Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 5.djvu/96

84 battery, were bogged so badly in an attempt to take them across, the evening before, that they had been left in this position, and were now covered by the rifles of the Pennsylvanians.

Lieut.-Col. Ellison Capers, with four companies of the Twenty-fourth volunteers, was sent before day, on the 3d, to extricate the guns. He found Captain White and Lieutenant Lynch holding the Federal regiment in check, and, ordering them to join his command, at once made his dispositions for attack. A sharp conflict in the pines beyond the causeway drove the enemy back to the cover of a ditch and bank beyond, and this position being assaulted and carried, the Federals fell back across an old field and took shelter in a row of negro houses at Legar’s place. At this point of the engagement, Lieut.-Col. P. C. Gaillard, commanding the Charleston battalion, came up to the support of Colonel Capers. The following is his report to Colonel Capers of the affair which followed his arrival:

Learning on Tuesday morning, the 3d instant, that you were engaged with the enemy at Legare’s, and that they were in larger force than yourself, I assembled the five companies of my battalion (one, the Charleston Rifle men, being already with you) to reinforce you. . . . Soon after joining, you called upon me for three companies to join in a charge upon the buildings occupied by the enemy. The Irish Volunteers, Sumter Guards and Calhoun Guards were designated for that duty, and well did they respond. ... I joined in the charge also, but seeing you up with them, I fell back (by your order) to take charge of the line in rear.

The three companies named above, with the Evans Guard of the Twenty-fourth volunteers, the Charleston Riflemen and Beauregard light infantry, were led in the charge on the houses by their gallant officers, Captain Gooding, Lieutenant Lynch, Captain Ryan, Captain White, Lieut. Ward Hopkins and Captain Miles, and stormed and silenced the Federals at the houses. Some of