Department during the day, and the last one, at 8:45 in the evening, indicated that Sheridan had been defeated. We try to picture this day in the words of the telegrams from these places, and finally from Gen. Sheridan announcing the route of the 54th Regiment, and Capt. Blough's Company K, at the dawn, the rally and the assault made at 4 p.m., when Gen. Early's army was practically destroyed. It would be a story only half told without Gen. Early's reasons for his many defeats, and the uncomplaining conclusions for the disasters of Gen. Lee, who was waiting and hoping for “one victory” which wuld make all things right.
This composite story begins at Shiloh, the first severe battle, when Company C, of Ebensburg, was on the banks of the Tennessee with Gen. Grant; the Cambria troops are next engaged with McClellan on the Peninsula, ending at Malvern Hill. They move to Maryland, and are in the terrible slaughter in the cornfield at Antietam; they follow Lee to Fredericksburg, and go in with Humphreys in his repeated assaults; with Franklin, Meade and Reynolds against Stonewall Jackson below the city; then on to Chancellorsville, where Sickles helps to stay the panic stricken forces on Hooker's right flank. They interpose Lee in his invasion of Pennsylvania, and come in contact on the dreadful field of Gettysburg. The connected story of Capt. Jones' company of the 11th Reserves in defending Little Round Top and driving the enemy on the second day; and that of Capt. Fite's company of Sickles' corps in the carnage in the Peach Orchard; the defense of the manificent Hancock at the Blody Angle, and lastly, that of Capt. Hamilton's company in “the Farnsworth ride to his death” on Lee's extreme right, is an accurate description of those three days of death and misery. It recalls the palmy days of knighthood. The scene moves to the west with Company C in the great battle of the West—Chickamauga, where Gen. Thomas held the enemy while the panic-stricken troops on the right and center fled, and then on to Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, where they drove the enemy from the mountain tops. It shifts again to the east. They cross the Rapidan with Gen. Grant, and were in the struggles in the Wilderness, Spottsylvania and Cold Harbor, and pursued Lee to Petersburg, where he entrenched.
While Gen. Grant was thus engaged on the east side of the Blue Ridge, Col. Campbell's regiment was on the west side in the Shenandoah Valley, engaged in the severe battles of New Market, Piedmont and Lynchburg, and retreating across the
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