Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 08.djvu/99

Rh left of the cut, and that could only be crossed by moving a regiment by the flank in rear and on the right of my position, and in front of some troops of General A. P. Hill's corps, who were lying down in line of battle, and to whom I had sent an officer with a request that they would act in conjunction with me in my previous advance, and with which request they had for some cause failed to comply.

Seeing that the enemy was strengthening himself on my right, and was occupying the cut and the hill to the right and left of it in great force, and that General Iverson's left had been broken, and that one of the enemy's flags had almost gotten in his rear, I saw the necessity of carrying the hill at all hazards, and ordered Colonel Brabble to advance across the cut, keeping his left on the cut and his line perpendicular to it, and to carry the battery at the barn and drive in the line of infantry between the barn and the hill. This advance of Colonel Brabble's took the enemy in flank. At the same time I ordered Captain Hammond to proceed to the left and order all my troops to advance with the centre, of which portion I had the immediate command, and also to endeavor to get all the troops on my left to advance with me, as I intended to carry the hill.

About this time a body of troops, which I afterwards learned belonged to Major-General Pender's division, commenced a most spirited advance on my right, leaving, however, an interval of some hundreds of yards between themselves and my right. My own troops advanced in line order under a heavy fire, the Twelfth North Carolina regiment of Iverson's brigade keeping abreast with my left.

After severe fighting I succeeded in taking the hill with a very heavy loss. Here a very large number of prisoners were captured, and in the advance my troops passed over several stands of colors that had been abandoned by the enemy. The Forty-fifth regiment captured a stand of colors of the enemy, and Sergeant McAdo, of the Fifty-third regiment, recaptured the colors of the Twentieth North Carolina regiment. My command continued to move forward until it reached the outskirts of the town, where, agreeably to instructions received through Major Whiting, I halted; subsequently having received orders from the Major-General Commanding to hold the railroad, I rested here during the night under cover of an embankment.

I feel it my duty at this point to make mention of the gallant