Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 31.djvu/34

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in which the officers slept, and several of them were surprised in their robes de nuit, and made prisoners. The officers and men in the fort acted gallantly and tried to form and make resistance, but to form men in the dark just out of sleep, cooped up in a small fort, with a hundred muskets in the hands of an organized body of trained and daring men, pouring forth their deadly contents on every side and making a mark of every head that showed itself, is next to an impossibility.

Captain Anderson and Lieutenant Powell both fell on the breast- works, the first mortally wounded, and the latter killed outright

The storming party was thus left without a commissioned officer, but that circumstance made but little difference with those men, for every one of them was fit to be a captain, and most of them to wear the uniform of much higher officers.

But to return to the division. As soon as the wild cheering of our boys gave the signal, the head of the column was put in motion, and crossing our breastworks, moved rapidly across the intervening space and into the captured fort.

When the head of the column reached the enemy's works, and the first files were on them, I found that the leading files were lying down behind the breastworks at the point where those before them had crossed. I inquired for the officer in command, but, getting no answer, ordered the men to move forward, which they did. We had just crossed over, when a soldier sprang in front and said: " These are my men and they shall not go." I demanded who he was, and he replied that he was captain of that company, and that his men should not be slaughtered. He was ordered to lead his men forward, but positively refused, and when he did so, I made a blow at his head with my sabre, which he dodged, and then rushed at me with the point of his infantry sword. I stepped aside, and drawing my pistol from my belt, with the muzzle almost touching his head, pulled the trigger. The cap did not explode, and then his men ran between us, as I was about to make a second attempt to shoot, say- ing: "Don't shoot, General! He is our captain, and a brave man." The captain then said he was ready to go forward, and tried to ex- cuse his conduct by pretending that he did not know me by the starlight, and that, if he had recognized me, he would have obeyed my orders; but I refused to accept his explanation, and told him that I would have him court-martialed and shot if we both came out of the battle alive. We double-quicked side by side to join the