Page:Historical and biographical sketches.djvu/341

Rh we reached Gettysburg he was ordered by Major Haller who controlled operations there, to advance to Cashtown about eight miles distant and that, doubting the propriety of obeying, he had hired a horse and ridden back to see Colonel Jennings who protested against such a course and succeeded in preventing it. Professor Jacobs in his “Notes on the Battle of Gettysburg,” says that we were a hundred picked men detailed as bushwhackers or riflemen to be sent to the mountains at Cashtown, and that had the intention been carried out we would have met with almost certain destruction.

(Friday, June 26th.) In the morning it was raining in torrents. Some of the men went to the hotels and bought their breakfasts, but I confined myself to my haversack principally because I was fearful of being absent when ordered to march. At that time I was very careful not to disobey a command, but I afterward discovered it was the better plan to provide for myself and leave to the officers the responsibility of having their orders fulfilled. I believe there are no circumstances in which a man's welfare depends more upon his disposition and ability to take care of No. 1. The remainder of the regiment came up in cars about 9 A. M., and I hastened to return Rennard's overcoat to him feeling unpleasantly from having deprived him of it, but of course it was impossible for either of us to have foreseen what occurred. He gave to me my piece of shelter tent, wet and consequently heavy, which I carried tied upon the top of the knapsack. We waited then for some time, and many made use of it in scattering over town and hunting up something to eat.

About ten o'clock we started on the Chambersburg road and marched some three miles from town to a wood