Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 37.djvu/327

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In a recent article Colonel E. M. Morrison, of Smithfield, Va., who commanded the Fifteenth Virginia Regiment of Infantry at Second Cold Harbor rights, wrote of Captain Campbell Lawson, who was wounded there. I remember very well the incident mentioned, and desire to add something that Colonel Morrison had forgotten. But before stating it I wish to tell what caused the pressure on our lines that day.

I had a first cousin, John Langhorne, a gallant fellow. No doubt many of the Richmond men remember him. He was just on the right of our line with two guns of his battery. The enemy had been worrying us a good deal with their artillery, and Lieutenant Langhorne made up his mind to give them some of their own medicine. He picked out a place just at the foot of a little rise in the ground, where, rigging his guns mortar fashion, and getting the range, he commenced to drop shells in their lines and battery that made the enemy think they had started the worst kind of hornets. Langhorne had his fun, but overlooked the fact that it was a game two could play. After standing it as long as possible, they turned loose all their guns on our lines.

We infantry boys did 'surely hug the ground. General Corse, our brigadier, had been near us just before the fuss commenced. My colonel, Montague, Major B. P. Lee and myself had picked out the safest place we could find, when all of a sudden the colonel said to me, "Bidgood, where is General Corse? Go out, find him and ask him to come with us." I looked at the colonel and said to myself, "Does he want to get rid of his sergeant-major