History of Pennsylvania volunteers, 1861-5; prepared in compliance with acts of the legislature, by Samuel P. Bates.

1862 BATTLE OF FAIR OAKS. 247
ing reply,'it is a military necessity.' The event showed that our fears were
well founded. The malaria of the marshes and swamps of Yorktown, with
the excessive labor performed in the trenches and on picket, debilitated our
men for months, sending dozens of them to their graves, and rendering hundreds unfit for service, many for life. We had one man killed by a shell, and
five wounded, while before Yorktown." On the afternoon of the 11th of April,
the Sixty-third Regiment was attacked while on picket, and the Fifty-seventh
was ordered to its support. Advancing at double-quick, it formed in line of
battle and moved over an open field, in face of a hot fire, and with the help of
Weeden's Battery, soon put his columns to flight. The enemy having evacuated his works about Yorktown, the army moved forward on the 4th of May
towards Williamsburg, where he again made a stand. The Fifty-seventh had
reached a point within four miles of the battle-field, when it was ordered to
throw off knapsacks, blankets, and overcoats, and march, at double-quick, to
the front. Upon its arrival it formed line on the right of the road, but night
coming on, the fighting ceased, and it was not engaged. The men, overheated
by rapid marching, and wet to the skin by a drenching rain, without rations,
fires orblankets, remained under arms all night. " It seemed," says Colonel Perkins, "immediately after, as though the regiment had been struck with a pestilence. Nearly, or quite one-half of the men were taken sick, and the number
of discharges, from that night's exposure, was greater, I think, than our casualties in any battle during the war."
Leaving Williamsburg on the 7th, where after the battle it had performed
picket duty, the regiment marched to Cumberland Landing, on the Pamunkey,
and for ten days it acted as guard to the supplies stored there. It re-joined
the brigade at Baltimore Store, and on the 24th crossed the Chickahominy, at
Bottom's Bridge. Upon the opening of the engagement at Fair Oaks, on the
31st, the regiment made a forced march to the battle-field, and was soon hotly
engaged. It had been detached from Jameson's, and ordered to duty with
Birney's Brigade. But without awaiting orders from Birney, who, from some
cause of difficulty with Kearny and Heintzelman, was left behind, Colonel
Campbell led his men promptly into action, and by desperate fighting, Heintzelman's Corps succeeded in staying the rout into which Casey's Division had
been thrown. The loss in this short engagement was very severe, being eleven
killed and forty-nine wounded. M1ajor Culp was killed, and Captain Cornelius
S. Chase, of company K, mortally wounded. Colonel Campbell was severely
wounded in wrist and groin. The command of the regiment now devolved on
Lieutenant Colonel Woods, and Captain S. C. Simonton was promoted to Major.
After the battle, the regiment was encamped amid swamps and marshes,
where the water was insufferably bad, and was employed in throwing up breastworks and picketing the lines. The swamp fevers carried many to the hospitals, and the grave. While on picket duty at the front, on the 25th of June,
the enemy attacked with artillery, using grape and cannister, resulting in a loss,
to the regiment, of several wounded, but soon withdrew. The camp at this
time was in the front line of works, a half mile to the left of the Williamsburg
stage road. The air was now full of rumors of battle, and on the 26th and
27th, while the fighting was in progress across the Chickahominy at Mechanicsville and Gaines' Mill, the regiment skirmished with the enemy in its front.
Withdrawing from the breastworks on the morning of the 28th, it encamped
in ma open field to the rear, where one hundrd and fifty rounds of cartridge