Page:Four Years in the Stonewall Brigade (1906).djvu/48

32 hands. I took a short sleep on the battle-field. The next day was rainy and muddy. The regiment was ordered to "fall in," but not knowing where they were going, I did not want to leave until I had buried my friend, according to promise. When they marched off I hid behind a wagon, and Sergeant Daily, seeing me, ordered me to come on. I told him never would I leave that field until I had buried my friend, unless I was put under arrest. He then left me, and I looked around for some tools to dig a grave. I found an old hoe and spade, and commenced digging the grave under an apple tree in an orchard near the "Henry house."

While I was at work a Georgian came to me and wanted the tools as soon as I was done with them. He said he wanted to bury his brother, and asked if I was burying a brother.

"No," I replied, "but dear as a brother." "As you have no one to help you," he said, "and I have no one to help me, suppose we dig the grave large enough for both, and we can help one another carry them here."

"All right," I said, "but I want to bury my friend next to the tree, for, perhaps, his father will come after him."

So we buried them that way and gathered up some old shingles to put over the bodies, and a piece of plank between them. Then I rudely carved his name on the tree.

Captain William Lee, who was acting Lieutenant Colonel, was killed, and our Sergeant Major, Randolph Barton, a cadet from the Virginia Military Institute, was severely wounded.

That evening there was a detail made from each company to bury the dead, and we buried all alike, friend and foe, and thus ended the first battle of "Bull Run," and the first big battle of the war.

There is no doubt but that the timely charge of the 33d Virginia turned the tide of battle and saved the day for the Confederates. Colonel Cummings took the responsibility upon himself and ordered the charge just in the nick of time, for in five minutes' time the Federals would have had their battery in position and would have had an enfilading fire on the brigade and Pendleton's Battery, and made their position untenable. I herewith append a letter from