Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 04.djvu/172

164 while gallantly discharging his duty. The Fourth and Fifth Texas, under the command of Majors Bane and Rogers, continued to hold the ground of their original line, leaving the space over which they had made their successive charges strewn with their wounded and dead comrades, many of whom could not be removed, and were left upon the field. The First Texas, under Lieutenant-Colonel Work, with a portion of Benning's brigade, held the field and the batteries taken by the First Texas. Three of the guns were brought off the field and secured; the other three, from the nature of the ground and their proximity to the enemy, were left. The Third Arkansas, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Taylor, ably assisted by Major Ready, after Colonel Manning was borne from the field, sustained well the high character she made in the earlier part of the action. When night closed the conflict late in the aveningevening [sic], I was struck above the knee, which deprived me of the use of my leg, and prevented me from getting about the field. I retired some two hundred yards to the rear, leaving the immediate command with Lieutenant-Colonel Work, the senior officer present, under whose supervision our wounded were brought out and guns secured, and our dead on that part of the field were buried the next day. About 2 o'clock that night the First Texas and Third Arkansas were moved by the right to the position occupied by the Fourth and Fifth, and formed on their left, where the brigade remained during the day of the third, keeping up a continuous skirmishing with the enemy's sharp shooters, in which we had a number of our men severely wounded. I sent my A. A. Gen., Captain F. L. Price, at daybreak to examine the position of the brigade and report to me as soon as he could, and while in the discharge of that duty, was either killed or fell into the hands of the enemy, as he has not been seen or heard of since. About dark on the evening of the 3d the brigade, with the division, fell back to the hill and formed in line, where it remained during the 4th. Lieutenant Lockridge, commanding Company I, Fourth Texas, who commanded the skirmishers in front of the Fourth, and who was left when that regiment moved to the right, joined the First Texas and did gallant service during the engagement.

In this, the hardest fought battle of the war in which I have been engaged, all, both officers and men, as far as my observation extended, fully sustained the high character they have heretofore