Touch the Elbow - Blogging the Civil War

Corp. Thomas H. Mann, Co. I, 18th Massachusetts:

"The 5th Corps] moved only a mile on the 6th."



Excerpt from "Fighting with the Eighteenth Massachusetts"

[On July 6] the brigade was formed into a square to listen to congratulatory orders from General Meade. Adjutant [Fisher] Baker read them while standing by the side of Colonel [Joseph] Hayes, who was on horseback. As he finished the colonel swung his hat and called for three cheers for General Meade, but a deathlike silence was his only answer. The men felt a fraud had been imposed upon them and were not yet quite ready to take another hero to their bosoms. The chagrin of the colonel was very marked, for the whole corps was within sound of his voice, and in several near-by brigades some jeering was indulged at his expense. As the colonel replaced his hat and wheeled his horse his chagrin was very happily turned by remarking, “It is not necessary for the veterans who have seen the service that you have to cheer."