my Division, and as particularly illustrated in the late severe, but victorious engagement of the fifth instant in front of Williamsburg. These were the Thirty-seventh, Colonel HAYMAN; the Thirty-eight, Colonel J. H. HOBART WARD; and Fortieth, Colonel RILEY. New York will ever hold her place as EMPIRE STATE as long as she has such sons to represent her!

If, your Excellency, I do not particularize individual officers, it is that I could not, where all was zeal, distinguish one without injustice to the other. The Colonels are of the same opinion as myself. Colonels of two of them, stop before the difficulty of a selection; another, Colonel HAYMAN, includes his entire list.

The services of these regiments were most necessary. Each of the three bore the full brunt of the battle. The Thirty-seventh, Colonel HAYMAN, constituted our extreme left, part of General BERRY'S brigade. The Thirty-eighth and Fortieth Regiments served on the right flank. During the action the Thirty-eighth, Colonel WARD, and a wing of the Fortieth regiment, were marshaled for the desperate work of piercing the enemy's left centro and carrying the rifle-pits in the nearly impassable abattis; a desperate undertaking. But I knew their reputation, and I was sure of their success. Colonel HOBART WARD lost nine officers out of the nineteen that went into action. Two of them were prisoners and were rescued.

Your Excellency, I particularly name to you these Colonels as most meritorious and gallant officers, and trust that their State will ever be mindful of them as her proud representatives.

Your Excellency, in making you this, my first official communication, I am happy to embrace the occasion to assure you how sensible I have ever been of your having recommended me, originally, as one of the Generals within your nomination.

I enclose the list of killed and wounded of these three New York regiments.

Most respectfully,

Your obedient servant,

P. KEARNY,

Brig.-Gen. Commanding Third Division, HEINTZELMAN's Corps.

(Reb. Rec., V, Doc., page 18 [2].)

LETTER OF KEARNY IN REGARD TO HIS MAINE TROOPS.

HEADQUARTERS, THIRD DIVISION,

HEINTZELMAN'S CORPS,

302.}

CAMP BERRY, BARHAMSVILLE, VA., May 10th, 1862.

To his Excellency, ISRAEL WASHBURN, JR., Governor of Maine: SIRAS Commanding General of this Division, of which two of the generals commanding brigades (General JAMESON and General BERRY), as well as two regiments, the Third Maine, Colonel STAPLES, and the Fourth, Colonel WALKER, form a part, I take this opportunity of calling to your notice their meritorious conduct in the late fight, and to display the fact that, although these regiments were not sufferers in the late engagement at Williamsburg - having been detached by General HEINTZELMAN to guard the left flank - by their steady and imposing attitude they contributed to the success of those more immediately engaged. And I assure you, sir, that with such material, commanded by such sterling officers, nothing but success can crown our efforts when the occasion requires. I have the honor to enclose the report of General D. B. BIRNEY, who commanded the noble brigade of which these two regiments form a part. General BIRNEY commands two New York and two Maine regiments.

It is peculiarly appropriate, after having rendered justice to the Regiments and Colonels, to bring Generals JAMESON and BERRY to the especial attention of yourself and citizens at home, who look to them for noble deeds to illustrate their annals, and I am proud to state that they have amply filled the full meed of anticipated distinction.

General BERRY, charged with the left wing of our line of battle, evinced a courage that might have been expected of him (when, as Colonel of the Fourth regiment of Maine Volunteers, he nearly saved the day at Bull Run), and also a genius for war and a pertinacity in the fight, that proved him fit for high command-for he was most severely assailed on the left, and had most difficult rifle-pits and abattis to face and carry.

General JAMESON, who commands the First Brigade (One Hundred and Second, Sixtythird and Fifty-seventh Pennsylvania Volunteers, and Eighty-seventh New York), form

ing the rear of the column, on the march from camp on the fifth instant, used vigor în bringing up his men under every difficulty, and was with me, under severe fire, where he arrived and gave guarantee of a resolution that promised success in case, daylight remaining to us, he had been advanced to the attack of Fort Magruder and those works which the enemy evacuated to us during the night, and which he was the first to enter at daylight. I have the honor, sirs, to be

Your obedient servant,

P. KEARNY,

Brigadier-General Commanding Third Division, HEINTZELMAN'S Corps. (Reb. Rec., V, Doc., pages 18 [2], 19 [1].)

KEARNY PATCH.

AFTER THE BATTLE OF CHANTILLY the army retired to the defenses of Washington. General BIRNEY retained the command of the First Division of the Third Army Corps, which had devolved upon him, on the death of General KEARNY, by right of seniority. General KEARNY, before his death, had issued an order requiring the officers and men under his command to wear a BADGE or Mark, by which they would be known wherever met. This Badge was a piece of scarlet cloth, worn on the cap or hat, so as to be visible at all times. This was the first attempt to designate officers or men in our army by any distinctive mark or badge. The evident object of this order was to individualize the members of this division, and to designate the officers and men, should they lag on the march, or straggle in action.

General BIRNEY and his men reached the defenses of Washington, after a tedious march, on the 3d of September, 1862. On the next day he issued the following order:

[GENERAL ORDERS, NO. 49.]

HEADQUARTERS KEARNY'S DIVISION,
FORT LYON, VA., September 4, 1862.

The Brigadier-General commanding this division announces with deep sorrow the death of Major-General KEARNY, its gallant commander. He died on the battle-field of Chantilly as his division was driving the enemy before it.

The entire country will mourn the loss of this chivalric soldier, and officers and men of this division will ever hold dear his memory.

Let us show our regard for him by always sustaining the name which, in his love for the division, he gave it, viz., the "FIGHTING DIVISION."

As a token of respect for his memory, all the officers of this division will wear crape on the left arm for thirty days, and the colors and drums of regiments and batteries will be placed in mourning for sixty days. To still further show our regard, and to distinguish his officers as he wished, each officer will continue to wear, on his cap, a piece of scarlet cloth, or have the top or crown piece of the cap made of scarlet cloth. By command of

Brigadier-General D. B. BIRNEY.

J. B. BROWN,

Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.

The Scarlet Patch referred to in the foregoing order was soon converted into a piece of red cloth or flannel, cut in the form of a DIAMOND, and this for some time was known as the KEARNY PATCH.-Life of DAVID BELL BIRNEY, Major-General U. S. Volunteers (Philadelphia, King & Baird, 607 Sansom St.; New York, Sheldon & Co., 400 Broadway, 1867), page 73.

CHAPTER XXXI.

DEATH AND OBSEQUIES OF MAJOR-GENERAL PHILIP KEARNY.

THE END CROWNS ALL." Shakespeare.

"A gentle knight was pricking on the plain."-SPENSER.

"Be bold. Be bold, and everywhere be bold."-SPENSER.

"High erected thoughts seated in the heart of courtesy."-Sir PHILIP SIDNEY. "That chastity of honor which felt a stain like a wound."-WORDSWORTH

"BOLD as thou in the fight,

Blithe as thou in the hall,

Shone the noon of my might,

Ere the night of my fall.

How humble is death,

And how haughty is life;

And how fleeting the breath

Between slumber and strife!"

HAROLD.

"Three hundred brave men lay down to sleep upon the sod, which sod, within three davs. they were to sleep beneath."- BACHE'S DUMAS' "Tales of Algeria."

"False flew the shaft, though pointed well,

The rebel lived, the hero fell!

Yet marked the Peri where he lay,
And when the rush of war was past,

Swiftly descending on a ray

Of morning light, she caught the last -
Last glorious drop his heart had shed,

Before its freeborn spirit filed.

'Be this,' she cried, as she winged her flight,

My welcome gift at the Gates of Light:
Though foul are the drops that oft distil
On the field of warfare, blood like this,
For Liberty shed, so holy is,

It would not stain the purest rill

That sparkles among the bowers of bliss!

Oh! if there be on this earthly sphere

A boon, an offering Heaven holds dear,

'Tis the last libation Liberty draws

From the heart that bleeds and breaks in her cause!'"'

MOORE'S" Lalla Rookh.”

"Good fortune," says POLYBIUS, "is equally open to every one; but they are only Generals endued with prudence, discrimination and fortitude, whom we must consider as cherished by the gods. When any persons, from weakness of intellect, want of knowledge and experience, or through inattention, fail to perceive the various principles and tendencies of an action, they commonly ascribe to the immediate interposition of Heaven, or the favor of Fortune, the success which was owing to the united result of wisdom and sagacity.”

"And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves,

Dewy with nature's tear-drops as they pass,
Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves,

Over the unreturning brave. Alas!

Ere evening, to be trodden like the grass,

Which now beneath them, but above shall grow

In its next verdure, when this fiery mass

Of living valor, rolling on the foe,

And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low.”

BYRON'S" Childe Harold," iii, 27.

"Let the tide of the world wax or wane as it will," MORTON thought, as he looked around him, "enough will be found to fill the places which chance renders vacant; and, in the usual occupations and amusements of life, human beings will succeed each other, as leaves upon the same tree, with the same individual difference, and the same general resemblance." OLD MORTALITY, II, 277—’8.

SHAKESPEARE'S " Anthony and Cleopatra," Act iv, scene 13.

"Oh! happy the man around whose brows, he (Death) wreaths the bloody laurels in the glitter of victory.” — GOETHE'S - GOETHE'S "Faust."

"Now let us all for the PERCY praye

To Jesu most of myght.

To bring his sowle to the blysse of heven,
For he was a gentyll knight.”

"Hail, Rome, victorious in thy mourning weeds!

*

Thou great defender of this Capital,

Stand gracious to the rites that we intend!

Ancient Ballad

KEARNY had fallen, one of those men to whom a country could look for saving service in the crisis of a nation. A man who, at the same time, realized CHAUCER's idea

"That he is gentil that doth gentil dedis"

as well as that of Sir WALTER SCOTT, as expressed by the loss of his hero, ROLAND GRÆME:

"He who fights well must have fame in life or honor in death

one of those men MONTGOMERY had in his eye when he wrote –

"Gashed with honorable scars,

Low in glory's lap they lie,

Though they fell, they fell like stars,

Streaming splendor through the sky."

Like CROMWELL and N'APOLEON, and many other great soldiers, his spirit passed away amid the turmoil of the tempest; in his case a tempest of the elements as well as of men, as if nature, in convulsion, sympathized with the conflict of human passion.

At the very moment that he died, he seemed to stand upon the threshold of a grand future, for no part which a man can be called upon to play, is so grand as that of a great general, to whom Heaven accords the glory of preserving his country, and maintaining the rights of the people; for, says DECKER, the most practical and concisely comprehensive of all military writers, "A great captain is the greatest gift which God can vouchsafe to a nation." It does not always require the explicit language of official commission to designate the man to whom the leading staff will be intrusted when a catyclism occurs;