Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 25.djvu/240

 236 Southern Hi*t<>rn-<il Xor,V/y Papers.

the Carolina Light Infantry, of Charleston, Company L, Captain C. D. Barksdale; (4) the Edgefield Company, Company G, Captain A- P. Butler; (5) the Irish Volunteers, Company K my old company, then commanded by Captain M. P. Parker the color company; (6) the Horry Rebels, Company F, Captain T. Pinckney Alston; (7) the Marion Company, Company E, Captain William P. Shooter; (8) the Newbury Company, Company B, Captain J. C. McLemore; (9) the Richardson Guards, Charleston, Company I, Captain C. L. Boag; (10) Captain William T. Haskell's Company, partly from Abbeville and partly from Beauford, Company H, Company D, from Darlington, Captain D. G. Mclntosh, was converted into artillery, and became the Pee-Dee or Mclntosh battery, and so was separated from the regiment.

The ist and I2th regiments had been generally in the advance during the morning of the 2yth of June, and when at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, arrangements had been made by General Lee for a general attack on the Federal position at Cold Harbor, General Gregg directed the ist and i2th to advance upon a hillside, the ground of which especially in front of the ist was covered by a dense thicket of young pines. The advance was met by a contin- uous fire of small arms, and General Gregg finding that great dam- age was done by an enfilading fire from a battery established a good way to our right, directed Colonel Marshall with the regiment of rifles Orr's rifles, as it was known, to charge and take it.

Upon the attempted advance of the ist and i2th, their lines were much broken by the dense growth of pines and brambles, through which they had to move, the I2th getting in rear of the ist, and the first three companies on the right of the ist, doubling up in rear of the rest of the regimental line. This put the Carolina Light In- fantry, Company L, directly in rear of the Irish Volunteers, the color company, and so just behind the colors.

It was at this moment of confusion, when the alignment of the two regiments, ist and i2th, were thus broken, that the Rifles debouched from the cover under which they had been lying and advancing in column of companies attempted to form forward into line to make the charge ordered by General Gregg. The appear- ance of the Rifles upon the field brought upon the three advancing regiments of General Gregg's Brigade a fire which is said to have been the greatest delivered at any time during the war. It was the fire of Sykes' Division of Regulars, of the United States Army, to which was attached the New York Zouaves. I have seen it stated