Pickets were detailed from the company while lying at Emmettsburg. When the boys returned to camp, they were well supplied with home-made bread and other good things.
Wednesday, July 1st, the 11th Corps resumed the route to Gettysburg. Before the column is ordered to move, a glance along the lines of the 157th will be interesting.
The regiment left Hamilton something like nine months before, with over eight hundred men. Now they are drawn up in line and number three hundred and eighty-six muskets. Reports have been given of their sufferings from sickness and in the Chancellorsville fight, and desertions, which have combined to reduce the regiment to the present figures.
They have been pictured as cleanly, well-dressed men. Now they appear neglected. Their clothes show hard service, the shoes, especially important, are getting hard wear. Rapid marching and lightening of knapsacks has reduced the boys' underwear; few of them have but the one shirt, which is in use. That big chap in Co. C is unable to hide, with his blouse, the fact that he has sacrificed his last shirt for the cause. But they are the boys of Cortland and Madison and even though they are out in the rain and the mud, their pulses are regular, and their powder is dry.
The corps moved leisurely along the Taneytown road until near noon. At Marsh Creek, Battery I passed the regiment, its support. Soon after, heavy cannonading was heard and orders came to double-quick the men.
For two miles or more the fast walking and trotting was kept up until the boys drew near Gettysburg. They had come about twelve miles, and were approaching the town from the southwest.
On the hills beyond and west of the village, the 1st Corps were hotly engaged. Citizens were met coming from their homes in the town, in some instances laden with light articles. They were frightened. No wonder.
As the boys went through the streets men and women were gathered in little groups here and there, with pails of water, which the boys gratefully swallowed and hastened along.
Outside the town and north and east of the Pennsylvania College, between the Carlisle and Mummasburgh roads, Battery I was already in position and ready for work. The 157th was stationed in rear and to the right of the battery, near the Carlisle road, in a small field of growing corn.
A rebel battery took position a half mile distant and opened on Battery I. Shells came rapidly, pieces struck among the 157th quite freely. The faster came the shells the more Co. G hugged the soft earth. That sort of thing continued for a time, until Capt. Dilger had dismounted several of the rebel guns, when the others were limbered up and driven to a new position. In the meantime one of the corporals of the color-guard was killed and a lieutenant was wounded in the hand.