Thursday, June 30th.
There has been great dissatisfaction among, and some outspoken complaint by, both officers and men at the cutting up of the regiment and the sending of its battalions to different infantry commands, and, in company with some of the officers, I to-day called on Colonel Tidball about it at the Headquarters of the Second Corps. The Colonel was very polite, and particularly complimentary about the charge made by the five companies on the 18th, though in the newspaper accounts the name of our battalion was not mentioned. He said that he and General Hancock had watched us with their field glasses; that he had observed that the troops engaged belonged to his own regiment, and had even recognized me and some of the other officers on the field, and he insisted on taking me to General Hancock’s tent and introducing me as the officer whom they had seen leading that charge. The General was always stately but, with a very gracious bow, he said: “Yes, I saw that charge; it was gallantly made, very gallantly made,” and I won’t deny that the commendation of that distinguished officer quite compensated for the hazard of that diagonal trip across the cornfield, which was an exhibition of most inordinate vanity rather than genuine heroism on my part.
After a conference between Col. Tidball and General Hancock it was arranged, as I was informed, that the regiment should be brought together again and be brigaded with the Regular Engineers. Subsequently and during the same day, we learned that Col. Tidball had been relieved from active service in the field and ordered on duty at West Point.
