"In losing Colonel Van Derveer my command and the service generally was deprived of one of its most gallant and best officers, and most accomplished gentlemen. Always prompt, judicious, and brave, he had distinguished himself on many fields, and his promotion had been strongly urged upon the Government, but unaccountably overlooked.

"The long record would be incomplete should I fail to mention especially the five officers who, as brigade commanders, have been my chief assistants in the campaign.

"Colonel F. Van Derveer, Thirty-Fifth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, the brave and accomplished commander of the Second Brigade at Chickamauga and at Mission Ridge, remained with the command until the end of June. He also has, by expiration of term of service, been returned to civil life."

Just before the line broke on the second day at Chickamauga there came an occasion for testing the General's mettle and the nerve of his troops. His brigade being in reserve was ordered to the left to re-enforce a hard-pressed point. Deploying his battalion, which was closed in mass, he marched rapidly toward the threatened point. The line of march lay through a forest skirting the road to Chattanooga. He had no knowledge of any force of the enemy having gained the rear. However, just as his front line was marching through some thick underbrush and coming out in the road, it received a brisk musketry fire exactly enfilading both lines, delivered by a heavy skirmish line of an entire division of Rebels advancing rapidly down the road, their line crossing it at right-angles. Without replying to the fire, the General in an instant sent a staff officer to each regiment, and while the ranks were actually melting away, the brigade in two lines changed front, both lines lay down, and received the full front fire from the Rebels. The remnant, however, delivered a volley which checked the Rebel line at less than a hundred yards, when, upon an order, the rear line (Thirty-Fifth and Ninth Ohio regiments) rose, and with a cheer to which they had been trained, without firing a shot, charged on a full run directly into the whole Rebel division, which turned and fled, followed closely for a full third of a mile by Van Derveer's entire brigade.. Many prisoners were captured, and the army saved from being cut in two at the point attacked.

Oddly enough, the Rebel division proved to be that of Breckinridge-a gentleman whom Colonel Van Derveer had often expressed a desire to meet in the field, that he might get satisfaction for having voted for him for the Presidency.

After his muster-out in the fall of 1864, Colonel Van Derveer was appointed a Brigadier-General and assigned to the Fourth Army Corps, then operating in Tennessee. In this position he served through the brief remnant of the war.

General Van Derveer possessed many of the most valuable characteristics of an officer. Though never "spoiling for a fight," he was always anxious for any duty that would tell on the operations of the campaign. He was quick to sieze upon all the features of a position-for fortifications, attack, pickets. He always paid special attention to selecting comfortable camps; gave personal attention to every thing connected with the well-being of his troops; always had the best transportation, and took pride in keeping it in prime order; knew all his men by name, and generally had a joke that each would appreciate when

he met him; had the faculty of organizing his men so as to gain speed in fieldwork of all kinds; was so unceasingly vigilant, that from the day he entered the field a surprise to his camp would have been an impossibility. In action he was a cool and close observer. He was always close along the fighting line, always on horseback, and generally exposed more than any of his men.

He was a volunteer, and as such, was in the habit of criticising freely the orders he received, sometimes carrying his objections and expostulations to what a regular would call the verge of insubordination. A signal instance of this occurred almost at the outset of his career in Kentucky. He received from General Sherman one of the first and least justifiable of those panic-stricken orders on which many officers of the army based (and still base) their belief that General Sherman was insane. It was an order to destroy the railroad at Cynthiana, abandon every thing, and march back to Cincinnati! Van Derveer knew that the alarm was groundless; and, furthermore, he saw the absurdity of destroying the railroad and marching back to Cincinnati, when he might so much easier go back by rail, if a retreat became necessary. He accordingly took the responsibility of flatly disobeying the order.

Before the war he had been a strong Breckinridge Democrat-a friend and supporter of Vallandigham. Soon after reaching Cynthiana, Kentucky, whose citizens made great outcry because his regiment had violated the laws of the State in bringing free negroes into the place, he ordered all black servants brought from Ohio to be taken back. With these early sentiments, he was still one of the first to learn the lesson of the war as it stood related to slavery; and long before his term expired he ranked with the advance of the most earnest WarDemocrats. Though the majority of his regiment felt as he did politically when it took the field, in the great campaign between Brough and Vallandigham the latter did not receive a single vote in his regiment. This was in great measure due to the decided position taken by its first commander.

On leaving the service he took an active part in the Republican campaign of 1865, stumping the old Vallandigham district and carrying with him a large number. Just before the break between Congress and the President occurred, he received the appointment of Collector of the Third Ohio District. This was given at the time wholly on his military record and without any pledges whatever. In the canvass which followed the President's defections, though strongly urged by the old-time Democratic friends to take the stump for Johnson, he steadily refused.

BRIGADIER-GENERAL GEORGE P. ESTE.

G

EO. PEABODY ESTE, an officer in the service from the outbreak till the close of the war, with a record always good and sometimes brilliant, was born at Nashua, New Hampshire, on the 30th of April, 1830. He was graduated at Dartmouth College in 1846, at the age of sixteen.

Shortly after his graduation, in consequence of a brain fever, which left him in feeble health, he made a trip to California, where, with true Yankee "goaheadativeness," the young college lad speedily began to interest himself in mining operations; in which, however, he gained more experience than money. While speculating in gold mining he also read law.

In 1850 he returned to "the States," paid a visit to the old homestead, then went to Galena, Illinois, and there began the practice of his profession with considerable success. In 1856 he removed to Toledo, where he continued in the practice, in the office of M. R. Waite, the acknowledged leader of the bar in Toledo, until the outbreak of the war. In 1859 he was elected prosecuting attorney of that county on the Republican ticket, in spite of obstacles which seemed to insure his defeat in advance. He was in those days a Republican of somewhat radical views, approaching more nearly to the position of Mr. Chase than to that of any of the other party leaders in the State.

When the news of the fall of Fort Sumter reached the North he was on a business visit at Troy, New York. He immediately sent a dispatch to his personal friend and political enemy, James B. Steedman, of Toledo, then conspicuous as the Democratic leader of the north-western section of the State. "Are you for your country," ran the dispatch, "after this news, or for your party?" He added that he would take the first train home, and that meantime he hoped Steedman would call a war meeting.

Steedman did call the meeting, and by the time Este arrived the war fever had risen so high that Steedman felt authorized in telegraphing to Columbus the offer of a full regiment within ten days-the first regiment offered for the war. He now proposed that Este should take the Colonelcy. This Este refused, and, in the hope of stimulating enlistments, himself volunteered as a private in the ranks. When the regiment was full, he was elected Lieutenant-Colonel (Steedman himself being chosen Colonel), but this also he declined at first. In some ten days, however, he accepted the position, and entered upon its duties.

Thenceforward, for some years, his history is that of the Fourteenth Ohio, He crossed with it into West Virginia, at Parkersburg, when the occupation of that State was determined upon; with it led the way along the broken railroad

to Grafton; with it fell upon Porterfield's fleet Virginians at Philippi, in the first skirmish of the war; with it advanced on Laurel Hill, led the pursuit of Garnett, and routed his rear-guard at Carrick's Ford; with it was transferred from Western Virginia to Buell's army, and advanced from Pittsburg Landing on Corinth.

After having been in constant service with the regiment until the fall of 1862, as Lieutenant-Colonel, he then took command of it, on the return from Corinth to Decherd-Colonel Steedman having by this time been assigned to higher duties.

From this time he led the regiment through all the battles of the Army of the Cumberland, with one exception, until he was able to lead it back on its veteran furlough. The exception was the battle of Chickamauga, which he missed by reason of the urgent calls from Ohio which had induced General Rosecrans to order him back to Ohio, nominally on recruiting duty, that he might participate in the campaign against Vallandigham.

He was now able to accomplish the work which, out of his whole military service, he himself most values. He saw very clearly, as the expiration of the terms of enlistment began to approach, the necessity of securing the continued services of the large body of instructed soldiery who made up the best part of the Army of the Cumberland; and to the task of obtaining their re-enlistment as veterans he devoted himself. For some time the work was a difficult one, but it was at last happily accomplished. To Colonel Este, as much, at least, as to any officer of his grade, more perhaps than to any other, was due this success; and for it he received the grateful acknowledgments of his superiors.

At the expiration of the veteran furlough, Colonel Este took back his regiment to the field, rejoining the army at Chattanooga.

He was then put in command of the Third Brigade, Third Division, Fourteenth Army Corps, comprising the Fourteenth Ohio, Thirty-Eighth Ohio, Tenth Indiana, and Eleventh Kentucky Infantry. This brigade he continued to lead through the Atlanta Campaign, the march to the sea, the campaign of the Carolinas, and the Grand Review.

He was in all the battles of his corps: Snake Gap, Resaca, Kenesaw, the Chattahoochie, Peachtree Creek (in which, however, his command only skirmished), and at Jonesboro'. At the Chattahoochie he was slightly wounded in the leg, and his horse was shot under him; and at Jonesboro' he was again slightly wounded, and another horse was shot under him. The number of his narrow escapes in this campaign was something remarkable. He started out with a pair of high, glazed cavalry boots; by the time he reached Atlanta they were fairly shot to pieces, and he had received repeated contusions from halfspent balls which they served to check; so that it came to be a saying in the division that Este's boots were a better coat of mail than the patent bulletproof vests which the agents and sutlers had been trying to introduce.

At Jonesboro' Colonel Este and his brigade were particularly distinguished. After the repulse of the regulars, he led them up to the attack, stormed two lines of works held by Hardee's command, captured four hundred and twenty

six prisoners, two pieces of artillery and three battle-flags, and lost in the brief assault three hundred and thirty killed and wounded, out of one thousand and twenty engaged. So brilliant was his conduct, and that of his brigade in this action, as to draw from the division commander the following unusually eulogistic notice in his official report:

"This charge of my Third Brigade, one of the most magnificent on record, and the first, during this campaign, in which works upon either side have been assaulted and carried, was productive of the greatest results, in opening the way for the advance of the troops on our right and left, and destroying the morale of the boldest and most confident troops in the Rebel army.

"The losses sustained attest the severity of the struggle. Out of eleven hundred officers and men who went into the action, seventy-five were killed, and two hundred and fifty-five wounded, nearly one out of every three being hit, and all in a space of thirty minutes' time. Among those who fell was the gallant Colonel Choate, of the Thirty-Eighth Ohio, who has since died. Major Wilson, commanding the Fourteenth Ohio, lost his leg; and numerous others of our best officers and men, on this glorious occasion, sacrificed themselves upon the altar of their country. For the names of those who particularly distinguished themselves, I refer to the reports of brigades and regiments.

"On no occasion within my own knowledge has the use of the bayonet been so well authenticated. Three brothers, named Noe, of the Tenth Kentucky, went over the Rebel parapet together, and two of them pinned their adversaries to the ground with the bayonet, and as an officer of the Seventy-Fourth Indiana was about to be bayoneted by a Rebel, a soldier warded off the blow and, after some moments fencing, transfixed his antagonist. These, as the wounded Rebels show, are but isolated instances.

"The brigade captured four hundred and twenty-six prisoners, including fifty-five officers, from the rank of Colonel down. They were from the Second, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Ninth Kentucky; the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Arkansas; the Twenty-Eighth, Thirty-Fourth, and Forty-Sixth Alabama; the Twenty-Fourth South Carolina, and the Sixty-Third Virginia RegiIt also captured the battle-flags of the Sixth and Seventh Arkansas Regiments, and the battle-flag heretofore spoken of.

ments.

"In closing the report of this battle, and whilst testifying to the heroic conduct of all officers and men of the brigade, I can not overlook the splendid gallantry of Colonel Este, commanding it. His horse was shot under him, and his clothing torn with bullets, yet he retained the utmost coolness, and managed his command with a high degree of judgment and skill. I hope that he will receive the reward which his service merits.

Before this, on the 20th November, 1862, Colonel Este had been promoted to the Colonelcy of his regiment, and had been recommended by General Geo. H. Thomas for a Brevet Brigadier-Generalship. Thomas and Sherman now united in recommending him for a full Brigadiership, and the commission was accordingly issued, although he did not receive it till during the campaign of the Carolinas.

In the march to the sea General Este's brigade supported the cavalry during the operations on the left wing, and participated in the little affairs brought on by the enemy's cavalry on that flank.

In the campaign of the Carolinas, just before the battle of Bentonville, General Este was sent back to take charge of the army trains, numbering some one thousand three hundred wagons, which were supposed to be in considerable danger.