Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 33.djvu/267

 I he Twelfth Alabama Infantry. 263

the battle-ground to the enemy's territory, and let them feel some of the dire calamities of war.

Returned to the turnpike on 3Oth and marched eighteen miles, half mile beyond New Market. This place was the scene of the Dutch General Siegel's signal defeat by General Breckinridge. The men who "fit mitSiegel's" preferred running to fighting on that oc- casion.

July ist, 1864. Marched 22 miles to-day, from NewMarket to two miles beyond Woodstock, where we remained for the night. This is the anniversary of the first day's battle at Gettysburg, and one year ago late in the afternoon, just before my brigade entered the city, I was wounded. I well remember the severe wound in the head received that day by Lieutenant Wright, near my side, and his earnest appeal to me to tell him candidly the nature of his terri- ble wound. I shall never forget the generous forgetfulness of self and warm friendship for myself shown by Captain Nicholson, of Company I, when the command was forced back by overwhelming numbers. I had been wounded, and fearing that I would be cap- tured, hobbled off after my regiment, as it fell back under a very close and galling fire from the rapidly advancing Yankees. Nich- olson, noticing my painful efforts to escape, suddenly stopped, ran to me and catching my arm offered to aid me, but appreciating his well-meant kindness, I declined his proffered assistance and begged him to hurry on, telling him, to induce him to leave me and save himself, that I would stop unless he went on.

On July 3rd we marched through the historic old town of Win- chester and encamped at Smithfield. The good people of Winches- ter received us very enthusiastically.

July 4. Declaration of Independece day, but, as we had other business before us, we did not celebrate the day in the old time style. We marched through Halltown to Charlestown near the old field where that fanatical murderer and abolitionist, John Brown, was hung, and halted under a heavy cannonading at Bolivar Heights, near Harper's Ferry. This place on the Baltimore and Ohio Rail- road and the Potomac river, surrounded by elevated mountains, was once a United States arsenal and government foundry. The Yankee camps had been hastily forsaken and our men quickly took possession of them and their contents. After dark General Battle took his brigade into the town where a universal pillaging of United States government property was carried on all night. The town was