nel Patterson our regiment. About 12 o'clock, while
we were marching through a corn field, in which the corn had been shocked,
they opened their war dogs upon us. The beginning of the end had come.
Here is where Captain John F. Wheless was wounded, and three others,
whose names I have forgotten. The battle now opened in earnest, and from
one end of the line to the other seemed to be a solid sheet of blazing
smoke and fire. Our regiment crossed a stream, being preceded by
Wharton's Texas Rangers, and we were ordered to attack at once with
vigor. Here General Maney's horse was shot. From this moment the battle
was a mortal struggle. Two lines of battle confronted us. We killed
almost every one in the first line, and were soon charging over the
second, when right in our immediate front was their third and main line
of battle from which four Napoleon guns poured their deadly fire.

We did not recoil, but our line was fairly hurled back by the leaden hail
that was poured into our very faces. Eight color-bearers were killed at
one discharge of their cannon. We were right up among the very wheels
of their Napoleon guns. It was death to retreat now to either side.
Our Lieutenant-Colonel Patterson halloed to charge and take their guns,
and we were soon in a hand-to-hand fight--every man for himself--using
the butts of our guns and bayonets. One side would waver and fall back a
few yards, and would rally, when the other side would fall back, leaving
the four Napoleon guns; and yet the battle raged. Such obstinate
fighting I never had seen before or since. The guns were discharged
so rapidly that it seemed the earth itself was in a volcanic uproar.
The iron storm passed through our ranks, mangling and tearing men to
pieces. The very air seemed full of stifling smoke and fire which seemed
the very pit of hell, peopled by contending demons.

Our men were dead and dying right in the very midst of this grand havoc
of battle. It was a life to life and death to death grapple. The sun
was poised above us, a great red ball sinking slowly in the west, yet the
scene of battle and carnage continued. I cannot describe it. The mantle
of night fell upon the scene. I do not know which side whipped, but I
know that I helped bring off those four Napoleon guns that night though
we were mighty easy about it.

They were given to Turner's Battery of our brigade and had the name of
our Lieutenant-Colonel Patterson and our color-bea