Throughout the night of the 30th of May, there was a raging storm, the like of which few who listened to its roar and fury could remember ever to have experienced. The thunder roared without intermission; torrents of rain drenched the earth; while the whole sky was on fire with an unceasing blaze of lightning. It was from the peltings of this storm, saturated with rain, which had penetrated the camps, and turned their hard field-beds into pools of mud, that the Federal troops rose, to face an advancing army of six or seven times their own number. The tempest had gradually died away, toward daybreak, but a lowering sky seemed to increase the gloom of the dreary landscape. Nor were the men, after a night of unrest, any brighter than the aspect of surrounding nature. The roads flooded by rain, were almost impassable; and the waters of the Chickahominy, overflowing its banks, were encroaching upon the swamps. About an hour before noon it was announced that a large body of the rebels had been seen approaching, on the Richmond road. Picket-firing commenced almost immediately, and was instantly followed by the shriek of several shells from the enemy’s artillery, which came tearing through the air, in the neighborhood of General Peck’s headquarters—proving that the enemy was advancing on General Casey’s division. The troops were, on the instant, summoned to arms. Every man at work on the intrenchments was dispatched to his regiment; the artillery was harnessed up, the batteries placed in position; and the One Hundred and First Pennsylvania Volunteers, was sent down the road, to check the advancing foe and to support the pickets. Up to this moment it was supposed that nothing more was impending than one of those sharp skirmishes in which the troops had so often engaged. The Pennsylvania troops marched briskly onward, little imagining that they were throwing themselves on the bayonets of an army of 16,000 men; till, to their horror and consternation, as they emerged from the forest, they found themselves face to face with an overwhelming force. A volley of bullets swept, with devastating effect, upon their ranks dealing death on every side, and scattering one-fifth of their number dead or wounded upon the field. It was a moment in which flight was valor; for in fifteen minutes they would inevitably have been surrounded, and every man cut down or made a prisoner. General McClellan was, at the time, severely criticised for that sentence in his dispatch to Secretary Stanton which read, “Casey’s division, which was the first line, gave way, unaccountably and discreditably.” The retreat of this handful of men, after first losing one-fifth of their number, does not reflect upon their heroism. General Casey says in his official report,—