198 Norra Carouina Troops, 1861-’65.

at the shrieks of women and children who were terrified at
the bloody drama then going on in their full view. A short
pause to deposit in the campus of classic William and Mary
College all knapsacks, extra plunder, ete., none of which we
ever saw again—and we are out upon our first battle field.

The design was a charge by Early’s Brigade against a
strong position manned by Hancock’s Brigade on the enemy’s
right. When drawn up in line for the forward movement,
General Early rode the length of the brigade using, in that
fine-toned voice of his, something like the words: ‘Boys,
you must do your duty.” The line advanced a hundred yards
or more through a wheat field wet with the cold rain which
had fallen that day, but which had now ceased. Then our
regiment was confronted by a forest of trees and thick under-
growth. The line at once became irregular and more or less
jumbled by the reason of the natural obstacle to its progress.
These woods also shut out the view and caused the line of the
regiment’s advance to be slightly deflected to the left, by
which it lost touch with the Fifth, on our right. At this
moment General D. H. Hill appeared, mounted, in our front,
and said sharply to the men, now endeavoring to regain their
alignment, and each one commanding his fellow, “hush your
infernal noise.” :

In one instant more the right wing of the brigade, having
greatly the advantage of the ground in marching, came first in
view of the enemy’s battery, and charging forward in the
open, outstripped the movement of the Twenty-third, impeded
by the woods, received a withering fire and was hurled back
by a fury of shot and shell irresistible by mortal force. The
Fifth North Carolina made a gallant, but fruitless charge,
losing many gallant lives, and our regiment was not on hand
to support it at the critical moment. That moment was of the
briefest possible span—like a sea wave against the sea wall,
the charge bounded back almost instantly.

Colonel D. K. McRae, of the Fifth North Carolina, alleged
that the Twenty-third (then the Thirteenth) was inexcusably
derelict in duty and that Colonel Hoke halted the regiment
without orders. Colonel Hoke, on the contrary, maintained
that General Early gave the order to halt, which assertion

Twenty-THirD REGIMENT. 199

was never denied by General Early. Whether the order to
“halt”? was given us before or after the batteries opened on
the assaulting line, would be hard to tell, for this halt of the
regiment appeared to be about the same moment that a por-
tion of the assaulting forces were rushing pell-mell back from
the attack. It was all the work of a few minutes and the
brigade, chagrined by defeat, and mourning the loss of many
gallant spirits, fell back in good order. The enemy seemed
content to hold his own, without much further effort to ad-
vance his line as night came on. Only four or five men in
our regiment were wounded, and all but one of them by ran-
dom bullets. Captain ©. C. Blacknall, Company G, in
eagerly leading his company forward through the woods, got
some distance#in advance, where he came suddenly upon two
Federals lying down in the brush. Receiving untouched the
fire of one at three paces, he sprang forward with his sword
and made them prisoners. The ball that missed the Cap-
tain struck James A. Gill, of Company G. This was the
first wound of the war received by a member of the Twenty-
third. Mr. Gill recovered from his wound and still, at the
end of thirty-eight years, survives.

General Joseph E. Johnston, in conversation with me (H.
©. Wall) several years after the war, placed the responsibility
of the charge upon General D. H. Hill. He said that he did
not order it to be made and permitted it only after repeated
requests from General Hill. Much was said at the time,
and afterwards, of the part our regiment took in the battle of
Williamsburg. Blunders there may have been, blunders una-
voidable by a command manoevering under such cireum-
stances and amid the exigencies of real warfare for the first
time; but the writer of these lines (V. E. Turner) was pres-
ent as one of its Line Officers, and had every opportunity to
be fully conversant with the spirit that animated the regi-
ment. He was conversant with it, and he knows that officers
and men were as willing, and even as eager to do their duty as
any command in the Southern army. The well known ten-
dency of a man or body of men, endeavoring to go straight
forward, but unguided by any distinct objective ahead, as we
were in these woods, to bear unconsciously to the left, had pos-