hours of good fighting for skirmishers, the enemy left another and stronger line of works and fell back a mile through and beyond a swamp to his main line of earth-works, the skirmishers pushing him all the while, his killed and wounded falling into our hands. The brigade moved rapidly in line after its skirmishers, passed the dense and deep swamp and rectified its alignment and sheltered itself under the crest of a hill, the skirmish line seventy-five yards in front and the enemy's works fifty yards in front of it. Here the brigade remained some time. In the meanwhile the Second Brigade, originally on my left, had been taken from that position and the First Brigade of this division had been taken from my right and placed on my left, while Hawley's brigade of the First Division had formed on my right. With these commands, respectively, I was in constant communication and connection, when the brigade was ordered to advance. I had previously ordered my skirmish line to advance three different times and each time they were repulsed, each time they were repulsed, each time reporting breast-works in their front, fifty yards distant. This report, as well as the inability of my skirmish line to advance, I reported to the staff officer, Captain Chipman, acting assistant inspector-general of the division, who brought me the order to advance, and of him I inquired if it was intended that I should engaged my main line, to which he replied that he would see and inform me. In the meantime preparations were made to advance, and immediately after receiving an order, through Lieutenant Thompson, provost-marshal, to advance and engage my line if necessary in order to draw the enemy, pressed my line of battle beyond the skirmishers and advanced with the intention of taking the breast-works by assault, as that was the only way, in my opinion to drive the enemy. When the order "forward to the breast-works" had been given and the brigade had advanced a few yards and was receiving the full fire of the enemy's line, I was informed by one of my staff officers, Lieutenant Morse, who had been stationed on the left of the brigade, that the First Brigade had halted and that I was breaking my connection. As the First Brigade had been to me the directing line, I at once halted, though under a fire which would have injured me less had I kept on, the left of the brigade being fully exposed with no shelter and at the closest range of the enemy's muskets. When I discovered that no further attempts to advance were about to be made I at once communicated the facts of my position to the general commanding division, who immediately directed me to return to a line less exposed, which was done in good order, taking up different lines in retiring until we reached the position from which we had at first advanced. Soon after, by direction of general commanding division, works were thrown up a short distance in advance of this, which three regiments of the brigade occupied and held that night, the One hundred and thirty-sixth New York Volunteers, Fifty-fifth Ohio Volunteers, and Twentieth Connecticut Volunteers. This is the report of the operations of the brigade in the protracted skirmish of March 16, lasting the larger part of the day. The casualties of the brigade in that affair were as follows: Killed-commissioned officers, 5; enlisted men, 14. Wounded-commissioned officers, 3; enlisted men, 91. It was here that the brigade and service lost a young and valuable officer in the person of Lieutenant Samuel Storrow, aide-de-camp to myself, who received two wounds while carrying an order to the left of the brigade when it was on its most advanced position, from which he died almost immediately. His loss is deeply felt in the brigade. #

#Lieutenant Storrow is counted among the killed of the Second Massachusetts, p. 64.