Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 32.djvu/217

 Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse. 205

almost before the orders could be given by a give-way to the left, a left half-flank, a rapid wheel of the left to the right, and a slow- down on the right, and rushed after the enemy, who fled in detached squads like a mob. We did not come up with any of them until after we passed a narrow little ditch. On the far side of this ditch we found a Federal captain with a drawn sword in his hand, and behind him about a score of his men, with guns in both hands. As none of them attempted to use their arms, I demanded. their sur- render; but as they would not throw their arms down the men bay- oneted a few of them, and I told the men to knock them down and take their arms away; but the cracking of skulls of unresisting'men grated on my nerves, and I ordered the men to knock their hands away from their guns. I tried to make the captain understand what I meant by surrender, but he held his naked sword in both hands and answered in a language which I had never before heard spoken, sung or acted. It was neither English, -French, German, Spanish nor Italian. My men coming up were about to knock him in the head, but I told them to knock his hands away from his sword. I sent the captain and his few surviving men to the rear under a guard of two of my men. This little episode over, I looked to the front and saw some of the enemy on the edge of a pine thicket of very irregular shape, on ground which rose from the ditch and at a dis- tance which varied from 100 to 150 yards from it. We charged them, and they disappeared into the recesses of a thicket. My men were about to follow them when I recovered my senses and ordered a halt.

" CEASE FIRING."

My men continued to fire rapidly for several minutes, but as the enemy did not respond, and all I could see by looking in the thicket was a deep hollow, I ordered "Cease firing." Seeing a body of Confederates close to my right flank, I rode up to the nearest files and asked what men they were, and who was in command. A ser- geant answered that they were Gordon's men, Evans' Brigade, that only two regiments and a few files of a third were on that ground; that Evans was not there, and he did not know who commanded them. I told him that I would take the men of his little squad; that the only command I had to give was to keep in general align- ment with my right flank, and not to waste his ammunition on the pine thicket; that if any of the enemy were in there they were in a deep hollow. I rode quickly back to my own regiment which had