Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 28.djvu/174

168 Thompson McAllister, Joseph Carpenter and John Carpenter; Lieutenants George McKendree, H. H. Dunot, W. T. Lambie, Ben Carpenter, Charles O. Jordan, and ——— Barton.

Our sergeants and gunners were largely instrumental in making and sustaining the fine morale of the company. Two of the gunners at Kernstown were formerly civil engineers, to which is attributed the fact of our doing such fine execution and making there so proud a name. At the first shot of the first gun there, General Jackson, who was seated on his horse only a few paces distant, clapped together his hands vehemently and exclaimed: "Good! Good!" What a glorious time was that for that gunner, and for Carpenter's Battery entire! The battery obtained its prestige there and maintained it to the end. With scarcely an exception, the privates of Carpenter's Battery were of the proper stuff, and never quailed before the enemy, whatever were the odds.

Did it not require too much space to publish all the names of these it would be a pleasure to me to write them out from a roster of the company, which required years to complete, now at my disposal.

The company was organized in Covington, Va., April 20th, 1861, hurried to Staunton, but was ordered back to rendezvous, for drill and equipment, soon thereafter repairing to Harper's Ferry, where it performed picket duty on Loudoun Heights and built block houses. A little later it assisted in the demolition of the Harper's Ferry arsenal and the burning of the great Potomac-river bridge. Then we were mustered into the old 1st Virginia Brigade, which the immortal General Bee said was standing at Manassas "like a stonewall," while other brigades wavered from the clash and shock of that bloody conflict. There company A used musket, ball and bayonet, while at Kernstown, and thereafter, on too many fields to enumerate, as Carpenter's Battery, it sent forth its defiance in the deadly solid shot, the seething, hissing shell and the whistling grape and canister.