und startled the
Confederate soldiers, and an officer of the 18th North Carolina,
seeing a group of strange horsemen riding towards him through the
darkness--for Jackson, hearing the firing, had turned back to his own
lines--gave the order to fire.

The volley was fearfully effective. Men and horses fell dead and
dying on the narrow track. Jackson himself received three bullets,
one in the right hand, and two in the left arm, cutting the main
artery, and crushing the bone below the shoulder, and as the reins
dropped upon his neck, "Little Sorrel," frantic with terror, plunged
into the wood and rushed towards the Federal lines. An overhanging
bough struck his rider violently in the face, tore off his cap and
nearly unhorsed him; but recovering his seat, he managed to seize the
bridle with his bleeding hand, and turned into the road. Here Captain
Wilbourn, one of his staff-officers, succeeded in catching the reins;
and, as the horse stopped, Jackson leaned forward and fell into his
arms. Captain Hotchkiss, who had just returned from a reconnaissance,
rode off to find Dr. McGuire, while Captain Wilbourn, with a small
penknife, ripped up the sleeve of the wounded arm. As he was doing
so, General Hill, who had himself been exposed to the fire of the
North Carolinians, reached the scene, and, throwing himself from his
horse, pulled off Jackson's gauntlets, which were full of blood, and
bandaged the shattered arm with a handkerchief. "General," he said,
"are you much hurt?" "I think I am," was the reply, "and all my
wounds are from my own men. I believe my right arm is broken."

To all questions put to him he answered in a perfectly calm and
self-possessed tone, and, although he spoke no word of complaint, he
was manifestly growing weaker. It seemed impossible to move him, and
yet it was absolutely necessary that he should be carried to the
rear. He was still in front of his own lines, and, even as Hill was
speaking, two of the enemy's skirmishers, emerging from the thicket,
halted within a few paces of the little group. Hill, turning quietly
to his escort, said, "Take charge of those men," and two orderlies,
springing forward, seized the rifles of the astonished Federals.
Lieutenant Morrison, Jackson's aide-de-camp, who had gone down the
road to reconnoitre, now reported that he had seen a section of
artillery unlimbering close at hand. Hill gave orders that the
general should be at once removed, and that no one should tell