away as the brigade advanced to the assault. The ammunition had been exhausted in the field.

Having seen my wounded and disabled men as comfortably encamped as it was possible for them to be under the circumstances, I recrossed the Rappahannock, and between 11 and 12 o'clock at night reported to Brigadier-General Hancock. On the way, however, I stopped at the houses that had been taken as hospitals for the brigade that morning, and in them found many officers and privates who had been brought in from the field since I transferred the brigade to the opposite side of the river. Most of them were in great agony, not having had anything to sustain or soothe them since they received their wounds. Lieutenant Emmet, who accompanied me from where I had left the brigade, returned at once to bring our surgical and medical assistance. Dr. Powell promptly obeyed the order.

Next day, a little after daybreak, every officer and private of the bridge able to again take the field, by order of Brigadier-General Hancock, recrossed the Rappahannock and appeared upon the ground they occupied the day before, previous to their marching to the battle-field, all of them prepared and eager, notwithstanding their exhausted numbers and condition, to support the Ninth Corps in the renewal of the assault of the previous day, that renewal having been determined on by the commander-in-chief commanding the Army of the Potomac. Two hundred and eighty men only appeared under arms to represent the Irish Brigade. This little band, unserved and undeterred, still full of heart, inspired by a bright sense of duty, sorrowful for their comrades, but prouder and still more emboldened that such men had fallen bravely as they did, awaited the word that was once again to precipitate them against the batteries and defenses of the enemy.

I close this report by acknowledging the gallantry and practical ability and the confirmed steadiness of the officers of the brigade, and in making this acknowledgment have sincerely to deplore the loss of such men as Major Horgan, of the Eighty-eighth New York Volunteers, than whom a better and braver soldier I have never known.

Colonel Robert Nugent, commanding the Sixty-ninth New York Volunteers, acted with signal bravery, leading as he did the column into the field with a brilliancy of bearing worthy of the military reputation of his family name. His demeanor and the spirit he displayed, his words and looks, all were such as could not possibly fail, as they did not fail, to encourage and incite his men that day. He bore from the field a wound which will long be an honorable testimony to his daring. Major James Cavanagh, also of the Sixty-ninth, most ably and with utter fearlessness supporting his colonel, fell severely wounded, but I trust not fatally, for never was there a truer heart; never was there a bolder arm; never was there a brighter brain. But it would be out of place in this report to enumerate, in the terms of affectionate appreciation I desire, the losses which the Irish Brigade had incurred.

Hereafter, should an opportunity be afforded me, I shall speak and write of such men as Lieutenants Birmingham and Buckley, men who so worthily supplied the place of the officers who fell on the battle-field before Richmond and in the great repulse of the enemy at Antietam. Looking along the ranks of the Eighty-eighth,as I did, with a mournful pride the day after the assault, I missed others besides Major William Horgan. I missed Lieutenants Murphy, McCarthy, and Young, the intelligent and diligent adjutant of the regiment. In the contemplation of these losses some consolation arises from the fact that men like Colonel Patrick Kelly, Lieutenant Colonel Quinlan, Captain Patrick K. Horgan, Captain