Page:Four Years in the Stonewall Brigade (1906).djvu/46

30 I, "It does not look well for a soldier to cry," but I could not help it. I then stuck his gun in the ground by his side, marked his name, company and regiment on a piece of paper, pinned it on his breast, and went off.

I then saw three field officers a short distance from me looking through a field glass. I very deliberately walked up to them and asked them to let me look through it, and one of them handed it to me. When looking through it I saw, about two miles off, in a large field, what I took to be about 10,000 of the enemy. The field appeared to be black with them. I returned the glass, saying: "My God! have we all of them to fight yet?" Just at that moment "Pendleton's Battery" turned their guns on them and I saw the first shell strike in the field. I don't think it was five minutes until the field was vacant. I felt considerably relieved. I had had enough of fighting for that day. We had gained a great victory. The enemy were completely routed and panic-stricken, and never halted until they arrived at Alexandria and Washington.

My company only numbered fifty-five, rank and file, when we went into service, but, so many having the measles and other ailments, we went into the fight with only twenty-seven men, and out of that number we lost five killed and six wounded. The killed were William I. Blue, Thomas Furlough, James Adams, John W. Marker and Amos Hollenback. The wounded were Sergeant William Montgomery, John Rinehart, Robert C. Grace, Edward Allen, A. A. Young and Joseph Cadwallader.

The regiment went into action with about 450 men, and lost forty-three killed and 140 wounded. Our regiment fought the 14th Brooklyn Zouaves and the 1st Michigan, which poured a deadly volley into us. While we were engaged in front, Colonel Cummings ordered the regiment to fall back three times before they did so. All the troops engaged suffered more or less, but the loss in the 33d Virginia was greater than that of any regiment on either side, as the statistics will show, and it was the smallest regiment, not being full and not numbered.

We worked nearly all night taking care of the wounded, for nearly all of the enemy's wounded were left in our