alled for as videttes.
Perched in the tops of the trees beyond the half-mile of open field in
our front, the enemy's sharpshooters, with telescope sights on their
rifles, blazed away at every moving object along our line. It was noon
before their artillery opened on us, and, in the firing which ensued, a
large barn a hundred yards in our front was set on fire by a shell and
burned to the ground.

An hour or two later, during this brisk cannonade, I, being No. 3,
stood with my thumb on the vent as the gun was being loaded. From a
shell which exploded a few yards in front I was struck on the breast by
the butt-end, weighing not less than three pounds, and at the same time
by a smaller piece on the thigh. After writhing for a time I was
accompanied to our surgeon in the rear. The brass button on my jacket,
which I still have as a memento, was cut almost in two and the shirt
button underneath driven to the breast-bone, besides other smaller
gashes. A large contusion was made by the blow on my thigh, and my
clothing was very much torn. After my wounds had been dressed I passed
the night at the quarters of my friend and fellow-townsman, Capt.
Charles Estill, of the Ordnance Department, who already had in charge
his brother Jack, wounded in a cavalry engagement the day before.

An hour after dark, as I sat by the light of a camp-fire, enjoying the
relief and rest, as well as the agreeable company of old friends, the
rattle of musketry two miles away had gradually increased into the
proportions of a fierce battle. The feelings of one honorably out of
such a conflict, but listening in perfect security, may be better
imagined than described. This, like a curfew bell, signaled the close of
a day of frightful and probably unparalleled carnage. Within the space
of a single hour in the forenoon the Federal army had been three times
repulsed with a loss of thirteen thousand men killed and wounded; after
which their troops firmly refused to submit themselves to further
butchery. This statement is made on the evidence of Northern historians.

After a night's rest I was sent to Richmond, where I received a transfer
to a hospital in Staunton. Sheridan's cavalry having interrupted travel
over the Virginia Central Railroad, I went by rail to Lynchburg, via the
Southside Road, with Captain Semmes and eight or ten cadets on their
return to Lexington with artillery horses pressed into service.
Learning, in Lynchburg, that Hunter's army was n