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

1862 PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 523
Lieutenant Colonel Childs was promoted to succeed him. Major Kerr was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, and Captain George H. Covode, to Major.
The cavalry arm of the service was not at this time in favor, and many organizations were transformed to infantry. Through the influence of prominent
members of Congress from Pennsylvania, this one was preserved intact, and
early in May was ordered to join M'Dowell's column upon the Rappahannock,
where, upon its arrival, it was assigned to M'Calls Division, the Pennsylvania
Reserves. Here it soon settled into a routine of picket aid scouting duty, varied by an occasional regimental drill. One of its scouting parties, following
the line of the Richmond and Fredericksburg Railroad, went as far as Hanover
Court House, where it communicated with M'Clellan's pickets; M'Dowell's
whole corps was at this time upon the point of moving overland to join the
army upon the peninsula, but was prevented by the appearance of a heavy
column of the enemy in the Shenandoah valley. The troops which were already across, accordingly returned to the north bank of the Rappahannock.
M'Call's Division was soon after ordered to proceed by water to re-inforce MIClellan, and the Fourth accompanied it, arriving at White House on the 24th
of June. Here a battalion under Lieutenant Colonel Kerr, consisting of companies H, A, K and G, was ordered to Yorktown, where it remained on duty
until the close of the Peninsula campaign. On the day following its arrival,
the balance of the regiment proceeded to the front. As the bugler sounded a
halt, upon its approach to General M'Call's headquarters, the column was saluted by a number of shells from the enemy's batteries. They passed harmlessly by, tearing up the ground beyond, but as an evidence of being at the
front, were conclusive.
On the 26th, a squadron under command of Captain Herron, of company E,
was sent on picket in the neighborhood of Mechanicsville, in advance of the
Bucktail regiment. In the afternoon, a party which he led, scouting beyond
the line, met the advance of the rebel army, and fired the first shot on the Union
side, in the bloody Seven Days' battles which immediately ensued. At Beaver
Dam Creek, detachments from the Fourth were employed in escorting batteries in their movements on the field. On the following day it was stationed in
the rear of Gaines' House, where it was drawn out in line to stop stragglers. At
the top of the hill in front, the whole field was in full view, and the only relief
to the tedium of guard, was in riding up and watching the progress of the
fight. Towards evening, the number of stragglers began to increase, platoons
and companies, and finally regiments, broken and disordered, hurried over the
hill and were stopped at the line of the Fourth. When at length the Union infantry, broken and overpowered, was leaving the field, the day irretrievably
lost, the regular cavalry under General Philip St. George Cooke, posted far up
the hill, charged over the crest. The lancers followed, but the regulars, sadly
thinned by the intensity of the enemys fire, were driven in upon the lancers,
and the whole came back in disorder. Two squadrons of the Eighth Illinois
on the right of the Fourth, leaving the field by order of General Cooke, opened
a gap, and through this the vast crowd of stragglers which had accumulated
in its front, rushed in wild confusion, and made for the crossings of the
Chickahominy. The regiment was thus left upon the front line. Soon the
enemy swarmed over the hill, where the corps headquarters had been. Colonel
Childs in desperation, resolved to charge in line. The word of preparation was
passing along the front, when the Union batteries posted on a hill in the rear,