60 NortH Caronina Troops, 1861-’65.

of the weird and graphic occurrences of that stormy period.

The Eighteenth was not often in the sapping and mining
portion of the lines and was not so partieularly at-
tracted by its experience as to wish to take up its
abode in the Blandford portion of the army. During the
month of September when it was necessary to draw the
troops from about the Crater to resist an attack near the Ap-
pomattox, we were hurriedly brought from Battery 45 to
support “Long Tom” about 200 yards to the right. There
was no time to go in the covered way, and the brigade was
marched in, on an open high ridge. It now appears won-
derful that we were not swept off the earth.

We were not in the trenches long, when “Long Tom”
opened on the Supply train that arrived on Grant’s military
railroad, and it was but a short time before the sand-bag em-
brazures and the embankments around “Long Tom” needed
reconstruction.

It was not difficult for us to learn the devices constructed
for protection, from the accurate fire of the enemy at close
range, and when the mortars rained down their shot from the
sky we found the holes and could do the gopher act with the
facility of trained residents.

The scene at night was beautiful in the extreme, but there
was an element of unattractiveness about it, that caused us
to yield readily to the desire of any others to see the sights
from that view point, and we invariably retired at first op-
portunity, to position where the lines were further apart.

When Gordon attacked Fort Steadman 25 March, we
were massed near by, but did not become actively engaged.
Gordon carried the fort, but could not hold it, without very
great sacrifice of men. His loss was greater than his cap-
tures, and Lee had no men to spare.

On the night of 27 May, Major Wooten, with the sharp-
shooter corps of Wilcox’s division, broke the Yankee lines,
and captured and held the strong position of McI]lwaine’s hill
all the next day. Wooten and Dunlap (McGowan) pulled
the seine, and Seales’ and Thomas’ corps helped to hold the
ground. The audacity of the proceeding was their security,
as the Yankees had lots of men close by, who appeared to fear

EIGHTEENTH REGIMENT. 61

that a trap was laid for them. The concentration of troops
on Hatcher’s Run and Five Forks necessitated the stretch-
ing of the Confederate lines and the men of Lane’s Brigade
were some twenty feet apart in the trenches, beyond the Jones

‘house, when the final attack was made before day on the

morning of 2 April. Our thin line could make but feeble
resistance to the Sixth corps hurled against us. We detained
them, however, till the lines were broken beyond us, and fell
back towards Fort Gregg, making a stand on the Dinwiddie
plank road.

It was after sunrise that General A. P. Hill was seen
coming from the direction of his headquarters on the Cox
road, near the Appomattox. The crowd that I was with
made every effort to stop him. Seeing no indication of halt-
ing, I ran out towards the direction he was going, and though
some 50 yards distant, shouted to him that our linewas broken
and that the enemy’s skirmishers were on the plank road be-
yond the creek. Answering back, that he was aware there
was danger, but must get to his right, he disappeared around
a hill, down a valley leading to a crossing on the ereek. A
volley as of a dozen guns was heard in that direction, his
horse ran back in a few minutes without him and we knew
that our gallant commander was off duty forever. His statt
and attendants, who were following him, caught his horse.
His body was recovered and carried to the rear.

The statement that one of his staff, or couriers, caught him
as he fell, is without foundation, a loving fabrication of the
devotional kind. They would have been with him, if they
could, but having the fleetest horse, he was far in advance,
and I was doubtless the last Confederate spoken to by him.
In the discharge of his duty, as he saw it, he rode into the
jaws of death, and the army lost one of its most valuable
officers.

Lane and Thomas’ brigades’ formed near the Plank road
and repulsed the enemy in several advances. Wilcox ordered
the troops on the Petersburg side of the break back to a line
of small forts outside of the main works at Battery 45.

When we got to Fort Gregg we found some artillerists in it
and Lane’s North Carolina brigade furnished the greater