Wretched position.–Wretched conditions.–Diary of Josiah Marshall Favill.

June 5th. Early this morning the colonel sent me to General Richardson’s headquarters to report the wretched position the regiment was in and get permission, if possible, to move it. I rode over the battlefield of the thirty-first and first on my way, and found it in many places knee deep in water; the dead had been buried by digging little ditches around them, and throwing the earth over the bodies; when it rained, it washed the earth away, particularly at each end of the mound, leaving the feet or head exposed in a most horrible manner. I saw scores of such cases, most of whom were rebels, but that did not make the picture any the less horrible. The general gave permission to change the regiment’s position. I heard at division headquarters that the wounded have not yet been all collected; several were brought in to-day, who have been lying three days and nights on the drenched battlefield, in the woods; some of them were burnt, as well as wounded. Detailed Company B to complete the burial of the rebel dead about our front; in the course of two hours they picked up ninety-one men, and buried them in one long ditch.