On the 27th of June Hooker was superseded by General Geo. B. Meade, and he bent all his energies to the discipline of his great army.

General Kershaw, on his promotion to Brigadier, surrounded himself with a staff of young men of unequalled ability, tireless, watchful, and brave to a fault.  Captain C.R.  Holmes, as Assistant Adjutant General, was promoted to that position from one of the Charleston companies.  I fear no contradiction when I say he was one of the very best staff officers in the army, and had he been in line of promotion his merits would have demanded recognition and a much higher position given him.  Captain W.M.  Dwight, as Adjutant and Inspector General, was also an officer of rare attainments.  Cool and collected in battle, his presence always gave encouragement and confidence to the men under fire.  He was captured at the Wilderness the 6th of May, 1864.  Captain D.A.  Doby was Kershaw’s Aide-de-Camp, or personal aid, and a braver, more daring, and reckless soldier I never saw.  Wherever the battle raged fiercest, Captain Doby was sure to be in the storm center.  Riding along the line where shells were plowing up great furrows, or the air filled with flying fragments, and bullets following like hail from a summer cloud, Doby would give words of cheer and encouragement to the men.  It seemed at times that he lived a charmed life, so perilous was his situation in times of battle.  But the fatal volley that laid the lamented Jenkins low, and unhorsed Longstreet at the Wilderness, gave Doby his last long furlough, felling from his horse dead at the feet of his illustrious chieftain.  Lieutenant John Myers was Brigade Ordnance officer, but his duties did not call him to the firing line, thus he was debarred from sharing with his companions their triumphs, their dangers, and their glories, the halo that will ever surround those who followed the plume of the knightly Kershaw.

The Colonels of the different regiments were also fortunate in their selection of Adjutants.  This is one of the most important and responsible offices in the regimental organization.  The duties are manifold, and often thankless and unappreciated.  He shares more dangers (having to go from point to point during battle to give orders) than most of the officers, still he is cut off, by army regulation, from promotion, the ambition and goal of all officers.  Colonel Kennedy, of the Second, appointed as his Adjutant E.E.  Sill, of Camden, while Colonel Nance, of the Third, gave the position to his former Orderly Sergeant, Y.J.  Pope, of Newberry.  Colonel Aiken, of the Seventh, appointed as Adjutant Thomas M. Childs, who was killed at Sharpsburg.  Colonel Elbert Bland then had Lieutenant John R. Carwile, of Edgefield, to fill the position during the remainder of the service, or until the latter was placed upon the brigade staff.  Colonel Henagan made Lieutenant Colin M. Weatherly, of Bennettsville, S.C., Adjutant of the Eighth.  All were young men of splendid physique, energetic, courteous, and brave.  They had the love and confidence of the entire command.  W.C.  Hariss, Adjutant of the Third Battalion, was from Laurens.  Of the Fifteenth, both were good officers, but as they were not with the brigade all the while, I am not able to do them justice.