Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 33.djvu/64

 60 Southern Historical Society Papers.

every brigade, staff and field officer was cut down, (mostly killed outright) in an increditably short time.

THE FORTY-NINTH VA. CHARGES AT ' 'RIGHT-SHOULDER SHIFT. "

I brought our regiment' (the Forty-ninth Virginia), to a ''right- shoulder shift arms" to prevent firing and breaking ranks during the charge and pushed at a run through this maelstrom of death and carnage. The men who usually charged with the "rebel yell" rushed on in silence. At each successive fire, great gaps were made in our ranks, but immediately closed up. We crossed that field ot carnage and mounted the parapet of the enemy's works and poured a volley in their faces. They gave way, but two lines of battle, close in their rear, rose and each delivered a volley into our ranks, in rapid succession. Some of our killed and wounded fell forward into the enemy's trenches some backward outside the parapet. Our line already decimated was now almost annihilated. The remnants of the regiment formed and sheltered behind a fence partly thrown down (to shoot over) just outside of the parapet, and continued the unequal struggle, hoping for support that never came.

THE RED-CAP COLOR BEARER, ORENDORF, OF AMHERST.

But not so with the litlle red-cap color bearer. He stood erect within twenty feet of the muzzle of the enemy's guns and waved his flag defiantly in their faces. They must have hesitated to kill him in admiration of his bravery. Though finally a heavy gun was trailed on him not twenty yards distant. His little "red-cap" flew up ten feet, one arm went up one way, the other another frag- ments of his flesh were dashed in our faces. They had "killed him, too."

THE OVERLAPPING ENEMY'S LINE. PART OF FORTY-NINTH VIRGINIA CAPTURED.

The Forty-ninth was the extreme right of our line. The enemy's line overlapped, outflanked, and encompassed us. It seemed we were shot at from everywhere. Finally the brave old Captain Strat- ton, from Nelson, said: "Colonel, in five minutes you won't have a man left, let them surrender!" Seeing the futility of continuing the unequal struggle of three officers and eighteen men against twenty thousand of the enemy, I said: "Captain, that is so, let them surrender, but I'll be hanged if I will." Eugene Flippin, of Lowesville, (whose leg had just been torn off), laying close by,