Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 4.djvu/73

Rh to the heroism of North Carolina troops. This regiment, on clearing the woods, changed direction to the left and, lapping wings with the Twenty-fourth Virginia, rushed upon Hancock's strong line. The Regimental History gives this account of the charge: &quot;In front of the redoubt were five regiments of infantry supported by a battery of ten pieces (Cowan 6, Wheeler 4), with clouds of skirmishers in their advance. The charge of the Fifth has rarely been surpassed in the history of war. Pressing on from the first in the face of the battery, entering in the plunging fire of the infantry, wading into a storm of balls which first struck the men on their feet and rose upon their nearer approach, it steadily pressed on. Officers and men were falling rapidly under the withering fire of grape, canister and musketry. Lieutenant-Colonel Badham was shot in the forehead and fell dead. Major Sinclair's horse was killed and he was disabled. Captains Garrett, Lea and Jones were all shot down, as were many of the subalterns. Among them were Lieut. Thomas Snow, of Halifax, who was killed far in advance of his company, cheering on his men; and Lieutenants Boswell, Clark and Hays.&quot;

Four hundred and fifteen men of this regiment answered to morning roll-call on that day; before night, the blood of 290 fed the soil of that bleak hill. Such losses are rarely chronicled. The Light Brigade at Balaklava took 600 men into action and lost only 247. Twenty-four commissioned officers of the Fifth regiment led their men up that slope; only four came out unhurt. No wonder that their antagonist for that day, General Hancock, said, in a generous burst of enthusiasm for such daring, &quot;Those two regiments deserve to have immortal inscribed on their banners.&quot;

Whether the Fifth and Twenty-fourth would have succeeded in routing Hancock had they not been ordered to fall back, or had the other two regiments pushed rapidly to their assistance, must, as General Hill says, &quot;forever