"boys" looked at him, and said one to another, "why, that is the old fellow who was skirmishing around here the other day in a horse blanket. Is he to boss this brigade? He looks as though he could bite the head off a tenpenny nail, and would like to do it. Well, well, we'll miss Uncle Wadsworth, you bet." And theywe, rather-did "miss Uncle Wadsworth" for a while. General Patrick was a graduate of West Point, and had spent the better part of his life in the regular army. He had seen service in Mexico, and, I think, on the plains among the Indians. He was a thorough soldier, and he exercised the authority of his grade with the inflexible severity of an old army officer, whose education and habits of life, for fifty years, had made him a thorough disciplinarian and a stickler for every pɔint of military etiquette and army regulations, in so far as they were deemed conducive to the well-being and efficiency of the troops under his command. He was by no means a martinet, but he believed the regulations of the army were wise rules for the government of troops, and that their enforcement was necessary for the preservation of that gradation of authority and that maintenance of discipline, without which an army becomes a mob. He was quick to detect, and stern in the punishment of any wilful breach of these regulations, and officers and men alike were not affectionately disposed towards him. He did not care-or, at least, did not appear to care. Yet, when I came to know the General better, I believed that during all the weeks of his early command of the brigade, when his hand seemed to be really against us all, he was longing in his heart for the sympathy, respect and love of his officers and men. Well, if he was, he consoled himself with a well-grounded faith that these sentiments would grow up in the course of time, and he did not have long to wait for them. The benefit of General Patrick's thorough system Porter Board, as to the operations of my brigade at Groveton, on the 29th and 30th of August, '62, may give the reasons for its suppression. From the bloody and disastrous field of Groveton, was borne away the pure and chivalrous commander of your regiment to yield up his young and joyous life upon the altar of his country. On that field, too, were left-I know not how many-of your gallant dead, nor how many more were carried away to linger and die of wounds that day received. During the Maryland Campaign that followed, the regiment under your own command added to its reputation already established on the crest of South Mountain and the field of Antietam ; its brilliant record for that year, closing up with the battles around Fredericksburg, 13th and 15th December. As Provost-Marshal-General of the Army of Potomac, from the battle of Antietam, it was absolutely indispensable that I should have troops around me on whom I could rely. Regiment after regiment was assigned to me, only to make further changes needful, until in early January of '63, my request to have my Old Brigade assigned to my department was granted, and from that hour I felt that I had those around me who could be trusted. In less than six months afterward the other regiments of that famous Old Brigade having been discharged by expiration of two years' service, the Twentieth alone remained, charged with difficult, laborious and responsible duties, increasing in magnitude and importance up to the close of the war. Although the Provost troops were not, on ordinary occasions, in line of battle, yet, in every time of peril, from Gettysburg to Petersburg, the hasty call on me was, "Put in your Twentieth "--and "put in" it was; and history tells the story. It records the heroic conduct of the 20th N. Y. and 151st Pa.--a demi-brigade under your own command-in resisting the main attack of Pickett's famous division, six times your own number, for three hours, holding ground against nearly 100 guns, and eventually forcing the enemy from the field, but with the loss of Corbin and Baldwin, and Brankstone, and many others of your best and bravest. And history too records the fact, that when the call was made, for the last time, to "Put in the Twentieth," it did go in, and go through, and planted the Stars and Stripes above the captured city of Petersburg. But, with the passing away of every emergency that called the regi ment into line of battle, it was relieved, with the thanks of its temporary Commanding General, and returned to its normal duties in my Department. Belonging to no corps, but "put in" whenever and wherever necessity demanded, its services were not recognized and honored as were the services of other regiments permanently attached to the corps in which the Twentieth might be temporarily fighting. If, however, the laurels earned by this regiment were sometimes placed on other brows, there were garlands gathered by the Twentieth on fields that were all its own. To watch over the discipline and interior |