Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 21.djvu/372

 364 Southern Historical Society Papers.

the battery early became a mark for the enemy's sharpshooters. Five of our horses were killed. This made seventeen horses the battery had lost in the two engagements. It is well to state that Captain Pegram used in this fight four splendid Napoleon guns, which had been taken from the enemy at Mechanicsville, and which he had obtained for his company. The battery remained on the field of Cold Harbor until Sunday morning, when they recrossed to the south bank of the Chickahominy by a Yankee pontoon bridge, and slept Sunday night at Piney Chapel, on the Darbytown road.

At 10 o'clock Monday morning, the battery moved down the Dar- bytown road in pursuit of the enemy. At 5 o'clock that evening, as it drew up in Mr. Nathan Enroughty's (Darby) field, eleven miles below Richmond, it came under the fire of the enemy. Here, the shell raining around and above in a perfect storm, it remained until night without firing a gun, and without the loss of a man or horse. One of the enemy's shells chipped a piece from one of our caissons; had it struck a few inches lower and exploded the caisson, the loss of life on our part must have been frightful.

At three o'clock on Tuesday, our forces having come up with the enemy, the Purcell battery was ordered to engage a battery of the enemy half a mile distant across a field. This proved, by all odds, the fiercest fight our men had been engaged in. Two batteries opened on them at once, and one of them was so near that our men could see the Yankees loading their pieces. In course of half an hour we had silenced one of the enemy's batteries, but with fearful loss on our side. Two men had been killed at the guns. Lieutenant Fitzhugh, who had been wounded at Mechanicsville, had his leg so mangled early in the engagement that it had to be amputated on the spot. Lieutenant McGraw had two of his ribs broken, and fifteen privates were wounded, some of them severely, and many of them several times. Several of the men who had been wounded three times stuck to their posts and served their guns to the last. Captain Pegram's courage and gallantry showed pre-eminent where all were brave. He went from gun to gun as long as they could be fired, cheered the remnant of his men, and assisted them in loading.

At ten minutes after 6 o'clock every gun of the battery but one had been disabled, twenty men had been cut down and twenty horses killed, when an order was received for the battery to retire. In an exhausted condition, such of the men and officers who had not been