In battle, soldiers were known to drop their knapsacks on the ground before going into action, occasionally with a guard to watch over them. If not, they might be stolen or misplaced. Sometime after the battle of Gettysburg had been fought, a reporter going over the field found a pile of knapsacks, just as they had been unslung, one of which bore the inscription "Sixteenth Vermont." This regiment had opposed Pickett's men, one of whom was Private Erasmus Williams of the 14th Virginia Regiment. Williams managed to survive the assault on July 3, although wounded, and walked back to Seminary Ridge. He writes, "I kept on going, and in a little while got back to the hole I had dug on the line. I picked up my case knife and knapsack which I had left there, and went on still farther towards the rear."