About two months after Col. Cowdin’s promotion, as the regiment were covering the retreat of the army from Fredericksburg, they were introduced to their new colonel. Napoleon B. McLoughlin, in spite of his French-Irish name, was a Vermont Yankee. He had entered the regular army from the New York 7th, and at the time of his appointment to the Colonelcy was a captain in the 6th U. S. Cavalry. He was respected and well liked; but he always suffered from the fact that the men felt him somewhat of an interloper. Capt. Baldwin of the 4th Company had become Lt. Col. and by all rules of seniority should have been made Colonel. However Col. McLoughlin held the esteem of his men, and made an honorable record. His regular army strictness was beneficial to his new command. On Feb. 9, 1863, two months after the arrival of the new colonel, the regiment was subjected to an extremely rigid inspection; and was pronounced one of the eleven best disciplined and most efficient regiments of the one hundred fifty constituting the Army of the Potomac. Chancellorsville, May 2 and 3, 1863, was the next great battle. Gen. J. Hooker crossed the Rappahannock several miles above Fredericksburg and tried to turn Lee’s left flank. Hooker unexpectedly came into collision with Stonewall Jackson’s troops and instead of hurting Lee, almost suffered the humiliation of seeing his own right flank crumpled up. At the most critical moment of the Chancellorsville fight, Hooker was wounded and the army left without a head. When O. O. Howard’s 11th corps broke and ran (“started for Germany”), it was only the 1st Regiment and other troops under Dan. Sickles who saved the Union army from destruction. Their promptness in entering the breach in the lines, and their stubborn courage in remaining there hour after hour, were all that checked the on-rushing Confederates. At Chancellorsville the regiment was for the first time serving under both of its best-loved commanders, Gens. Hooker and Sickles.