Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 30.djvu/123

 Wounding of General Stoneivall Jackson. 115

ambulance, men; take Major Rogers out and put General Jackson in with Colonel Crutchfield."

A few years ago, Major Hotchkiss asked me if it was my ambu- lance. My reply was, from the authority I was taking over it, I would suppose it was, but would not say with absolute certainty, for the question had never occurred to me. A few days after, meeting one of my old men, Lud. Hall, I asked him if he was with me at Chancellorsville when General Jackson was wounded, and he replied that he was. Then I made the inquiry, "what do you remember about it?" "Well," he said, " I remember that he was shot right by the battery, John Webb caught the horse, and we put him in our ambulance and sent him to the hospital."

Waiting a reasonable time for the disabled piece, I ordered a sergeant to ride back and ascertain why the caisson was not brought out. The reply was: "The Captain promised to send back a pair of horses, why doesn't he do that?" The sergeant replied: " He did send young Perkins with his team." "Well, he has gone some- where else, or is killed. We are ready and waiting," was the re- sponse. The sergeant rode back, secured other horses and brought out the piece. Some eight months afterward, when Perkins returned to the battery, having been exchanged, I asked him how he was captured. He said: "Captain, I had almost reached our line of battle, when some one stepped out of the bushes and ordered me to halt. I replied: " Don't bother me, I am going after my piece." He sprung at me, seizing my horse, ran a pistol up into my face, saying: ' ' Open your mouth and I will blow your head off. ' ' Think- ing it prudent to see what this meant, I dismounted, when he took me by the arm, saying: "Take those reins in your hands and come along." We turned right back into the bushes, I leading the horses,, and in a few minutes I found myself in the Yankee lines.

But to return, I retained the three horses Jackson's, Crutchfield's and Rogers' until we reached the vicinity of Orange Courthouse, some eight or ten days later, where I turned them over to General Stuart; Webb retaining the yellow nose-band from the bridle of the General's little sorrel, as a relic.

This is a plain statement of the facts, recorded in my memory, which passed under my personal observation, and they accord in all material points with the statements of General Lane and Major Hotchkiss.

No action during the war made as indellible an impression upon