Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 16.djvu/61

 Incidents of the Skirmish at Totopotomoy Creek. 55

have the tip of my ear, darn 'em," said Captain Swann. "Well," remarked the Adjutant, " I'll take my chances, fellows, I wouldn't give the ' Yanks' the tip of my finger-nail to let me off from any- thing."

Well, as all the world knows, the next day, the 3d of June, 1864, was fought the great battle of second Cold Harbor, one of the bloodiest of the war, and in the summing up it turned out that every one of these five officers had been shot Read in the leg, Morton in the head, Patton in the body, Swann on the side of the head, sure enough losing the tip of his ear, while poor Craig was the only one killed. Strange, wasn't it?

The afternoon before the battle, our command was ordered to take position in line. A force of dismounted cavalry occupied the field, and were lying behind a low ridge of earth they had hastily thrown up to protect themselves from the enemy's sharpshooters. We were ordered to relieve them, which we did, under a galling fire from concealed riflemen. Again was our position unfortunately chosen, being too far back from the brow of the slight eminence where we were posted, and an angle or salient about the centre of the line occupied by Edgar's battalion was thrown too far forward and exposed our part of the line to a concentrated fire from the enemy. But we now had to make the most of it and stand or fall where we were.

No sooner had we settled ourselves in our position than our men, who were handy with dirt being most of them farmers and laboring men set themselves to strengthening our breastworks, and it was not long before they presented a pretty fair protection against the constant fire from the enemy's pickets and sharp shooters, who were strongly posted in a piece of wood land immediately in our front. So galling did this fire become, that Colonel Edgar determined to dislodge the force of pickets if possible, and ordered out a skirmish line consisting of two companies, Company B, Captain E. J. Read's, being one. I do not recollect the other. But they met such a well- directed fire from the protected enemy, that they could not proceed far, and had to throw themselves flat upon the ground and behind logs and stumps to escape annihilation. One by one they made their way back to the breastworks, many of them wounded and several left dead in the timber; among the wounded were Captain Read and Lieutenant Patton.

The day wore on, the sun was getting down in the west, and the enemy were evidently massing in our front, while his sharpshooters