Brigades in our army were commonly composed of half-a-dozen regiments more or less, often from widely separated States; but there were exceptions. The Sixth Army Corps would scarcely have known itself without the Jersey Brigade in its first division, and the Vermont Brigade in its second. Both became famous, and their integrity as exclusively State organisations was broken only once, when for nearly a year the regiment in which I served was brigaded with the Vermonters. It was not a kind or judicious act on the part of the military authorities to assign us thus, but I shall always think it a piece of good fortune that I once marched and fought with those Green Mountain men, and friendships made among them are cherished still. The brigade was like a great family whose consciousness of proud and romantic traditions and whose singular cohesiveness reminded one of the Scottish Clans. But its material was most thoroughly American. The men had the qualities of mountaineers, their reserve, independence, and resourcefulness, and among the officers were men of high character and culture, some of whom, like Senator Proctor, have since become distinguished in civil life. Stalwart fellows those Vermonters were; above the average in both intelligence and stature, tireless on the march, cool, bitter, and persistent fighters. At well named Savage's Station, one of their regiments had been badly cut up in an affair which did highest credit to its grit and discipline, but at the time when we were with them the brigade as a whole had become noted rather for losses inflicted on the enemy than for those suffered. None who saw and shared in it, can ever forget their wonderful fight at Bank's Ford, where at surprisingly small cost to themselves they repulsed and fearfully punished Early's Confederate division and saved the Sixth Corps from black disaster. But such reputations were perilous in our army. The demand for sacrifice was sure to reach men like these. A year and a day from the time when they threw off Early's flank attack at Bank's Ford, the Vermonters found themselves in the midst of the bloody storm-centre of the most weird, confused, and difficult of the battles of the Army of the Potomac. "The Wilderness" is a region the like of which can be found only along the Southern Atlantic seaboard. For miles, abrupt ridges of clay or gravel cut with ragged ravines are covered with dense growth of woods and brush; now scraggy oak, now hedge-like thickets of dwarf pine,--a gloomy, intricate, intractable region. But its very difficulties were Lee's advantage. His men knew the Wilderness; many of them had grown up within it or on its borders. His plan of battle was simple, daring, and full of peril to his foes.