During the night of the 18th, the enemy withdrew, but, as is well known, no movement took place during the following day. On the 19th, the last sad duties in connection with the battle were performed by our soldiers; namely, the burial of the dead. The Twenty-ninth was chiefly employed in this work during a greater part of the day, the part of the field assigned to them being the corn-field, sunken road, and orchard. Here the dead of the enemy (our own having been removed during the battle) were very numerous, and in the first stages of decomposition. Many of them had been lying on the field under the scorching rays of the sun for nearly forty-eight hours, and were swollen and black, and emitted a disgusting odor, fairly sickening our burial-party, who dug long trenches three feet deep, in which the dead were placed and covered with earth, as decently as circumstances would allow. In some places, as many as twenty-five bodies were found in a heap; in others, as many as seventy-five mangled and blackened victims were found lying only a few feet apart.
The trees in the orchard showed plainly the fierceness of the strife, which for two days and two nights had raged there with hardly a moment’s cessation. The trunks of the trees were literally filled with bullets, and the bark on the exposed sides wholly stripped off to a height of from six to ten feet from the ground.
The wounded of the Twenty-ninth had all been conveyed to a brick house and barn a short distance to the rear, where their more fortunate comrades paid them frequent visits during the 19th, cheering them with kind words, exchanging accounts of the battle, and rendering numerous little services. The dead of the regiment had been carefully buried on the field, and, where practicable, their honored graves were marked.
The numerous praises bestowed upon the regiment for its valuable services in this battle were highly flattering to both officers and men. General Meagher sent a request to Colonel Barnes to visit him at his tent a few days after the battle, and in the most pleasing manner expressed his high appreciation of the conduct of the Twenty-ninth. As the praise bestowed upon the Brigade is justly shared by the regiment, the author deems it but justice to his comrades to quote in this connection the words of General McClellan. In his report of the battle, that officer makes use of the following language:--