Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. ANTIETAM. Although the battle of Malvern Hill was in all respects a victory, the enemy being repulsed at every point with great slaughter, without gaining so much as a single trophy, or occupying any part of the Union position for the briefest space of time, the Army of the Potomac that night retreated to Harrison's Landing, on the James, as a position better suited for the delivery of supplies and stores. Here it remained, resting and refitting, until about August 7th, when the withdrawal of the active force from the Peninsula may be said to have begun. During the long stay at Harrison's Landing, the Fifty-ninth New York, Colonel William L. Tidball, was assigned to the Second Brigade, Second Division. On the 2d of July a still more important reinforcement was received, when General Nathan Kimball joined, with three regiments, all destined to win high distinction in their service with the Second Corps: the Eighth Ohio, Colonel S. S. Carroll (Lieutenant-Colonel Sawyer, present commanding); the Fourteenth Indiana, Colonel William Harrow; the Seventh Virginia, Colonel James Evans. These troops had served under McClellan in West Virginia, and under Shields in "The Valley;" they were already veterans, inured to marching and undaunted in battle. At first General KimbaH's command formed an independent brigade, becoming later the nucleus of the Third Division of the corps. Among other changesin organization at Harrison's Landing occurred the reduction of the Seventy-first Pennsylvania Volunteers from a fifteen-company to a ten-company regiment, the supernumerary officers being mustered out. The several reinforcements received raised the aggregate, present and absent, in the face of numerous desertions and discharges for disability, from 21,707, as by the corps return of ...