming back from the leading regiment, and he called out excitedly to
Maj. A. H. Hamilton, who was at the head of our column: "Move your
regiment forward, Major, as fast as possible. The rebs have appeared,
fully 2000 strong."

We hastened on, and, as we gained the higher ground, the rapid shots of
a fierce engagement came to our ears from just over the ridge.

The fight was in the woods, and a hot one. We moved up, and were
deployed, but soon all was confusion. The rebels seemed to be
everywhere, and, after a brief struggle, it became every man for
himself. We had but forty rounds of ammunition with us, and that was
soon exhausted, when we learned that we were cut off from our train in
the rear.

Sergeant John S. Wood and I were standing near a tree, with Private
Jasper Barker between us, and Barker was shot down. We could see that we
were largely outnumbered and that there was no well-regulated fight.
About twenty-three of the fifty-six men in Company B had been killed or
disabled and the rest had no more ammunition. The men on our flanks were
melting away by death and retreat, and we finally gave it up and sought
safety in the rear; but there was no escape, for we were completely
surrounded.

Dodging around, and losing men by capture at every turn, the few of us
left at last had to surrender to a little squad under Sergeant Davis.
They rode down on us, yelling wildly and flourishing their sabres, but
we gave up, with no casualties save the serious injury of Annan L.
Silvey, who broke his gun across a tree when called upon to give it up,
and who received a sabre stroke for his pains. Most of the others had
done the same thing before the rebs came up, when it