Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/534

 528 Southern Historical Society Papers.

record. The odds here were seven or eight thousand men against one-half the Federal infantry. Nothing but the absolute steadiness and coolness of our men could have met and repelled these on- slaughts. Our men would often call out, " Yonder they come, boys, with five lines of battle ! ' ' and after driving them back, would creep out cautiously and gather up the muskets and cartridges of the dead braves who had fallen nearest our line, so that to meet subsequent attacks, many of the men were provided each with several loaded muskets. This extemporaneous substitute for breech-loaders was not to be despised when we consider the thinness of our troops in the defences, the absence of reserves, the tremendous odds of the Federal forces, and the remorseless manner with which their corps commanders sent them into these repeated assaults.

Indeed, it became pitiful to see the slaughter of these brave men in their unavailing attacks and to hear their groans as they lay dying near the Confederate line. One brave youth, a sergeant of a New York regiment, who fell, shot through both knees, not far from our breastworks, was for many hours an especial object of sympathy to his foes. He was seen making in his misery vain attempts at self- destruction. Repeated attempts were made by our men to bring him in, but the Federal sharpshooters were very active and rendered it impossible to get to him, and on the nth May, when the Federal forces had withdrawn from that part of our line, there, amidst the blackened, swollen corpses of the assailants, whose sufferings had been more brief, lay this boy with the fresh, fair face of one just dead.

On the afternoon of the loth a portion of the Sixth corps (Gen- eral Sedgwick's) succeeded in piercing Rodes's line on the front, occu- pied by Doles' s Georgia brigade. General Lee had his quarters for the day on a knoll about a hundred and fifty yards in the rear of this part of the lines and in full view of it. He at once sent an aid-de- camp to General Edward Johnson, on Rodes's right, and mounting his horse, assisted in rallying the troops and forming them for the recapture of the lines. Under his eye, Rodes's troops and Gordon's brigade, which had been brought up from the left, went forward in handsome style, recovering the lines and the battery, which, after doing much execution at short range, had fallen into the hands of the attacking force.

-Swinton, blindly followed by several other writers, speaks here of the capture of nine hundred prisoners from Rodes. This is an en- tire mistake — the captured were very few. On the nth General