Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 13.djvu/206

 Official Reports of the Battle of Gettysburg. 205

point before we became worn out with fatigue, we would have car- ried the position. In this movement the whole brigade, and also several brigades of McLaws's division, participated. Failing to take the batteries the line retired to the point where we first encountered the enemy's main line, and was again formed, fronting the enemy in such position as to place most of the battlefield in our possession. The enemy evidently had enough of it and did not again show him- self in our front, darkness soon closing the scene. The regiment lost two officers (Lieutenant-Colonel Mounger and Lieutenant Bowers) killed, and eleven officers wounded. Also twenty-five enlisted men killed and one hundred and nineteen men wounded, and one officer and thirty-one men missing; total, one hundred and eighty-nine. There were many officers and men who displayed a degree of daring and heroism which challenges admiration in the very highest degree, and the whole regiment behaved with its cus- tomary steadiness and devotion, as the loss of one hundred and eighty-nine out of three hundred and forty carried into the field will testify. I herewith respectfully submit a detailed statement of casu- alties, giving names and description of wounds in full, from which I have omitted all slight wounds which, though sufficient to disable the man for a day or two, will not prevent his taking part in the next battle, say a week or ten days from the time the hurt was re- ceived.

On the next day (the 3d inst.) the regiment was detached from the brigade and sent to drive off the enemy's cavalry who were an- noying our batteries on the extreme right flank. Here the regiment, though exhausted by the extreme heat and by long continued exer- tion, performed without a murmur, but on the contrary with the greatest enthusiasm, much hard marching and fighting, as the enemy's mounted men frequently changed their point of attack, which ren- dered a change of position on our part also often necessary. At one time two or three squadrons of their cavalry charged through the picket line of the First Texas regiment, and were galloping up to one of our batteries with the evident purpose of spiking the guns. This regiment was at the time some distance to the right of the First Texas, and at a point which was not then menaced. I, therefore, led the regiment to the battery at a double-quick, something more than half a mile off, and while going there received, through Major Sellers, an order directing me to do so. When we arrived the enemy were nearly at the battery. Passing through from behind the guns the regi- ment charged the enemy with a yell in the open field, scattering and