Charles Homans, a private of Company E, stepped forward and took a good look at the engine and replied: “That engine was made in our shop; I guess I can fit her up and run her.”
“Go to work, and pick out some men to help you.”
Homans at once began his work, and in a short time the missing parts were found, adjusted, and the engine was in usual repair.
I immediately made an order for the muster of a detail of all the men of the regiment who had ever had anything to do with laying railroad track, and some twenty men reported for duty. Lieutenant-Colonel Hincks, with whom we shall hereafter have to do as Major-General Hincks, made his reconnoissance two miles out on the road that night. Lefferts, up to three o'clock the next morning, had no intention of marching, because at that hour he sent out a messenger in an open boat for New York, bearing despatches asking for reinforcements and supplies. His message was that he had positive knowledge of four rebel regiments at the Junction,1 where the grand attack was to be made upon the United States troops.
At sunrise, however, it appeared that the guard at the depot had not been massacred, and that the engine had been run out upon the road, where Colonel Hincks and his men were all found safe and awaiting orders to march. Then the officers of the Seventh Regiment concluded that the regiment ought to march, and it did march. So did the Eighth Massachusetts.
From that time forward the men of the two regiments worked together admirably. Nor was there the least fault to find, nor had there ever been, with the New York Seventh Regiment as a body of men. I met many of them then, and I have met many of them since the war, and I speak of them with that highest and fullest respect which I have always felt for them. But the whole difficulty was with their commander, who never went outside of the academy grounds, but kept within its closed walls, and had no communication with anybody, save with the secessionists. Nor, for the matter of that, had I, save with the loyal scholars at the academy, and their brave and noble officers, the noblest one of all being their highest officer, which, as we have seen, is not always the case.
