Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Two).djvu/437

 well of myself and my staff, for we, too, had lived uncomfortably long on a diet of hardtack and coffee, and the ham was uncommonly welcome. In gratitude we abstained from pressing Schiele too closely as to the manner in which he had “found” the ham, and permitted him to tell us of the desperate fights he had had with stragglers who had tried to rob him of the precious object.

While we were thus feasting—ready, of course, at any moment to move wherever our help might be wanted—the battle was going on. The line taken by my small division of six regiments and those regiments sent to reinforce them, and held successfully during the day, was now occupied by two divisions of the Army of the Potomac, counting in all twenty-nine regiments, and commanded by two of the most renowned fighters of the army, Kearney and Hooker. They delivered during the afternoon various attacks upon the enemy, some of which were very brilliant, and actually succeeded in “doubling up” Stonewall Jackson's extreme left, without, however, producing decisive results. Toward evening they fell back into what had been substantially my position during the day. As to other parts of the field, the expected attack upon the enemy's right by Fitz John Porter, which subsequently caused so much bitter controversy, had not come off at all, and Longstreet's junction with Jackson, increasing more than two-fold the strength of the enemy in our front, had not been prevented.

We slept on the battlefield among dead bodies of men and horses and the tattered fragments of vehicles and clothes and accouterments.

On the next morning, April 30th, General Sigel did me the honor of adding to my command another brigade under Col. Koltes, with a battery commanded by Captain Hubert Dilger, one of the most brilliant artillery officers of the army.