Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 37.djvu/328

320 this way?" The shells were coming as thick as hail, bursting and kicking up such dust as no tornado could. However, when the colonel ordered it, and it was my duty to obey, I started to find the general, but as "Old Grand Dad," as we called him, was a wise man as well as a good general, he had doubtless selected a safe place. I dodged the shells and took a hasty look, but nothing was to be seen, not a man, nothing but shells and dust. I finally made my way back to the colonel, and reported the general could not be found. Colonel Montague looked me full in the face, smiling, said, "Bidgood, this is the first time I ever saw you scared."

I think it was the day after this the enemy commenced to press our picket line with so much vigor as to force Colonel Morrison to send Captain Lawson with a body of men to strengthen the line. I saw Lawson with his brave fellows go out, and nobly did they do their work. The attack was resisted and repulsed, but with much loss to us. Captain Lawson was shot, and as they brought him in our line on a stretcher, I went up to him and said: "I am truly sorry to see you are hurt; you made a big fight and saved the line." Looking me full in the face, the glow of battle still there and a smile, said: "Oh, I have a furlough for ninety days." He lost his leg, and, of course, never came back to the army. He was one of the gamest little soldiers I ever saw. Always ready for a fight. He had graduated from the V. M. I. in 1861, and died after the war in Maryland, though I do not know the date of his death. Colonel Morrison was also a graduate of the same school. He lost the use of an arm at Sharpsburg, I think, and for the rest of the war commanded his regiment with one arm.