Soon after he rode over to ask me, in case his own men (Steinwehr's division) deserted their guns, to be in readiness to defend them.

General Schurz about this time was busily engaged in rallying his men, and did all that was possible to encourage them to form line again.

I understood they were told that Sigel had just arrived and assumed command, a fiction thought justifiable under the circumstances.

It seemed to me that the discredit that attached to them after Chancellorsville had in a measure injured their morale and _esprit-de-corps_, for they were rallied with great difficulty.
About 3.30 P.M., General Hancock arrived with orders from General Meade to supersede Howard.

Congress had passed a law authorizing the President to put any general over any other superior to rank if, in his judgment, the good of the service demanded it, and General Meade now assumed this power in the name of the President.
Owing to the false despatch Howard had sent early in the day, Meade must have been under the impression that the First Corps had fled without fighting.