Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 23.djvu/39

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we were all mixed up so that swords, small arms, and ringing can- non thunder caused the blood to flow in streams.

" Brvast against Im-ast with ruinous assault And deafening shock they come."

The rush of columns to the breach, officers cheering the men on, pauses, breaks, wild and angry threats, upbraiding calls, fresh rush on rush, now here, now there, fierce shouts above, below, behind, shrieks of agony, choked groans and gasps of dying men and horses hurled down with rattling missiles of death. I take the following from Colonel Thomas' history of the Citadel, page 219: "On the loth March, 1865, our command surprised General Kilpatrick's camp about daybreak, and the battle which followed lasted the whole day, and on the Confederate side no infantry was employed. It may not be our place to chronicle here one of the many episodes that befell the cadets, collectively and severally during their service, and the writer will relate an incident of this battle in which ' Shaftsbury ' Moses measured sabers and fists with one of Kilpatrick's troopers. The cadet company was fighting hand to hand with the enemy, and Moses' horse was killed under him. On freeing himself from his dying horse, he found himself confronted by a big Yankee, sabre in hand. Moses being a smaller man than his antagonist, and dead game, determined to force the fighting, and he made a furious thrust inside of his adversary's guard, which caused a clinch, and a fall, 'then the Gael above, Fitz James below,' and not only so, but the Gael had in the brief struggle secured a firm hold with his teeth on Fitz James' finger. As good luck would have it Private Bill Martin, whose horse had been also killed, came along just at this juncture, and, in his own expressive language, 'lifted the Yank off of Shafts- bury with his revolver. As no such name as ' Shaftsbury Moses ' appears on the muster-roll of the cadet company, it is proper to state that cadet J. H. Moses, while at the Citadel, on account of his scholarly style of composition, had been dubbed by his fellow- cadets 'Lord Shaftsbury.' In this battle Sergeant G. M. Hodges' horse was killed under him, and he was shot in the side. Though wounded, he succeeded in capturing another horse, and continued in the battle until disabled by a wound in the shoulder. After the battle investigation showed that the enemies' bullet had entered the same hole in his coat that was made by the bullet which wounded him at Trevillian, i2th June, 1864. In this battle Captain Humph- reys was wounded in the arm by a grape shot in charging a battery. 3