had thought captured. Their arrival diminished the loss in our company to I think, seventeen. Among these, was Corporal MacDonald, of whom they tell a pretty good story. For some private matter, after the company was sworn in, he went to Pottstown, and before returning, as there was then every probability of our being away for a long time, he visited all his friends, and rather importantly bade them a last farewell. On reaching Harrisburg, he found the regiment had gone, and hastening after them, arrived at Gettysburg just in time to be captured by the rebels. They asked him how long he had been in the service. “About two hours” said he, and the next day he went back to Pottstown a paroled prisoner, considerably crest fallen and almost ashamed to go out on the streets. Rolly and the others had been left at Gettysburg in charge of the baggage, and upon the approach of the “rebs,” they, together with Major Haller, were compelled to skedaddle. They footed it to Hanover, and from there were carried on cars. At Columbia, they participated in the firing of the railroad bridge over the Susquehanna. Rolly curses Major Haller for an arrant coward, and says, that when the “rebs” were coming, he drew them up, told them if they wanted him to send for him, and scampered over the bridge as fast as he could travel.
Toward evening we moved our quarters to another field. I went to the Surgeon who had then arrived, and asked for some medicine for my dysentery. He gave me some castor oil in a small quantity of whiskey which I swallowed. Rhodes and Landis put up a tent for us three, while I lay about not fit for much of anything.
(Wednesday, July 1st.) After breakfast we had our guns to scour, and as they were very much rusted from being continually in the rain, it was no slight task. John Vanderslice, a gentleman from Phoenixville, over sixty
23
