Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 24.djvu/341

 when sliced something that an <^tritch could not digest and there Vtt a Yankee bullet only fia/f imbedded in that wonderful biscuit.

It was here that First Lieutenant W. W. Cloninger. of Company H, as he lay at the field hopital, called Abernathy to him and asked why he had been neglected so long. When told that he was mortally wounded, and the surgeons considered it their first duty to attend to those whose lives might be saved, he replied: " If I must die, I will let you all see that I can die like a man." Folding his arms acn>-~, his breast, that hero, far away from his loved ones, lay under that tree in Yerby's yard, and without a murmur quietly awaited death.

At 6:30 o'clock on the morning of the I2th, when the brigade was ordered to its position on the railroad, it passed the refugees stream- ing to its rear from that old historic town. As delicate women with infants in their arms and helpless little children clinging to their mother's dresses, all thinly clad, went by, some of those brave and chivalrous North Carolinians called out: " Look at that, fellows. If that will not make a Southern man- fight, what will ? "

The regiment spent that winter at " Moss Neck," below Frede- ricksburg. There it did picket duty on the Rappahannock, and helped to corduroy the roads when they became impassable, some- times having to clear away the snow to lay the logs.

In the spring of 1863, when the enemy renewed his demonstra- tions at Fredericksburg, it occupied the second line of works near Hamilton's Crossing.

In the battle of Chancellorsville it accompanied Jackson in his flank movement, and on the night of the 2d of May it was on the left of Lane's brigade when formed for the night attack. After Jackson was wounded and the night attack abandoned, it was with- drawn from the left of the plank road, and placed on the extreme right of the brigade, with its own right resting on a country road leading from the plank road to a place called ' ' Hazel Grove. ' ' About midnight, General Sickles, with two strong lines of battle, made his much lauded attack, and was repulsed by the Twenty-eighth and Eighteenth, and a part of the Thirty-third North Carolina regiments, chiefly by the Twenty-eighth. A number of prisoners, including field and company officers, were captured. Company E, of the Twenty-eighth, also captured the colors of the Third Maine Regi- ment.

Early next morning the Twenty-eighth, with the rest of the brig- ade, made a direct assault on the enemy's works and carried them, but could not hold them, as the brigade's support had broken in its