position was a trying one. Two batteries
had already suffered severely while occupying it, and the cannoneers of
a third battery were lying inactive by their guns as ours came into it.
But in less than an hour thereafter the enemy's guns were outmatched;
at any rate, ceased firing. General Hoke, who had witnessed the whole
affair, came and asked Major Latimer to introduce him to Captain Graham,
saying he wanted to know the man whose guns could do such execution.
About noon my section joined the others a short distance in rear of this
place on the hills overlooking Fredericksburg.

Soon after we had gotten together, the bodies of our dead comrades were
brought from the places at which they had fallen, and William Bolling,
Berkeley Minor and myself, messmates of Stuart, were detailed to bury
him. His body was taken in our battery ambulance, which we accompanied,
to the Marye family cemetery near our old camp, and permission gotten to
bury it there. If I was ever utterly miserable, it was on this Sunday
afternoon as we stood, after we had dug the grave, in this quiet place,
surrounded by a dense hedge of cedar, the ground and tombstones
overgrown with moss and ivy, and a stillness as deep as if no war
existed. Just at this time there came timidly through the hedge, like an
apparition, the figure of a woman. She proved to be Mrs. Marye; and,
during the battle, which had now continued four days, she had been
seeking shelter from the enemy's shells in the cellar of her house. She
had come to get a lock of Stuart's hair for his mother, and her
presence, now added to that of our ambulance driver, as Minor read the
Episcopal burial service, made the occasion painfully solemn. In less
than an hour we were again with the battery and in line of battle with
the whole of our battalion, twenty guns, all of which opened
simultaneously on what appeared to be a column of artillery moving
through the woods in our front. However, it proved to be a train of
wagons, some of which were overturned and secured by us the next day.

Here we lay during the night with guns unlimbered near Gen. "Extra
Billy" Smith's brigade of infantry. Next afternoon we had a fine view of
a charge by Early's division, with Brigadier-Generals Gordon and Hoke
riding to and fro along their lines and the division driving the
Federals from their position along the crest of the hill. The greater
portion of the enemy's killed and wounded were left in our hands. Many
of t