will not be complete until valor is more esteemed, nor until we adopt as a maxim that to decorate a coward with shoulder-straps is to pave the road to a nation's ruin.

Respectfully submitted.

E. D. KEYES,

Brigadier-General, Commanding Fourth Corps.

Brigadier General S. WILLIAMS,

Adjutant-General, Army of the Potomac.

HEADQUARTERS THIRD CORPS, June 14, 1862.

DEAR GENERAL: You have omitted to sign your report.* Will you please sign and return it by the orderly.

General Heintzelman has expressed himself as being very much pleased with your report, and is astonished at the accuracy with which you have detailed the events of the day.

Yours, respectfully,
CHAUNCEY McKEEVER,

Chief of Staff.

Brigadier General E. D. KEYES,

Commanding Fourth Corps.

Numbers 71. Report of Brigadier General Darius N. Couch,

U. S. Army, commanding First Division.

HEADQUARTERS COUCH'S DIVISION, Intrenched Camp near Fair Oaks Station, Va., June 7, 1862.

SIR: I have the honor to report that between 12.30 and 1 p. m. of the 31st ultimo two or three cannon-shot of the rebels came into my camp, thrown from the front and over Casey's line. Musketry firing soon after began on his line, and in half an hour the action seemed to be general in that division. By direction of General Keyes General Peck was ordered to move to the left and support General Casey, disposing his regiments as given in his report. The One hundred and second Pennsylvania Volunteers, Colonel Rowley, was already at an important junction to the left. General Devens' brigade, consisting of the Tenth and Seventh Massachusetts and Thirty-sixth New York, covered the road leading to Casey's center. The batteries of Miller, Flood, and McCarthy were in position, covering the same road and flanks, Miller having a capital position to the right and front. General Abercrombie's brigade was to the right of Devens on the cross-road leading from my center to Fair Oaks, which was full three-fourths of a mile to be right and front, running through a mass of thicket and heavy woods. The First Long Island, Colonel Adams, lay in rifle pits and supported Miller's battery; then came Neill's Twenty-third Pennsylvania Volunteers and Rippey's Sixty-first Pennsylvania. The First U. S. Chasseurs, Colonel Cochrane, and Thirty-first Pennsylvania, Colonel Williams, lay at Fair Oaks, together with Brady's battery.

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*Of Seven Pines.

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