Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 23.djvu/77

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battalions against tin- Federal lines, and force them bark, to reform and a-ain press upon us. Through the ijth and the succeeding niidit every toot of Around from Avery's farm to Hlandford cemetery light over and over again.

Ransom's Brigade played a conspicuous part in these movements. First Lieutenant Edward Phifer, of Company K, received his death \\oimd through the lungs in this battle. A bright, noble boy, and faithful, light-hearted soldier. At times during this engagement our troops wood be lying on one side of the works and those of the enemy on the other; and it is said that the Hag of the Thirty-fifth Regi- ment was lost and regained a half dozen times, until the Michigan Regiment with which it was engaged in a hand to hand encounter, surrendered to it. It was desperate fighting, and the most prolonged struggle of the kind during the war. With anxious hearts we saw the night wear on, not knowing what fate the morning would bring us, if we survived to see it; and it was with a glad shout that, as the sun rose, and the Federals were massing on our right flank to crush us, we welcomed the head of Longstreet's column coming at a trot to our left wing. The contemplated charge upon us was not made: rifle pits were hastily dug and strengthened into formidable entrench- ments on the new line: and thus began the siege of Petersburg.

From this date untill March i6th, 1865, just nine months, in the lines east of Petersburg, occupying at different times positions from the Appomattox river to Jerusalem plank road, often not a hundred yards from the works of the enemy, constantly exposed to danger and death from mortar and cannon shells and balls, grape, schrap- nel and the deadlier minnie balls, we engaged in daily battle. Ex- posed to sun and storm, heat and cold, with scanty food and insuffi- cient supplies, the ranks thinning hourly from deaths, wounds, and sickness, depressed by the gathering gloom of our falling fortunes, through the dark, bitter and foreboding winter of 1864 and '65, the men of the Forty-ninth were faithful unto the end; never faltering in the performance of any duty, and never failing to meet and resist the foe.

On June the 8th, Lieutenant C. C. Krider, of Company C, was wounded in the right shoulder by a piece of shell. On July 23rd Captain John C. Grier, of Company F, was wounded in the arm and thigh by pieces of mortar shell. On July 3Oth occurred the spring- ing of (irant's mine under Pegram's Battery, formerly Branch's a hill about 400 yards to the right of our regiment, and on the left of Elliott's South Carolina Brigade. The Twenty-fifth North Caro- lina was between us and the mine. The battery, most of its men and