Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 07.djvu/134

126 North Carolina infantry, in the Army of Northern Virginia through the campaigns of both 1862 and 1863, in which he was twice wounded, first at Sharpsburg, and again at Chancellorsville.

On the morning of the 16th of March, at Averasboro', the battalion was moved to the left of Rhett's brigade, which held the left of our line. During the fighting of that morning, as described by General Taliaferro, Captain de Rosset, finding his men slowly pressed back, asked Colonel W. B. Butler, commanding Rhett's brigade, for orders; explaining that General Elliott was too far away, on the extreme right, to report to in the emergency. Colonel Butler replied: "I have no orders to give you;" his answer being evidently prompted by a not unnatural reluctance to give orders to troops under fire not a part of his command and not ordered to report to him. In the handling of his own brigade Colonel Butler evinced great skill and excellent judgment, and his praises were in every mouth. Turning then to an officer commanding a Georgia battalion on his right—probably the Twenty-third—Captain de Rosset advised that the two commands charge and retake the position from which they had been forced. This was determined upon, but in the act of giving orders for the formation for the movement, Captain de Rosset fell, almost at Colonel Butler's feet, shot through the lungs, as was supposed, mortally wounded. Even in that situation he rallied a few men, who had broken, before being carried to the rear.

When the army moved on towards Bentonsville, Captain de Rosset, with the other dangerously wounded, was left and fell into the hands of the enemy, They, finding it impossible to remove him, first relieved him of all superfluous, and then paroled him. Kind friends came to him from Raleigh, passing through the lines of both armies under a safe conduct obtained from General Beauregard by the writer; and, contrary to all expectation, their gentle nursing effected his recovery.