Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 21.djvu/252

 244 Southern Historical Society Papers.

bered and fired, and the battle lost, with many prisoners, for, although the battle raged around this angle all day and until 10 o'clock at night, we never drove them out, and they never gained an inch more. This grievous loss was the result of a combination of unfortunate circumstances which sometimes happen wherever war is waged. These were : First, the falling mist, which rendered so many muskets unserviceable. Second, all the space in the salient occupied by the artillery and all that occupied by the Forty-eighth regiment was vacant, with neither musket nor cannon in it to fire a shot, and the enemy simply walked over the works without hindrance. The Forty- eighth, it is true, was a small regiment, for on the 5th of May more than one-half the men present, with the colors, had fallen in the gloomy depths of the Wilderness. There were enough left, however, to have held the salient if they had been in it with dry powder.

W. S. ARCHER, Lieutenant Forty -eighth Virginia Regiment.

REV. M. S. STRINGFELLOW S ACCOUNT.

RACCOON FORD, CULPEPER COUNTY, VA., February 20,

Editor of The Times:

I have been very much interested in two articles which have re- cently appeared in your paper over the signatures of General James A. Walker and Colonel Thomas H. Carter, relating to the battle of the 1 2th of May, at Spotsylvania Courthouse. I feel some hesitancy in coming before the public after such men as the two above-men- tioned, but as I feel that it is a duty we owe to our cause and ourselves to throw all the light we can upon so important an event, I will hazard a statement as to what followed the capture of Johnson's line. Being simply an old soldier and entirely unknown to you and the public, I will take the liberty of referring you to General James A. Walker himself as to my reliability. I have not the slightest doubt that had Colonel Carter's guns been in position, a very different story would have been told. I have seen the Colonel's boys handle their guns more than once, and I know he is making no idle boast. What I shall say is in substance what I have written in a series of sketches