18 Southern Historical Society Papers.
these were against whom our little regiment had been sent, and who you, of the Twelfth, were also to meet as you so gallantly came hastening to our assistance.
Major-General Franz Sigel reports :
" On Thursday night, August 28th, when the first corps was encamped on the heights south of Young's Branch, near Bull Run, I received orders from General Pope to attack the enemy vigorously the next morning. I accordingly made the necessary preparations at night, and formed in order of battle at daybreak, having ascertained that the enemy was in considerable force beyond Young's Branch, in sight of the hills we occupied. His left wing rested on Catharpin Creek, towards Centreville; with his centre he occupied a long stretch of woods parallel with the Sudley Springs (New Market) road, and his right was posted on the hill on both sides of the Centreville- Gainesville road. I therefore directed General Schurz to deploy his division on the right of the Gainesville road, and by a change of direction to the left to come into position parallel with the Sudley Springs road. General Milroy, with his brigade and one battery, was directed to form the centre," &c.
General Schenck's division was to form the left of Sigel' s attack; but we, I think it will appear, are only concerned at the time with Schurz' s division and Milroy' s independent brigade. So we need not follow Schenck's movements, which, in fact, did not amount to much.
It will interest you, I think, my comrades, to know the compo- sition of this division and brigade which Sigel had ordered to attack us. Schurz' s division, I find, was composed of two brigades of three regiments each. The first brigade was commanded by Colonel Schimmelfenning, one of the best educated, General Gordon says, of all those foreigners who offered their swords to the Federal govern- ment one whom it was your destiny to meet again upon that glorious but disastrous day to us, as we lost our great leader in the hour of victory at Chancellorsville. This brigade, which was upon the right of the division as it advanced, was composed of the Sixty-first Ohio, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel McGroarty ; Seventy-fourth Pennsylvania, commanded by Major Blessing, and a regiment which the Federal government had the audacity to call the Eighth Virginia. Who the commander of this bogus regiment was I have not been able to ascertain. The second brigade was commanded by another foreigner, with an equally euphonious name, Colonel Krzyzanowski. This brigade was composed of the Fifty-fourth New York, com- manded by Lieutenant-Colonel Ashby ; the Fifty-eighth New York, commanded by Major Henkel, and Seventy-fifth Pennsylvania, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Mahler. Milroy's independent
