I kept in my pocket a small pad on which incidents were noted daily from the landing until the surrender.

On the day of the fight notes were taken just before Grimes fired his first gun, just after the third reply from the enemy--when we were massed in the road about seventy paces from Grimes' guns, and when I was beginning to get scared and to think I would be killed--at the halt just before you advanced, and under the shelter of the hills in the evening.

Each time that notes were taken, the page was put in an envelope addressed to my wife.

At the first chance they were mailed to her, and on my arrival in the United States the story of the fight, taken from these notes, was entered in the diary I keep in a book.

I make this lengthy explanation that you may see that everything put down was fresh in my memory.
I quote from my diary: "The tension on the men was great.