Isaac O. Best, History of the 121st New York State Infantry

[184] that of Russell to us. Captain Weaver in giving an account of this special affair at the crisis of the battle says that Captain Cronkite rushed out alone and captured a Rebel flag. Neither Beckwith nor Colonel Cronkite mentions this in their accounts of the affair. Of the result of the battle Colonel Beckwith says, “We were all greatly encouraged by the splendid victory we had won. We knew the men we had been fighting and we considered them as good as any, if not the best, in Lee's army, but they were no match for us on open ground. It was voted a luxury to be permitted to fight on a fair field instead of in the jungle we had been in, from the Rapidan to the James, and it did us great good. We knew that the Louisianians of Rappahannock Station were there, the Alabamians of Salem Church, the Virginians and Georgians of the Wilderness, and Dole's and Battle's men of Spottsylvania, and we did not fear them with a fair chance. But we were deeply depressed by the loss of Generals Russell and Upton. While it was reported that Upton's wound would not permanently disable him, we feared it would.”

Of all the battles in which the brigade had been engaged since the writer was detailed to duty at brigade headquarters, this was the first in which he had not been under fire. In crossing the field later in the afternoon he came to a point where the two lines of battle must have stood for some time, steadily firing at each other. Between two thickets, probably twenty rods apart there was a row of blue clad dead lying close together, and fairly touching each other; and only a few yards in front of them a similar windrow of gray clad dead, lying as closely and straightly aligned as were their opponents of a few hours before. The wounded had all been removed.

This battle cost the enemy, besides their dead