In the engagement at Fair Oaks,
“Where the red volleys poured, where the clamor rose highest,
Where the aim from the thicket was surest and nighest,”
there was no charge like Kearney’s.
“How he strode his brown steed! How we saw his blade brighten,
In the one hand still left,—and the reins in his teeth!”
General Oliver O. Howard lost his right arm in this battle. When the amputation was taking place, he looked grimly up at General Kearney, who was present, and remarked, “We’ll buy our gloves together, after this.”
At Chantilly, a few days after the second battle of Bull Run, wherein he forced the gallant Stonewall Jackson back, he penetrated into the Confederate lines and met his death.
The Confederates had won. The dusk had fallen and General Kearney was reconnoitering after placing his division.
“He rode right into our men,” feelingly relates a Confederate soldier, “then stopping suddenly, called out,
“‘What troops are these?’”
