Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 7.djvu/661

174 of its members in a very short time. Nineteen men were buried in one grave where the colors stood, all killed near that spot. They had orders to go forward, so they stood and returned the fire till their ammunition was exhausted. The regiment lost 25 killed and 141 wounded.

In Jackson's brigade the Fifth Mississippi regiment lost its commander, Colonel Sykes, on the 19th, Maj. John B. Herring then taking command. The regiment went into the fight with 225 muskets, and lost 4 killed and 46 wounded on Saturday, and 25 wounded Sunday, and captured 30 prisoners and 200 rifles.

The Eighth regiment on Saturday brought off the field three pieces of artillery, and fought bravely Sunday afternoon, losing Lieut.-Col. A. McNeill, Capt. J. W. White and eight others killed, and 84 wounded.

In the arduous campaign against Knoxville, Humphreys' Mississippi brigade shared not only the sufferings of the Confederate troops in the ice and mud of that most inclement November and December, marching with scanty rations, often without shoes and poorly supplied with blankets and clothing, but such honors as belonged to the campaign were won largely by the sacrifice of their blood.

In the assault at daylight, November 29th, upon Fort Sanders at Knoxville, Humphreys' brigade and Bryan's Georgians were selected as the storming party. The Eighteenth and Twenty-first being on picket duty, the Thirteenth and Seventeenth led the assault, followed by three of Bryan's regiments, advancing in columns of regiments. The men forced their way under a terrific fire through a tangled abatis for about 150 yards, and made a rushing charge upon the fort. Then there came a fatal check at the edge of a ditch about six feet wide and ten feet deep, fringed with a network of wire, at the foot of the Federal parapet. This parapet, ten or twelve feet high, descended smoothly, without the ordinary berme to give a foothold, into the ditch, and was slippery with