rible crash--it seemed to me almost on my head. The concussion
knocked me to my knees, and my comrade sprawling on the ground. We then
began to feel that we were "going in," and a most weakening effect it
had on the stomach.

I recall distinctly the sad, solemn feeling produced by seeing the
ambulances brought up to the front; it was entirely too suggestive. Soon
we reached the woods and were ascending the hill along a little ravine,
for a position, when a solid shot broke the trunnions of one of the
guns, thus disabling it; then another, nearly spent, struck a tree about
half-way up and fell nearby. Just after we got to the top of the hill,
and within fifty or one hundred yards of the position we were to take, a
shell struck the off-wheel horse of my gun and burst. The horse was torn
to pieces, and the pieces thrown in every direction. The saddle-horse
was also horribly mangled, the driver's leg was cut off, as was also the
foot of a man who was walking alongside. Both men died that night. A
white horse working in the lead looked more like a bay after the
catastrophe. To one who had been in the army but five days, and but five
minutes under fire, this seemed an awful introduction.

The other guns of the battery had gotten into position before we had
cleared up the wreck of our team and put in two new horses. As soon as
this was done we pulled up to where the other guns were firing, and
passed by a member of the company, John Wallace, horribly torn by a
shell, but still alive. On reaching the crest of the hill, which was
clear, open ground, we got a full view of the enemy's batteries on the
hills opposite.

In the woods on our left, and a few hundred yards distant, the infantry
were hotly engaged, the small arms keeping up an incessant roar. Neither
side seemed to move an inch. From about the Federal batteries in front
of us came regiment after regiment of their infantry, marching in line
of battle, with the Stars and Stripes flying, to join in the attack on
our infantry, who were not being reinforced at all, as everything but
the Fifth Virginia had been engaged from the first. We did some fine
shooting at their advancing infantry, their batteries having almost
quit firing. The battle had now continued for two or three hours. Now,
for the first time, I heard the keen whistle of the Minie-ball. Our
infantry was being driven back and the Federals were in close pursuit.

Seeing the day was lost, we were ordered to limbe