[CHAP. XLI.

ing with the Fifty-third Pennsylvania Volunteers in covering the rear and left flank of the brigade.

Captain Arnold R. Chase, of Company A, who led the flankers, and Lieutenant Roller, commanding Company D, who conducted the left, were very efficient.

When the column halted, and took position on the railroad near Bristoe Station, the Sixty-fourth was deployed as skirmishers in the woods in front of the brigade. The enemy soon advanced and commenced firing. The fire was promptly returned, upon which they fell back but soon returned in such force as to cause a regiment of another brigade on our right to fall back. We, being hotly pressed in front and in danger of being flanked on the right, had to fall back. At this time we lost several men taken prisoners, 1 man killed, and 1 officer, Lieutenant Albert D. Kerr, severely wounded.

The regiment soon advanced, drove the enemy back, and regained its former position, which was held till 11 o'clock at night, when we quietly withdrew and joined the rear of the column, which was moving on the road to Manassas Junction. We crossed Bull Run and Blackburn's Ford at 4 a.m. of the 15th, and bivouacked for the night with the brigade.

First Sergeant Belcher, Company H, deserves special mention. When the regiment fell back at Bristoe he was very efficient in keeping the men of his company together. Private Ebenezer Hayward, Company H, when the regiment advanced the second time at Bristoe, set a noble example to the old soldiers by putting himself at the head of a number of the drafted men and leading them back to the wood.

During the day we lost 5 men and leading them back to the wood.

During the day we lost 5 men killed, 2 commissioned officers and 8 enlisted men wounded (2 enlisted men mortally), and 25 men missing; total killed, wounded, and missing, 39.*

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

L. W. BRADLEY,

Major, Commanding Regiment.

Lieutenant CHARLES P. HATCH,

Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.

Numbers 31. Report of Captain Henry S. Dimm, Fifty-third Pennsylvania Infantry.

NEAR WARRENTON, VA., October 26, 1863.

SIR: I have the honor of transmitting the following report of the operations of the Fifty-third Pennsylvania Volunteers on the 14th instant:

Being in bivouac near Auburn, Va., I received orders from Colonel Brooke, commanding brigade, to have my regiment in readiness to move at 5 a.m. Accordingly at that time we formed in line. I was ordered to follow the Second Delaware Volunteers. We took up the line of march in the above-named order, and crossed Kettle Run at Auburn, Va., near where we were formed in line on a hill, my regiment being on the left of the Sixty-fourth New York Volunteers. I was then ordered by Colonel Brooke to have my men cook coffee and eat their breakfast. Before this was done, however, the enemy opened a very destructive fire upon us from a battery placed in a woods some distance in our rear; and near the road leading from

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*See revised statement, p. 248.

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