Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 37.djvu/276

268 The enemy's infantry, which had been heavily engaged with Meredith's and Cutler's brigades a great part of the forenoon, were now making new dispositions and awaiting re-enforcements. In the meantime the infantry fire was confined to the skirmish lines, while the artillery fire passed over our heads.

Close on to 1 P. M. the scene changed. The enemy's re-enforcements were now arriving on the field. The first intimation we had of it was the fire of one of their batteries (Carter's) stationed on Oak hill, north of us. The crash of a shell through the tops of the old cherry trees along the lane admonished our Commander that we were exposed to an enfilade fire which might do us great damage. He at once swung our left out on the pike in line with the right, and ordered a left side-step movement to bring as much of the regiment as possible into the shelter of the dry ditch on the southern edge of the pike, in which we then lay down. We were now comparatively safe from the battery on Oak hill, but, unfortunately, the enemy to the west got a glimpse of our left before we lay down, and shrewdly guessing our position, at once commenced to drop shells into our ranks over the crest of the ridge.

With those thirty-four guns on our flank the regiment was in danger of annihilation, should the enemy concentrate their fire upon us.

It was now that Roy Stone, commanding the brigade, conceived the idea of using our colors to deceive the enemy and draw their fire away from the regiment. Accordingly, Color Sergeant Brehm, having been quietly instructed by an orderly of Col. D wight's, marched in a northwesterly direction and planted the colors behind two rail piles, forming a right-angle, one side facing west and the other north.

This breastwork had been made as a safe guard against lurking enemies, by pickets of Buford's cavalry, who occupied the ground the night before. The rails had been carried together from a fence that formed the eastern boundary of a field of wheat, extending from the summit of the ridge down its western slope, and from the pike to an old R. R. cut north of it.

The colors were now some fifty yards north of the pike, a