THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 73 Williamsburg road. Here the federals had thrown up a redoubt in a clearing, where there were a few houses, and they had felled trees to widen the sweep1 of their guns. The rest of the country was one dense wood. The evening before we had a terrific storm, with torrents of rain; the roads were frightful. Suddenly, about 1 P. M., the weather being grey and dull, we beard a very lively fire of musketry. The pickets and the advance were violently driven in ; the woods around Fair Oak» and Seven Pines were filled with hostile sharpshooters. The troops flew to arms and fought desperately; but the forces of the enemy constantly increased, and he was not checked by his losses. The redoubt at Seven Pines was suiBmnded, and its defenders fell valiantly. Here, among others, Colonel Bailey, of the artillery, met a glorious death among his guns. The redoubt was carried, and the Northern troops fell into some confusion. In vain did Generals Keyes and Naglee make a thousand efforts to rally their troops; they were wholly disregarded. At this moment they perceived a small battalion of French troops, known as the “Gardes Lafayette,” standing in good order. The Generals rode up to it, put themselves at its head, charged the enemy, and retook a battery. The battalion lost a fourth of its numbers in this charge, but like genuine Frenchmen, the same all the world over, they cried—“They may call ns Gardes Lafourchette now, if they like,” in allusion to an uncomplimentary nickname which had been bestowed on them. Meanwhile Heintzelman advanced to the rescue with his two divisions. As at Williamsburg, so here, Kearney came up at the right moment to restore the battle. Berry’s brigade of this division, made up of Michigan regiments, and of an Irish battalion, advances as firm as a stone wall, through the disordered masses which are wavering upon the battle field, and does more, by its single example, than the strongest re-
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