Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 16.djvu/27

 Heroes of the old Camden District, S. C. 21

Then came the great campaign of 1864, and in its first battle, the Wilderness, the Twelfth had another gallant colonel killed, Colonel John L. Miller, and with him fell Lieutenants J. L. McKnight and J. A. Gavin. Lieutenant Colonel E. F. Bookter and Lieutenants J. A. Watson and J. A. Beard were wounded. There were sixteen killed, sixty-four wounded and five missing in this regiment. Then again the regiment suffered most heavily at Spotsylvania. It entered the Bloody Angle at the point of greatest danger just at the break. They lost fearfully but fought nobly, 28 were killed, 38 wounded and 52 missing 118. Lieutenants J. B. Blackman and J. R. Faulken- burg were killed, and Captain W. J. Stover, Lieutenants Wade Reeves and W. B. White wounded. In the affairs from the I2th of May to ist of July, 1864, the Twelfth lost 2 killed, 21 wounded and ii missing 34. Major T. F. Clyburne and Lieutenant W. H. Rives were wounded. Lieutenant N. R. Bookter was killed before Peters- burg. At Fussell's Mills the regiment lost I killed, 12 wounded and 5 missing 18.

At the battle of Jones' Farm, 3Oth September, 1864, the regiment lost its third colonel killed in battle Colonel Edwin F. Bookter, of Richland. Mr. Caldwell, in his History of Gregg's Brigade, pays a glowing, but justly deserved, tribute to this noble officer. ' He had been severely wounded at Cold Harbor, 2jth June, 1862, again seri- ously at Manassas, 2Qth August, 1862, and for a third time, and as it was supposed mortally, at the Wilderness, 5th May, 1864. He survived all these to die at the head of the regiment he loved so well and which loved him so well, in that brilliant, if small, affair. The regiment lost two killed, eighteen wounded and three missing. Among the wounded was Lieutenant Cadwalader Jones, of York.

Then followed the winter of 1864-' 65 in the trenches around Petersburg. The engagements on the 25th and 26th March, in which the Twelfth lost one killed and five missing. The fight at Gravelly Run on the 3ist March, when General McGowan, with Gracie's Ala- bama brigade and ours, achieved so brilliant a success, and in which the regiment lost one killed and seventeen wounded; then Sunder- land Station, in which a large part of the brigade was captured, including Captain R. M. Kerr, who commanded the Twelfth. Captain W. S. Dunlop, who had commanded the sharpshooters of the brigade after Captain W. T. HaskelPs death at Gettysburg, and Lieutenant W. H. Rives were wounded and fell also into the hands of the enemy. And then the end at Appomattox !

In this regiment during the war there were 230 deaths from