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resulting in brisk skirmishing, with some loss in killed and wounded on both sides.
Heintzelman gained his point, however, and maintained it. We were under arms all day, ready to take part in a general action, if one should result.
In the meantime, the batteries opposite to us have been throwing their shot and shell at us, but without inflicting any injury.
There is a report that the great ‘
Stonewall’
Jackson with his army has left
Gordonsville and is coming to
Richmond, to turn our right flank.
His withdrawal from the
Valley of Virginia would indicate weakness of the army here, for he would never leave so important a field, and where he had been doing good service, unless it was a matter of great importance to strengthen their Richmond army.
This report, in connection with the fact that they keep up a great drumming and bugling in front of us, to make us believe they are in great force, leads me to doubt whether their army is as strong as represented, and whether they do actually outnumber us, as some believe.
I yesterday rode to the extreme right of our lines, where our cavalry are stationed, watching the whole country, to apprise us of any advance.
At one of the outposts,
Reynolds, whom I was accompanying on a tour of inspection, sent for the officer in command of the detachment to give him some instructions, when I found he was our old neighbor,
Benoni Lockwood, who seemed really glad to see me. The adjutant of the Fourth Pennsylvania Cavalry, now serving with our division, is your relative, Will
Biddle.
The health of the army, at least of our division, is very fair—some little bilious attacks and diarrhea, but nothing serious.
We have an abundance of good food; no army in the world was ever better supplied and cared for than ours is, all reports to the contrary notwithstanding.
This letter, which had hardly been mailed before ‘everything on our part of the line’ became as
until August 12, with the exception of a few lines on July 1 announcing his having been wounded the previous evening.
As this period includes what is known as the Seven Days Battles, it becomes necessary, in default of
's letters, to supply the break in the narrative by a general account, up to the time of his being wounded, of the operations preceding August 12 of the division to which he was attached.
It is therefore not to be regarded
