I felt no great pain--the leg was numb. The new
blow was torture. I managed to take down my clothing, and saw a great
blue-black spot on my groin. I was confused, and wondered where the
bullet went, and perhaps became unconscious.

Darkness was coming, and Jones or Berwick, or whoever I was, yet lay on
the hill. Now there were dead men and wounded men around me. Had a tide
of war flowed over me while I slept? A voice feebly called for help, and
I crawled to the voice, but could give no help except to cut a shoe from
a crushed foot. The flashes of rifles could be seen,--the enemy's
rifles,--they came nearer and nearer, and I felt doomed to capture.

Then from the rear a roar of voices, and in the gathering gloom a host
of men swept over me, disorderly, but charging hard--- the last charge
of Gaines's Mill.

"What troops are you?" I had strength to ask, and two replied:--

"Hood's brigade."

"The Hampton Legion."

* * * * *

Night had come. The great battle was won. Lights flashed and moved and
disappeared over the hills and hollows of the field,--men with torches
and lanterns; and names of regiments were shouted into the darkness by
the searchers for wounded friends who replied, and for others who could
not. At last I heard: "First South Carolina! First South Carolina!" and
I gathered up my strength and cried, "Here!" Louis Bellot and two others
came to me. They carried me tenderly away, but not far; still in the
field of blood they laid me down on the hillside--and a night of horror
passed slowly away.

* * * * *

The next morning, June 28th, they bore me on a stretcher back to the
field hospital near Dr. Gaines's, just in rear of the battlefield. Our
way was through scattered corpses. We passed by many Zouaves, lying
stiff and stark; one I shall always call to mind: he was lying flat on
his back, the soles of his feet firm on the ground, his knees drawn up
to right angles above, and with his elbows planted on the grass, his
fingers clinched the air. His open mouth grinned ghastly on us as
we went by.

At the field hospital the dangerously wounded were so numerous that I
was barely noticed; a brief examination; "flesh wound"--that was all. I
had already found out that the bullet had passed entirely through the
fleshy part of my thigh, and I had no fears; but the limb now gave me
great pain, and I should have been glad to have it dressed. I was lai