Page:Four Years in the Stonewall Brigade (1906).djvu/42

26 order, fighting every inch of the way, but were being overpowered and flanked by superior numbers. They were the 2d Mississippi and Colonel Evans' 4th Alabama Regiments, General Bee's South Carolina Brigade, Colonel Bartow's 7th and 8th Georgia Regiments, Major Wheat's Battalion (called the Louisiana Tigers), and Imboden's Battery. They had resisted the main portion of the "Federal Army" and had done all that men could do, and had lost severely, but were still holding the enemy in check while we were forming.

It was there and at this time that General Jackson received the name of "Stonewall," and the brigade the ever memorable name of "Stonewall Brigade." General Barnard E. Bee, riding up to General Jackson, who sat on his horse calm and unmoved, though severely wounded in the hand, exclaimed in a voice of anguish: "General, they are beating us back!" Turning to General Bee, he said calmly: "Sir, we'll give them the bayonet."

Hastening back to his men, General Bee cried enthusiastically, as he pointed to Jackson: "Look yonder! There is Jackson and his brigade standing like a stone wall. Let us determine to die here and we will conquer. Rally behind them!"

They passed through our brigade and formed in the rear. I knew they were South Carolinians by the "Palmetto tree" on their caps. General Bee and Colonel Bartow fell, mortally wounded. The enemy, flushed with victory, pushed on, never dreaming what was lying just behind the brow of the hill in the pines. There seemed to be a lull in the firing just at this time, and Sergeant James P. Daily, of my company, walked up to the brow of the hill, but soon returned with the exclamation: "Boys, there is the prettiest sight from the top of the hill you ever saw; they are coming up on the other side in four ranks, and all dressed in red."

When we heard that, I, with several others, jumped up and started to see, but Colonel Cummings ordered us to "stay in ranks," and Daily remarked: "We will see them soon enough." Sure enough, in a few seconds the head of the column made its appearance, with three officers on horseback in front, and marching by the flank,