Sunday, June 26th.
Orders were received to-day assigning our First Battalion to the First Brigade and the Second Battalion to the Second Brigade of Birney’s Division of the Second Corps. There seems to be no salvation for the “Fourth Heavy.” Heretofore, though nominally brigaded with the artillery, we have not only supported the artillery and furnished men to fill up the batteries, but have been detailed to guard wagon trains; to build roads and earthworks as engineers; to occupy breastworks; to do picket duty and make charges as infantry, and, in short, to perform every kind of military duty except that for which we were enlisted, but now, with the battalions again separated, we are infantry with no longer any disguise about it. General Pierce assures our battalion commander that the companies will have no picket duty to perform except in very urgent cases, but we know, of course, that that is all humbug, for in military operations all “cases” are “urgent.”
