The battle of Cold Harbor, in which we were engaged the next day, 27 june, was a desperate and bloody one, I was still serving on the ambulance corps and had heavy work carrying the wounded back to the field hospital, where the field surgeons would dress their wounds or amputate their limbs, as might be necessary. One of the finest and most efficient surgeons of the whole army was Dr. Tanner, a citizen of Fairfax County, Virginia, who was assigned to our regiment and served with it nearly all the war. He had improvised a rough table, or couch, with a blanket spread over it, upon which we would lay the wounded men, and his quick trained eye soon discovered whether amputation was necessary or not. With his sleeves rolled up to his shoulders, he stood at that table and amputated feet and legs, and hands and arms, throwing them on a blanket spread on the ground, until there were as many as four men could carry off and bury. It was necessary to carry off this blanket full several times during the day. Under the influence of chloroform some of the poor fellows stormed and swore; some would sing, while others would lie still and quite, and the scalpel and saw did their work. * * * This was the opening of a series of desperate and bloody battles, known in history as the "Seven Days' Battle," between McClellan and Lee, near the city of Richmond, in which the former, with a well fortified position and well equipped army, vastly outnumbering that of Lee, was driven from his fortifications and beaten back to the sheltering protection of a strong array of marshaled Fleets and forced to abandon the siege of a city he had commenced and conducted with so much eclat. In this series of battles there was so much fighting, so much charging and so many thrilling incidents and displays of personal and individual courage, that I pass over them, not having a sufficiently clear recollection at this time to relate them in detail.
BRAGGART POPE
We did not remain long in this camp. In fact, no part of the Army of Northern Virginia had much rest at any time during the active and bloody year of 1862. The armies of Fremont, Banks, and Shields, whom we had so roughly handled in the Valley a short time previous, had been united and formed an invading column under the braggart, Pope, who declared that the only part of a rebel he had ever seen was his back, issuing his orders from headquarters in the saddle, which would seem to boast,"I am going to do something. I am."