The Harrison mansion, a substantial structure of brick, reared in colonial days, stood on an eminence overlooking the broad sweep of the James river. Between the mansion and the river was a stretch of grass-covered field gently sloping to the water's edge. Adjoining this to the west, or northwest, was a large wheat field. A greater part of the standing grain had been cut and was in shock. These golden sheaves were quickly appropriated by our troops and spread upon the water-sodden ground, whereon to rest their weary bodies. A few brief hours sufficed to obliterate every trace of this harvest scene, and where the husbandman had so recently been reaping in peace the fruits of his field, batteries were now thickly packed and soldiers' tents, not white, but wet and earth soiled, stood in long ranks.
Camp Life at Harrison's Landing--Major Birney Assigned to the Command of the Regiment--Transferred to General Birney's Brigade--Evacuation of Harrison's Landing and the Peninsula--The Army of the Potomac is Sent to Reenforce General Pope.
The regiment, upon its arrival at Harrison's Landing, presented a most pitiable spectacle. But three months before it numbered almost nine hundred; now but little over half a hundred responded for duty at first roll-call, and there was not a field officer present. Says Surgeon Lyman: "All were exhausted and disheartened, scarcely a well man in the regiment, with two hundred and thirty, for the first few days, on the sick list." For a time Captain Ralph Maxwell was in command of the regiment, but was succeeded later by Captain Strohecker. Funerals were of such frequent occurrence that the solemn notes of the dead march were almost continually to be heard, until, for the benefit of the living, burials with military honors were suppressed by general order. To the great annoyance of brigade commanders they could muster no more men for brigade drill than would compose an ordinary battalion; the regiments presenting no better appearance as to numbers than a company, and a company than a corporal's guard. As a consequence there were frequent charges of "shirking duty" preferred, and the officers of the line watched and counted with greatest care their rolls for available men. An amusing anecdote of this watchful regard of the superior officers is told by Colonel Strohecker. He says: