ceeding by steamer to Washington. On their arrival in the city, they found that no transportation had been provided for them, and they went into the Park Barracks, where they remained until the afternoon of Sunday the 5th of May. They then received orders to return to their homes, as advices had arrived from Washington calling only for volunteers to serve for two years and for this reason it was alleged, no more militia regiments could be accepted. This order caused great consternation among the rank and file. They had enlisted in the hope of being engaged in the impending conflict, and expected to see actual service. Many of them had given up lucrative positions, left homes and families, for the purpose of manifesting their patriotism and sustaining the honor and integrity of the American flag. On the following evening (May 6), a special order was received from Washington, ordering them to proceed at once to the capital. When this news was imparted to the troops, a scene of genuine enthusiasm ensued; cheer upon cheer rang upon the air; the President, the Governor, General Scott, Colonel Pratt, and in fact every name the troops could think of, was wildly cheered. Colonel Pratt was deeply affected at the enthusiasm manifested by his men, and took no measures to check their outbursts of joy. After order had been restored, he made a few remarks, thanking his regiment for the manner in which they had borne the many disappointments to which they had been subjected, and congratulating them upon the prospect of a speedy entry upon active service. He said "they would come back covered with glory." Alas! how true was this prophecy, how literally has it been fulfilled. He who uttered it, sleeps with the honored dead, "covered with glory." His regiment entering the general service for three months, at the expiration of its term reenlisted for the war,-and upon nearly every battle-field in Virginia and Maryland has the 20th New York Militia been distinguished for its bravery. Its commander received his mortal wound at the second battle of Manassas. After his death, the county from which it was recruited (the County of Ulster), filled up its ranks, at repeated intervals, until it has sent of its sons into this organization alone, some twelve or fourteen hundred men. As we are considering in the present article, the services of the militia in 1861, it would be out of place to enter into any extended account of the services of the 20th through the war. We can however say with truth, that the regiment has "covered itself with glory," and the battle-fields of the Peninsula, of Manassas, Antietam, South Mountain, Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg, bear most eloquent witness to its devotion and bravery. In the winter of 1864, the New York 20th returned home upon a furlough, and the small band of men (only some two hundred) who brought back their tattered colors,

covered with marks of honorable service, their thinned ranks made up of scarred and wounded heroes, proved how faithfully they had verified the predictions made of their gallantry, when first leaving for the seat of war.

To appreciate properly the services of the New York Militia regiments at the commencement of the rebellion, we must go back, in imagination, to the period when Washington was feverish with excitement, and when the arrival of the New York 7th, was hailed with joy both by citizens and officials. We must note the successive arrival of other regiments, each, in its turn, adding to the sense of security beginning to be felt by the inhabitants. We must watch the alacrity with which the members of the different organizations went to work in strengthening the fortifications of the capital; we must see them laboring from morning till night, digging trenches and throwing up embankments; going out upon picket duty; making incursions into the neighboring country and clearing it of dangerous or suspicious characters; guarding railroads, and entering with spirit upon all the varied duties of a soldier's life; we must follow them to the first battle-field where bravely they enter upon the fight with troops familiar with every surrounding location, and prepared, by a long expectation of this very struggle, to meet them with desperate resistance; we must watch one, and another, and another, of these militia soldiers fall in the dread conflict, until their dead and wounded are counted by hundreds, and then we can realize how thoroughly in earnest were the New York Militia regiments, when they formed the vanguard of the Union Army, in its earliest encounter with rebellion. Though their efforts were not crowned with victory, still their patriotism in offering themselves among the first to save their government and country from destruction, will ever be held in remembrance by the nation and their native State. Their dead alone will keep their record sacred; and, in years to come, when peace once more shall shed its blessings over our land, and the memory alone of our dead heroes shall be left us, certain it is, that the recollection of none will be cherished more fervently, than that of the citizen soldiers, who fell the first victims in the strife.

"There is a tear for all that die,

A mourner o'er the humblest grave,
But nations swell the funeral cry,
And Triumph weeps above the brave.

"A tomb is theirs on every page,
An epitaph on every tongue:
The present hours, the future age,
For them bewail, to them belong."

NOTES ON THE MAY CAMPAIGN ON THE JAMES RIVER.

II.

THE ADVANCE TOWARDS RICHMOND AND BATTLE OF DRURY'S BLUFF.

Ar three o'clock, in the morning of the 12th, the army was again in motion, and this time it was confidently believed that something was to be effected commensurate with the force we had, and the extensive preparations for this expedition. Turner's and Terry's Divisions of the Tenth Corps advanced towards Richmond on nearly parallel roads, Turner on the right and Terry on the left; while Ames' Division of the same corps marched out to the vicinity of the railroad at Chester Station, and took up a strong position facing towards Petersburg. About noon the column on the right, debouched into a beautiful valley, perhaps six miles from Fort Darling. Terry, on the left, struck the turnpike and extended his line of skirmishers to the railroad, so that the line reached thence to James River. Opposite the centre of the line was an elevated plateau, on which are found houses and belts of woods. Here the rebel skirmishers were. met. Our line was very carefully advanced; indeed, there appeared to be an excess of caution in advancing the skirmishers of Alford's Brigade; and after some time the rebels were driven from the belt of woods where they had taken position, and retreated precipitately across an open field to another thick wood, bordering Proctor's Creek.

Though there were but a hundred or two of them, it had taken three or four hours to accomplish this! At this latter position, skirmishing was continued till dark, when the enemy retired across the creek to the high land beyond. A road leading from the plateau from which they had been driven at this point. was their only means of egress from the valley, as a few yards to the right the ravine through which the creek runs in its course to the river is well-nigh impassable. The creek too, here, is quite deep and very rapid. On the morning of the 13th, Weitzel's Division of the Eighteenth Corps pushed across this creek, their right in the road by which the enemy had retreated, and up the slopes, driving the Rebel skirmishers before them; and the whole Eighteenth Corps advanced and took position on the right of the line, which it held till the battle of the 16th; from the turnpike towards the river, Turner's Division advanced along the turnpike, and took position to the left of it. Terry was still farther to the left, his line extending across the railroad. His left was thrown forward, in a very dashing style, and captured a redoubt and several guns.

During the 14th, the whole line was advanced, and the enemy were driven from a strong line of defences, after a very feeble resistance. The feebleness of the resistance offered can only be accounted for by supposing that their numbers were insufficient to hold so extended a line. There could not have been at that time more than three brigades in front of our two corps. Rebel prisoners state that, previous to the night of the 15th, there were but two brigades, but that during that night fourteen thousand men from Richmond re-enforced them. There is little doubt that a vigorous attack on the 14th, or perhaps in the early morning of the 15th, would have crushed the rebel force. The position of the forces after the rebels abandoned their first line of works was this: our army occupied a position along those works, our right extending to within a mile of the river, and uncovered; our left across the railroad, and so advanced that the line made an acute angle with the river. Our first line-a line in one rank-was advanced three or four hundred yards beyond the deserted works, and covered by a low breastwork, made against fences, and some portions of it facing into woods.

There were, in front of our main line, three strong redoubts, so arranged that the guns from one face of each swept the field across which our troops moved to the advanced line. Nothing was done towards making the works we had captured defensive; though a few hours' labor would have made a vast difference in the resistance we were enabled to offer when attacked. It is said, with how much truth I know not, that Generals Smith and Weitzel strongly urged the withdrawal of the forces on the evening of the 14th, and if this were not done, we should attack on the morning of the 15th. We did neither, remaining quiet during the forenoon of the 15th; and about noon the enemy came out and attacked Heckman's Brigade, on the extreme right of our line, furiously; the firing extended all along the line, and lasted till four o'clock P. M. The evening after that was very quiet, and a most lovely Sunday evening. It had been cloudy and rainy for several days, but about noon the clouds had dispersed, and the atmosphere had become clear.

"'Twas one of those ambrosial eves

A day of storm so often leaves
At its calm setting, when the West
Opens her golden flowers of rest,
And a moist radiance from the skies
Shoots trembling down."

We laid down to rest after that gorgeous sunset, hoping that the same hour on the morrow would behold our banner proudly floating in victory; for we knew that orders had been issued, and dispositions made, for an advance of our whole line at five o'clock in the morning; and we could move onward but a few hundred yards before meeting our foe.

The baggage of the army had been ordered up the day before, and every thing belonging to one division had arrived-tents, officers' baggage, and all-showing conclusively that no backward movement was intended.

At about four o'clock, in the morning of the 16th, the enemy began the attack: they opened a furious artillery fire against the right, left, and centre, and, under cover of the fog, which was exceedingly dense, passed around our right flank and attacked Heckman's Brigade in the rear. A few sentinels of negro cavalry posted from the right of this brigade to the river-too few to offer any serious resistance-were the only protection of that flank. Heckman's Brigade was soon forced back with heavy loss, and Heckman himself made prisoner. In a few minutes after the first attack, the battle raged along the whole line. Beauregard massed his men and hurled them in columns successively against different portions of our attenuated line, breaking off battalion after battalion, until the whole were finally forced to retire,

I have spoken above of an "advanced line" and a "main line," but in reality there was but one line, stretched out in one rank, and with gaps in some portions of it at that. There was no continuous second line, but a few regiments were placed, at intervals, a few hundred yards in rear of the first line.

Notwithstanding this weak formation, a most determined resistance was offered by our men. Several regiments of the Tenth Corps were sent to the support of the Eighteenth; but the enemy steadily gained ground, so that, at nine o'clock, the mansion occupied by General Butler as his head-quarters was in their possession. If brave deeds performed by subalterns and privates could have availed any thing that morning, the Eighteenth Corps would have beaten back the enemy; but no amount of heroism could overcome the difficulties of their position. The fog was one of the difficulties. And what a fog! It hung like a thick pall over every thing. To venture a rod away from the lines, was to lose one's self. Heckman's capture, and doubtless the capture of many on both sides, was owing to the fog. There were many ludicrous incidents, and hair-breadth escapes arising from the same cause. General Weitzel was riding along outside of the lines, when he came upon a soldier who had been captured by a rebel. The man threw his arms around his captor, and called out to the General, "Don't come here, General-I'm a prisoner." The General very coolly drew a revolver, and said, "We'll change hands, I think," and the rebel turned over his arms to his quondam prisoner, and with him marched into our lines. The Lieutenant-Colonel of the Nineteenth Wisconsin was lost in the fog, and captured by two rebels, and they were soon lost too; he proffered to guide them, and managed to conduct them to his own regiment.