Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 23.djvu/74

 68 Southern Historical Society Papers.

A soul without reproach or blemish received here a wound in his arm, necessitating amputation, from which he died. Occupying a position which did not call for his presence in battle, he never missed a fight; was always in the thickest at the forefront of the tempest of death; he gloried in the fray; and earned a reputation throughout the army as the fighting quartermaster, which added lustre to the valor of our troops, and which North Carolina and North Carolinians should not suffer to perish. He was but a boy, an humble, devout Christian, as pure and chaste as a woman, and in the intensity of his love for his State and the cause she had espoused, he counted the sacrifice of death as his simplest tribute in defense of her honor.

General M. W. Ransom was seriously wounded in the left arm in withdrawing his brigade, as ordered, to an inner line of our works. Resection was performed, and, although he soon returned to his post, he was crippled for life. The Fifth-sixth Regiment was hotly assailed in falling back, and lost a number in killed and wounded, but repulsed every assault upon it with telling effect upon the enemy. The Forty-ninth lost eleven killed and a considerable number of wounded in this engagement of the evening of May i3th. Brave Captain J. P. Ardrey, of Company F, was wounded, and left in the enemy's hands, and died before he could be moved. Lieutenant S. H. Elliott, of the same company, was wounded, and Lieutenant Linebarger, of Company H, was mortally wounded. Dr. Goode, Assistant Surgeon, and three litter-bearers were captured in attend- ing upon the wounded. The i4th and i5th of May were passed in repelling repeated charges of the enemy upon our lines, and efforts to advance his own from our outer line of fortification, which had been abandoned to him on the evening of the i3th. Severe loss was in- flicted upon them in each attempt.

The morning of May i6th was obscured by a dense fog. Prepa- rations began at 3 o'clock on the Confederate side for an attack, and by daylight Beauregard moved his entire army forward for an attack, en echelon by brigades, left in front, the left wing being under the immediate command of General Robert Ransom. Ransom struck the enemy on their extreme right, carried their works, and turned their flank, each brigade in turn assisting to open the way to the next attacking one.

Blow after blow fell thick and fast on Butler's army. All parts of his line were heavily pressed, so that none could render assistance to the other, and before noon his army, largely exceeding in num- bers the attacking force, thoroughly equipped and confident of vie-